y rather, 'Let
us watch over the safety of the Empire.'" It is difficult to imagine
anything grander.

The Emperor returned from this combat much fatigued. He had passed
several nights without sleeping, listening to the reports made to him on
the condition of the army, expediting orders necessary to procure food
for the soldiers, and putting in motion the different corps which were to
sustain the retreat. Never did his stupendous activity find more
constant employment; never did he show a higher courage than in the midst
of all these calamities of which he seemed to feel the weighty
responsibility.

Between Orcha and the Borysthenes those conveyances for which there were
no longer horses were burned, and the confusion and discouragement became
so great that in the rear of the army most of the stragglers threw down
their arms as a heavy and useless burden. The officers of the armed
police had orders to return by force those who abandoned their corps, and
often they were obliged to prick them with their swords to make them
advance. The intensity of their sufferings had hardened the heart of the
soldier, which is naturally kind and sympathizing, to such an extent that
the most unfortunate intentionally caused commotions in order that they
might seize from some better equipped companion sometimes a cloak,
sometimes food. "There are the Cossacks!" was their usual cry of alarm;
and when these guilty tricks became known, and our soldiers recovered
from their surprise, there were reprisals, and the confusion reached its
height.

The corps of Marshal Davoust was one of those which suffered most in the
whole army. Of the seventy thousand men with which it left France, there
only remained four or five thousand, and they were dying of famine. The
marshal himself was terribly emaciated. He had neither clothing nor
food. Hunger and fatigue had hollowed his cheeks, and his whole
appearance inspired pity. This brave marshal, who had twenty times
escaped Russian bullets, now saw himself dying of hunger; and when one of
his soldiers gave him a loaf, he seized it and devoured it. He was also
the one who was least silent; and while thawing his mustache, on which
the rain had frozen, he railed indignantly against the evil destiny which
had thrown them into thirty degrees of cold. Moderation in words was
difficult while enduring such sufferings.

For some time the Emperor had been in a state of great anxiety as to the
fate of Marshal Ne