A wounded officer, unknown to these Germans, and who was there by mere chance, called out to them with an indignant voice, and immediately assumed their command.  The men obeyed him as they would their own leader.  In this case of pressing danger the differences of convention disappeared.  The man really superior having shown himself, acted as a rallying point to the crowd, who grouped themselves around him, while the general-in-chief remained mute and confounded, receiving with docility the impulse the other had given, and acknowledging his superiority, which, after the danger was over, he disputed, but of which he did not, as too often happens, seek to revenge himself.

This wounded officer was Excelmans!  In this action he was every thing, general, officer, soldier, even an artilleryman, for he actually laid hold of a cannon that had been abandoned, loaded and pointed it, and made it once more be of use against our enemies.  As to the commander of the Westphalians, after this campaign, his premature and melancholy end makes us presume that excessive fatigue and the consequences of some severe wounds had already affected him mortally.

On seeing this leading column marching in such good order, the enemy confined itself to attacking it with their bullets, which it despised, and soon left behind it.  When it came to the turn of the grenadiers of the old guard to pass through this fire, they closed their ranks around Napoleon like a moveable fortress, proud of having to protect him.  Their band of music expressed this pride.  When the danger was greatest, they played the well-known air, “Ou peut-on etre mieux qu’au sein de sa famille!” (Where can we be happier than in the bosom of our family!) But the Emperor, whom nothing escaped, stopped them with an exclamation, “Rather play, Veillons au salut de l’Empire!” (Let us watch for the safety of the empire!) words much better suited to his pre-occupation, and to the general situation.

At the same time, the enemy’s fire becoming troublesome, he gave orders to silence it, and in two hours after he reached Krasnoe.  The sight of Sebastiani, and of the first grenadiers who preceded him, had been sufficient to drive away the enemy’s infantry.  Napoleon entered in a state of great anxiety, from not knowing what corps had been attacking him, and his cavalry being too weak to enable them to get him information, out of reach of the high road.  He left Mortier and the young guard a league behind him, in this way stretching out from too great a distance a hand too feeble to assist his army, and determined to wait for it.

The passage of his column had not been sanguinary, but it could not conquer the ground as it did the enemy; the road was hilly; at every eminence cannon were obliged to be left behind without being spiked, and baggage, which was plundered before it was abandoned.  The Russians from their heights saw the whole interior of the army, its weaknesses, its deformities, its most shameful parts:  in short, all that is generally concealed with the greatest care.