Several of the generals themselves began to tire:  some stopped on account of illness, others murmured:  “What better were they for his having enriched them, if they could not enjoy their wealth? for his having given them wives, if he made them widowers by a continual absence? for his having bestowed on them palaces, if he forced them to lie abroad incessantly on the bare ground, amidst frost and snow?—­for every year the hardships of war increased; fresh conquests compelling them to go farther in quest of fresh enemies.  Europe would soon be insufficient:  he would want Asia too.”

Several, especially of our allies, ventured to think, that we should lose less by a defeat than by a victory:  a reverse would perhaps disgust the emperor with the war; at least it would place him more upon a level with us.

The generals who were nearest to Napoleon were astonished at his confidence.  “Had he not already in some measure quitted Europe? and if Europe were to rise against him, he would have no subjects but his soldiers, no empire but his camp:  even then, one-third of them, being foreigners, would become his enemies.”  Such was the language of Murat and Berthier.  Napoleon, irritated at finding in his two chief lieutenants, and at the very moment of action, the same uneasiness with which he was himself struggling, vented his ill-humour against them:  he overwhelmed them with it, as frequently happens in the household of princes, who are least sparing of those of whose attachment they are most sure; an inconvenience attending favour, which counterbalances its advantages.

After his spleen had vented itself in a torrent of words, he summoned them back; but this time, dissatisfied with such treatment, they kept aloof.  The emperor then made amends for his hastiness by caresses, calling Berthier “his wife,” and his fits of passion, “domestic bickerings.”

Murat and Ney left him with minds full of sinister presentiments relative to this war, which at the first sight of the Russians they were themselves for carrying on with fury.  For in them, whose character was entirely made up of action, inspiration, and first movements, there was no consistency:  every thing was unexpected; the occasion hurried them away; impetuous, they varied in language, plans, and dispositions, at every step, just as the ground is incessantly varying in appearance.

CHAP.  VI.

About the same time, Rapp and Lauriston presented themselves:  the latter came from Petersburgh.  Napoleon did not ask a single question of this officer on his arrival from the capital of his enemy.  Aware, no doubt, of the frankness of his former aid-de-camp, and of his opinion respecting this war, he was apprehensive of receiving from him unsatisfactory intelligence.

But Rapp, who had followed our track, could not keep silence.  “The army had advanced but a hundred leagues from the Niemen, and already it was completely altered.  The officers who travelled post from the interior of France to join it, arrived dismayed.  They could not conceive how it happened that a victorious army, without fighting, should leave behind it more wrecks than a defeated one.