Round the eagles were seen the remaining officers and subalterns, and a few soldiers, scarcely enough to protect the colours.  Their clothes had been torn in the fury of the combat, were blackened with powder, and spotted with blood; and yet, in the midst of their rags, their misery, and disasters, they had a proud look, and at the sight of the emperor, uttered some shouts of triumph, but they were rare and excited; for in this army, capable at once of analysis and enthusiasm, every one was sensible of the position of all.

French soldiers are not easily deceived; they were astonished to find so many of the enemy killed, so great a number wounded, and so few prisoners, there being not 800 of the latter.  By the number of these, the extent of a victory had been formerly calculated.  The dead bodies were rather a proof of the courage of the vanquished, than the evidence of a victory.  If the rest retreated in such good order, proud, and so little discouraged, what signified the gain of a field of battle?  In such extensive countries, would there ever be any want of ground for the Russians to fight on?

As for us, we had already too much, and a great deal more than we were able to retain.  Could that be called conquering it?  The long and straight furrow which we had traced with so much difficulty from Kowno, across sands and ashes, would it not close behind us, like that of a vessel on an immense ocean!  A few peasants, badly armed, might easily efface all traces of it.

In fact they were about to carry off, in the rear of the army, our wounded and our marauders.  Five hundred stragglers soon fell into their hands.  It is true that some French soldiers, arrested in this manner, affected to join these cossacks; they assisted them in making fresh captures, until finding themselves sufficiently numerous, with their new prisoners, they collected together suddenly and rid themselves of their unsuspecting enemies.

The emperor could not value his victory otherwise than by the dead.  The ground was strewed to such a degree with Frenchmen, extended prostrate on the redoubts, that they appeared to belong more to them than to those who remained standing.  There seemed to be more victors killed there, than there were still living.

Amidst the crowd of corses which we were obliged to march over in following Napoleon, the foot of a horse encountered a wounded man, and extorted from him a last sign of life or of suffering.  The emperor, hitherto equally silent with his victory, and whose heart felt oppressed by the sight of so many victims, gave an exclamation; he felt relieved by uttering cries of indignation, and lavishing the attentions of humanity on this unfortunate creature.  To pacify him, somebody remarked that it was only a Russian, but he retorted warmly, “that after victory there are no enemies, but only men!” He then dispersed the officers of his suite, in order to succour the wounded, who were heard groaning in every direction.