Chapter XVI (3)

We consider it probable, therefore, that at different periods seers have had visions, more or less distinct and detailed, of what appeared to their minds likely to happen; that these visions have occurred in a state of trance; that among ascetic monks, who may be regarded as liable to such trances, it may often have happened that extensive knowledge of history and of mankind has enabled them to foresee the probable course of events; that their predictions, becoming known to the peasantry, have given a tone to _their_ visions, in which the events are generally localised in the immediate vicinity of the seer; and that thus, by degrees, more detailed predictions have arisen. Considering the general ignorance and superstition of the peasantry in all countries, it is not wonderful that such predictions, generally bearing on violent political convulsions, war, and religion, the subjects most interesting to their minds, should acquire a hold over them such as is found to exist in many parts of Germany, in reference to the prophecies above described. It is even probable that the existence of the predictions may have had a considerable influence in preparing the people for such sudden outbreaks as those of 1848, and may thus, in some measure, have contributed to their own fulfilment.

We must admit that these remarks do not much assist in explaining the occurrence of minute details in these predictions, many of which are said, on good authority, to have been fulfilled. But we do not feel ourselves in possession of sufficient evidence to justify us in arguing on the alleged fulfilment as certain; and we have therefore satisfied ourselves with laying before the reader a brief sketch of these predictions, the existence of which, as an article of belief with many thousands of people at this day, is, under whatever point of view it may be considered, very interesting.

W. G.

THE HISTORY OF A REGIMENT DURING THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN.[4]

The Russian Campaign of Napoleon is unquestionably the most wonderful episode in the history of war. We are not only interested, but astounded, by its study. It comprises a series of events gigantic and unparalleled in the annals of human strife. From the note of preparation to the final wail of despair, the reader’s imagination is continually on the stretch to realise and comprehend the prodigious scale of its circumstances. At the word of the great military magician, half-a-million of men, levied from half Europe, mustered in arms for aggression. From France they came, from Italy and Poland: Austria and Prussia dared not refuse their contingents; Illyria and Dalmatia sent forth their infantry; to their astonishment and dismay, Spanish and Portuguese battalions were marched into the dreary north under the banners of the man against whose generals their brothers and fathers were at that moment contending on the mountains of their native peninsula. The West was arrayed against the East. Since the birth of discipline and civilisation, such an army had never been seen. The events of its first and only campaign were in proportion to its unprecedented magnitude. In six months the mighty armament returned, a shattered wreck, having fought the most desperate battle the world ever saw, having witnessed the self-destruction of a vast and wealthy capital—suicide for the country’s salvation—and having endured sufferings which may have been equalled on a smaller scale, but which certainly never before or since fell to the lot of so numerous and powerful a host.

After reading that delightful work of Count Ségur, which combines the fascination of a romance with the value of history, few persons much care to consult any other French account of the great campaign. It was with something of this feeling, and with slender expectation of interest, that we opened General de Fezensac’s recently-published Journal. But its perusal agreeably disappointed us. Narratives of personal adventure have a peculiar charm; and the unadorned tale of a soldier’s hazards will often rivet the attention of those who would not persevere through the more copious and important history of a great war. M. de Fezensac has not attempted the history of the campaign. He confines himself to his own adventures and those of the regiment he commanded. At most does he include in his delineations the exploits of the 3d (Ney’s) corps, (to which his regiment belonged,) at the time when cold, famine, fatigue, and the sword had reduced it to little more than the ordinary strength of a brigade, and, subsequently, to a mere handful of jaded, frost-bitten warriors. By a few lines here and there, he supplies, with true military brevity, that outline of the operations necessary to connect and complete the interest of his journal. He avoids controversy; he is slow to censure acts or impute motives; his style is remarkably free from that fanfarronade into which many French writers unconsciously run when recording the military achievements of their countrymen. He tells only what he himself saw, and he tells it modestly and well, without attempt at rhetorical adornment; rightly believing that the events he witnessed and shared in are sufficiently remarkable to need no factitious colouring.

M. de Fezensac commenced the campaign upon the staff. In the capacity of aide-de-camp to Berthier, he joined the headquarters of the Grand Army at Posen, and marched with them to Wilna. It was in the month of June. Already, although the campaign had been opened but a few days, during which the Russians had everywhere receded before the invaders, certain ominous circumstances contradicted, to observant eyes and reflecting minds, those anticipations of triumphant success so confidently and universally entertained, a few short weeks before, at Dresden. The fervent heat was succeeded by torrents of rain; mortality amongst the horses commenced; the army, living upon the country, suffered from want of food and forage; already the number of stragglers was great, and acts of pillage and violence were frequent. As an instance of these, when the Poles, with Napoleon’s approval, organised a civil government of Lithuania, one of the sub-prefects, repairing to his post, was plundered by the French soldiers, and arrived almost naked in the town he was sent to preside over. The French Emperor’s seventeen days’ halt at Wilna, so severely censured by historians, gave M. de Fezensac opportunity to observe the details and composition of the monstrous staff and retinue that attended Napoleon, of which he furnishes the following curious account:—

“The Emperor had around him the grand marshal, (Duroc,) the master of the horse, (Caulaincourt,) his aides-de-camp, his orderly officers, the aides-de-camp of his aides-de-camp, and several secretaries attached to his cabinet. The major-general (Berthier) had eight or ten aides-de-camp, and the number of clerks necessary for the great amount of work occasioned by such an army; the general staff, composed of a vast number of officers of all grades, was commanded by General Monthion. The administration, directed by Count Dumas, intendant-general, was subdivided into the administrative service properly so called, comprising directors, inspectors of reviews, and commissaries; the service of health, including physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries; the service of provisions in all its branches, and workmen of every kind. When the Prince of Neuchatel passed it in review at Wilna, it looked, from a distance, like a body of troops ranged in order of battle, and, by an unfortunate fatality, notwithstanding the zeal and talents of the intendant-general, this immense administration was almost useless from the very commencement of the campaign, and became noxious at its close. Let the reader now picture to himself the assemblage, at one point, of the whole of this staff; let him fancy the prodigious number of servants, of led horses, of baggage of all kinds that it dragged along with it, and he will have some idea of the spectacle presented by the headquarters of the army. Also, when a movement was made, the Emperor took with him but a very small number of officers; all the rest set out beforehand, or followed behind. At a bivouac, the only tents were for the Emperor and the Prince of Neuchatel; the generals and other officers slept in the open air, like the rest of the army.

“There was nothing irksome in our duty as aides-de-camp to the major-general.... In his personal intercourse with us, the Prince of Neuchatel exhibited that mixture of goodness and roughness which composed his character. Often he appeared to pay no attention to us, but, upon occasion, we were sure to find his sympathy; and during the whole of his long military career, he neglected the advancement of none of the officers employed under his orders. The best house in the town, after that taken for the Emperor, was allotted for his accommodation; and as he himself always lodged with the Emperor, the house belonged to his aides-de-camp. One of these was charged with the household details, whose regularity was a pattern; the Prince of Neuchatel himself, in the midst of all his occupations, found time to give his thoughts to these matters; he wished his aides-de-camp to want for nothing, and had often the goodness to inquire whether such was the case.... We saw little of him, having no duty to do under his immediate eye; he passed almost the whole day in his cabinet, dispatching orders agreeably with the Emperor’s instructions. Never was there seen greater exactness, more complete submission, more absolute devotion. It was by writing during the night that he reposed from the fatigues of the day; often he was roused from his sleep to alter all that he had done on the previous day, and sometimes his sole recompense was an unjust, or, at least, a very severe reprimand. But nothing slackened his zeal; no amount of bodily fatigue, or of assiduity in the cabinet, exceeded his powers; no trials wearied his patience. In short, if the Prince of Neuchatel’s position never gave him an opportunity to develop the talents essential to the commander-in-chief of great armies, it is at least impossible to unite, in a higher degree, the physical and moral qualities adapted to the post he filled near such a man as the Emperor.”

The peculiar talents of Berthier, his patience, industry, and wonderful habit of order, have been often admitted, but we do not remember to have seen his character placed in so amiable a light as here by his former aide-de-camp. M. de Fezensac continued upon his staff until after the battle of Borodino, when he was promoted by the Emperor, on Berthier’s recommendation, to the command of the 4th regiment of the line, vacant by its colonel’s death in that murderous fight. He was doubly grateful for this promotion, because it placed him under the orders of Marshal Ney, with whom he had served some years previously. As to the regiment itself, it was in no very flourishing state. Of 2800 men who had crossed the Rhine, 900 remained, so that the four battalions formed but two upon parade. The equipments, and especially the shoes, were in bad repair; supplies of provisions were irregular; and constant change of place was indispensable, for the troops ravaged within twenty-four hours the country they traversed. The majority of the officers were raw youths from the military schools, or old sergeants, whose want of education should have retained them in the ranks, but who had been promoted to sustain emulation, and to fill the enormous gaps occasioned by destructive campaigns. For the 4th was an old regiment, formed in the first years of the Revolution, and had fought through all the German wars, and numbered Joseph Buonaparte amongst its colonels. Its present shattered and unprosperous condition extended to the whole of Ney’s corps, which was reduced to a third of its original numbers. The losses were unparalleled, and so was the depression of the soldiers. Their gaiety had disappeared; a mournful silence replaced the songs and pleasant tales with which they formerly beguiled the fatigues of the march. The officers themselves were uneasy; they served for duty and for honour’s sake, but without ardour or pleasure. After a victory that opened the road to Moscow, this universal discouragement was strangely ominous.

With his regimental command commences the interesting portion of M. de Fezensac’s journal, of which his staff experience occupies but a couple of chapters. Often as it has been described, he yet contrives to give freshness to his details of Moscow’s appearance after the terrible conflagration, at whose flame was sealed the doom of the Grand Army.

“It was both a strange and a horrible spectacle. Some houses appeared to have been razed; of others, fragments of smoke-blackened walls remained; ruins of all kinds encumbered the streets; everywhere was a horrible smell of burning. Here and there a cottage, a church, a palace, stood erect amidst the general destruction. The churches especially, by their many-coloured domes, by the richness and variety of their construction, recalled the former opulence of Moscow. In them had taken refuge most of the inhabitants, driven by our soldiers from the houses the fire had spared. The unhappy wretches, clothed in rags, and wandering like ghosts amid the ruins, had recourse to the saddest expedients to prolong their miserable existence. They sought and devoured the scanty vegetables remaining in the gardens; they tore the flesh from the animals that lay dead in the streets; some even plunged into the river for corn the Russians had thrown there, and which was now in a state of fermentation.... It was with the greatest difficulty we procured black bread and beer; meat began to be very scarce. We had to send strong detachments to seize oxen in the woods where the peasants had taken refuge, and often the detachments returned empty-handed. Such was the pretended abundance procured us by the pillage of the city. We had liquors, sugar, sweatmeats, and we wanted for meat and bread. We covered ourselves with furs, but were almost without clothes and shoes. With great store of diamonds, jewels, and every possible object of luxury, we were on the eve of dying of hunger. A large number of Russian soldiers wandered in the streets of Moscow. I had fifty of them seized; and a general, to whom I reported the capture, told me I might have had them shot, and that on all future occasions he authorised me to do so. I did not abuse the authorisation. It will be easily understood how many mishaps, how much disorder, characterised our stay in Moscow. Not an officer, not a soldier, but could tell strange anecdotes on this head. One of the most striking is that of a Russian whom a French officer found concealed in the ruins of a house; by signs he assured him of protection, and the Russian accompanied him. Soon, being obliged to carry an order, and seeing another officer pass at the head of a detachment, he transferred the individual to his charge, saying hastily—‘I recommend this gentleman to you.’ The second officer, misunderstanding the intention of the words and the tone in which they were pronounced, took the unfortunate Russian for an incendiary, and had him shot.”

The retreat commenced. After the affair of Wiazma, Ney’s corps relieved the 1st corps as rearguard, and the 4th regiment, rearmost of Ney’s corps, had to repel the repeated attacks of the Russian van and of the swarming Cossacks. They were hard pressed; but still the Emperor’s order was to march slowly and preserve the baggage. In vain Ney wrote to him there was no time to lose, and that he risked being anticipated by the Russians at Smolensko or Orcha. At Dorogobuje the marshal formed the design of arresting the progress of the Russians for a whole day; but the attempt was unsuccessful, and the French rearguard was driven onwards. The cold had set in, and the sufferings of the troops were terrible. Famine was superadded to their other miseries. The road resembled a battle-field. Some, with frozen limbs, lay dying on the snow; others fell asleep in the villages, and perished in the flames lighted by their comrades.

“At Dorogobuje I saw a soldier of my regiment, in whom hunger had produced the effect of intoxication. He stood close to us without recognising us, inquiring for his regiment, naming the soldiers of his company, and at the same time speaking to them as to strangers; his gait was tottering, his look wild. He disappeared at the commencement of the affair, and I saw him no more. In two days from Dorogobuje, we reached Slobpnowa, on the bank of the Dnieper. The road was so slippery that the ill-shod horses could hardly keep their legs. At night we bivouacked amidst the snow in the woods. Each regiment in turn formed the extreme rearguard, which the enemy unceasingly followed and harassed. The army continued to march so slowly, that we were on the point of overtaking the 1st corps, which immediately preceded us. The encumbrance on the bridge over the Dnieper was extreme: for a quarter of a league beyond, the road was still covered with abandoned carriages and ammunition-waggons. On the morning of the 10th November, before crossing the river, measures were taken to clear the bridge and burn all these vehicles. In them were found a few bottles of rum, which were of great service. I was on the rearguard, and during the whole morning my regiment defended the road leading to the bridge. The wood through which this road passes was full of wounded whom we were obliged to leave to their fate, and whom the Cossacks massacred almost by our sides. M. Rouchat, sub-lieutenant, having imprudently approached an ammunition-cart that was to be blown up, was shattered to pieces by the explosion. Towards night the troops passed the Dnieper; the bridge was destroyed.”

It was important to delay the enemy’s passage of the river, and Ney prepared to do so.

“That night he walked for a long time in front of my regiment with General Joubert and myself. He pointed out to us the unfortunate results of the failure at Dorogobuje. The enemy had gained a day’s march; had forced us to abandon ammunition, baggage, wounded: all these misfortunes would have been avoided had we held Dorogobuje for twenty-four hours. General Joubert spoke of the weakness of the troops, of their discouragement. The marshal replied quickly, that the worst that could have happened was to be killed, and that a glorious death was too fine a thing to be shunned. For my part, I contented myself with remarking that I had not left the heights of Dorogobuje till I had twice received the order.”

The “bravest of the brave” could see no terrors in death. His own insensibility to it made him slow to sympathise with others. A few days later, M. de Fezensac learned the death of M. Alfred de Noailles, who had been one of his brother aides-de-camp to Berthier.

“He was the first friend I had lost in this campaign, and it caused me very deep sorrow. Marshal Ney, to whom I spoke on the subject, told me, for sole consolation, _that apparently it was his turn; and that at any rate it was better we should have to regret him than if he had to regret us_. In similar circumstances he always showed the same insensibility: on another occasion I heard him reply to an unfortunate wounded man, who begged to be carried away—‘_What would you have me do? You are a victim of war_;’ and he passed on. Most assuredly he was neither cruel nor devoid of feeling; but the frequency of the misfortunes of war had hardened his heart. Penetrated with the idea that the fate of all soldiers is to die upon the field of battle, he thought it quite natural they should fulfil their destiny; and it has been seen in this narrative that he prized not his own life more highly than the lives of others.”

The passage of the river was defended for twenty-four hours. Two days later, those of the weary rearguard who were not prevented by frozen limbs or the cold hand of death from rising from their ice-bound bivouac, joyfully beheld, at half a league’s distance, the towers of Smolensko. Joyfully, because they had long looked for that town as the term of their misery. Repose and food, so greatly needed, were there anticipated. But there, as on every occasion during the retreat where alleviation was hoped for, disappointment ensued. Wittgenstein was pressing southwards from the Dwina, Tchitchagoff northwards to Minsk, the Austrians had retreated behind the Bug, and the French were in imminent danger of being intercepted at the Beresina. A halt at Smolensko was impossible, and orders were given to continue the march. Smolensko contained large stores of provisions; but these availed little to the famished troops, for the general disorganisation had extended to the commissariat, and waste was the result. The Guard, which arrived first with Napoleon, received abundant supplies of all kinds; but then came pouring in stragglers and undisciplined bodies; the warehouses were broken open and plundered, and rations for several months were squandered in a day. When the 3d corps, after defending the approaches to the town, entered in its turn, the work of destruction was at an end, and Colonel de Fezensac could find nothing either for his regiment or himself. But though they had nothing to eat, they were expected to fight; for Ney, the indefatigable, prepared obstinately to defend the town. On the 15th November, a severe combat occurred in the suburb, in which the 4th regiment was alone engaged, and during which its colonel received from Ney the order that daring leader was most rarely known to give—namely, not to advance too far. M. de Fezensac records this order with as much honest pride as he does the warm eulogium which his regiment’s conduct elicited from the marshal. For three days Smolensko was held, and then the 3d corps resumed its march. Meanwhile the Emperor, Eugene, and Davoust, with the Guard, the 4th and 1st corps, were hard pressed at Krasnoi, the two latter, especially, suffering most severely.

“The Emperor, having not a moment to lose to reach the Beresina, saw himself compelled to abandon the 3d corps, and precipitated his march to Orcha. During the three days’ fighting (at and near Krasnoi,) no information was sent to Marshal Ney of the danger about to menace him.... On the morning of the 18th November, we set out from Koritnya, and marched upon Krasnoi: on approaching that town, a few squadrons of Cossacks harassed the 2d division, which headed the column. We attached no importance to this; we were accustomed to the Cossacks, and a few musket-shots sufficed to drive them away. But soon the advanced guard fell in with General Ricard’s division, belonging to the 1st corps, which had remained behind, and had just been routed. The marshal rallied the remains of this division, and under cover of a fog, which favoured our march by concealing the smallness of our numbers, he approached the enemy until their cannon compelled him to pause. The Russian army, drawn up in order of battle, barred our further passage; then only did we learn that we were cut off from the rest of the army, and that our sole chance of salvation was in our despair.”

We know not whence M. de Fezensac derives his statements of numbers, but they frequently require correction. At Borodino, for instance, he gives, as an exact detail of the French loss, 6547 killed, and 21,453 wounded—making a total of about 28,000. Alison and other historians rate it nearly twenty thousand higher; and certainly nothing in the events of the battle argues it as much less than that of the Russians, which M. de Fezensac estimates at about 50,000—figures confirmed by other authorities. In like manner, he states the entire strength of the 3d corps, when it first entered the fire of the Russian batteries at Krasnoi, as barely 6000 combatants, with six guns, and a mere picket of cavalry. This is extraordinarily discrepant with other accounts, which make Ney’s loss, in the immediately ensuing engagement, to be nearly as great as the whole number of bayonets allotted to him by M. de Fezensac. Doubtless it was most difficult to ascertain numbers correctly during that confused retreat, where there can have been little question of muster-rolls and morning-states, and many seeming contradictions may be explained, by some writers estimating only the effective fighting men, and others including the unarmed and stragglers who dragged themselves along with the columns. But we attach no importance to differences of this kind as regards the _Journal_, which we here notice, not as a work of historical value—a character to which it makes no pretensions—but as the interesting memoir of a brave gentleman and soldier, who has written down, modestly and unaffectedly, his own and his regiment’s share in a most extraordinary campaign.

“Hardly had Marshal Ney withdrawn his advanced guard from under the enemy’s guns, when a flag of truce, sent by General Miloradowitsch, summoned him to lay down his arms. All who ever knew him will understand with what disdain the proposal was received.... For sole reply, the marshal made the messenger prisoner; a few cannon-shot, fired during this species of negotiation, serving as a pretext; and then, without considering the masses of the enemy and the small number of his own followers, he ordered the attack. The 2d division, formed in columns by regiments, marched straight to the enemy. Let me here be allowed to pay homage to the devotedness of those brave soldiers, and to congratulate myself on the honour of having marched at their head. The Russians beheld them, with admiration, marching towards them in the most perfect order, and with a steady step. Every cannon-ball carried away whole files—every step rendered death more inevitable; but the pace was not for an instant slackened. At last we got so near to the enemy’s line, that the first division of my regiment, crushed by the grape-shot, was thrown back upon that which followed, and disordered its array. Then the Russian infantry charged us in its turn, and the cavalry, falling on our flanks, completely routed us. Some sharpshooters, advantageously posted, checked for an instant the enemy’s pursuit; the division of Ledru deployed into line, and six guns replied to the numerous artillery of the Russians. During this time, I rallied the remains of my regiment upon the high road, where the cannon still reached us. Our attack had not lasted a quarter of an hour, but the 2d division no longer existed: my regiment lost several officers, and was reduced to two hundred men; the regiment of Illyria, and the 18th, which lost its eagle, were still worse treated; General Razout was wounded, and General Lenchantain made prisoner. The marshal now made the 2d division retire on Smolensko; at the end of half a league, he turned it to the left, across country, at right angles with the road. The first division, having long exhausted its strength by sustaining the shock of the whole hostile army, followed this movement with the guns and some of the baggage; those of the wounded who could still walk dragged themselves after us. The Russians cantoned themselves in the villages, sending a column of cavalry to observe us.

“The day declined: the 3d corps marched in silence; none knew what was to become of us. But Marshal Ney’s presence sufficed to reassure us. Without knowing what he would or could do, we knew he would do something. His self-confidence equalled his courage. The greater the danger, the more prompt was his determination; and when once he had made up his mind, he never doubted of success. Thus, in that terrible hour, his countenance expressed neither indecision nor uneasiness; all eyes were fixed upon him, but none dared question him. At last, seeing near him an officer of his staff, he said to him in a low voice: _We are not well._—_What shall you do?_ replied the officer.—_Pass the Dnieper._—_Where is the road?_—_We shall find it._—_And if the river is not frozen?_—_It will be._—_So be it_, said the officer. This singular dialogue, which I here set down word for word, revealed the marshal’s project of reaching Orcha by the right bank of the river, and so rapidly as still to find there the army, which was making its movement by the left bank. The plan was bold and ably conceived; it will be seen with what vigour it was executed.

“We marched across the fields, without a guide, and the inexactness of the maps contributed to mislead us. Marshal Ney, endowed with that peculiar talent of the great soldier which teaches how to take advantage of the slightest indications, observed some ice in the direction we were following, and had it broken, thinking it must be a rivulet that would lead us to the Dnieper. It really was a rivulet; we followed it, and reached a village, where the Marshal feigned to establish himself for the night. Fires were lighted and pickets thrown out. The enemy left us quiet, expecting to have us cheap the next day. Under cover of this stratagem, the Marshal followed up his plan. A guide was wanted, and the village was deserted; at last the soldiers discovered a lame peasant; they asked him where was the Dnieper, and if frozen. He replied, that at a league off was the village of Sirokowietz, and that the Dnieper must there be frozen. We set out, conducted by this peasant, and soon reached the village. The Dnieper was sufficiently frozen to be traversed on foot. Whilst they sought a place to cross, the houses rapidly filled with officers and soldiers, wounded that morning, who had dragged themselves thus far, and to whose hurts the surgeons could hardly apply the first dressings; those who were not wounded busied themselves in seeking provisions. Marshal Ney, forgetful alike of the day’s and the morrow’s dangers, was buried in a profound sleep.

“Towards the middle of the night we crossed the Dnieper, abandoning to the enemy artillery, baggage, vehicles of every kind, and those wounded who could not walk. M. de Briqueville, (aide-de-camp of the Duke of Placentia,) dangerously wounded the day before, passed the river on his hands and knees; I gave him in charge to two sappers, who succeeded in saving him. The ice was so thin that very few horses could pass; the troops re-formed on the other side of the stream. Thus far success had attended the marshal’s plan; the Dnieper was crossed, but we were still fifteen leagues from Orcha. It was essential to reach it before the French army left; we had to traverse a strange country, and to repel the attacks of the enemy with a handful of exhausted infantry, unsupported by cavalry or artillery. The march began under favourable auspices, with the capture of some Cossacks, surprised asleep in a village. At dawn on the 19th we were following the road to Liubavitschi. We were scarcely delayed for a moment by the passage of a torrent, and by some Cossack detachments which retired on our approach. At noon we reached two villages situated on a height, and whose inhabitants had scarcely time to escape, leaving us their provisions. The soldiers were giving themselves up to the joy occasioned by a moment of abundance, when there was a sudden call to arms. The enemy was advancing, and had already driven in our pickets. We left the villages, formed column, and resumed our march. But we had no longer to deal, as heretofore, with detached parties of Cossacks; here were whole squadrons, manœuvring in regular order, and commanded by General Platow himself. Our skirmishers made head against them; the columns accelerated their march, making their arrangements to receive cavalry. Numerous as these horsemen were, we feared them little, for the Cossacks never ventured to charge home a square of infantry; but soon a battery of several guns opened fire upon us. This artillery followed the movements of the cavalry, upon sledges, wherever it could be of use. Until nightfall, Marshal Ney never ceased to struggle against all these obstacles, skilfully availing himself of the least advantages the nature of the ground afforded. Amidst the balls which fell in our ranks, and in spite of the Cossacks’ yells and feigned attacks, we marched at the same pace. Darkness approached; the enemy redoubled his efforts. We had to quit the road, and to throw ourselves to the left into the woods fringing the Dnieper. But the Cossacks already held these woods; the 4th and 18th regiments, under command of General d’Henin, were directed to drive them thence. Meanwhile the hostile artillery took position on the further brink of a ravine we had to pass. There General Platow reckoned on exterminating us.

“I entered the wood with my regiment. The Cossacks retired; but the wood was deep, and tolerably dense, and we had to face every way to guard against surprise. Night came, we no longer heard anything around us; it was more than probable that Marshal Ney was continuing his advance. I advised General d’Henin to follow his movement; he refused, lest he should incur reproach from the marshal for quitting, without orders, the post assigned to him. At this moment loud shouts, announcing a charge, were heard at some distance in our front; giving us the certainty that the column was continuing its march, and that we were about to be cut off from it. I redoubled my entreaties, assuring General d’Henin that the marshal, with whose way of serving I was well acquainted, would send him no order, because he expected commanding officers, thus detached, to act according to circumstances; besides which, he was too far off to be able to communicate with us, and the 18th regiment had assuredly moved on long ago. The general persisted in his refusal; all I obtained from him was to move us on to the place where the 18th ought to be, and unite the two regiments. The 18th had marched, and in its place we found a squadron of Cossacks. Tardily convinced of the justice of my remarks, General d’Henin determined to rejoin the column; but we had traversed the wood in so many directions, that we no longer knew our way. The officers of my regiment were consulted, and we took the direction the majority thought the right one. I will not undertake to describe all we had to endure during that cruel night. I had but one hundred men left, and we were more than a league in rear of our main body, which we must overtake through a host of enemies. It was necessary to march quick enough to make up for lost time, and in sufficient order to resist the attacks of the Cossacks. The darkness, the uncertainty of our road, the difficulty of making way through the wood, all augmented our embarrassment. The Cossacks called to us to surrender, and fired pointblank into the midst of us: those who were hit remained behind. A sergeant had his leg broken by a carbine ball. He fell at my side, saying coolly to his comrades—_Another man done for; take my havresack, you will profit by it._ They took his havresack, and we moved on in silence. Two wounded officers had the same fate. I observed with uneasiness the impression our position made upon the soldiers, and even upon the officers, of my regiment. Men who had shown themselves heroes in the battle-field, now appeared anxious and troubled; so true is it that the circumstances of danger have often greater terrors than the danger itself. Very few preserved the presence of mind that was then more necessary than ever. I needed all my authority to maintain order and prevent straggling. An officer even ventured to say, that we should perhaps be obliged to surrender. I reprimanded him aloud, and the more severely that he was an officer of merit, which made the lesson more striking. At last, after more than an hour, we emerged from the wood and found the Dnieper on our left. We were in the right track, therefore; and this discovery gave the men a moment’s joy, of which I took advantage to cheer them up, and inculcate coolness, which alone could save us. General d’Henin moved us along the river’s bank to prevent the enemy from turning us. We were far from out of our difficulties; we knew our way, but the plain over which we marched permitted the enemy to fall on us in a large body, and to use their artillery. Fortunately it was dark, and the guns were fired rather at random. From time to time the Cossacks approached with loud cries; we stopped to drive them away with musketry, and then set off again. This march lasted two hours over the most difficult ground, across ravines so abrupt, that it required the utmost efforts to ascend the opposite side, and through half-frozen rivulets, where we had water to our knees. Nothing could shake the constancy of the soldiers; the utmost order was preserved; not a man left his rank. General d’Henin, wounded by a fragment of shell, concealed his hurt in order not to discourage the soldiers, and continued to command with unabated zeal. Doubtless he may be reproached with too obstinate a defence of the wood, but in such difficult circumstances error is pardonable; and what cannot be disputed, is the bravery and intelligence with which he led us during the whole of this perilous march. At last the enemy’s pursuit slackened, and on an eminence in our front fires were seen. It was Marshal Ney’s rearguard, which had halted there, and was now resuming its march: we joined it, and learned that upon the previous evening the marshal had advanced against the Cossack artillery, and forced it to yield him passage.

“Thus did the 4th regiment extricate itself from a position seemingly desperate. The march lasted another hour. The exhausted soldiers required repose, and we halted in a village where we found some provisions. But we were still eight leagues from Orcha, and General Platow would doubtless redouble his efforts for our destruction. The moments were precious; at one in the morning the assembly sounded, and we set out.... We marched unmolested till the dawn. With the first sunrays came the Cossacks, and soon our road led us over a plain. General Platow, desirous of profiting by this advantage, advanced that sledge-artillery which we could neither avoid nor overtake; and when he thought he had disordered our ranks, he commanded a charge. Marshal Ney rapidly formed each of his two divisions into a square; the 2d, under General d’Henin, being the rearmost, was first exposed. We forced all stragglers who still had a musket to join our ranks; severe threats were required to do this. The Cossacks, but feebly restrained by our skirmishers, and driving before them a crowd of unarmed fugitives, strove to reach the square. On their approach, and under fire of the artillery, our soldiers hastened their march. Twenty times I beheld them on the point of disbanding and flying in all directions, leaving us at the mercy of the Cossacks; but the presence of Marshal Ney, the confidence he inspired, his calmness in the moment of such great danger, kept them to their duty. We reached an eminence. The marshal ordered General d’Henin to hold it; adding, that we must know how to die there for the honour of France. Meanwhile, General Ledru marched to Jokubow, a village on the edge of a wood. When he had established himself there, we marched to join him: the two divisions took up a position, mutually flanking each other. It was not yet noon, and Marshal Ney declared he would defend this village till nine at night. General Platow made twenty attempts to take it from us; his attacks were constantly repulsed, and at last, fatigued by such a tenacious resistance, he himself took position opposite to us.

“Early in the morning the marshal had sent off a Polish officer, who reached Orcha and described our condition. The Emperor had left the town the day before: the Viceroy and Marshal Davoust still occupied it. At nine that night we resumed our march in profound silence. The Cossack pickets, distributed along the road, retired at our approach. The march continued with much order. At a league from Orcha, our vanguard fell in with an advanced post, which challenged in French. It was a division of the 4th corps coming to our assistance with the Viceroy. One must have passed three days between life and death to judge of the joy this meeting gave us. The Viceroy received us with lively emotion, and warmly expressed to Marshal Ney his admiration of his conduct. He congratulated the generals and the two remaining colonels. His aides-de-camp surrounded us, and overwhelmed us with questions on the details of this great drama, and the part that each of us had played in it. But time pressed; after a few minutes we again moved on. The Viceroy formed our rearguard: at three in the morning we entered Orcha. Thus terminated this bold march, one of the most curious episodes of the campaign. It covered Marshal Ney with glory, and to him the 3d corps owed its salvation; if, indeed, the term of _corps d’ armée_ may be applied to the 800 or 900 men who reached Orcha, remnant of the 6000 who had fought at Krasnoi.”

For eighteen days, over a distance of sixty leagues, the 3d corps had formed the rearguard. Diminished as its numbers now were, it was no longer available for that dangerous duty, and it joined the main body. Scarcely had it taken three hours’ repose in some wretched houses of the faubourg of Orcha, when the Russians, from the other side of the Dnieper, set fire to the town with shells, which were more particularly aimed at some conspicuous buildings, serving as provision-stores. It was impossible to serve out rations; at the risk of their lives, a few soldiers brought off some brandy and flour; but Davoust, now in command of the rearguard, hurried the troops’ departure, and by eight o’clock the unfortunate 3d corps was on the march to Borisow. A broad, good road facilitated their progress, and Colonel de Fezensac, no longer occupied in repelling the enemy, was able to investigate the state of his regiment. Eighty men remained, out of the 2800 that began the campaign; eighty tattered, famine-stricken, desponding wretches. They lived from hand to mouth, almost by a miracle; sometimes on flour steeped in water; at others, with a morsel of honeycomb or fragment of horseflesh; their sole drink the melted snow. “At some distance from Orcha, I fell in with M. Lanusse, a captain of my regiment, who had lost his sight by a shot, at the taking of Smolensko; a sutler belonging to his company was leading and taking the greatest care of him. He told me that after having been taken and plundered by the Cossacks at Krasnoi, he had contrived to escape, and that he and his guide would do their utmost to keep up with us. Soon afterwards they were found dead and stripped upon the road.”

Bad as the state of things already was, it became worse after the passage of the Beresina; for the cold, abated for a while, resumed all its severity, and heavy snow almost stifled the scanty fires kindled by the unhappy fugitives. “I myself was at the end of my resources. I had but a horse left; my last portmanteau had been lost at the Beresina; I had nothing but what I stood in, and we were still fifty leagues from Wilna, eighty from the Niemen; but, amidst so many misfortunes, I took little account of my personal sufferings and privations. Like us, Marshal Ney had lost everything; his aides-de-camp were dying of hunger, and I gratefully remember that more than once they shared with me the scanty food they managed to procure.” On the 29th November, during a brief halt of the 3d corps, a confused stream of stragglers poured by, all of whom had to tell of a miraculous escape at the Beresina. “I remarked an Italian officer, who scarcely breathed, borne by two soldiers, and accompanied by his wife. Greatly touched by this woman’s grief, and by the care she lavished on her husband, I yielded her my place at a fire the men had lighted. It needed all the illusion of her affection to blind her to the inutility of her care. Her husband had ceased to live, and still she called and spoke to him; until at last, no longer able to doubt her misfortune, she fell fainting upon his corpse.”

“There would be no end to the task,” continues M. de Fezensac, “if one attempted to relate all the horrible, affecting, and often incredible anecdotes that signalised that terrible time. A general, exhausted with fatigue, had fallen upon the road. A passing soldier began to pull off his boots; the general, raising himself with difficulty, begged him to wait till he was dead before stripping him. ‘General,’ replied the soldier, ‘I would willingly do so; but another would take them; I may as well have the benefit.’ And he continued to take off the boots.

“One soldier was being plundered by another; he entreated to be allowed to die in peace. ‘Pardon me, comrade,’ was the reply, ‘I thought you were dead;’ and he passed on. For the consolation of humanity, a few traits of sublime devotion contrasted with the innumerable ones of egotism and insensibility. That of a drummer of the 7th regiment of light infantry has been particularly cited. His wife, sutler to the regiment, fell ill at the beginning of the retreat. The drummer brought her to Smolensko in her cart. At Smolensko the horse died; then the husband harnessed himself to the cart, and dragged his wife to Wilna. At that town she was too ill to go any farther, and her husband remained prisoner with her.

“A sutler of the 33d regiment had been brought to bed in Prussia, before the beginning of the campaign. She followed her regiment to Moscow, with her little daughter, who was six months old when the army left that city. During the retreat this child lived by a miracle: her sole nourishment was black pudding made of horses’ blood: she was wrapped in a fur taken at Moscow, and often her head was bare. Twice she was lost; and they found her again, first in a field, then in a burnt village, lying on a mattress. Her mother crossed the Beresina on horseback, with water to her neck, holding the bridle in one hand, and with the other her child upon her head. Thus, by a succession of marvellous circumstances, this little girl got through the retreat without accident, and did not even take cold.”

For many many leagues before reaching the Niemen, the harassed remnant of the great French army had looked forward to that river as the term of pursuit. The idea that the Russians would not pass the Niemen had taken a strong hold of the imaginations of both officers and soldiers. At Kowno, a stand was made by the rearguard; no very steadfast one, certainly; but then, as ever, Ney proved equal to the emergency. An earthen work, hastily thrown up, seemed to him sufficient to check the foe for a whole day. Here were posted two pieces of cannon, and some Bavarian infantry; and the marshal sought a moment’s repose in his quarters. But the very first discharge of the Russian artillery dismounted a French gun; the infantry took to flight—the gunners were about to follow. Another minute, and the Cossacks might enter the streets unopposed. Just then Ney appeared upon the ramparts, musket in hand. His absence had been nearly fatal; his presence restored the fight. The troops rallied, and the position was held till night, when the retreat recommenced. The bridge was crossed, and each man, as he set foot south of the Niemen, deemed himself safe. Great then was the consternation of all, when, at the foot of a lofty hill, over which winds the road to Königsberg, an alarm was given, and, at the same moment, a cannon-ball plunged into their ranks. The Cossacks had crossed the river on the ice, and had established themselves on the summit of the mountain. This fresh danger, so totally unexpected, completed the demoralisation of the troops. Brave spirits, which, till then, had steadfastly held out, lost their firmness in face of this new calamity. There is something very affecting in the following passage:—

“Generals Marchand and Ledru succeeded in forming a sort of battalion by uniting the stragglers to the 3d corps, (again on rearguard.) But it was in vain to attempt to force a passage; the muskets were unserviceable, and the soldiers dared not advance. There was nothing for it but to remain under fire of the artillery, without daring to take a step backwards, for that would have exposed us to a charge, and our destruction was then certain. This position drove to despair two officers, who had been a pattern to my regiment during the whole retreat, but whose courage at last gave way under long physical exhaustion. They came to me and said, that as they were no longer able either to march or to fight, they should fall into the hands of the Cossacks, who would massacre them, and that, to avoid this, they must return to Kowno and yield themselves prisoners. I made useless efforts to dissuade them, appealing to their feelings of honour, to the courage of which they had given so many proofs, to their attachment to the regiment they now proposed abandoning; and I conjured them, if death was inevitable, at least to die in our company. For sole reply they embraced me with tears, and returned into Kowno. Two other officers had the same fate; one was intoxicated with rum, and could not follow us; the other, whom I particularly loved, disappeared soon afterwards. My heart was torn: I waited for death to come and reunite me to my unhappy comrades, and I should perhaps have wished for it but for all the ties which, at that time, still bound me to life.”

Once more Ney came to the rescue. No accumulation of difficulties could cloud his brow with uneasiness. Once more his promptness and energy saved his shattered corps. A flank march was the means resorted to. On the 20th December, the 3d corps reached Königsberg. It then consisted of about one hundred men on foot, about as many cripples on sledges, and a handful of officers.

“Monsieur le duc,” wrote Marshal Ney to the Duke of Feltre, Minister of War, from Berlin, on the 23d January 1813, “I avail myself of the moment when the campaign is, if not terminated, at least suspended, to express to you all the satisfaction I have received from M. de Fezensac’s manner of serving. That young man has been placed in very critical circumstances, and has always shown himself superior to them. I commend him to you as a true French chevalier, (_veritable chevalier Français_,) whom you may henceforth consider as a veteran colonel.”

M. de Fezensac almost apologises for subjoining to his journal this extract from a letter now in his possession. He has no need to do so. He may well and honestly exult in such a testimonial from such a man.

THE PENITENT FREE-TRADER.

Tufnell! For the love of mercy,
Let me go for half an hour—
I’ll be back before that proser
Hath discussed the price of flour.
Don’t you hear, he’s just beginning
To investigate the rate
Of the Mecklenburg quotations,
Metage, lighterage, and freight?
Next, I know, he’ll pass to Dantzic,
With a glimpse at Rostock wheat—
I have seen the whole already
In his Economic sheet.
See! upon the backward benches
There reposes stealthy Peel—
Dreaming, doubtless, that he’s smothered
In an atmosphere of meal.
Palmerston’s recumbent yonder—
Hawes is sleeping by the door;
Even Russell’s tiny nostril
Quivers with a nascent snore.
Let me go—nay, do not hold me
So intensely by the coat;
I assure you, on my honour,
I’ll be back in time to vote.

Oh, the night-winds wander sweetly
O’er my hot and throbbing brow!
What a contrast is the moonlight
To the scene I left just now!
Let me walk a little onward
Underneath the budding trees,
Where the faint perfume is wafted
On the pinions of the breeze:
Overhead a thousand starlets
Glisten in the robe of night,
And the earth is wrapped in slumber
With a pure and calm delight.
By your leave, good Master Tufnell,
I shall stay a little here;
You have plenty noodles yonder
Who are safe enough to cheer
Wilson’s dunderhead discourses,
Or the cant of Labouchere!