Thus, therefore, the days of good fortune were passed, and from all quarters nothing but disastrous intelligence arrived.  On one side Polotsk, the Duena, and Witepsk lost, and Wittgenstein already within four days march of Borizof; on the other, towards Elnia, Baraguay d’Hilliers defeated.  That general had allowed the enemy to cut off the brigade of Augereau, and to take the magazines, and the Elnia road, by the possession of which Kutusoff was now enabled to anticipate us at Krasnoe, as he had done at Wiazma.

At the same time, at one hundred leagues in advance of us, Schwartzenberg informed the Emperor, that he was covering Warsaw; in other words, that he had uncovered Minsk and Borizof, the magazine, and the retreat of the grand army, and that probably, the Emperor of Austria would deliver up his son-in-law to Russia.

At the same moment, in our rear and our centre, Prince Eugene was conquered by the Wop; the draught-horses which had been waiting for us at Smolensk were devoured by the soldiers; those of Mortier carried off in a forage; the cattle at Krasnoe captured; the army exhibiting frightful symptoms of disease; and at Paris the period of conspiracies appeared to have returned; in short, every thing seemed to combine to overwhelm Napoleon.

The daily reports which he received of the state of each corps of the army were like so many bills of mortality; in these he saw his army, which had conquered Moscow, reduced from an hundred and eighty thousand, to thirty thousand men, still capable of fighting.  To this mass of calamities, he could only oppose an inert resistance, an impassable firmness, and an unshaken attitude.  His countenance remained the same; he changed none of his habits, nothing in the form of his orders; in reading them, you would have supposed that he had still several armies under his command.  He did not even expedite his march.  Irritated only at the prudence of Marshal Victor, he repeated his orders to him to attack Wittgenstein, and thereby remove the danger which menaced his retreat.  As to Baraguay d’Hilliers, whom an officer had just accused, he had him brought before him, and sent him off to Berlin, where that general, overwhelmed by the fatigues of the retreat, and sinking under the weight of chagrin, died before he was able to make his defence.

The unshaken firmness which the Emperor preserved was the only attitude which became so great a spirit, and so irreparable a misfortune.  But what appears surprising, is, that he allowed fortune to strip him of every thing, rather than sacrifice a part to save the rest.  It was at first without his orders that the commanders of corps burnt the baggage and destroyed their artillery; he only allowed it to be done.  If he afterwards gave similar instructions, they were absolutely extorted from him; he seemed as if he was tenacious, above every thing, that no action of his should confess his defeat; either from a feeling that he thus respected his misfortunes, and by his inflexibility set the example of inflexible courage to those around him, or from that proud feeling of men who have been long fortunate, which precipitates their downfall.