thought that I could not avoid his
comrades farther on; so that I escaped them all, and reached the 14th
regiment without either myself or my excellent mare having received the
slightest scratch.

[Illustration: 'I regarded myself as a horseman who is trying to win a
steeplechase']

'I found the 14th formed in square on the top of the hillock, but as the
slope was very slight the enemy's cavalry had been able to deliver
several charges. These had been vigorously repulsed, and the French
regiment was surrounded by a circle of dead horses and dragoons, which
formed a kind of rampart, making the position by this time almost
inaccessible to cavalry; as I found, for in spite of the aid of our
men, I had much difficulty in passing over this horrible entrenchment.
At last I was in the square. Since Colonel Savary's death at the passage
of the Wkra, the 14th had been commanded by a major. While I imparted to
this officer, under a hail of balls, the order to quit his position and
try to rejoin his corps, he pointed out to me that the enemy's artillery
had been firing on the 14th for an hour, and had caused it such loss
that the handful of soldiers which remained would inevitably be
exterminated as they went down into the plain, and that, moreover, there
would not be time to prepare to execute such a movement, since a Russian
column was marching on him, and was not more than a hundred paces away.
"I see no means of saving the regiment," said the major; "return to the
Emperor, bid him farewell from the 14th of the line, which has
faithfully executed his orders, and bear to him the eagle which he gave
us, and which we can defend no longer: it would add too much to the pain
of death to see it fall into the hands of the enemy." Then the major
handed me his eagle, saluted for the last time by the glorious fragment
of the intrepid regiment with cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" they were
going to die for him. It was the _Caesar morituri te salutant_ of
Tacitus,[32] but in this case the cry was uttered by heroes. The infantry
eagles were very heavy, and their weight was increased by a stout oak
pole on the top of which they were fixed. The length of the pole
embarrassed me much, and as the stick without the eagle could not
constitute a trophy for the enemy, I resolved with the major's consent
to break it and only carry off the eagle. But at the moment when I was
leaning forward from my saddle in order to get a better purchase to
separate th