etails officiels sur cette affaire. Labaume,
Relation circonstanciee de la campagne de Russie. Lecointe de
Laveau, Moscou avant et apres l'incendie, ou notice contenant
une description de cette capitale, des moeurs de ses
habitants, des evenements qui se passerent pendant
l'incendie, et des malheurs qui accablerent l'armee francaise
pendant la retraite de 1812. Mikhailowsky-Danilewsky, Le
passage de la Beresina. von Pfuel, E., Der Ruckzug der
Franzosen aus Russland. de Puibusque, Lettres sur la guerre
de Russie, en 1812, sur la ville de Saint-Petersbourg, les
moeurs et les usages des habitants de la Russie et de la
Pologne.]

Napoleon at Bay -- The Enemy at Fault -- The Crossing of the
Beresina -- The Carnage -- End of the Tragedy -- Napoleon's
Departure -- The Remnants of the Army at Vilna -- The Russian
Generals -- Napoleon's Journey -- Malet's Conspiracy -- The
Emperor's Anxiety -- The State of France -- Affairs in Spain.

The situation of the French was desperate indeed. With a relentless
foe behind, and on each side, and now in front protected by the
rampart of a swollen river, which was overflowing its banks and was
bordered on both sides by dense forests, the army seemed doomed. A
single overmastering thought began to take possession of Napoleon's
mind--that of his personal safety. He appeared to take a momentous
decision--the determination to sacrifice his army bit by bit that he
might save its head. This resolution once formed, he became strong and
courageous, his head was clear, and his invention active. Oudinot was
summoned, with his eight thousand men, to drive out Tchitchagoff; and
orders were sent to Victor, commanding him to take the eleven
thousand which he had, and at any hazard cut off Wittgenstein from
the Beresina. Schwarzenberg had been temporarily checked by a division
of Russians under Sacken, and was no longer a factor in the problem.
Oudinot accomplished his task, but the Russians fired the bridge as
they fled.

Napoleon was scarcely consoled by news that his cavalry had found a
ford at Studjenka. Early on the twenty-third the French
bridge-builders, with all available assistants and material, were on
their way up the river. The remnants of the army were reorganized, and
the baggage-train was reduced to the smallest possible dimensions.
Unfortunately, Victor had not r