to cover his retreat, crossed the bridges, and there
stemmed the further advance of the Russians.

The French loss in the engagement was 6000 killed and wounded, and 2000
prisoners. The Viceroy was directed to march on Witebsk, but he was
overtaken by the enemy when endeavouring to throw a bridge over the
half-frozen little river called the Vop. The bridge, hastily made, gave
way. The banks were extremely steep. The Grenadiers waded through the
river, though the water, full of floating ice, came up to their breasts;
but the artillery following were unable to climb the bank, and the guns
were soon frozen fast in the river, and they and the whole of the
baggage had to be left behind. A similar misfortune befell another of
the Viceroy's divisions, which had remained behind to cover the retreat,
and of the 14,000 soldiers who commenced the march but 6000 remained
with their colours, and but 12 of the 92 guns that had accompanied them.

The condition of the French army rapidly deteriorated. The cold had
already become intense, and the soldiers being weak with hunger were the
less able to support it. The horses died in great numbers, and their
flesh was the principal food upon which the troops had to rely. No one
dared straggle to forage, for the Cossacks were ever hovering round, and
the peasants, emerging from their hiding-places in the forests,
murdered, for the most part with atrocious tortures, everyone who fell
out of the ranks from wounds, exhaustion, or frost-bite.

Julian had, since their retreat began, again recovered his spirits. He
was now not fighting to conquer a country against which he had no
animosity, but for his own life and that of the thousands of sick and
wounded.

"I am glad that we are in the rear-guard," he said to a number of
non-commissioned officers who were one evening, when they were fortunate
enough to be camped in a wood, gathered round a huge fire.

"Why so, Jules? It seems to me that we have the hardest work, and,
besides, there is not a day that we have not to fight."

"That is the thing that does us good," Julian replied. "The columns
ahead have nothing to do but to think of the cold, and hunger, and
misery. They straggle along; they no longer march. With us it is
otherwise. We are still soldiers; we keep our order. We are proud to
know that the safety of the army depends on us; and, if we do get
knocked over with a bullet, surely that is a better fate than dropping
from exhaustion,