ut to
preserve it. In this vast wreck, the army, like a great ship tossed by
the most tremendous of tempests, threw without hesitation into that sea
of ice and snow, every thing that could slacken or impede its progress.

CHAP. XII.

During the 3d and 4th of November Napoleon halted at Stakowo. This
repose, and the shame of appearing to flee, inflamed his imagination. He
dictated orders, according to which his rear-guard, by appearing to
retreat in disorder, was to draw the Russians into an ambuscade, where
he should be waiting for them in person; but this vain project passed
off with the pre-occupation which gave it birth. On the 5th he slept at
Dorogobouje. Here he found the hand-mills which were ordered for the
expedition at the time the cantonments of Smolensk were projected; of
these a late and totally useless distribution was made.

Next day, the 6th of November, opposite to Mikalewska, at the moment
when the clouds, laden with sleet and snow, were bursting over our
heads, Count Daru was seen hastening up, and a circle of vedettes
forming around him and the Emperor.

An express, the first that had been able to reach us for ten days, had
just brought intelligence of that strange conspiracy, hatched in Paris
itself, and in the depth of a prison, by an obscure general. He had had
no other accomplices than the false news of our destruction, and forged
orders to some troops to apprehend the Minister, the Prefect of Police,
and the Commandant of Paris. His plan had completely succeeded, from the
impulsion of a first movement, from ignorance and the general
astonishment; but no sooner was a rumour of the affair spread abroad,
than an order was sufficient again to consign the leader, with his
accomplices or his dupes, to a prison.

The Emperor was apprised at the same moment of their crime and their
punishment. Those who at a distance strove to read his thoughts in his
countenance could discover nothing. He repressed his feelings; his first
and only words to Daru were, "How now, if we had remained at Moscow!" He
then hastened into a house surrounded with a palisade, which had served
for a post of correspondence.

The moment he was alone with the most devoted of his officers, all his
emotions burst forth at once in exclamations of astonishment,
humiliation and anger. Presently afterwards he sent for several other
officers, to observe the effect which so extraordinary a piece of
intelligence would produce upo