“Then, indeed, it was found necessary to desist, and to take up their quarters where they were; but they no longer knew where to find necessaries.  It was really pitiful to hear the soldiers wandering in the dark, groping about, as it were, for forage, water, wood, straw, and provisions, and then, unable to find their bivouacs again, calling out to one another lest they should lose themselves, during the whole night.  Scarcely had they time, not to sleep, but to prepare their food.  Overwhelmed with fatigue, they cursed the hardships they had to endure, till daylight and the enemy came to rouse them again.

“It was not the advanced guard alone that suffered in this manner, but the whole of the cavalry.  Every evening Murat had left behind him 20,000 men on horseback and under arms, on the high-road.  This long column had remained all day without eating or drinking, amidst a cloud of dust, under a burning sky; ignorant of what was passing before it, advancing a few paces from one quarter of an hour to another, then halting to deploy among fields of rye, but without daring to take off the bridles and to allow their famished horses to feed, because the king kept them incessantly on the alert.  It was to advance five or six leagues that they thus passed sixteen tedious hours—­particularly arduous for the cuirassier horses, which had more to carry than the others, though weaker, as the largest horses in general are, and which required more food; hence their great carcasses were worn down to skeletons, their flanks collapsed, they crawled rather than walked, and every moment one was seen staggering, and another falling under his rider, who left him to his fate.”

Davoust concluded with saying, that “in this manner the whole of the cavalry would perish; Murat, however, might dispose of that as he pleased, but as for the infantry of the first corps, so long as he had the command of it, he would not suffer it to be thrown away in that manner.”

The king was not backward in replying.  While the emperor was listening to them, he was at the same time playing with a Russian ball, which he kicked about with his foot.  It seemed as if there was something in the misunderstanding between these chiefs which did not displease him.  He attributed their animosity entirely to their ardour, well aware that of all passions glory is the most jealous.

The impatient ardour of Murat gratified his own.  As the troops had nothing to live upon but what they found, every thing was consumed at the moment; for this reason it was necessary to make short work with the enemy, and to proceed rapidly.  Besides, the general crisis in Europe was too strong, his situation too critical to remain there, and himself too impatient; he wished to bring matters to a close at any rate, in order to extricate himself.