they
were menaced as for the life that was offered them.

But Napoleon's confidence increased with his perils: in his eyes, this
handful of men, in these deserts of snow and ice, was still the Grand
Army! and himself the conqueror of Europe! nor was there any affectation
in this firmness: we were certain of it, when in this very town, we saw
him burn, with his own hands, everything belonging to him that might
serve as a trophy to the enemy, in the event of his fall.

But everything was now changed: two hostile armies were opposing his
retreat; and the question to be decided was, through which of them he
should cut his way. As he knew nothing of the Lithuanian forests into
which he was about penetrating, he summoned such of his officers as had
been through them, in order to obtain information.

The emperor began by remarking that "too great familiarity with victory
was often the precursor of great disasters, but that recrimination was
now out of the question." He then mentioned the capture of Minsk, and,
admitting the skilfulness of Kutusoff's persevering manoeuvres on the
right flank, he said that "it was his intention to abandon his line of
operations on Minsk, unite with the Dukes of Belluno and Reggio, cut his
way through Wittgenstein's army, and regain Wilna by turning the sources
of the Berezina." Jomini combated this plan.

Finally Napoleon decided upon Borizoff.[173] But he said, "that it was
cruel to retreat without fighting, to present the appearance of flight.
Had he only a magazine, some point of support which would allow him to
halt, he would prove to Europe that he still knew how to fight and how
to conquer."

All these were mere illusions. At Smolensk, where he arrived first, and
from which he was the first to depart, he had rather been informed of
his disasters than witnessed them himself. At Krasnoe, where our
miseries had been more fully unfolded before him, the peril by which we
were surrounded had diverted his attention from them; but at Orcha he
could contemplate, at one view and leisurely, the whole extent of his
misfortunes.

At Smolensk, thirty-six thousand combatants, one hundred and fifty
cannon, the army-chest, and the hope of life, and of breathing at
liberty on the other side of the Berezina, still remained; here there
were scarcely ten thousand soldiers, almost without clothing or shoes,
entangled amid a crowd of dying men, with but a few cannon, and a
plundered army-chest.

Sec.