Well, to do justice to one's enemies, I must admit that the Russians let themselves be killed like Frenchmen. They wouldn't give way, and we couldn't advance.
"Forward!" shouted our officers. "Here comes the Emperor!" And there he was, passing at a gallop, and motioning to us that it was very important to capture the redoubt. He put new life into us, and on we ran. I was the first to reach the ravine. Ah! Mon Dieu! How the colonels are falling, and the lieutenants, and the soldiers! But never mind! There'll be all the more shoes for those who haven't any, and epaulets for the ambitious fellows who know how to read.
At last the cry of "Victory!" rang all along the line; but--would you believe it?--there were twenty-five thousand Frenchmen lying on the ground! A trifle, eh? Well, such a thing had never been seen before. It was a regular harvest field after the reaping; only instead of stalks of grain there were bodies of men. That sobered the rest of us. But the Emperor soon came along, and when we formed a circle around him, he praised us and cheered us up (he could be very amiable when he liked), and made us feel quite contented, even although we were as hungry as wolves. Then he distributed crosses of honor among us, saluted the dead, and said, "On to Moscow!"
"All right! To Moscow!" replied the army.
And then what did the Russians do but burn their city! It made a six-mile bonfire which blazed for two days. The buildings fell like slates, and there was a rain of melted iron and lead which was simply horrible! Indeed, that fire was the lightning from the dark cloud of our misfortunes. The Emperor said: "There's enough of this. If we stay here, none of my soldiers will ever get out." But we waited a little to cool off and to refresh our carcasses; because we were really played out. We carried away a golden cross that was on the Kremlin, and every soldier had a small fortune.
On our way back, winter came upon us, a month earlier than usual,--a thing that those stupid scientific men have never properly explained,--and the cold caught us. Then there was no more army; do you understand? No army, no generals, no sergeants even! After that it was a reign of misery and hunger--a reign where we were all equal. We thought of nothing except of seeing France again. Nobody stooped to pick up his gun, or his money, if he happened to drop them; and every one went straight on, arms at will, caring nothing for glory. The weather was so bad that Napoleon could no longer see his star--the sky was hidden. Poor man! It made him sick at heart to see his eagles flying away from victory. It was a crushing blow to him.
Well, then came the Beresina. And now, my friends, I may say to you, on my honor and by everything sacred, that never--no, never since man lived on earth--has there been such a mixed up hodgepodge of army, wagons, and artillery, in the midst of such snows, and under such a pitiless sky! It was so cold that if you touched the barrel of your gun you burned your hand.
It was there that Gondrin--who is now present with us--behaved so well. He is the only one now living of the pontooners who went down into the water that day and built the bridge on which we crossed the river. The Russians still had some respect for the Grand Army, on account of its past victories; but it was Gondrin and the pontooners who saved us, and [pointing at Gondrin, who was looking at him with the fixed attention peculiar to the deaf] Gondrin is a finished soldier and a soldier of honor, who is worthy of your highest esteem.
I saw the Emperor that day, standing motionless near the bridge, and never feeling the cold at all. Was that natural, do you think? He was watching the destruction of his treasure, his friends, his old Egyptian soldiers. It was the end of everything. Women, wagons, cannon--all were being destroyed, demolished, ruined, wrecked! A few of the bravest guarded the eagles; because the eagles, you understand, stood for France, for you, for the civil and military honor that had to be kept unstained and that was not to be humbled by the cold.
We hardly ever got warm except near the Emperor. When he was in danger, we all ran to him--although we were so nearly frozen that we would not have held out a hand to our dearest friend. They say that he used to weep at night over his poor family of soldiers. Nobody but he and Frenchmen could ever have pulled out of there. We did pull out, but it was with loss--terrible loss. Our allies ate up all of our provisions, and then began the treachery which the Red Man had foretold.
The blatherskites in Paris, who had kept quiet since the formation of the Imperial Guard, thought that the Guard had finally perished. So they got up a conspiracy and hoodwinked the Prefect of Police into an attempt to overthrow the Emperor. He heard of this and it worried him. When he left us he said: "Good-by, boys. Guard the posts. I will come back to you."
After he had gone, things went from bad to worse. The generals lost their heads; and the marshals quarreled with one another and did all sorts of foolish things, as was natural.