a horror
that they still felt in all its force. A mother abandoned her little
son, only five years old: in spite of his cries and tears, she drove him
away from her sledge, which was too heavily laden. She exclaimed, at the
same time, with a distracted air, that "_he_ had never seen France! _he_
would not regret it! but _she_ knew France! _she_ was resolved to see
France once more!" Twice did Ney himself replace the unfortunate child
in the arms of his mother, and twice did she cast him from her on the
frozen snow.

This solitary crime, amid a thousand instances of the most devoted and
sublime tenderness, they did not leave unpunished. The unnatural parent
was herself abandoned to the snow from which her infant was snatched,
and intrusted to another mother: this little orphan was then in their
ranks; he was afterward seen at the Berezina, then at Wilna, again at
Kowno, and finally escaped from all the horrors of the retreat.

Frustrated in his plans Ney instead of advancing to join Napoleon was
compelled to order his men to return towards Smolensk. At these words
they were struck motionless with astonishment. Even his aid-de-camp
could not believe his ears: he remained silent, like one who does not
comprehend what he hears, and looked at his general in amazement. But
the marshal briefly repeating the same order in a still more imperative
tone, they were no longer at any loss, but all recognized in it
resolution taken, a resource discovered, that self-confidence which
inspires others with the same feeling, and a spirit which rises superior
to its situation, however perilous it may be. They instantly obeyed,
and, without the slightest hesitation, turned their backs on their own
army, on the emperor, and on France. Once more they returned into that
fatal Russia. Their retrograde march had lasted an hour: again they came
to the field of battle marked by the remains of the army of Italy; there
they halted, and the marshal, who had remained with the rear guard, then
joined them.

Their eyes followed all his movements. What did he intend doing? and,
whatever might be his plan, where would he direct his steps, without a
guide, in an unknown country? But, while they were thus perplexing
themselves, he, with his warlike instinct, had halted on the edge of a
ravine of such depth as to make it evident that there was a stream at
the bottom of it. By clearing away the snow and breaking the ice, this
fact was soon established: and