passing through Wittgenstein's army in the darkness, of escaping him,
and rejoining Victor; or, at all events, of getting round by the sources
of the Berezina.

But at every point where he attempted to pass, he encountered the
enemy's fires, and he turned again; he wandered about for several hours
quite at random, in plains of snow, in the midst of a violent hurricane.
At every step he saw his soldiers transfixed by the cold, emaciated 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 earth give way
under his feet. In fact, being deceived by the snow, he had fallen into
a lake, which was not frozen sufficiently hard to bear him, and in which
he would have been drowned. Then only he yielded and gave 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 till the next morning, first by fighting,
and then by parleying; they then all fell in their turn; a common
misfortune again united them with their general.

Of the whole division, a single battalion only escaped: it had been left
the last in Borizof. It quitted it in the midst of the Russians of
Platof and of Tchitchakof, who were effecting in that town, and at that
very moment, the junction of the armies of Moscow and of Moldavia. This
battalion, being alone and separated from its division, might have been
expected to be the first to fall, but that very circumstance saved it.
Several long trains of equipages and disbanded soldiers were flying
towards Studzianka in different directions; drawn aside by one of these
crowds, mistaking his road, and leaving on his right that which had been
taken by the army, the leader of this battalion glided to the borders of
the river, followed all its windings and turnings, and protected by the
combat of his less fortunate comrades, by the darkness, and the very
difficulties of the ground, moved off in silence, escaped from the
enemy, and brought to Victor the confirmation of Partouneaux's
surrender.

When Napoleon heard the news, he was struck with grief, and exclaimed,
"How unfortunate it was, that when all appeared to be saved, as if
miraculously, this _defection_ had happened, to spoil all!" The
expression was im