The marshal had halted there.  After a dreadful night, in which snow, wind, and famine had driven most of his men from the fires, the dawn, which is always awaited with such impatience in a bivouac, had brought him a tempest, the enemy, and the spectacle of an almost general defection.  In vain he had just fought in person at the head of what men and officers he had left:  he had been obliged to retreat precipitately behind the Dnieper; and of this he sent to apprise the Emperor.

He wished him to know the worst.  His aide-de-camp, Colonel Dalbignac, was instructed to say, that “the first movement of retreat from Malo-Yaroslawetz, for soldiers who had never yet run away, had dispirited the army; that the affair at Wiazma had shaken its firmness; and that lastly, the deluge of snow and the increased cold which it betokened, had completed its disorganization:  that a multitude of officers, having lost every thing, their platoons, battalions, regiments, and even divisions, had joined the roving masses:  generals, colonels, and officers of all ranks, were seen mingled with the privates, and marching at random, sometimes with one column, sometimes with another:  that as order could not exist in the presence of disorder, this example was seducing even the veteran regiments, which had served during the whole of the wars of the revolution:  that in the ranks, the best soldiers were heard asking one another, why they alone were required to fight in order to secure the flight of the rest; and how any one could expect to keep up their courage, when they heard the cries of despair issuing from the neighbouring woods, in which large convoys of their wounded, who had been dragged to no purpose all the way from Moscow, had just been abandoned?  Such then was the fate which awaited themselves! what had they to gain by remaining by their colours?  Incessant toils and combats by day, and famine at night; no shelter, and bivouacs still more destructive than battle:  famine and cold drove sleep far away from them, or if fatigue got the better of these for the moment, that repose which ought to refresh them put a period to their lives.  In short, the eagles had ceased to protect—­they destroyed.  Why then remain around them to perish by battalions, by masses?  It would be better to disperse, and since there was no other course than flight, to try who could run fastest.  It would not then be the best that would fall:  the cowards behind them would no longer eat up the relics of the high road.”  Lastly, the aide-de-camp was commissioned to explain to the Emperor all the horrors of his situation, the responsibility of which Ney absolutely declined.

But Napoleon saw enough around himself to judge of the rest.  The fugitives were passing him; he was sensible that nothing could now be done but sacrifice the army successively, part by part, beginning at the extremities, in order to save the head.  When, therefore, the aide-de-camp was beginning, he sharply interrupted him with these words, “Colonel, I do not ask you for these details.”  The Colonel was silent, aware that in this disaster, now irremediable, and in which every one had occasion for all his energies, the Emperor was afraid of complaints, which could have no other effect but to discourage both him who indulged in, and him who listened to them.