nding themselves,
when a charge made by the 4th regiment stopped the advance of the enemy.

Its colonel, young Fezenzac, contrived to infuse fresh life into these
men who were half perished with cold. There, as in every thing that can
be called action, was manifested the superiority of the sentiments of
the soul over the sensations of the body; for every physical sensation
tended to encourage despondency and flight; nature advised it with her
hundred most urgent voices; and yet a few words of honour were
sufficient to produce the most heroic devotedness. The soldiers of the
4th regiment rushed like furies upon the enemy, against the mountain of
snow and ice of which he had taken possession, and in the teeth of the
northern hurricane, for they had every thing against them. Ney himself
was obliged to moderate their impetuosity.

A reproach from their colonel effected this change. These private
soldiers devoted themselves, that they might not be wanting to their own
characters, from that instinct which requires courage in a man, as well
as from habit and the love of glory. A splendid word for so obscure a
situation! For, what is the glory of a common soldier, who perishes
unseen, who is neither praised, censured, nor regretted, but by his own
division of a company! The circle of each, however, is sufficient for
him: a small society embraces the same passions as a large one. The
proportions of the bodies differ; but they are composed of the same
elements; it is the same life that animates them, and the looks of a
platoon stimulate a soldier, just as those of an army inflame a general.

CHAP. XIV.

At length the army again beheld Smolensk; it approached the term so
often held forth to its sufferings. The soldiers pointed it out to each
other. There was that land of promise where their famine was to find
abundance, their fatigue rest; where bivouacs in a cold of nineteen
degrees would be forgotten in houses warmed by good fires. There they
should enjoy refreshing sleep; there they might repair their apparel;
there they should be furnished with new shoes and garments adapted to
the climate.

At this sight, the corps _d'elite_, some soldiers, and the veteran
regiments, alone kept their ranks; the rest ran forward with all
possible speed. Thousands of men, chiefly unarmed, covered the two steep
banks of the Borysthenes: they crowded in masses round the lofty walls
and gates of the city; but their disorderly multitud