ON the next day, October 29, we were at Ghjat. The cold was already intense. The despatches, which were now more frequent as we were going to meet them, had again been interrupted; since the previous day enemy parties had appeared on our line of communications. The latest despatches from Paris were dated in September. At Borowsk we had begun to feel the cold. Only the surface of the ground was frozen. The weather was fine, and the nights were quite endurable in the open if one had a fire. Here at Ghjat the winter was already more noticeable. Since leaving Wereia, I had taken to travelling on foot. I made the daily marches of the army and found it beneficial, for I did not suffer from the cold and felt no indisposition during our long retreat.
At Ghjat we found the remnant of a consignment sent from France for the Emperor’s household in the charge of two footmen. Part of the consignment had been pillaged by the Cossacks. Having no means of transport for these supplies, we distributed them all round, and there was abundance at headquarters. Clos-Vougeot and Chambertin were the common drink. We stored up strength and a sense of well-being against the days of real privation just ahead of us. Everyone still had a few provisions. There was a small ration of biscuit. The men endured the long marches well, in spite of the cold nights and several bad patches of ground which a brief thaw had made very rough going. It was otherwise with the horses. All but the strongest died. The reserve horses were harnessed up; and as there were no longer enough of them, we were already beginning to abandon some of the vehicles.
So far the Cossacks following our rear-guard gave very little trouble. The state of the cavalry and the speed of our march prevented us from sending out scouting parties—hence we had no news of the enemy. However, as there were no Cossacks alongside our route, the raiding parties from the head of the column went out and returned, seeing only a few peasants who fled at our approach. This easy foraging had one great disadvantage, in that the sense of security thus created increased the number of stragglers. Since there was no food without raids, everyone wanted to raid. The raiders and stragglers of the rear-guard were not so fortunate. The enemy captured a good number of them every day. Satisfied no doubt with this accomplishment, they seldom ventured within range of our muskets.
On the thirtieth, we made Weliczewo our headquarters for the night. This fine manor, however, had not a single rafter left, and we had difficulty in collecting enough material from the wreckage to patch up one room for the Emperor and one for the chief-of-staff. The billiard-table was the only piece of furniture still intact. Here we received the delayed despatches.
On the following day, the thirty-first, the headquarters and the Guard were stationed at Wiasma, where we stayed through the first of November. The Emperor did not even make a guess at Kutusof’s march; and Kutusof left us very quiet. The weather was fine. The Emperor repeated more than once that the Russian autumn was like the autumns at Fontainebleau; and judging what the weather would be like in ten days’ or a fortnight’s time by what it was on that particular day, he said to the Prince of Neuchâtel that this was just the weather one had at Fontainebleau around St. Hubert’s day, and that the stories people told about the Russian winter would only scare children.
On the second we halted at Samlowo; on the third at Slawkowo, where we had the first snow. It was the general opinion that the security of our flanks during the preceding few days—the enemy having barely kept up with our rear-guard-was only a ruse to foster confidence and to bring about, somewhere near Borodino, another skirmish on the lines of Woronovo. But Kutusof’s weak pursuit was actually due, as we afterwards discovered, to his uncertainty regarding our movements. He did not know definitely until the twenty-seventh that our march against him had been only the prelude to a retreat. On the twenty-eighth he directed Miloradovitch, to whom he attached a strong body of infantry and cavalry, to attack us and cut off our rearward divisions before we reached Wiasma.
The Emperor learned of this attack on the third, at Slawkowo. He learnt that the Viceroy, Prince Poniatowski, and Elchingen had had to support Eckmühl ... who commanded the rear-guard, and whose progress was slowed up and hindered by the large number of stragglers whom hunger and sickness already had separated from their units. He was still a good distance from Wiasma when the Russian infantry appeared. Not having a strong force, the marshal had to hasten his march. Meanwhile Marshal Ney was encamped before Wiasma. The Viceroy and Prince Poniatowski had known since the previous day that the enemy was closing in on the Prince of Eckmühl, and had consequently slackened their advance. They also took up their position before Wiasma in order to await him.
The Cossacks swarmed over the countryside, and constantly cut off communications between our corps, however close they were to each other. The fight went to our advantage, once we were in battle order; but it was unfortunate that the Emperor, not expecting this renewed activity on the part of Kutusof, and thinking that the Russian general would try to get ahead of us rather than harass us, was at Slawkowo on that day—and the Guard with him. As nobody held supreme command, there was no unity in the dispositions made. Our men fought bravely for six hours, but solely on the defensive. The enemy were thus made to pay dearly for their daring attempt, and lost a great number of men; and for this they achieved nothing except that they inflicted severe damage on the First Corps, in which some disorder was shown when it passed ahead of the Viceroy’s army. This disorder was still greater at the crossing of the bridge [over the Wiasma].
Until then—as long, that is, as it had to withstand alone the attacks of the enemy—the First Corps had maintained its honour and reputation, although it was fiercely attacked and its formation broken by the artillery. This momentary disorder was conspicuous because it was the first time that these gallant infantry broke their ranks and compelled their dogged commander to give ground. I have related these painful details because from this incident must be dated our disorganization and misfortunes. The First Corps, which on taking the field was the largest and finest, a rival to the Guard, was thenceforward the hardest hit; and the evil spread. Poniatowski, the Viceroy, and Ney all fought as in the days of our success.
The Emperor had to give the command of the rear-guard to Marshal Ney, whose energy and courage increased with his dangers and difficulties. The Emperor busied himself drawing up a body of instructions on the manner in which the retreat should be conducted. This, he thought, would put right all the troubles of which we complained, arising from the attacks of the Cossacks. He likened them to the Arabs, and directed that we should march, as in Egypt, with the baggage in the centre, a half-battalion at the front and the rear, and battalions in file on the flanks. In this way we should be able to direct our fire, in case of need, on all sides, like a square. The units could march, he said, at a short distance from each other, with artillery between them. He talked a great deal about these dispositions, which he regarded as a sure safeguard for the army, flattering himself that he would be able to take up a position at Smolensk.
The danger, however, was not in the attacks of the Cossacks, which our soldiers, when in platoons, never feared and had always repulsed when they were so minded. The danger lay in hunger, in the lack of provisions, and in the absence of any organized service of supply, which led to the disorganization of all the units—an inevitable consequence of the speed of the march and the devastation over this line of country. It would have been necessary to limit the march to three or four leagues a day, measured along the route, in order to cover as much ground again in collecting food on our flanks. In this way the soldiers would have followed the flag, and would nearly all have been saved. The enemy, however, would have gained the lead, or else overtaken us and attacked us from all quarters: and to obviate this danger, it was held, the other disadvantages had to be endured.
The Emperor, thinking that this attack by the Russians was a general movement of their whole army, decided to halt. By massing his troops near Slawkowo he hoped to have a good opportunity of falling unexpectedly upon the enemy, who thought they were only following up a rear-guard, and so of making them regret their rash pursuit. But, in consequence of the disorder of the First Corps, Ney made so discouraging a report on the events of the day before that any man but the Emperor would have abandoned this idea of a surprise attack. Ney announced that he was occupying the narrow passage of a wood behind Wiasma, but that, on account of the withdrawal of the First and Fourth Corps, he would have to continue his retreating movement before dawn in order not to risk the loss of his troops. He added that the behaviour of the First Corps on the previous day had set a bad example to all the troops, and had had a dangerous effect on them.
This report, however, which arrived in the middle of the morning, did not change the Emperor’s dispositions. He still believed that all the Russian army was massed together, and that a lively and sudden attack on this cumbersome body of troops would have a glorious result. He stayed at Slawkowo, hoping for a thorough revenge, throughout the fourth. The enemy, however, attempted nothing. Ney’s discouraging reports followed one upon another; and so did the arrival of the various corps, who threw each other into confusion. On the fifth the Emperor had to resume his march. Junot led off, followed by the Young Guard and the Second and Fourth Cavalry; then the Old Guard, Poniatowski, Eugène, and Davout, whose corps was disintegrated. Ney conducted the rear-guard with a vigour worthy of his courage, and infused his own energy into all around him.
On the fifth, we spent the night at Dorogobouje. The despatches continued to arrive regularly. The weather, which had been milder for thirty-six hours before, became suddenly colder. There was no news of the enemy. Was Kutusof following behind? Or was he ahead of us? This uncertainty added further to the Emperor’s difficulties and anxieties. On the sixth, headquarters were at Mikhaïlewska. It was a day of bad news. The Emperor was first much concerned about the details he had learned of the retreat of his troops on the Dwina, which occurred just when he most needed their success. Then he was greatly perturbed by the first news he received of Malet’s conspiracy.
Malet, a former general, who was held prisoner in a private asylum, had formed the scheme of starting a republican revolution by means of a forged decree of the Senate and an engineered rumour of the Emperor’s death. On the evening of October 22 Malet escaped; and he gained such influence over certain public officials and over the troops of the Paris garrison that he succeeded in paralyzing the government from midnight until nine in the morning. During this time he placed the Minister [Savary, Duke of Rovigo] and the Prefect of Police [Pasquier] under arrest, and seriously wounded General Hulin, Commandant of Paris.
This conspiracy was foredoomed to failure; at the same time that the Emperor learned of it he learned also that all the conspirators had been arrested and brought to trial. Nevertheless the daring of the attempt, carried out at the very seat of government, made a remarkable impression on him. He was not reassured as to its consequences, nor convinced that the government held all the guilty parties and all the threads of the affair in their hands, until three or four more despatches had come in. There were no private letters of that date, and so we knew of the affair only from the Emperor, who spoke of it as insignificant, the action of a madman. On that particular day he discussed it intimately with none but the Prince of Neuchâtel; and in that discussion he did not spare the Minister of Police. He was of the opinion that this incident, a lunatic’s undertaking, had few if any ramifications.
Malet had put his scheme into action on the night of October 22-23 by forging orders to the Prefect of Police, the troops, and the warders of the gaols where the men were held whom he made his tools—Generals Lahorie and Guidal. According to the minister, these men, who were themselves deceived by the conspiracy at first, went to the barracks; and the Prefect of the Seine [Frochot] was foolish enough to prepare a council chamber for the new government. Colonels Soulier and Rabbe and a few other officers had been imposed upon in their turn, and had brought out their troops, thus making it possible to arrest the Minister and the Prefect of Police. The former had been taken in his bed ... while ... Malet went to the quarters of the Commandant, General Hulin, who offered resistance and had his jaw shattered by a pistol-shot. However, Colonel Laborde and certain other officers, recovering from their first surprise and seeing how few the conspirators were, put themselves at the head of some troops and released the Minister of Police and the Prefect from confinement. From that moment the government regained the control it ought never to have lost, and the three conspirators were arrested. At Paris the incident was hardly noticed. By ten o’clock in the morning order was everywhere restored.
According to the reports made to the Emperor, the conduct of the Prefect of the Seine, M. Frochot, was blameworthy, and later information confirmed this opinion.
The Minister for War took a different view of this conspiracy from the Minister of Police.
“Clarke,” the Emperor remarked, “is convinced that this is a wide-spread conspiracy, and that it has other and more important leaders. Savary says the opposite. At first, the rumour of my death made everyone lose his head. The Minister for War, who parades his devotion to me, did not stop to put on his boots before running to the barracks to take the oath to the King of Rome and get Savary out of prison. Only Hulin showed any courage, and only Laborde any presence of mind. The behaviour of the prefect and the colonels is beyond understanding. What reliance,” he added bitterly, “can one put on men whose early training does not confirm them in principles of honour and loyalty? I am disgusted at the feebleness and ingratitude of the prefect, and of the colonel of the Paris regiment, one of my old soldiers, whose fortune I have made.”
These early particulars made the Emperor eager for the next despatch, to discover the result of the enquiries they were conducting.
“This revolt,” he said, “cannot be the work of one man.”
On the way to Pnevo [November 7] he was repeatedly asking me if I couldn’t see the courier. The details that came in confirmed what the Duke of Rovigo had reported. General Clarke, however, continued to see behind this incident a widespread conspiracy; and it was his reports that occupied the Emperor’s mind. The behaviour of those involved in the affair so exasperated him that he talked of it continually.
“Rabbe is a fool,” he said to me. “A mess of print with a seal on it would take him in. But Frochot is a man of brains and quick intelligence. How was he tricked and dragged into it? He’s an old Jacobin. The Republic must have tempted him again. He is used to revolutions—I don’t suppose this one surprised him any more than the ten he’s seen already. My death may have seemed quite probable to him; and he would consider how to keep his post before he thought of his duty. He must have taken twenty oaths of allegiance; and he forgot the one that bound him to my dynasty as he forgot the others. But to be the chief magistrate of Paris, and yet prepare a council chamber for the conspirators, without protest, in the Hotel de Ville, in his own official quarters—not make a single enquiry, not take a single opposing step, not even make a gesture to uphold the authority of his lawful sovereign—he must be in the plot! Such credulity would be incredible in a man like Frochot. Cambacérès and Savary made a great mistake in not having him arrested. He is more of a traitor than Malet. Malet was always hatching plots; I have pardoned him four times already. With him, plotting is a vocation; my mercy weighed on him; he is a madman.44
“But Frochot—he sits on the Council of State, he is chief ad-ministrator of the principal Department of France, he is a man on whom I have loaded honours. In him such baseness and treachery are revolting! He did not have to fear starvation if he lost his post. Now he has lost his honour. Does he value that less than his post? Even if Malet had made him prime minister, it wouldn’t have saved him from the disgrace of having betrayed his duty and his benefactor. I know that one cannot always rely on men who turn the profession of arms into a trade, a speculation, and will serve any man at all who pays them with office for the dangers they run; but this man is a leading magistrate, a man with a position, a man with children to whom he should be a model of that loyalty to one’s sovereign which is the first duty of all! I cannot believe in such baseness.”
Plainly, the Emperor was cut to the heart.
“The French are like women,” he added. “You must not stay away from them too long. It’s a fact; you can’t tell what schemers may get to them, or what may happen, if they go too long without news of me. Yet go too long they will if the Russians have any common sense.”
Judging by other remarks that the Emperor made to me (and by what he said to Duroc and Berthier, who repeated it to me), he had revised his opinion about the Minister of Police, and understood, perhaps better than it was understood in Paris, how Rovigo came to be surprised and carried off even though the conspiracy had been conceived and executed only by Malet. Clarke continued to suspect the existence of conspirators in all ranks; and the name of Frochot, now compromised, gave some weight in the Emperor’s mind to this opinion also.
The Prince of Parma [Cambacérès] and the Duke of Rovigo were fortunately of the opposite opinion. The latter continued to represent Lahorie as a dupe, who knew nothing of the affair until they came to fetch him from prison. The reports of the Prefect of Police, and of several others, were to the same effect.
Although all the guilty were brought to trial and the affair was ended, the example of daring given by Malet and the behaviour of the Prefect of the Seine gave the Emperor much matter for reflection. He was particularly concerned about the inevitable effect of the incident in Europe. The demonstrable possibility of such an attempt, even though its outcome had also shown that it could not succeed, seemed to him in itself a serious blow to his authority, a source of trouble and further attempts on the part of a few hotheads in English pay. At Paris, he would have forgotten the matter in a day; at six hundred leagues’ distance, and at a moment when the world might be for some time without news of him or of the army, the affair was bound to cause anxiety. Other intriguers might be tempted when they saw what one man, his plans laid in the solitude of his prison, could achieve within a quarter of an hour of leaving it, with no help but a false rumour, and in the heart of the capital, under a stable government and an alert administration. Such were the thoughts which crowded upon the Emperor’s mind, and upon ours; and our circumstances were bound to give them added importance.
The news of grave events which arrived to beset the Emperor at Mikhaïlewska have interrupted my account of the military dispositions which he ordered. He had directed the Duke of Belluno to recapture Polotsk, and had announced his own intention of taking up a position at Smolensk. On the sixth the Emperor, as part of this plan, had moved Eugène off the route and sent him towards Dukhovtchina, so that he should later find himself in line; but Platow was following Prince Eugène, and Kutusof, as we learned at Smolensk, was marching parallel with us, by Ermakova, towards Yelnia. For several days the Emperor had discussed his plan of going into quarters at Smolensk; but on that day he announced openly that the army would do so at Witepsk and Orcha.
On the seventh, we were at Pnewo. The cold was becoming more and more intense, but everyone thought we were coming to the end of want, and so to the end of our worst misfortunes, when we reached the stores of Smolensk and the quarters that the Emperor promised. Every face looked brighter. The sight of a consignment of provisions on its way from Smolensk to Ney’s rear-guard reminded us of happier days and happier outlooks; it lifted the hearts of the most discouraged. Everyone believed there was plenty at Smolensk, and that we were making harbour. The Emperor most of all flattered himself with this idea, and spoke of it several times. He already imagined his army in line.
The cold had been severe, and continued so, but the weather was clear and the sun shone. Yet all the way from Mikhaïlewska the sight of the road was made horrible by the bodies of the wounded who had been sent back, numbers of whom were found dead of cold or hunger, or abandoned by those charged with moving them. The road was also covered with stragglers, though on this day there was less disorder. Some of the soldiers rallied round their flags so as to share in the anticipated distributions of rations. The Emperor observed this, and it gave him a momentary consolation. Late in the day the weather became damper and it looked like a thaw, which made the way harder for the artillery and the transports. Luckily the frost set in again; for they would all have been bogged if the road had broken up. Meanwhile the Viceroy, marching towards Witepsk, was close pressed by Platow and his horde of Cossacks.
On the eighth, headquarters were at Beredikino. For a moment the Emperor thought of pushing forward as far as Smolensk himself; but the surface of the snow had been first melted in the thaw and then frozen when the frost set in again, and this made the road impracticable, particularly in the dark. The fear that by leaving he might draw swarms of stragglers after him, and so cause disorder in the night at Smolensk, made the Emperor decide to wait till the following day; and in this he was well-advised, for even those on foot were hard put to it to hold the road.
Nearly everybody travelled on foot. The Emperor followed the march of the Guard in his carriage, accompanied by the Prince of Neuchatel; but he got down two or three times a day and went on foot for a while, leaning sometimes on the Prince’s arm, sometimes on mine, sometimes on one of his aides-de-camp. The road and the strips beside it were covered with the bodies of wounded men who had died of cold and hunger and want. No field of battle ever bore so fearful an aspect. Yet, as I say, in spite of our misfortunes and these scenes of horror, the sight of the spires of Smolensk, showing through clear weather and lit with sunlight, had put heart even into those most weighed down with misery.
It was on the ninth, about noon, that we came once more within sight of Smolensk. The Emperor, who had already arranged in advance the dispositions of troops which the circumstances demanded, busied himself with the distribution of rations that was to be made to the army. Unfortunately the state of the stores bore no relation to his hopes or to the general need; but so few men had rejoined their units that we were able to satisfy all who had done so. That was what really mattered, for these brave men deserved every encouragement. Their number, alas, was not very great. The Governor [General Charpentier], who had known of our retreat only five days before, had done all he could to bake for the rear-guard and supply their other needs; and everything had been sent to them as fast as it was made up.... He had few bakers, and the rapid movement of the army had prevented his executives (who in any case existed virtually in name alone) from making arrangements for baking in advance; thus we could not take full advantage even of such resources as the town could have furnished. Everyone thought of his own safety; and to march as quickly as possible seemed the great secret of escaping danger. Many officers, even those of high rank, quite destitute, set an example in this general rout, and, leaving their units, ran by themselves to the head of the column to get something to eat.
Our arrival and stay at Smolensk were notable for the fresh disasters which befell the Emperor and the army. For one may justly call disastrous an affair which, in addition to exposing our flank, deprived us of the reinforcements of fresh troops which should have restored the morale of our men and have checked an enemy as exhausted as ourselves. The Emperor must have been counting on Baraguey d’Hilliers’s corps, which, come fresh from France, he had ordered to take up a position on the road to Yelnia. But the advance-guard of this army occupied a weak position at Ljachewo, under the command of General Augereau, who had made a bad survey of his ground and a worse disposition of his troops. He was surrounded [on November 9], attacked, and taken prisoner. Seeing that he had put out no guards, the enemy, who had had him under observation and were also kept informed by the peasantry, took advantage of this omission; and General Augereau, with more than two thousand men, surrendered to an advance-guard of the Russians, of which he should have taken more than half as prisoners if only he had remembered the name he bore.
This reverse was a disaster on more counts than one. Not only did it rob us of a needed reinforcement of fresh troops, and of the stores collected at that point, which would have been very valuable to us; but it also encouraged the enemy, who, despite our misfortunes and the privations our exhausted men had suffered since leaving Moscow, were not accustomed to such successes. The officers who had been on the spot spoke very bitterly of the affair and made no excuse for the generals. As for the Emperor, he laid upon this incident the responsibility for the continued retreat which he perceived was necessary, and for the abandoning of Smolensk, where, until a few days or perhaps even a few moments before, he had hoped to establish the main base of his advance-guard while he was in winter quarters.
From that moment he realized the impossibility of going into quarters at Witepsk and Orcha, as he spoke of doing up to forty-eight hours before. He learned also that the rear-guard under Marshal Ney had been hotly engaged by the Cossacks before Dorogobouje. Everything seemed to fall upon the Emperor at once, as though to crush him, during his halt at Smolensk. As the incidents I have just mentioned forbade his carrying out the plan of going into quarters there, he had to recall the Viceroy.
He did everything possible to reorganize the different units without delaying the march of the army as a whole. Many rations were distributed, and steps were taken for further distributions at Orcha and the other places which the Emperor thought were better stocked with provisions. He also busied himself with removing the little there was in the arsenal, as though the army had not already more equipment than the teams could draw, and as though these trophies, as he called whatever we abandoned, if they were left at Smolensk, would have more value for the enemy than what we strewed every day along the roads. Clinging still to the idea that he was going into quarters, the Emperor could not or would not show a trace of foresight. There is no doubt that we should have preserved much more undamaged if we had made the necessary sacrifices in time. But to two or three unfortunate horses we allotted guns and waggons that needed six; and by not abandoning one or two guns and waggons at the proper time, we lost four or five a few days later. We planned for the day only; and because we refused, as the saying is, to give the devil his due, we paid heavily in the end to the enemy.
It seemed as if the Emperor were expecting some miracle to alter the climate and end the ruin that was descending on us from every side. He gave his whole attention to the Guard, whom he hoped to save from the general disaster because they were still holding together. One of the generals commanding the artillery of this corps made so bold one day as to suggest the sacrifice of a few guns, in order not to exhaust the teams, already overdriven and reduced below the number needed. But he was not listened to. The generals and officers saw how desperate the situation was, but, just because they could see no way out of it, they did nothing to preserve for a few days longer what they knew must in a few more days be lost. Speaking generally, they were so tired of war, craved so much for rest, for the sight of a less hostile country, for an end to these far-flung expeditions, that most of them let themselves be blinded as to the present fruits and future consequences of our disasters, which—so they thought—would prove a useful lesson to the Emperor, and one that would cool his ambition.
This was the common view. One can imagine the effect of that temper upon the unavoidable difficulties of our predicament, and can judge how our troubles were increased by the general unwillingness to cope with them. One would have thought from the way many officers conducted themselves that la leçon, as they called it, could not be too severe. No one, seeing them so callous, would ever have guessed that the Emperor was learning his lesson at the price of Frenchmen’s blood. The Emperor could see our sorry plight; he was living and marching in the midst of disorder and desolation; therefore even the most public-spirited held themselves excused from reasoning with him, or indeed from admitting that disaster was upon us.
Alas, the Emperor deluded himself; and our ruin followed on his misfortune. The leaders saw safety for the future in the very extremity of our reverses: the Emperor saw those reverses much smaller than they were. He still actually believed that he was coming to the end of his losses, that he would be able to halt and reorganize the army. This is amply proved by his fatal insistence that everything should be brought away and everything preserved, which only resulted in everything being lost. Fortune had so long showered him with favours that he could not believe she had now deserted him.
During this time I was employed night and day in reorganizing the Emperor’s carriages. I had sent ahead orders for the forging of shoes with three calkins for all the horses. By means of a heavy payment I was even able to employ the workmen of the arsenal on this work during the night. By day they were working for the artillery. I stocked the carriages with all the provisions I could obtain for ready money. I had a great number of carts and carriages burnt—a measure I had been gradually carrying out for the last ten days, as the horses died off. In this way I spared the reserves. The Emperor found it very hard to consent to this; and seeing his reluctance, I no longer told him anything. I took everything upon myself, and I preserved only one carriage over and above the transports for food and wounded ... only the carriage which carried MM. Beauvau, Mailly and Bausset. This last-named had the gout. I had set the example; everyone abandoned his lame or exhausted horses. In the end, after a stay of forty-eight hours, the carriages were lined up for the march in fairly good order.
During his stay in Smolensk the Emperor rode out each day, visiting the town and its surroundings as though he would have liked to preserve them also. He was already gravely concerned, and became more so after the Viceroy’s setback. The state in which he saw the army in its march through the town convinced him, I think, that our plight was worse than he had been willing to admit to himself. However, he still took heart by thinking that the consequences would not be so gloomy as at that time they were expected to be. He did not doubt that he would be able to put the army into quarters as soon as he had joined the Volhynia and Dwina corps. He was expecting the arrival of the Polish Cossack levies which he had announced we should find near Smolensk. Was he misled in this respect, or did he promise this reinforcement to create an illusory hope in the minds of the rest? I do not know. The fact remains, however, that in Poland they were not busying themselves overmuch about these levies. Our communications had been intercepted for several days; we had no news from France, from Wilna, or even from the Dwina corps.
These circumstances were among the Emperor’s chief cares; he showed, however, a firmness of character and an impassibility which sometimes irritated those who approached him, but were calculated to encourage those who were most downcast. All those who had money (and everyone had a certain amount) found supplies at Smolensk. Provisions had arrived there from France for the Emperor’s household, together with rice and many other foodstuffs for the army. The Emperor’s wine-merchant, who had imported into Smolensk as a speculation a great quantity of wines, brandy and spirits, sold his entire stock for its weight in gold. We had already suffered so much that even the rank and file spent all they had to procure a bottle of brandy.