On December 26, the cold got far more intense, and that day was even more fatal than the preceding, especially for the troops who had not become gradually acclimatized. Among these was Gratien's division, consisting of conscripts to the number of 12,000, which had left Wilna on the 4th and come to meet us. The abrupt change from hot barracks to a bivouac with 29½ degrees of frost caused the death of nearly all these poor fellows within forty-eight hours. Still more terrible was the effect produced on 200 Neapolitan troopers of Murat's guard. They also had stayed a long time at Wilna when they came to meet us, but the first night which they passed on the snow killed them all. Those who were left of the Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and other foreigners whom we had brought into Russia saved their lives by a means repugnant to the French: they deserted, took refuge in the villages near the road, and waited till the enemy came up. This often did not occur for several days, for, strange as it may seem, the Russian soldiers, accustomed as they are to pass the winter in houses where draughts are always excluded and stoves are always lighted, are far more sensitive to cold than those of any other country, and the heavy losses which the enemy incurred from this cause explained the slackness of the pursuit. We did not understand why Kutusoff and his generals merely followed us with a weak advance-guard, instead of hurling themselves on our flanks, overlapping us, and thus cutting off our retreat. But this manœuvre, which would have completed our ruin, was impossible for them, seeing that the greater number of their soldiers, no less than of ours, died on the roads and in the bivouacs. So intense was the cold that we could see a kind of vapour rising from men's ears and eyes. Condensing on contact with the air, this vapour fell back on our persons with a rattle such as grains of millet might have made. We had often to halt, and clear away from the horses' bits the icicles formed by their frozen breath.

Thousands of Cossacks, meanwhile, attracted by the hope of plunder, endured the inclemency of the weather, and kept alongside of our columns, having even the audacity to attack them at the points where they saw the baggage. A few shots, however, were enough to drive them away. Finally, in order to give us trouble without any danger to themselves—since we had been obliged for want of teams to leave all our artillery behind—the Cossacks placed light guns on sledges, and with these fired at our men until they saw a detachment coming in their direction, when they made off with all speed. These partial attacks, which did us, indeed, little harm, became very disagreeable by continued repetition. Many of our sick and wounded were taken and plundered by these marauders, some of whom acquired immense booty. Even from the ranks of our allies, the desire of acquiring wealth raised up new enemies for us—I refer to the Poles. Marshal Saxe, the son of one of their own kings, said rightly that the Poles are the greatest plunderers in the world, and would not respect even their fathers' goods. You may judge whether those who were in our service respected their allies' goods. On the march and in the bivouac they stole all that they could see, but as people began to distrust them, and petty larceny became difficult, they decided to go to work on a large scale. To this end they organized themselves into bands, threw away their helmets, and put on peasants' caps; and, slipping out of the bivouacs after dark, they assembled at an appointed place, and came back to the camp shouting the Cossacks' war-cry of ‘Hourra!' thus terrifying the weaker men, many of whom fled, leaving their effects behind. Then the pretended Cossacks, after pillaging all round, went off, and returned before daylight to their places in the French column, where they resumed the title of Poles, with liberty to become Cossacks again the next night. Attention having been called to this atrocious brigandage, several generals and colonels resolved to punish it. General Maison had such a good look-out kept in the bivouacs of the 2nd corps, that one fine night our outposts surprised some fifty Poles just as they were making up to play their part of sham Cossacks, and were on the point of giving their 'Hourra! ' as pillagers. Seeing themselves surrounded on all sides, the brigands had the impudence to say that they had meant to play a practical joke, but, as it was neither the place nor the time for joking, General Maison had them all shot then and there. It was some time before we saw any more robbers of that sort, but they re-appeared later on.

On December 9, we reached Wilna, where there were still some stores, but the Duke of Bassano and General Hogendorf had retired to the Niemen, and there was no one to give orders. There, as at Smolensk, the commissaries required before giving out provisions and clothing, that regular receipts should be handed to them, a thing which, in the disorganized state of all the regiments, was impossible to do, and thus precious time was lost. General Maison had several storehouses broken open, and his troops got some food and clothing, but the rest was taken the next day by the Russians. Soldiers from the other corps went about the town in the hope of being taken in by the inhabitants, but the people who, six months before, had been longing for the French closed their houses as soon as they saw them in trouble. The Jews alone received those who could pay for this fleeting hospitality. Thus repulsed alike from the stores and from private houses the great majority of the famished men made their way to the hospitals, which soon were crammed to overflowing, although there was not food enough there for all the poor people; but at least they were sheltered from the cold. Yet this precarious advantage decided more than 20,000 sick and wounded, among them 200 officers and eight generals to go no further; they were utterly exhausted in mind and body. Lieutenant Hernoux, one of the stoutest and bravest officers of my regiment, was so distracted by what he had seen in the last few days that he laid himself down on the snow, and, no persuasions being able to make him rise, died there. Many soldiers of all ranks blew out their brains to put an end to their misery.

In the night of December 9, with 30 degrees of frost, some Cossacks came and fired shots at the gates of Wilna. Many people thought that it was Kutusoff's whole army, and in their terror left the town precipitately. I regret to have to say that King Murat was among the number. He departed without leaving any orders, but Marshal Ney remained and organized the retreat as best he could. We evacuated Wilna on the morning of the 10th, leaving there a great number of men, a park of artillery, and a portion of the treasure. Scarcely were we out of Wilna when the infamous Jews threw themselves on the French, whom they had taken into their houses to get out of them what little money they had, stripped them of their clothing, and pitched them naked out of window. Some officers of the Russian advance-guard, who were entering at the moment, were so angry at this atrocity that they had many of the Jews killed. In the midst of this tumult Marshal Ney had taken all whom he could set in motion along the road to Kovno, but he had hardly gone a league when he came to the heights of Ponari. This hill, which in ordinary circumstances the column would have crossed without noticing it, became a serious obstacle since the ice had made the road so slippery that the horses were unable to drag the wagons up it. What remained of the treasure was therefore on the point of falling into to hands of the Cossacks, when Marshal Ney gave orders to have the chests opened and to let the men help themselves. This prudent step, the motive of which M. de Ségur probably did not know, led him to say that the troops plundered the Imperial treasure. In the Spectateur Militaire of the period I have also noted the following expression used by M. de Ségur: 'After the Emperor's departure, most of the colonels of the army, who had up till then gone on marching admirably with four or five officers or soldiers around their eagle, no longer took any orders save from themselves. There were men who went 200 leagues without turning their heads.' I may add that Marshal Ney, having seen the colonel and the major of a regiment which contained only sixty men fall in one fight, perceived that losses of this kind would stand in the way of reorganizing the army, and gave orders that no more field officers should be retained in presence of the enemy than were in proportion to the number of the troops.

Some days before our arrival at Wilna, many horses of my regiment having died from the intense cold, while it was impossible to mount those that remained, all my troopers marched on foot. I should have been very glad to be able to do the like, but as my wound did not allow of this I got a sledge and harnessed one of my horses to it. This gave me the idea that I might by the same means save my sick, who now were numerous, and as in Russia a sledge can be found in the poorest house, I soon had a hundred, each of which, drawn by a troop horse, brought away two men. General Castex thought this manner of travailing so convenient that he authorized me to put all the other troopers in sledges. Major Monginot, who had become colonel of the 24th Chasseurs since M. A —— had been promoted to general, received the same permission, and all that remained of our brigade harnessed its horses and formed a caravan which marched in perfect order. You may think that by travelling thus we destroyed our power for defence, but you must know that on the ice we were much stronger with the sledges which could go anywhere, and in which the horses had the support of shafts—than if we had remained mounted on animals which tumbled down at every step.

The road was covered with muskets which had been thrown away, and our troopers took two apiece and a plentiful stock of cartridges, so that when the Cossacks ventured too near they were met by a brisk fire which quickly drove them off. When necessary, our men fought on foot; and in the evening we formed the sledges into a square, and lit our fires inside it. Marshal Ney and General Maison often came to pass the night there, finding it a safe place so long as we were pursued only by Cossacks. Doubtless it was the first time that a rear-guard had gone in sledges; but owing to the frost it was the only practicable method, and it answered.

Thus we continued covering the retreat till December 13, when we at length saw once more the Niemen and Kovno, the last Russian town. Five months before we had entered the Empire of the Czar at the same spot. What a change had since then taken place in our fortunes, and what had been the loss of the French army! When the rear-guard entered Kovno, Marshal Ney found a weak battalion of 400 Germans doing duty as the only garrison. With these he joined such troops as were left to him, in order to defend the place as long as possible, and enable the sick and wounded to get away into Prussia. On hearing that Ney was coming Murat went away to Gumbinnen.

On the 14th, Platoff's Cossacks, followed by two battalions of infantry and some guns, all drawn on sledges, attacked Kovno at several points; but Ney, helped by General Gérard, beat them off and held the town till night. Then he made us cross the Niemen on the ice, and was himself to last to leave Russian soil.

We were now in Prussia, among allies. But Ney, worn out with fatigue, unwell, and, moreover, considering that the campaign was over, left us at once, and joined the other marshals at Gumbinnen. Thenceforth the army had no longer a commander, and the remains of each regiment marched independently through Prussia. The Russians, being at war with that country, had the right to follow us on to its territory; but content with having reconquered their own, and not knowing whether they should appear in Prussia as allies or as enemies, they thought it best to await orders from their Government, and halted at the Niemen. Their hesitation gave us time to reach the towns of Prussia Proper.

Germans are for the most part humane, and many of them had friends or relations in the regiments which had gone with the French to Moscow. They received us well, and I must admit that, after sleeping for five months under the stars, it was delightful to find myself in a warm room and a good bed. But this rapid transition from any icy bivouac to comforts so long forgotten made me seriously ill. Nearly all the army suffered from the same cause; and we lost many, including Generals Eblé and Lariboisière of the artillery.

For all the decent reception which they gave us, the Prussians had not forgotten Jena, and the manner in which Napoleon had treated them in 1807 when he dismembered their kingdom. They hated us in secret, and at a signal from their king would have disarmed us and made us prisoners. General York, commanding the Prussian corps which the Emperor had so imprudently employed as the left wing of the Grand Army, being in cantonments between Riga and Tilsit, was already making terms with the Russians, and had sent Marshal Macdonald away, though he had enough shame left to refrain from arresting him. All classes in Prussia applauded General York's treachery; and as the provinces through which the French soldiers were just now passing, sick and disarmed, were full of Prussian troops, it is probable that the inhabitants would have tried to get hold of us had they not been restrained by fear for their king, who was at Berlin, surrounded by a French army under Marshal Augereau. This fear and a disavowal on the part of the King—the most honourable man in his kingdom—of General York's conduct, to the point of having him tried and condemned to death for high treason, 2prevented a general rising against the French. We took advantage of its absence to get away and reach the banks of the Vistula.

My regiment crossed that river near the fortress of Grandenz, which we had passed on our way to Russia. This time the crossing was very dangerous, for, as the thaw had taken place some leagues higher up, the ice was a good foot deep in water, and ominous crackings were heard foretelling a general break-up. The order to cross instantly reached me, moreover, in the middle of a dark night; for the general had just learnt that the King of Prussia had left Berlin and fled into Silesia, that the people were getting uneasy, and there was reason to fear that they would rise against us as soon as the break-up of the ice prevented us from crossing the Vistula. It was, therefore, absolutely necessary to face the danger. This was very great, for the river is very wide opposite Grandenz, and the ice was full of wide cracks which could only be seen with difficulty by the light of fires kindled on both banks. As it was useless to think of taking our sledges across, we left them behind; and, leading the horses, and preceded by men with poles to notify the cracks, we began our perilous crossing. We were up to mid-leg in half-frozen water, which made things worse for the sick and wounded; but bodily pain was nothing to the fear caused by the cracking of the ice, which threatened every moment to give way under our feet. A servant of one of my officers fell into a hole and never re-appeared. At last we reached the other bank, where we passed the night warming ourselves in fishermen's huts. Next day we saw the Vistula thaw completely, so that if we had delayed a few hours we should all have been made prisoners.