when cold weather first begins.  All these pale countenances drawn with suffering became more serene.  These poor soldiers also rejoiced to see their comrades, and questioned them with anxious curiosity concerning the events which had followed the battle of Borodino.  When they learned that we had bivouacked at Moscow, they were filled with joy; and it was very evident that their greatest regret was that they could not have been with the others to see the fine furniture of the rich Muscovites used as fuel at the bivouac fires.  Napoleon directed that each carriage of the suite should convey one of these unfortunates; and this was done, everybody complying with the order with a readiness which gratified the Emperor exceedingly; and the poor wounded fellows said in accents of most ardent gratitude, that they were much more comfortable on these soft cushions than in the ambulances, which we could well believe.  A lieutenant of the cuirassiers who had just undergone an amputation was placed in the landau of the Emperor, while he traveled on horseback.

This answers every accusation of cruelty so gratuitously made against the memory of a great man who has passed away.  I have read somewhere with intense disgust that the Emperor sometimes ordered his carriage to pass over the wounded, whose cries of agony made not the slightest impression on him; all of which is false and very revolting.  None of those who served the Emperor could have been ignorant of his solicitude for the unfortunate victims of war, and the care he had taken of them.  Foreigners, enemies, or Frenchmen,—­all were recommended to the surgeon’s care with equal strictness.

From time to time frightful explosions made us turn our heads, and glance behind us.  They were caissons which were being exploded that we might no longer be encumbered with them, as the march became each day more painful.  It produced a sad impression to see that we were reduced to such a point of distress as to be compelled to throw our powder to the winds to keep from leaving it to the enemy.  But a still sadder reflection came into our minds at each detonation,—­the grand army must be rapidly hastening to dissolution when the material remaining exceeded our needs, and the number of men still left was so much short of that required to use it.  On the 30th, the Emperor’s headquarters were in a poor hovel which had neither doors nor windows.  We had much difficulty in enclosing even a corner sufficient for him to sleep.  The cold was increasing, and the nights were icy; the small fortified palisades of which a species of post relays had been made, placed from point to point, marked the divisions of the route, and served also each evening as Imperial headquarters.  The Emperor’s bed was hastily set up there, and a cabinet arranged as well as possible where he could work with his secretaries, or write his orders to the different chiefs whom he had left on the road and in the towns.