-seven days and thirty-seven nights.

Every day, at 5 o'clock in the evening, he took his position, stopped
the Russians, allowed his soldiers to eat and take some rest, and
resumed his march at 10 o'clock. During the whole of the night, he
pushed the mass of the stragglers before him, by dint of cries, of
entreaties, and of blows. At daybreak, which was about 7 o'clock, he
halted, again took position, and rested under arms and on guard until 10
o'clock; the enemy then made his appearance, and he was compelled to
fight until the evening, gaining as much or as little ground in the rear
as possible. That depended at first on the general order of march, and
at a later period upon circumstances.

For a long time this rear-guard did not consist of more than two
thousand, then of one thousand, afterwards about five hundred, and
finally of sixty men; and yet Berthier, either designedly or from mere
routine, made no change in his instructions. These were always addressed
to the commander of a corps of thirty-five thousand men; in them he
coolly detailed all the different positions, which were to be taken up
and guarded until the next day, by divisions and regiments which no
longer existed. And every night, when, in consequence of Ney's urgent
warnings, he was obliged to go and awake the King of Naples, and compel
him to resume his march, he testified the same astonishment.

In this manner did Ney support the retreat from Wiazma to Eve, and a few
wersts beyond it. There, according to his usual custom, he had stopped
the Russians, and was giving the first hours of the night to rest, when,
about ten o'clock, he and De Wrede perceived that they had been left
alone. Their soldiers had deserted them, as well as their arms, which
they saw shining and piled together close to their abandoned fires.

Fortunately the intensity of the cold, which had just completed the
discouragement of our people, had also benumbed their enemies. Ney
overtook his column with some difficulty; it was now only a band of
fugitives; a few Cossacks chased it before them; without attempting
either to take or to kill them; either from compassion, for one gets
tired of every thing in time, or that the enormity of our misery had
terrified even the Russians themselves, and they believed themselves
sufficiently revenged, and many of them behaved generously; or, finally,
that they were satiated and overloaded with booty. It might be also,
that in the darkness, they