o
appear still clean, ready and smart; for herein consists the pride of
the soldier: here they piqued themselves upon it the more on account of
the difficulty, in order to astonish, and because man prides himself on
every thing that requires extraordinary effort.

The Emperor complaisantly affected to know no better, catching at every
thing to keep up his hopes, when all at once the first snows fell. With
them fell all the illusions with which he had endeavoured to surround
himself. From that moment he thought of nothing but retreat, without,
however, pronouncing the word, and yet no positive order for it could be
obtained from him. He merely said, that in twenty days the army must be
in winter-quarters, and he urged the departure of his wounded. On this,
as on other occasions, he would not consent to the voluntary
relinquishment of any thing, however trifling; there was a deficiency of
horses for his artillery, now too numerous for an army so reduced; it
did not signify, and he flew into a passion at the proposal to leave
part of it in Moscow. "No; the enemy would make a trophy of it."--and he
insisted that every thing should go along with him.

In this desert country, he gave orders for the purchase of twenty
thousand horses, and he expected forage for two months to be provided,
on a tract where the most distant and dangerous excursions were not
sufficient for the supply of the passing day. Some of his officers were
astonished to hear orders which it was so impossible to execute; but we
have already seen that he sometimes issued such orders to deceive his
enemies, and most frequently to indicate to his own troops the extent of
his necessities, and the exertions which they ought to make for the
purpose of supplying them.

His distress manifested itself only in some paroxysms of ill humour. It
was in the morning at his levee. There, amid the assembled chiefs, in
whose anxious looks he imagined he could read disapprobation, he seemed
desirous to awe them by the severity of his attitude, by his sharp tone
and his abrupt language. From the paleness of his face, it was evident
that Truth, whose best time for obtaining a hearing is in the darkness
of night, had oppressed him grievously by her presence, and tired him
with her unwelcome light. Sometimes, on these occasions, his bursting
heart would overflow, and pour forth his sorrows around him by movements
of impatience; but so far from lightening his grief, he aggravated