He remarked the attitude of Napoleon, the same which he retained throughout the whole of this retreat.  It was grave, silent, and resigned; suffering much less in body than others, but much more in mind, and brooding over his misfortunes.  At that moment General Charpentier sent him from Smolensk a convoy of provisions.  Bessieres wished to take possession of them, but the Emperor instantly had them forwarded to the Prince of the Moskwa, saying, “that those who were fighting must eat before the others.”  At the same time he sent word to Ney “to defend himself long enough to allow him some stay at Smolensk, where the army should eat, rest, and be re-organized.”

But if this hope kept some to their duty, many others abandoned every thing, to hasten towards that promised term of their sufferings.  As for Ney, he saw that a sacrifice was required, and that he was marked out as the victim:  he resigned himself, ready to meet the whole of a danger great as his courage:  thenceforward he neither attached his honour to baggage, nor to cannon, which the winter alone wrested from him.  A first bend of the Borysthenes stopped and kept back part of his guns at the foot of its icy slopes; he sacrificed them without hesitation, passed that obstacle, faced about, and made the hostile river, which crossed his route, serve him as the means of defence.

The Russians, however, advanced under favour of a wood and our forsaken carriages, whence they kept up a fire of musketry on Ney’s troops.  Half of the latter, whose icy arms froze their stiffened fingers, got discouraged; they gave way, justifying themselves by their faint-heartedness on the preceding day, fleeing because they had fled; which before they would have considered as impossible.  But Ney rushed in amongst them, snatched one of their muskets, and led them back to the fire, which he was the first to renew; exposing his life like a private soldier, with a musket in his hand, the same as when he was neither husband nor father, neither possessed of wealth, nor power, nor consideration:  in short, as if he had still every thing to gain, when in fact he had every thing to lose.  At the same time that he again turned soldier, he ceased not to be a general; he took advantage of the ground, supported himself against a height, and covered himself with a palisaded house.  His generals and his colonels, among whom he himself remarked Fezenzac, strenuously seconded him; and the enemy, who expected to pursue, was obliged to retreat.

By this action, Ney gave the army a respite of twenty-four hours; it profited by it to proceed towards Smolensk.  The next day, and all the succeeding days, he manifested the same heroism.  Between Wiazma and Smolensk he fought ten whole days.

CHAP.  XIII.