In continuation, they said they had hitherto only discovered the traces of a disastrous march.  But next morning there was a complete change, and they confessed their unlucky presentiments when they arrived at that field of snow reddened with blood, sprinkled with broken cannon and mutilated corses.  The dead bodies still marked the ranks and places of battle; they pointed them out to each other. There had been the 14th division; there were still to be seen, on the broken plates of their caps, the numbers of its regiments. There had been the Italian guard; there were its dead, whose uniforms were still distinguishable!  But where were its living remnants?  Vainly did they interrogate that field of blood, these lifeless forms, the motionless and frozen silence of the desert and the grave! they could neither penetrate into the fate of their companions, nor into that which awaited themselves.

Ney hurried them rapidly over all these ruins, and they had advanced without impediment to a part of the road, where it descends into a deep ravine, from which it rises into a broad and level height.  It was that of Katova, and the same field of battle, where, three months before, in their triumphant march, they had beat Newerowskoi, and saluted Napoleon with the cannon which they had taken the day before from his enemies.  They said they recollected the situation, notwithstanding the different appearance given to it by the snow.

Mortier’s officers here exclaimed, “that it was in that very position that the Emperor and they had waited for them on the 17th, fighting all the time.”  Very well, replied those of Ney, Kutusoff, or rather Miloradowitch, occupied Napoleon’s place, for the old Russian general had not yet quitted Dobroe.

Their disbanded men were already retrograding, pointing to the snowy plains completely black with the enemy’s troops, when a Russian, detaching himself from their army, descended the hill; he presented himself alone to their marshal, and either from an affectation of extreme politeness, respect for the misfortune of their leader, or dread of the effects of his despair, covered with honied words the summons to surrender.

It was Kutusoff who had sent him.  “That field-marshal would not have presumed to make so cruel a proposal to so great a general, to a warrior so renowned, if there remained a single chance of safety for him.  But there were eighty thousand Russians before and around him, and if he had any doubt of it, Kutusoff offered to let him send a person to go through his ranks, and count his forces.”

The Russian had not finished his speech, when suddenly forty discharges of grape shot, proceeding from the right of his army, and cutting our ranks to pieces, struck him with amazement, and interrupted what he had to say.  At the same moment a French officer darted forward, seized, and was about to kill him as a traitor, when Ney, checking this fury, called to him angrily, “A marshal never surrenders; there is no parleying under an enemy’s fire; you are my prisoner.”  The unfortunate officer was disarmed, and placed in a situation of exposure to the fire of his own army.  He was not released until we reached Kowno, after twenty-six days captivity, sharing all our miseries, at liberty to escape, but restrained by his parole.