Every day, at 5 o’clock in the evening, he took his position, stopped the Russians, allowed his soldiers to eat and take some rest, and resumed his march at 10 o’clock.  During the whole of the night, he pushed the mass of the stragglers before him, by dint of cries, of entreaties, and of blows.  At daybreak, which was about 7 o’clock, he halted, again took position, and rested under arms and on guard until 10 o’clock; the enemy then made his appearance, and he was compelled to fight until the evening, gaining as much or as little ground in the rear as possible.  That depended at first on the general order of march, and at a later period upon circumstances.

For a long time this rear-guard did not consist of more than two thousand, then of one thousand, afterwards about five hundred, and finally of sixty men; and yet Berthier, either designedly or from mere routine, made no change in his instructions.  These were always addressed to the commander of a corps of thirty-five thousand men; in them he coolly detailed all the different positions, which were to be taken up and guarded until the next day, by divisions and regiments which no longer existed.  And every night, when, in consequence of Ney’s urgent warnings, he was obliged to go and awake the King of Naples, and compel him to resume his march, he testified the same astonishment.

In this manner did Ney support the retreat from Wiazma to Eve, and a few wersts beyond it.  There, according to his usual custom, he had stopped the Russians, and was giving the first hours of the night to rest, when, about ten o’clock, he and De Wrede perceived that they had been left alone.  Their soldiers had deserted them, as well as their arms, which they saw shining and piled together close to their abandoned fires.

Fortunately the intensity of the cold, which had just completed the discouragement of our people, had also benumbed their enemies.  Ney overtook his column with some difficulty; it was now only a band of fugitives; a few Cossacks chased it before them; without attempting either to take or to kill them; either from compassion, for one gets tired of every thing in time, or that the enormity of our misery had terrified even the Russians themselves, and they believed themselves sufficiently revenged, and many of them behaved generously; or, finally, that they were satiated and overloaded with booty.  It might be also, that in the darkness, they did not perceive that they had only to do with unarmed men.

Winter, that terrible ally of the Muscovites, had sold them his assistance dearly.  Their disorder pursued our disorder.  We often saw prisoners who had escaped several times from their frozen hands and looks.  They had at first marched in the middle of their straggling column without being noticed by it.  There were some of them, who, taking advantage of a favourable moment, ventured to attack the Russian soldiers when isolated, and strip them of their provisions,