But fresh disasters awaited him, for Marshal Kutusoff who had been following Partouneaux all the way from Borisoff with a strong force, on hearing of his surrender quickened his march and came on to join Wittgenstein and crush Victor. The latter, with his corps reduced to 10,000 men, offered a vigorous resistance. His troops, even the Germans, fought with an heroic courage all the more striking because, while attacked by two armies at once and having the Beresina in their rear, their movements were further hampered by a number of wagons driven without any order by a crowd of individuals striving in wild tumult to reach the river. Even so, Victor held Wittgenstein and Kutusoff the whole day.

During this confusion and this fighting at Studzianka the enemy, who aimed at getting possession of both ends of the bridges, were on the right bank, attacking Oudinot's corps, posted in front of Zavniski. Tchichagoff's 30,000 men issuing from Stakovo, advanced with loud shouts against the 2nd corps, which could not number more than 8,000. But as our soldiers had not come into contact with those who were returning from Moscow, and had no idea of the disorder prevailing among those poor wretches, the tone of Oudinot's corps had remained excellent, and Tchichagoff was vigorously repulsed under the Emperor's eyes. He himself arrived at the moment with 3,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry of the guard, old and young. The Russians renewed their attack and broke the Polish Legion of the Vistula. Oudinot was severely wounded, and Napoleon sent Ney to take his place. General Coudras, a good infantry officer, was killed, and the valiant General Legrand dangerously wounded. This action took place in a wood of huge firs. The enemy's artillery was thus prevented from getting a good sight of our troops, so that its volleys did not touch us; but as the shot flew over our heads they broke off branches thicker than a man's body, which killed and wounded many of our people and many horses in their fall. As the trees stood wide apart the cavalry could move among them, though with difficulty; in spite of which Ney, on seeing a strong Russian column advancing, launched what was left of our cuirassiers against them. Though executed under these unwonted conditions, that charge was one of the most brilliant I ever saw. Colonel Dubois, at the head of the 7th Cuirassiers, cut the enemy's column in two, taking 2,000 prisoners. Thus thrown into confusion, the Russians were pursued by the light cavalry, and driven back with immense loss even to Stakovo. 2

As I was re-forming my regiment after this engagement, I saw my friend M. Alfred de Noailles coming towards me. He was coming back from carrying an order for Prince Berthier, to whom he was aide-de-camp; but, instead of returning to his chief, he said as he left me that he would go as far as the first houses of Stakovo to see what the enemy were doing. His curiosity was fatal to him, for, as he drew near the village, he was surrounded by a group of Cossacks, who threw him from his horse and dragged him along by the collar, striking him as they went. I sent at once a squadron to his assistance, but my effort was fruitless, for a brisk fire from the houses prevented the troopers from entering the village, and from that day nothing was ever heard of M. de Noailles. No doubt his richly-furred uniform with its gold lace had excited the cupidity of the barbarians, and they had butchered him. His family, hearing that I was the last Frenchman to whom he had spoken, asked me for information about his disappearance, but I could give them no more than I have told here. He was an excellent officer and a good comrade.

But this digression has made me forget Tchichagoff, who, haviiig been beaten by Ney, did not venture to attack us again all that day.

Having thus explained briefly the position of the armies on the two banks of the Beresina, I must say a few words as to what was taking place upon the river while the fighting was going on. The masses of unattached men—who had had two nights and days to cross the bridges, and who, in their apathy, had not taken advantage of them because no one compelled them to do so—wanted to cross all at once as soon as Wittgenstein's cannon-balls began to drop among them. The vast multitude of men, horses, and wagons got completely clubbed at the entrance of the bridges, blocking them without being able to reach them. Many were pushed by the crowd into the Beresina, and of these nearly all were drowned. As a crowning disaster, one of the bridges broke under the weight of the guns and ammunition wagons. All then made for the other bridge, where the confusion was already so great that the strongest could not withstand the crush, and a great number were suffocated. Seeing the impossibility of crossing the encumbered bridges, many of the wagon drivers urged their horses into the stream. But this method of crossing, which would have been very useful if it a been carried out in an orderly way two days before, was fatal to almost all who attempted it, because, pushing wildly orward, they hustled and overturned each other. Still, some reached the opposite bank, but as nothing had been done to prepare a landing by sloping away the banks—as the staff ought to have done—few vehicles succeeded in getting up, and many people perished there also.

During the night of the 28th, these horrors were increased by the Russian guns playing upon the wretches who were struggling to cross the river. At nine in the evening the misery was overflowing, when Marshal Victor began his retreat, and his divisions came up to the bridge in good order, but could only reach it by forcibly pushing aside all who obstructed their passage. But let us draw a veil over these horrible scenes. At daybreak on the 29th all the vehicles remaining on the left bank were burnt; and when General Eblé saw the Russians approaching the bridge, he had that also set on fire. Some thousands of poor fellows who remained near Studzianka fell into Wittgenstein's hands. Thus ended the most terrible episode of the Russian campaign, an event which would have been far less disastrous if anyone had known how to make use of the time which the Russians allowed us after reaching the Beresina, and had chosen to do so. In that passage the army lost from 20,000 to 25,000 men.

This great obstacle passed, there still remained an immense body of unattached men who had escaped the frightful disaster. These were cleared away towards Zembin. The Emperor and his guard followed, next came the fragments of some regiments, and lastly the 2nd corps, of which Castex's brigade brought up the extreme rear. I have already said that the road to Zembin crosses a wide marsh over a great number of bridges, which Tchichagoff, when he occupied that position some days before, had omitted to burn. We did not commit a like error; for, after the army had passed, my regiment and the 24th set fire to them easily by means of the dry reeds which were stacked in the neighbourhood. When he gave orders to burn these bridges the Emperor had hoped to be freed for some time from pursuit by the Russians, but it was written that all the luck was to be against us. Thus the frost, which at this season of the year should have turned the waters of the Beresina into an easy road, when we had to cross them left them almost as fluid as usual; but hardly were we over when the cold became severe, and froze them till they were solid enough to bear the weight of guns. The same took place with regard to the marshes of Zembin, so that burning the bridges was no use to us. 3The three Russian armies which we had left behind us could betake themselves to the pursuit without any obstacle; luckily, however, they did so with little vigour. Moreover, Marshal Ney, who commanded the French rear-guard, had got together all who were fit to fight, and made frequent counter-attacks on the enemy when they ventured to approach too near.

Since Marshal Oudinot and General Legrand had been wounded, General Maison had been in command of the 2nd corps, which in spite of its heavy losses was the most numerous in the whole army, so that the task of beating off the Russians usually fell to it. We kept them at a distance during November 30th and December 1st; but on the 2nd they pressed us so close with powerful forces that some serious fighting took place, in which I received a wound that was all the more dangerous from the fact that there were that day twenty-five degrees of frost. 4I ought, perhaps, to say no more than that I received a lance wound, without entering into any details, for they are so shocking that I still shudder when I think of them; but I have promised to tell you the whole story of my life, so you shall hear what happened at the action of Pleshtchenitsi. In order to put you in a position to understand my story, I must tell you, to begin with, that a Dutch banker named Van Berghem, of whom I had been an intimate friend at the college of Sorèze, had at the beginning of the campaign sent me his only son, who, having become a Frenchman by the inclusion of his country in the Empire, had, though hardly sixteen years old, 5enlisted in the 23rd. This young man had many good qualities and much intelligence. I took him for my secretary, and he always marched fifteen paces behind me with my orderlies. On the day of which I speak he was in his place, when, as we were crossing a wide plain, the 2nd corps saw hastening towards it a large body of Russian cavalry, which in a moment overlapped it and attacked it on all sides. General Maison arranged so well that our infantry squares beat off all the charges of the Emperor's regular cavalry. As, however, they brought into action a host of Cossacks, who came insolently up, spearing the French officers in front of their troops, Marshal Ney ordered General Maison to drive them away by sending at them all that was left of the cuirassier division, as well as Corbineau's and Castex's brigades. My regiment, which was still strong, found itself in front of a ‘ pulk' of Cossacks from the Black Sea, wearing tall astrakhan caps, and much better dressed and mounted than the Cossacks usually are. We charged them, but as Cossacks never fight in line they wheeled about and galloped away. Being, however, strangers to the locality, they went in the direction of an obstacle which is very uncommon in these wide plains, and were brought to a dead stop by a deep and broad ravine, which the perfect evenness of the ground made it impossible to see from a distance. Finding it out of the question to cross with their horses, and forced to face my regiment, which was on the point of catching them, the Cossacks turned, and closing up, met us bravely with their lances. The ground was covered with ice and very slippery, so that our tired horses could not gallop without tumbling. There was, therefore, no shock, and my line reached the motionless mass of the enemy at a trot only. Our swords touched the lances, but, as these were thirteen feet or fourteen feet long, it was impossible for us to touch our adversaries, who on their side dared not back for fear of falling over the precipice, nor advance to meet our swords. We therefore watched each other, until the following scene took place in less time than it takes to tell it. In haste to get done with the enemy, I called out to my men that they must catch hold of the lances with their left hand, turn them aside, and push into the middle of the crowd, where our short weapons would give us a great advantage over their long poles. In order to be better obeyed, I thought I would set the example, and, putting some lances aside, I actually succeeded in getting within the front ranks of the enemy. My adjutants and orderlies followed me, and all the regiment presently doing the same, a general scuffle ensued. But at that moment an old white-bearded Cossack, who, being in the hinder ranks, was separated from me by other combatants, bent forward, and, pointing his lance adroitly between his comrades' horses, struck me with his sharp steel, which passed clean through below the knee-pan of my right leg. Feeling myself wounded, I was pressing forward to revenge myself on the man for the sharp pain which I experienced when I saw before me two youths of eighteen or twenty years, in a rich costume; they were the sons of the chief of the ‘pulk.' An elderly man accompanied them as mentor, having no sword in his hand, nor did the younger of the two lads use his; but the elder charged bravely, and attacked me furiously. He seemed so undeveloped and so weak that I merely disarmed him, and taking him by the arm, passed him behind me, and told Van Berghem to look after him. The next moment, however, I felt a hard object laid against my left cheek, a double report rang in my ears, and a bullet went through the collar of my cloak. Turning sharply, I saw the young Cossack officer with a brace of double-barrelled pistols in his hands. He had just fired treacherously on me from behind, and he now blew poor Van Berghem's brains out. Beside myself with rage, I dashed on the madman, who was taking aim at me with his second pistol. But as he met my eye he seemed fascinated, and cried out in good French, ‘Oh God! I see death in your eyes! I see death in your eyes!' ‘Ay, scoundrel, and you see right!' And he dropped.

Blood calls for blood. The sight of young Van Berghem stretched at my feet, and my own action, the excitement of battle, and perhaps also the frightful pain of my wound, all combined to throw me into a state of feverish agitation. I made towards the younger of the Cossack officers, caught him by the throat, and was in the act of raising my sword, when the old governor, seeking to protect his ward, bent forward over my horse's neck in such a way as to prevent me from using my arm, and cried in a tone of entreaty, ‘For your mother's sake pardon this one, who has done nothing!' On hearing him invoke that revered name, my mind, overwrought by the surroundings, was struck with hallucination: I thought I saw a well-known white hand laid upon the young mans breast, which I was on the point of piercing, and I seemed to hear my mother's voice saying ‘Pardon! pardon!' My sword point dropped, and I had the youth and his governor taken to the rear.

So great was my emotion after this incident that I could not have given any word of command if the fight had lasted much longer; but it was soon at an end. A great many Cossacks had been killed, and the rest, leaving their horses, had slid down into the ravine, where most of them perished in the snow-drifts which the wind had heaped up there. On other sides, too, the enemy were beaten off.

During the evening I questioned my prisoner and his attendant, and learnt that the two youths were the sons of a powerful chief who had lost his leg at Austerlitz, and in consequence vowed so fierce enmity to the French that, as he could fight them no longer himself, he had sent his two sons to the war. I could see that the cold and his grief would soon make an end of the junior, so I took pity on him and his old mentor, and set them at liberty. As the old man took leave of me, he said: ‘When she thinks of her elder son, these lads' mother will curse you; but when she sees the younger, she will bless you and your mother, for whose sake you spared her only remaining child.'

The vigorous repulse with which the Russian troops had met in the recent action damped their ardour, so that we saw nothing more of them for two days, and our retreat to Malodeczno was secured. But if the enemy left us a moment's peace, the frost waged bitter war with us, for the thermometer fell to 27 degrees of cold. Men and horses were dropping at every step—many never to rise again. Still I remained with the fragments of my regiment, bivouacking in their midst every night in the snow. Where, indeed, should I have been any better off? My officers and men, who looked upon their colonel as a living flag, made it a point of honour to save me, and took all the care of me that our terrible situation allowed. The wound in my knee prevented me from riding astride, so that I had to put my leg on the horse's withers and sit quite still, which made me very cold, my pain being intolerable; but what could I do?

The way was strewn with dead and dying; our march was slow and silent. The remains of the infantry of the guard formed a small square, within which went the Emperor's carriage. He had Murat beside him. On December 5th, after issuing his twenty-ninth bulletin, which threw France into a state of dismay, Napoleon left the army at Smorgony, and set out for Paris. At Ochmiany he was nearly carried off by Cossacks. His departure produced a great effect on the troops: some blamed him for deserting them; others approved the course as the sole means of saving France from civil war and an invasion by our so-called allies, most of whom were only awaiting a favourable moment to declare against us. They would not dare to stir when they heard that Napoleon had re-entered his realm, and was organizing a new army. This was the view which I shared, and events showed the justice of it.