An express, the first that had been able to reach us for ten days, had just brought intelligence of that strange conspiracy, hatched in Paris itself, and in the depth of a prison, by an obscure general.  He had had no other accomplices than the false news of our destruction, and forged orders to some troops to apprehend the Minister, the Prefect of Police, and the Commandant of Paris.  His plan had completely succeeded, from the impulsion of a first movement, from ignorance and the general astonishment; but no sooner was a rumour of the affair spread abroad, than an order was sufficient again to consign the leader, with his accomplices or his dupes, to a prison.

The Emperor was apprised at the same moment of their crime and their punishment.  Those who at a distance strove to read his thoughts in his countenance could discover nothing.  He repressed his feelings; his first and only words to Daru were, “How now, if we had remained at Moscow!” He then hastened into a house surrounded with a palisade, which had served for a post of correspondence.

The moment he was alone with the most devoted of his officers, all his emotions burst forth at once in exclamations of astonishment, humiliation and anger.  Presently afterwards he sent for several other officers, to observe the effect which so extraordinary a piece of intelligence would produce upon them.  He perceived in them a painful uneasiness and consternation, and their confidence in the stability of his government completely shaken.  He had occasion to know that they accosted each other with a sigh, and the remark, that it thus appeared that the great revolution of 1789, which was thought to be finished, was not yet over.  Grown old in struggles to get out of it, were they to be again plunged into it, and to be thrown once more into the dreadful career of political convulsions?  Thus war was coming upon us in every quarter, and we were liable to lose every thing at once.

Some rejoiced at this intelligence, in the hope that it would hasten the return of the Emperor to France, that it would fix him there, and that he would no longer risk himself abroad, since he was not safe at home.  On the following day, the sufferings of the moment put an end to these conjectures.  As for Napoleon, all his thoughts again flew before him to Paris, and he was advancing mechanically towards Smolensk, when his whole attention was recalled to the present place and time, by the arrival of an aide-de-camp of Ney.

From Wiazma that Marshal had begun to protect this retreat, mortal to so many others, but immortal for himself.  As far as Dorogobouje, it had been molested only by some bands of Cossacks, troublesome insects attracted by our dying and by our forsaken carriages, flying away the moment a hand was lifted, but harassing by their continual return.

They were not the subject of Ney’s message.  On approaching Dorogobouje he had met with the traces of the disorder which prevailed in the corps that preceded him, and which it was not in his power to efface.  So far he had made up his mind to leave the baggage to the enemy; but he blushed with shame at the sight of the first pieces of cannon abandoned before Dorogobouje.