At the time of which I speak all the marshals of the Empire seemed determined to recognise no rights of seniority among themselves, for none would serve under one of his colleagues, however serious the occasion might be. When, therefore, Oudinot had resumed the command of the second corps, Victor, rather than fight Wittgenstein under his orders, marched off with his 25,000 men towards Kokanoff. Thus left alone, Marshal Oudinot marched his troops about for several days in different parts of the province, and finally established his headquarters at Tchereia with his advanced guard at Lukulen.

It was during a little fight which Castex's brigade had in front of that town that my promotion to colonel at last reached me. If you consider that as major I had received a wound at Znaym in Moravia, two at Miranda de Corvo in Portugal, one at Jakobowo, had served four campaigns with that rank, and that I had been in command of a regiment ever since the French entered Russia, you will perhaps think that I had pretty well earned my new epaulettes. I was none the less grateful to the Emperor, especially when I learnt that I was still to have the 23rd Chasseurs, of whom I was very fond, and by whom I knew that I was both beloved and valued. In fact, there was great joy throughout the regiment, and the brave men whom I had so often led to battle came, men and officers alike, to express their satisfaction at keeping me as their commander. The kind General Castex, who had always treated me as a brother, himself announced my promotion at the head of the regiment. Lastly, the colonel of the 24th, although we were not very intimate, came at the head of all his officers to congratulate me.

Meanwhile the situation of the French army was getting worse every day. Field-Marshal Schwarzenberg, commander-in-chief of the Austrian corps which formed the right wing of the army, had by the basest treachery allowed Tchichagoff's troops to pass him; they had taken Minsk and were threatening our rear. The Emperor must have deeply regretted that he had entrusted the command of Lithuania to the Dutch general, Hogendorf, who, having seen nothing of war, did not know how to set about saving Minsk. The capture of that place was a serious matter; but the Emperor attached little importance to it, because he reckoned on passing the Beresina at Borisoff, where there was a bridge covered buy a fortress in good condition and guarded by a Polish regiment. So great was Napoleon's confidence on this point that, in order to lighten the march of his army, he had had all his pontoons burnt at Orcha. This was a great disaster, for they would have assured us a ready passage over the Beresina, a passage which we had to buy at the cost of so much bloodshed. Secure as Napoleon felt with regard to this, on learning that Minsk was occupied by the Russians, he ordered Marshal Oudinot to come by forced marches to Borisoff; but we arrived too late, because General Bronikoffski, who was charged with the defence of the fort on the right bank, finding himself surrounded by large numbers of the enemy, thought to do a praiseworthy action by saving the garrison. Instead, therefore, of offering a stubborn resistance, which would have given Oudinot time to come to his relief, the Polish general abandoned the place, crossing with his whole garrison to the left bank and taking the road to Orcha, so as to rejoin Oudinot, which he did in front of Natcha. The marshal received him with displeasure, and ordered him to return with us towards Borisoff. Not only were the town, the bridge over the Beresina, and the fortress commanding it already in Tchichagoff's hands, but the general, who, after his success, was eager to fight the French troops, had started on November 23 to meet them with the greater part of his army, the advance-guard being commanded by General Lambert, the best of his lieutenants. The ground being level, Marshal Oudinot made the cuirassier division march at the head of his infantry, preceded by Castex's light cavalry brigade.

Three leagues from Borisoff the Russian advance-guard came in contact with our cuirassiers, who, having had very little fighting in the course of this campaign, had begged for the honour of being placed in the first line. At the sight of these five regiments, which were still strong and well mounted, the Russian cavalry stopped short. Recovering their courage, however, they advanced again. Then our cuirassiers with a furious charge overthrew them, killing or capturing a thousand men. Tchichagoff, who had been assured that Napoleon's army was by this time only a disorderly and unarmed crowd, was not prepared for such vigour, so he retreated in haste towards Borisoff. It usually happens that after executing a charge the big horses of the heavy cavalry, especially the cuirassiers, cannot go on galloping. It was, therefore, the 23rd and 24th Chasseurs who were ordered to pursue the enemy while the cuirassiers came on at a slackened pace in the second line.

Tchichagoff had not only committed the mistake of coming to meet Oudinot's corps, but he had also caused all the baggage wagons of his army, to the number of more than 1,500, to follow him. So great, therefore, was the disorder in the headlong retreat of the Russians towards Borisoff that Castex's two regiments often found their march hampered by the vehicles which the enemy had abandoned. This hindrance became still greater when we entered the town, the streets of which were crowded with baggage and draught horses, among which were streaming the Russian soldiers, who had thrown away their arms, and were trying to get back to the Russian regiments. Still, we reached the middle of the town, but only after losing precious time, by which the enemy profited to get across the river. 1The marshal's orders were to reach the bridge and try to cross it, together with the Russian fugitives; but in order to do this, it was necessary to know where the bridge was, and none of us was acquainted with the town. At length my troopers found a Jew, whom I questioned in German; but whether it was that the scamp did not understand that language; or pretended that he did not, we could get no information from him. I would have given a good deal to have had my Polish servant Lorenz with me, but the coward had remained behind when the fighting began. Still, we had to get out of the fix somehow; so we made several detachments explore the streets until at last they found the Beresina. That river was not yet sufficiently frozen for us to be able to cross it on the ice, so that it was necessary to pass over the bridge. But to take the bridge we required infantry, and ours was still three leagues off. Marshal Oudinot, who came up at this moment, ordered General Castex to supply its place by making three-quarters of his troopers dismount and attack the bridge formed into a little battalion armed with carbines. We hastened to obey, and, leaving our horses in the neighbouring streets guarded by a few men, made for the river, under the lead of General Castex, who chose to march to this perilous undertaking at the head of his brigade.

The recent discomfiture of the Russian advance-guard had carried alarm into Tchichagoff's army. Disorder prevailed on the bank which it occupied, where we could see masses of fugitives making off across the country. Thus, although it had at first seemed to me very hard work for dismounted troopers without bayonets to force a bridge and maintain themselves there, I began to hope for success when I saw that we were opposed by only a few skirmishers. I therefore ordered the section who should first reach the right bank to capture houses near the bridge, so that holding both ends of it we could defend it till our infantry came up, and thus secure the passage of the Beresina for the French army. But the guns of the fort began to thunder, and the bridge was wept by a storm of grape which threw our feeble battalion into disorder, and forced it for a moment to recoil. A band of Russian pioneers armed with torches took advantage of is moment to set the bridge on fire; but, as their presence caused the enemy artillery to cease firing, we hurled ourselves on them, killing or throwing into the river the greater number of them. The chasseurs had put out the fire, which had hardly caught, when a battalion of grenadiers came up at the double, and forced us at the bayonet's point to abandon the bridge, which was presently covered with lighted torches, and became a huge furnace, until its blazing heat compelled both sides to draw off. Thenceforth the French had to renounce all hope of crossing the Beresina by that bridge, and their retreat was cut off. This terrible calamity decided our fate and aided vastly to shake down Napoleon's throne and change the face of Europe.

Oudinot saw that it was impossible to force the passage of the river in front of Borisoff, and decided that it would be dangerous to crowd that town with his own troops. He therefore gave orders to encamp between Lochnitza and Nemonitza. Castex's brigade alone remained at Borisoff, under strict orders not to communicate with the other corps, so that the fatal news of the burning of the bridge might be kept from them as long as possible. They did not learn it till forty-eight hours later.

By the custom of war, enemy's baggage belongs to the captors. General Castex therefore authorized the men of the 23rd and 24th to take possession of the plunder contained in the 1,500 vehicles of all kinds which the Russians had left behind when they fled across the bridge. The booty was immense—a hundred times more, indeed, than the brigade, could carry. So I assembled my regiment, and pointed out that as they had a long retreat before them, during which it would probably be impossible for us to continue distributing rations of meat, as I had done throughout the campaign, they had better take steps chiefly to supply themselves with provisions. I added that they should also think of protecting themselves against the cold; and that as overladen horses do not last long, they must not break theirs down with all sorts of things of no use in war. To sum up, I said that I should hold an inspection, and that all that was not food, shoes, or clothing would be rejected without mercy. To avoid all discussion, General Castex had had stakes planted, to divide the captured carriages into two divisions, and each regiment had its own. As the town was surrounded on three sides by Oudinot's army, while the fourth side was covered by the Beresina and watched by pickets, our men could safely investigate the contents of the Russian carts and carriages. So when the word was given the search began. It seemed that Tchichagoff's officers took good care of themselves, for never in the equipage of an army was seen such a profusion of hams, pies, smoked fish and meat, and wines of all kinds, not to mention ship's biscuit, rice, cheese, &c. Our soldiers also benefitted by the furs and strong boots which they found in the wagons, the capture of which thus saved many a man's life. The drivers had not even had time to take away their horses, and as these were nearly all good, we selected the best to replace any with which our troopers found fault. The officers also took some to carry the provisions with which each had so amply furnished himself.

The brigade passed the whole of November 24 in Borisoff, and, as in spite of all precautions the news of the destruction of the bridge had spread in the bivouacs of the 2nd corps, Marshal Oudinot, wishing that all his troops might profit by the goods contained in the enemy's wagons, agreed to let detachments from all the regiments enter the town, making room for others as soon as they had loaded themselves. Notwithstanding that Oudinot's troops carried off great quantities of provisions and all kinds of plunder, there was plenty left to be taken on the following day by the swarms of disbanded troops on their way back from Moscow.

Meanwhile the chiefs and all officers capable of estimating the awkward position of the army were feeling keen anxiety. Before us we had the Beresina with Tchichagoff's troops lining the opposite banks, Wittgenstein had outflanked us, and Kutusoff was in our rear. Except for the remains of the guard and the corps of Oudinot and Victor, now reduced to a few thousands, the rest of that Grand Army which had lately been so splendid was composed of sick and of disarmed soldiers, from whom misery had taken all their old energy. Everything seemed to conspire against us, for even though Ney had been able, thanks to the lowered temperature, to escape the enemy a few days back by crossing the Dnieper on the ice, we had found the Beresina unfrozen in spite of the extreme cold, and we had no pontoons by which to cross it.

On the 25th the Emperor entered Borisoff, where he found Marshal Oudinot waiting with the 6,000 men who remained to him. Napoleon and the marshals and officers who accompanied him were surprised to see the good order maintained in the 2nd corps, the bearing of which formed a remarkable contrast to that of the miserable bands whom they were bringing back from Moscow. Our troops did not look so nice, indeed, as they would in a garrison town, but each man had kept his weapons and was ready to make a brave use of them. The Emperor, struck by their martial air, called together all the colonels and bade them express to their regiments his satisfaction at their excellent conduct in all the sanguinary engagements fought in the province of Polotsk.

You will remember that when the Bavarian general, Von Wrede, left the 2nd corps he carried off with him Corbineau's brigade of cavalry, after deceiving the general by assuring him that he had orders to that effect. To this bit of deceit was due the salvation of the Emperor and the fragments of the Grand Army. As it turned out, Corbineau, dragged off against his will in the opposite direction to the corps to which he belonged, had followed General Wrede as far as Glubokoi. There, however, he declared that he would go no further unless the Bavarian general would show him his alleged orders to keep the brigade with him. As Wrede could not satisfy this demand, Corbineau left him and made for the head waters of the Beresina, then passing down the right bank he hoped to reach Borisoff, cross the river there, and taking the Orcha road go to meet Oudinot's corps, which he assumed to be in the neighbourhood of Bobra.

The Emperor has been blamed for that having several millions of Poles in his service he did not at the beginning of the campaign place some of them as interpreters with every general and every colonel; a prudent measure which would have avoided many errors. A proof of this was seen during the dangerous journey of several days which Corbineau's brigade was obliged to make through an unknown country, of which no Frenchman could speak the language. Very fortunately one of his three regiments was the 8th Polish Lancers, the officers of which got all the necessary information from the inhabitants; a service which was of immense advantage to Corbineau. For instance, when he had come within half a day's journey of Borisoff some peasants informed his Polish lancers that the town was occupied by Tchichagoff's army. Corbineau was giving up all hope of crossing the Beresina, when the same peasants advised him to retreat, and guided his column to a point opposite Studzianka, a little village about four leagues above Borisoff, in front of which there was a ford. The three cavalry regiments crossed it without loss, and the general, making across country, cleverly avoiding any approach to Borisoff or to Wittgenstein's troops, who were posted at Rogatka, slipped between them and finally rejoined Marshal Oudinot on the evening of the 23rd, close to Natcha. This bold march of Corbineau's was creditable to him and most fortunate for the army, for the Emperor, seeing that it was physically impossible to restore the bridge at Borisoff, decided after consultation with him to cross the Beresina at Studzianka. Seeing, however, that Tchichagoff, having heard of Corbineau's passage at that point, had posted a strong division with plenty of artillery opposite Studzianka, Napoleon deceived the enemy by an artifice which, though it is pretty old, seldom fails. He pretended to have no design on Studzianka, but to be intending to make use of two other fords situated below Borisoff, the less unfavourable of which is by the village of Ukoloda. To this end one of the battalions which still had its arms was marched towards that spot, followed by many thousands of stragglers, whom the enemy were to take for a strong infantry division. The rear of the column was brought up by many wagons, some guns, and the cuirassier division. On reaching Ukoloda these troops began to do whatever was necessary to give the impression that they were constructing a bridge. Tchichagoff got warning of these preparations, and, nothing doubting but that Napoleon's plan was to cross the river at this point and reach the neighbouring road to Minsk, not only hastened to send all the garrison of Borisoff by the right bank to the point opposite Ukoloda, but by an extraordinary piece of blundering, not having sufficient forces to guard the river both up and down at the same time, he also made all the troops which he had posted the day before above Borisoff, between Zembin and the Beresina, descend towards Ukoloda. Now, it is exactly opposite Zembin that the village of Veselovo, to which the hamlet of Studzianka belongs, is situated. Thus the enemy abandoned the point at which the Emperor wished to throw his bridge across, and hurried off uselessly to defend a ford six leagues below that of which we were going to make use.

Besides this blunder of massing his whole army below the town of Borisoff, Tchichagoff committed another which any sergeant would have avoided, and for which his Government never forgave him. Zembin is built on a broad marsh crossed by the road to Wilna. In the causeway which carries this road there are twenty-two wooden bridges, which the Russian general might have reduced to ashes in a moment, seeing that they are surrounded by a great many stacks of dry rushes. Had Tchichagoff taken this wise precaution, the French army must have been irrevocably lost. To cross the river would have done it no good, since it would have been stopped by the deep marsh which surrounds Zembin. But, as I have said, the Russian general left these bridges intact and went down the Beresina with all his people, leaving only some fifty Cossacks in front of Veselovo.

While the Russians were deceived by Napoleon's demonstration into abandoning the real point of attack, Napoleon was giving his orders. Marshal Oudinot was to take his corps in the night to Studzianka to allow of the construction of two bridges there, and then to cross to the right bank and form between Zembin and the river. Victor was to start from Natcha, and, forming the rear-guard, to drive all stragglers in front of him, try to defend Borisoff for a few hours, and then make for Studzianka and cross the bridges. Such were the Emperor's orders, but events prevented them from being accurately carried out.

On the evening of the 25th Corbineau's division marched towards Stuazianka, passing up the left bank of the Beresina. Castex's brigade and a few light battalions followed, and then the bulk of the 2nd corps. We were sorry to leave Borisoff, where we had passed two pleasant days. It might seem that we had a presentiment of the troubles in store for us.

At daybreak on the 26th we were at Studzianka. No preparations for defence were to be seen on the further bank, so that if the Emperor had kept the pontoons which he had burnt a few days before, the army might have crossed the Beresina on the spot. That river, which has been imaginatively described as of enormous width, is at most as wide as the Rue Royale at Paris, opposite the Ministry of Marine. As for its depth, it will be enough to say that the three cavalry regiments of Corbineau's brigade had forded it without any mishap three days before, and did so again. Their horses either never lost the bottom or had at most to swim two or three fathoms. At that moment the passage could be made by cavalry wagons or artillery, with slight inconvenience, the chief being that troopers and drivers had the water up to their knees, which was quite bearable, as the cold was, unfortunately, not enough to freeze the river, and there was little ice even floating down; a few degrees lower would have been all the better for us. The second inconvenience was also a result of the absence of severe cold; for the swampy meadow on the further bank was so muddy that saddle-horses could only cross it with difficulty, while wagons went in up to the axletrees.

Esprit de corps is no doubt highly praiseworthy, but one should be able to hold it in check or forget it in difficult circumstances. This was more than the artillery and engineer commanders could do at the Beresina. Each of these corps claimed the sole right to build the bridges, with the result that they got in each other's way, and no progress had been made when the Emperor arrived about noon on the 26th. He settled the difficulty by ordering that each should build one bridge. Beams and laths were at once torn from the hovels in the village, and sappers and gunners fell to work. Then those brave men gave a proof of devotion, for which credit enough has not been given them. They leapt into the cold water of the Beresina and worked there for six or seven hours, though there was not a drop of spirits to give them, and they had no bed to look forward to for the following night, but a field covered with snow. They nearly all died when the great frost came.

While the construction of the bridges was going on, and my regiment with all the 2nd corps was on the left bank awaiting the order to cross the river, the Emperor was striding about, accompanied by Murat, going from one regiment to another, and talking to men as well as officers.

Murat, the brave and dashing soldier, who had performed such fine feats of arms when the French were marching victoriously on Moscow, had been, as it were, under an eclipse ever since they had left that town, and during this time had taken no part in any fighting. Men saw him following the Emperor about in silence, as though a stranger to all that was going on. When, however, he came in sight of the Beresina, and the only hope which had maintained their discipline, and now formed the last hope of safety, he seemed to awake from his torpor. Being very fond of the cavalry, and seeing that, of all the squadrons which had crossed the Niemen, those of Oudinot's corps alone remained, he diverted the Emperor's steps towards them. Napoleon was in ecstasies at the fine condition of the troops in general, and of my regiment in particular, for it was indeed stronger than many brigades. In fact, I still had more than 500 men mounted, while the other colonels of the army corps had, none of them, more than 200. I received, therefore, most flattering congratulations from the Emperor, in which my officers and men shared largely. It was just then that I had the joy of seeing John DuPont, my brother's servant, whose devotion, courage, and fidelity were above all proof. Left alone, after his master had been taken prisoner early in the campaign, John followed the 16th Chasseurs to Moscow, and accompanied the retreat, always tending and feeding my brother's three horses. Nor would he sell one of them, in spite of the most tempting offers. The good lad came to rejoin me after five months of fatigue and misery, bringing all my brother's property; but, as he showed it to me, he said, with tears in his eyes, that, having worn out his boots and finding himself reduced to walking barefoot on the ice, he had made free to take a pair of his master's boots. I kept this good man in my service, and found him very useful a little later, when I was again wounded in the worst days of the retreat.

But to return to the passage of the Beresina. Not only did all our horses cross the river easily, but the canteen-men got over with their light carts, which made me think that it might be possible to unharness some of the numerous wagons which followed the army, and fixing them in the river one behind another to form in this way footways for the infantry. This would greatly facilitate the flow of the masses of isolated men who would next day be passing about the entrance of the bridges. This idea seemed to me so happy that, wet to the waist as I was, I recrossed the ford to communicate it to the generals of the Emperor's staff. They thought my plan a good one, but no one stirred to speak of it to the Emperor. Finally, General Lauriston said to me: 'I entrust to you the task of making this footbridge, the utility of which you have so well explained.' To this I replied that, as I had at my disposal neither sappers, nor infantrymen, nor tools, nor stakes, nor ropes, and as further I was unable to leave my regiment, which was on the right bank, and might be attacked at any moment, I confined myself to offering what I thought a good piece of advice, and would return to my post. With that I went into the water again and rejoined the 23rd. Meanwhile the engineers and artillery had at length finished the two trestle bridges, and Oudinot's infantry and artillery were sent across. On reaching the right bank they went and bivouacked in a great wood half a league off, beyond Zavniski, where the cavalry were ordered to join them. Thus we could watch Stakovo and Dominki, where the main road from Minsk comes in. By this Tchichagoff had taken all his troops towards the lower Beresina, and by this he must perforce come back when he heard that we had crossed the river near Zembin.

On the evening of the 27th the Emperor with his guard crossed the river and established himself at Zavniski. The enemy had not yet shown. Much has been said of the disasters which took place at the Beresina; but what has never yet been said is, that the greater part of them might have been saved if the headquarters staff had understood its duties better, and taken advantage of the night of the 27th to get all the baggage and, still more, the thousands of stragglers who next day blocked the way across the bridges. After settling my regiment in its bivouac at Zavniski, I noticed the absence of a packhorse which carried our regimental cash-box and account-books, and therefore could not be allowed to run the risks of the ford. I thought, therefore, that his driver and the troopers who escorted him had waited till the bridges were finished. This they had been for some hours, and yet the men did not appear. Then, being anxious about them as well as about the important property which was entrusted to them, I thought I would go myself and assist them to cross, for I supposed that there was a block on the bridges. I galloped off, therefore, and what was my surprise to find them completely deserted. At that moment no one was crossing, while a hundred paces away I could see by the bright moonlight more than 50,000 stragglers and soldiers separated from their regiments— rôtisseurs as they were called. These men, sitting calmly in front of enormous fires, were grilling horseflesh without a notion that they had in front of them a river, the passage of which would cost many of them their lives on the next day while they could at the present time cross it without hindrance in a few minutes, and finish preparing their supper on the other bank. Not one officer of the imperial household, not one aide-de-camp, not a single marshal, was there to warn those poor wretches, and, if necessary, to drive them to the bridges. It was in this disorderly camp that I saw for the first time soldiers returning from Moscow; it was a heartbreaking sight. All ranks were confounded; there were no arms, no military bearings; soldiers, officers, even generals were clad in rags, and for boots had nothing but strips of leather or cloth hardly fastened together with string—a huge rabble, in which thousands of men of different nations were jumbled, shouting in every language of the continent of Europe, and unable to understand each other. Yet if in Oudinot's corps or in the guard some of the battalions had been selected which still kept their discipline, they might easily have driven the mass across the bridges. I myself, when returning to Zavniski, having only a few orderlies with me, succeeded, partly by persuasion, partly by force, in making 2,000 or 3,000 of the poor wretches cross to the right bank; but other duties called me, and I had to rejoin my regiment. As I passed by the headquarters staff and Oudinot's staff I called attention to the empty state of the bridges, and the ease with which the unarmed men could be brought across at a moment when the enemy was not trying to do anything. But it was in vain; I only received evasive answers, and each man left the task of directing the operation to his colleagues. 2

On returning to the bivouac of my regiment I was agreeably surprised to find the corporal and eight troopers who had had charge of our herd during the campaign. These good fellows were in despair because the mob of rôtisseurs had thrown themselves on our cattle, cut them up, and eaten them under their very eyes, without their being able to hinder it. The regiment consoled itself for the loss, for each trooper had taken twenty-five days' provisions at Borisoff. The zeal of my adjutant having urged him to return to the other side of the bridges to try and discover the guardians of our account- books, that brave soldier went astray in the crowd, could not recross the river, and was made prisoner in the tumult of the following day. It was two years before I saw him again.