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the part of our unfortunate engineers, who were plunged in the water up
to their mouths, and had to contend with the floating pieces of ice
which were carried along by the stream. Many of them perished from the
cold, or were drowned by the cakes of ice being violently driven against
them by the current and wind.

On the 27th, Napoleon, with about five thousand guards, and Ney's corps,
now reduced to six hundred men, crossed the Berezina about two o'clock
in the afternoon: he posted himself in reserve to Oudinot, and secured
the outlet from the bridges against the efforts of the Russians.

He had been preceded by a crowd of baggage and stragglers, and numbers
of them continued to cross the river after him as long as daylight
lasted.

But Partouneaux with his division was not so fortunate. At every point
where he attempted to pass, he encountered the enemy's fires, and was
obliged to turn back: in this way he wandered about for several hours
altogether at random, in plains covered with snow, in the midst of a
violent tempest. At every step he saw his soldiers pierced through by
the cold, and exhausted with hunger and fatigue, falling half dead into
the hands of the Russian cavalry, who pursued him without intermission.

This unfortunate general was still struggling with the heavens, with
men, and with his own despair, when he felt even the ground giving way
under his feet. In fact, deceived by the snow, he was marching upon a
lake, which not being frozen sufficiently hard to bear him, he had
fallen in and was on the point of being drowned, and then only did he
yield and give up his arms.

While this catastrophe was accomplishing, his other three brigades,
being more and more hemmed in upon the road, lost all power of movement.
They delayed their surrender, however, till the next morning, first by
fighting, and then by parleying: at length they all fell, one after the
other, and a common misfortune again united them with their general.

Of the whole division, a single battalion only escaped.

During the whole of that day, the 28th, the situation of the ninth corps
under General Victor, was so much the more critical, as a weak and
narrow bridge was its only means of retreat; in addition to which its
avenues were obstructed by the baggage and the stragglers. By degrees,
as the action became warmer, the terror of these poor wretches increased
their disorder. First of all they had been alarmed by the rumors of a
seri