nd prompt, for herein consists
the pride of the soldier; and here they piqued themselves upon it the
more, on account of the difficulty, in order to astonish, and because
man prides himself on whatever requires extraordinary effort.

The emperor complaisantly affected to know no better, catching at
everything to keep up his hopes; when all at once the first snows fell.
With them fell all the illusions with which he had endeavored to
surround himself. From that moment he thought of nothing but retreat,
without, however, pronouncing the word, and yet no positive order for it
could be obtained from him. He merely said that in twenty days the army
must be in winter quarters, and he urged the departure of his wounded.
On this as on other occasions, he would not consent to the voluntary
relinquishment of anything, however trifling: there was a deficiency of
horses for his artillery, now too numerous for an army so reduced; but
it did not signify, and he flew into a passion at the proposal to leave
part of it behind. "No; the enemy would make a trophy of it;" and he
insisted that everything should go along with him.

In this desert country he gave orders for the purchase of 20,000 horses,
and he expected forage for two months to be provided on a tract where
the most distant and dangerous excursions were not sufficient for the
supply of the passing day. Some of his officers were astonished to hear
orders which it was so impossible to execute; but we have already seen
that he sometimes issued such orders to deceive his enemies, and more
frequently to indicate to his own troops the extent of their
necessities, and the exertions they were called on to make in order to
supply them.

His distress manifested itself only in paroxysms of ill-humor, and this
most frequently in the morning, at his levee. There, amid his assembled
chiefs, in whose anxious looks he imagined he could read disapprobation,
he seemed desirous to awe them by the severity of his manner, by his
sharp tone, and his abrupt language. From the paleness of his face,
however, it was evident that Truth, whose best time for obtaining a
hearing is in the stillness of night, had annoyed him grievously by her
presence, and oppressed him with her unwelcome light. Sometimes, on
these occasions, his bursting heart would overflow, and pour forth its
sorrows without any restraint. His agitation was manifested at such
times by movements of extreme impatience; but, so far from l