rshal orders ordinary time! Ordinary time, soldiers!" And this brave
and unfortunate troop, dragging with them some of their wounded, under a
shower of balls and grape-shot, retired as deliberately from this field
of carnage as they would have done from a field of manoeuvre.

Sec. 18. Napoleon reaches Dombrowna and Orcha; he holds a council.

As soon as Mortier had succeeded in placing Krasnoe between him and
Beningsen, he was in safety.

The next day the march was resumed, though with reluctance. The
impatient stragglers took the lead, and all of them got the start of
Napoleon: he was on foot with a stick in his hand, walking slowly and
hesitatingly, and halting every quarter of an hour, as if unwilling to
tear himself away from that old Russia, whose frontier he was then
passing, and in which he had left his unfortunate companions in arms.

In the evening he reached Dombrowna,[171] a wooden town, and inhabited
as well as Liady: a novel sight for an army, which had for three months
seen nothing but ruins. At last, then, we had emerged from Russia
proper, and her deserts of snow and ashes, and were entering into a
friendly and inhabited country, whose language we understood. The
weather just then became milder, a thaw began, and we received some
provisions.

Thus the winter, the enemy, solitude, and, with some, famine and
bivouacs, all ceased at once; but it was too late. The emperor saw that
his army was destroyed: every moment the name of Ney escaped from his
lips, with expressions of the deepest grief. That night he was heard
groaning and exclaiming "that the misery of his poor soldiers cut him to
the heart, and yet that he could not succor them without establishing
himself in some place: but where was it possible for him to stop without
ammunition, provisions, or artillery? He was no longer strong enough to
halt: he must reach Minsk as quickly as possible."

He had scarcely spoken the words, when a Polish officer arrived with the
news that Minsk itself, his magazine, his retreat, his only hope, had
just fallen into the hands of the Russians, Tchitchakoff having entered
it on the 16th. Napoleon at first was mute, and completely overpowered
by this last blow; but immediately afterward, elevating himself in
proportion to his danger, he coolly replied, "Very well! we have now
nothing to do but to clear ourselves a passage with our bayonets."

Napoleon then turned to his Old Guard, and, stopping in front of each