ations of his officers; or rather
their secret reflexions: for their devotion to him remained entire for
two whole years longer, in the midst of the greatest calamities, and of
the general revolt of nations.

The Emperor, however, made an effort which was not altogether fruitless;
namely, to rally, under one commander, all that remained of the cavalry:
of thirty-seven thousand cavalry which were present at the passage of
the Niemen, there were now only eighteen hundred left on horseback. He
gave the command of them to Latour-Maubourg; whether from the esteem
felt for him, or from fatigue, no one objected to it.

As to Latour-Maubourg, he received the honour or the charge without
expressing either pleasure or regret. He was a character of peculiar
stamp; always ready without forwardness, calm and active, remarkable for
his extreme purity of morals, simple and unostentatious; in other
respects, unaffected and sincere in his relations with others, and
attaching the idea of glory only to actions, and not to words. He always
marched with the same order and moderation in the midst of the most
immoderate disorder; and yet, what does honour to the age, he attained
to the highest distinctions as quickly and as rapidly as any who could
be named.

This feeble re-organization, the distribution of a part of the
provisions, the plunder of the rest, the repose which the Emperor and
his guard were enabled to take, the destruction of part of the artillery
and baggage, and finally, the expedition of a number of orders, were
nearly all the benefits which were derived from that fatal delay. In
other respects, all the misfortunes happened which had been foreseen. A
few hundred men were only rallied for a moment. The explosion of the
mines scarcely blew up the outside of some of the walls, and was only of
use on the last day, in driving out of the town the stragglers whom we
had been unable to set in motion.

The soldiers who had totally lost heart, the women, and several thousand
sick and wounded, were here abandoned. This was when Augereau's disaster
near Elnia made it but too evident that Kutusoff, now become the
pursuer, did not confine himself to the high road; that he was marching
from Wiazma by Elnia, direct upon Krasnoe; finally, when we ought to
have foreseen that we should be obliged to cut our way through the
Russian army, it was only on the 14th of November that the grand army
(or rather thirty-six thousand troops) commenced