trampled, forced over the ledges, cut down by each other, and torn by the incessant shower of Russian cannonade, they fell and died in thousands.  Victor stood his ground bravely until late in the evening, and then conducted his division over the bridge.  There still remained behind a great number of the irregular attendants, besides those soldiers who had been wounded during the battle, and guns and baggage-carts enough to cover a large meadow.  The French now fired the bridge, and all these were abandoned to their fate.  The Russian account states, that when the Beresina thawed after that winter’s frost, 36,000 bodies were found in its bed.

Tchaplitz was soon joined in his pursuit of the survivors by Witgenstein and Platoff, and nothing could have saved Napoleon but the unexpected arrival of a fresh division under Maison, sent forwards from Poland by Maret, Duke of Bassano.

But the severity of the winter began now to be intense, and the sufferings of the army thus recruited were such, that discipline ere long disappeared, except among a few thousands of hardy veterans, over whose spirits the Emperor and Ney preserved some influence.  The assaults of the Cossacks continued as before:  the troops often performed their march by night, by the light of torches, in the hope of escaping their merciless pursuers.  When they halted, they fell asleep in hundreds to wake no more.  Their enemies found them frozen to death around the ashes of their watch-fires.  It is said, among other horrors, that more than once they found poor famished wretches endeavouring to broil the flesh of their dead comrades.  On scenes so fearful the veil must not be entirely dropt.  Such is the price at which ambition does not hesitate to purchase even the chance of what the world has not yet ceased to call glory!

The haughty and imperious spirit of Napoleon sank not under all these miseries.  He affected, in so far as was possible, not to see them.  He still issued his orders as if his army, in all its divisions, were entire, and sent bulletins to Paris announcing a succession of victories.  When his officers came to inform him of some new calamity, he dismissed them abruptly, saying, “Why will you disturb my tranquillity?  I desire to know no particulars.  Why will you deprive me of my tranquillity?”

On the 3rd of December he reached Malodeczno, and announced to his marshals that the news he had received from Paris, and the uncertain nature of his relations with some of his allies, rendered it indispensable for him to quit his army without further delay.  They were now, he said, almost within sight of Poland; they would find plenty of everything at Wilna.  It was his business to prepare at home the means of opening the next campaign in a manner worthy of the great nation.  At Smorgoni, on the 5th, the garrison of Wilna met him; and then, having entrusted to these fresh troops the protection of the rear, and given the chief command to Murat, he finally bade adieu to the relics of his host.  He set off at midnight in a traineau, accompanied by Caulaincourt, whose name he assumed:  two other vehicles of the same kind followed, containing two officers of rank, Rustan the Emperor’s favourite Mameluke, and one domestic besides.