When we were once more established in the Kremlin, and had resumed our habits as domiciliated people, we passed several days in tolerable tranquillity. The Emperor seemed less gloomy, and all who surrounded him felt the effects of it. One might almost have thought we were coming back from the country to take up anew the ways of city life. If from time to time the Emperor had this illusion, it was very quickly dispelled by the spectacle afforded by Moscow as seen from the windows of the apartments. It was plain that he made some very painful reflections every time he turned his eyes in that direction, although he no longer gave way to those movements of impatience which so frequently attacked him, at the time of his first sojourn at the palace, when he saw the flames coming to chase him from his apartments. But his was the unhealthy calm of an anxious man who does not know how things will turn. The days were long at the Kremlin. The Emperor was awaiting Alexander's answer, an answer that did not come. At this period I noticed that the Emperor usually had on his night table Voltaire's history of Charles XII.

Meanwhile the Emperor was tormented by his administrative genius even amidst the ruins of the great city. To divert himself from the anxieties caused by outside affairs, he busied himself with municipal organization. It was already decided that Moscow should be provisioned for the winter. A theatre was erected near the Kremlin; but the Emperor never went there. The troupe was composed of several wretched French actors remaining in Moscow in a state of frightful destitution. Nevertheless His Majesty encouraged this enterprise in the hope that the theatrical representations might afford a salutary relaxation to the officers and soldiers; besides few but military men were there. It has been said that the principal actors of Paris were sent for. I know nothing positive about this. There was a celebrated Italian singer at Moscow whom the Emperor heard several times, but only in his own apartments. He did not belong to the troupe.

Up to October 18, the time was spent in more or less lively discussions between the Emperor and his generals concerning the final measures to be taken. They all knew that a retreat must be decided on, and the Emperor did not disguise it from himself; but it was plain how much it cost his pride to say the last word. The days that immediately preceded the 18th were the saddest I have ever seen. A great coldness was evident in His Majesty's most ordinary relations with his friends and counsellors. He became taciturn. Entire hours elapsed without a single one of those present taking the initiative of conversation. The Emperor, who usually expedited his meals, now prolonged them in an astonishing manner. Sometimes during the day he would throw himself on a sofa with a novel in his hand, which he might or might not read, and seemed absorbed in profound reveries. Verses were sent him from Paris, which he read aloud, expressing his opinion of them in a brief and trenchant manner. I saw him devote two or three evenings to drawing up rules for the Comédie Française of Paris. It is difficult to comprehend this attention to such administrative trifles when the future was so burdened. It was generally believed, and probably not without reason, that the Emperor was acting with a political end in view, and that these regulations concerning the Comédie Française, at a time when no bulletin had yet given a complete notion of the disastrous position of the army, were intended to impose on the Parisians, who would not fail to say: "Things cannot be going so very badly if the Emperor has time to occupy himself with theatres."

The news of the 18th put an end to all uncertainties. The Emperor was reviewing Ney's divisions in the principal court of the Kremlin, distributing crosses to the bravest soldiers and addressing encouraging words to all, when an aide-de-amp, young Béranger, came to announce that a very brisk engagement had taken place at Winkowo between Murat and Kutusoff, and that Murat's advance-guard had been destroyed and our positions carried by force. The resumption of hostilities on the part of the Russians was manifest. When the tidings first came, the Emperor's astonishment was extreme. There was on the contrary among the soldiers a sort of electric shock of enthusiasm and anger which reached His Majesty. Transported to see what bitterness and desire of vengeance were imparted to these ardent souls by the shame of a defeat, even though received without dishonor, the Emperor pressed the hand of the colonel who stood nearest, went on with the review, ordered the rallying of the troops the same evening; and before night the whole army was in movement toward Woronowo.

Some days before we quitted Moscow, the Emperor had despoiled the churches of the Kremlin of their finest ornaments. The ravages of the fire had lifted the sort of interdict which the Emperor had laid upon Russian possessions.

The most beautiful trophy of this kind was the immense cross of Ivan the Great. It was necessary to demolish part of the tower it surmounted in order to take it down. Even then it was only after long efforts that they succeeded in making the vast mass of iron totter. The Emperor wished to adorn the dome of the Invalides with it. It was engulfed in the waters of Lake Semlewo.

On the days before the Emperor meant to hold a review, the soldiers showed great eagerness to make themselves tidy, and clean up their weapons, so as partly to conceal the destitution to which they were reduced. The most imprudent among them had cast off their winter garments in order to load themselves with provisions. However, they all took pride in making a good appearance at the reviews; and when the sun, on fine days, shone on the barrels of well-cleaned muskets, the Emperor felt anew some of those emotions of which he was so full on the glorious day of the departure.

The Emperor left twelve hundred wounded men at Moscow; four hundred of these wretches were taken along by the last corps that quitted the city. Marshal Mortier was the last to leave it. At Feminskoë, ten leagues from Moscow, we heard the noise of a frightful explosion: it was the Kremlin, blown up in accordance with the Emperor's orders. Fireworks had been deposited in the vaults of the palace; and all had been calculated so that a certain time would elapse before the explosion. Some Cossacks came to pillage the deserted apartments, in ignorance of the hidden fire beneath their feet; they were hurled to a prodigious height in the air. Thirty thousand muskets had been abandoned in the fortress. In one second a part of the Kremlin was nothing but a mass of ruins. Another part was preserved; and what contributed not a little to enhance the reputation of their great Saint Nicholas with the Russians, was that a stone image of that saint was spared by the explosion in a spot where the greatest ravages were made. This fact was afterwards reported to me by a person worthy of belief, who had heard it related by Count Rostopchine himself, during his stay in Paris.

October 28, the Emperor resumed the road to Smolensk, passing near the battle-field of Borodino. Nearly thirty thousand corpses had been left on these vast plains. On our approach, clouds of crows, which had been attracted by such abundant pasturage, flew far away from us with horrible croakings. These corpses of so many brave men had a disgusting aspect, being half devoured, and exhaling an odor which the cold, already very keen, could not neutralize. The Emperor had the march accelerated, and went to spend the night in the nearly ruined château of Oupinskoë. The next day he visited some wounded who had remained in an abbey. These unfortunates, on seeing the Emperor, seemed to recover their strength and forget their sufferings, which must have been horrible, the wounds becoming still more inflamed by the earliest frosts. All these pale, tired faces regained a certain serenity. The poor soldiers, pleased to see their comrades again, questioned them with anxious curiosity concerning the events that had followed the battle of Borodino. When they knew that we had bivouacked at Moscow, they rejoiced with all their heart; and it was easy to see that what they chiefly regretted was to have been unable, like the others, to burn the finest movables of the rich Moscovites at their bivouac fires. Napoleon ordered that each carriage of the train should take along one of these unfortunates, and so it was done. All lent themselves to this work with an alacrity which greatly touched the Emperor. The poor wounded men said with the accent of profound gratitude that they were far better off on these good cushions than in the ambulance wagons. We had no difficulty in believing it. A lieutenant of cuirassiers, who had just had a limb amputated, was put into the landau of His Majesty, who travelled on horseback.

That replies to all the accusations of cruelty so causelessly charged upon the memory of a great man who is no more. I have read, but not without disgust, that the Emperor sometimes had his carriage driven over wounded men, whose cries of anguish did not touch his heart. All that is false and revolting. Not a single one of those who have served the Emperor is ignorant of his solicitude for the unhappy victims of war and the care he had taken of them. Foreigners, enemies, or Frenchmen, all were recommended to the army surgeons with equal interest.

From time to time frightful explosions would make us turn our heads to look behind us. They were caused by ammunition wagons which were blown up to save the trouble of bringing them along, as the march was daily growing more difficult. It was painful to think that we were reduced to such a point of distress that we must throw our powder to the winds to save it from the hands of the enemy. But a still more sorrowful reflection occurred to the mind with every detonation of this sort: the grand army must quickly extricate itself from ruin, since the material of the expedition overloaded the men, and the number of arms employed was no longer in proportion to the labor.

The 30th the Emperor had his headquarters in a wretched hovel without doors or windows. We had great difficulty in fencing off a little the spot he chose to sleep in. The cold was growing more severe and the nights were freezing; the little fortified palisades which were used as a kind of relays for the mail, and which, placed at regular distances, marked the divisions of the road, also served every evening as imperial headquarters. The Emperor's bed was hastily put up, and a cabinet prepared as well as possible in which he might work with his secretaries and write his different orders to the chiefs whom he had left on the roads and in the towns.

Our retreat was sometimes harassed by parties of Cossacks. These barbarians would come upon us, lance in rest, and roaring like wild beasts rather than uttering human cries. Their little long-tailed horses brushed the flanks for the different divisions. But these reiterated attacks had not, at first at all events, disastrous consequences for the army. When we heard a hurrah, the infantry would put a good face on the matter, close up their ranks, and present bayonets. It was the cavalry's affair to pursue these barbarians, who fled faster than they had come.

November 6, before he had quitted the army, the Emperor received tidings of the Mallet conspiracy and all that related to it. At first he was astonished, then greatly displeased, and afterwards sneered a good deal over the discomfiture of General Savary, the minister of police. He said repeatedly that if he had been in Paris nobody would have stirred; that he could not leave it without everybody losing their heads at the least rating. From this moment he spoke frequently of the need of his presence in Paris.

Apropos of General Savary, a little fact somewhat mystifying for him occurs to my memory. After having given up the command of the gendarmerie in order to succeed Fouché in the functions of minister of police, he had a brief discussion with an aide-de-camp of the Emperor. As he threatened his interlocutor, the latter replied to him: "You think you will always have handcuffs in your pockets."

November 8, it snowed, the day was gloomy, the cold severe, the wind violent, and the roads covered with sleet. The horses could not go forward; their worn-out shoes could take no hold on this slippery ground. The poor animals were exhausted; it was necessary for the men to push the wheels in order to lighten their burdens in some degree. In the vigorous breathing that issues from the nostrils of a tired horse, in that tension of the hocks and those prodigious efforts of the reins, there is something that gives to a high degree the idea of force; but the mute resignation of these animals when one knows them to be overburdened, awakens pity and makes us repent of abusing so much courage. The Emperor on foot, in the midst of his household, a baton in his hand, walked with difficulty in these slippery paths. But he encouraged one and another with kindly words. We were full of good-will. Whoever had then complained would have been badly received by all. We came in sight of Smolensk. The Emperor was the least dejected. He was pale, but his face was calm; nothing in his features betrayed his moral sufferings, for they would have needed to be very violent for any one to have perceived them in public. The roads were heaped with men and horses dead of fatigue or famine. The men passed on, turning away their eyes. As to the horses, they were a good prize for our famished men.

At last we reached Smolensk on the 9th. The Emperor lodged in a fine house on the Place Neuve. Although this important city had suffered much since we were there, it still afforded resources; provisions of every kind were found in it for the household of the Emperor and the officers; but the Emperor made no account of this privileged abundance, as one might call it, when he learned that the army lacked food and provender. At this news he flew into a furious rage; never did I see him depart so violently from his characteristic temper. He sent for the commissary who had charge of the provisioning, and apostrophized him in such an unmeasured fashion that the latter turned pale and could not find a word in his own justification. The Emperor insisted with still greater violence, and allowed terrible threats to escape him. I heard the cries from an adjoining chamber. I learned afterwards that the commissary had thrown himself down at His Majesty's knees to obtain his pardon. Calming down from his excitement, the Emperor forgave him. Never, in truth, had he sympathized more keenly with the sufferings of his army; never did he suffer more from his powerlessness to struggle against such multiplied misfortunes.

On the 14th we resumed the road we had passed over some months before under better auspices. The thermometer registered twenty degrees of cold. A wide space still divided us from France. After a slow and painful march, the Emperor arrived at Krasnoi. He was obliged to go himself with his guard to meet the enemy in order to extricate the Prince d'Eckmühl. He passed through the enemy's fire, surrounded by his Old Guard, which serried about its chief its platoons in which grape-shot was making wide gashes. It is one of the grandest examples history gives us of the devotion and love of several thousand men for one alone. While the fire was hottest, the bands were playing the air: Where can one be better off than in the bosom of his family? Napoleon interrupted it, they say, by exclaiming: "Say rather, Let us watch over the safety of the Empire." It is difficult to imagine anything more grand.

The Emperor returned from this combat very much fatigued. He had passed several nights without taking any repose, listening to the reports made him concerning the state of the army, expediting the orders necessary for procuring provisions for the soldiers, and putting in motion the different corps who were to sustain the retreat. Never had his inconceivable activity found more to do; never also had his heart been so high as amidst all these misfortunes of which he seemed to feel the weighty responsibility.

It was between Orcha and the Dnieper that the carriages for which there were no longer any horses were burned. The tumult and discouragement in the rear of the army was so great that the majority of the laggards threw down their weapons there as a wearisome and useless burden. A sort of military police was exercised by order of the Emperor to arrest the disorder so far as possible. The officers of gendarmerie were charged to bring back by force those who abandoned their corps, often they were obliged to prick them in the reins with their swords to make them go forward. The exceeding distress had so altered the soldierly spirit, naturally kind and sympathizing, that those who were most wretched intentionally spread confusion, so as to wrest from their better-clad companions either clothes or food. "There are the Cossacks!" was, in general, their cry of alarm. When these culpable tricks were discovered, and our soldiers recovered from their apprehension, reprisals were made, and then the tumult reached its height.

The corps of Marshal Davoust was one of the most maltreated in the army. Out of seventy thousand men of which it was composed on setting out, not more than four or five thousand were left, who were all dying with hunger. The Marshal himself was enfeebled; he had neither linen nor bread; want and fatigues of every kind had horribly emaciated his face; his entire person provoked pity. This brave marshal, who had twenty times escaped Russian bullets, beheld himself perishing with hunger. One of his soldiers presented him with a loaf of bread; he seized and devoured it. He was one of those who contained himself the least; wiping his moustaches, where the frost had condensed, he would angrily rail against the evil destiny which had cast them into thirty degrees of cold; for moderation in speech is difficult enough when one is suffering so much.

For some time the Emperor had been in keen anxiety concerning the fate of Marshal Ney, who had been intercepted and obliged to cut his passage through the Russians following us on every side. His alarm increased as time went on. Every minute he would ask if no one had seen Ney, accusing himself of having exposed this brave general too much, and inquiring after him as for a good friend whom one has lost. The entire army shared and manifested the same anxieties; it seemed as if this hero alone were in danger. Some regarded him as lost, and seeing that the bridges of the Dnieper were menaced by the enemy, they proposed breaking them down: there was but one cry throughout the entire army against it. On the 20th, the Emperor, whom this idea had cast into the utmost dejection, arrived at Basanoni. He was dining with Prince de Neufchâtel and the Duc de Dantzic, when General Gourgaud came in haste to announce to His Majesty that Marshal Ney and his men were but a few leagues away from us. The Emperor cried with a joy which is easily conceived: "Is it true?" M. Gourgaud gave him details which were soon spread through all the camp. This news heartened everybody: the men eagerly accosted each other; it seemed as though every one had found a brother; all were talking of the heroic courage he had displayed, the talents he had evinced in saving his troops from the ice, the ravines, and the enemies. And it is true to say, to the immortal glory of Marshal Ney, that according to the opinions I have heard expressed by our most illustrious warriors, his defence is a feat of arms for which antiquity affords no parallel. The hearts of our soldiers throbbed with enthusiasm; and on that day they felt once more the emotions of the most splendid days of victory! Ney and his division have gained immortality by his prodigious effort of energy and valor. So much the better for the few survivors of that handful of heroes who can read the grand deeds they have done in these annals inspired by them. His Majesty had several times said: " I would give all the money I have in the vaults of the Tuileries if my brave Ney were at my side."

It was Prince Eugène who had the honor of going to meet Marshal Ney with a corps of four thousand veterans. Marshal Mortier had disputed this favor with him, for between those noble men there were never any but such noble rivalries. The danger was immense; the cannon of Prince Eugène was a signal understood by the Marshal, who answered it by platoon firing. The two corps met, and were not yet united when Marshal Ney and Prince Eugène were in each other's arms; they said the latter wept for joy. Such traits make this horrible tableau appear somewhat less gloomy.

As far as Beresina, our march was a mere succession of little combats and great privations.

The Emperor spent one night at Caniwki, in a wooden cabin containing but two rooms; the back one was chosen for him, in the other all his attendants lay down pell-mell. I was more fortunate, for I lay in that of His Majesty; but several times during the night, my duties obliged me to go into the other room, and then I had to stride over sleepers worn out by fatigue; although I took great pains  not to hurt them, they were so crowded that it was impossible not to set foot on legs or arms.

In the retreat from Moscow the Emperor marched on foot, enveloped in his pelisse, and his head covered by a Russian cap which was tied under his chin; I frequently marched near the brave Marshal Lefebvre, who had much affection for me. He said to me in his German French, in speaking of the Emperor: "He is surrounded by a heap of blackguards, who do not tell him the truth; he does not make enough distinction between his good and bad adherents. How will he get out of that, this poor Emperor whom I love? I am always in dread for his life; if nothing but my blood were needed to ensure it, I would spend it drop by drop; but that would not alter anything, and, perhaps, he may still have need of me."