The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of the Expedition to Russia, by
Count Philip de Segur

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Title: History of the Expedition to Russia
Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812

Author: Count Philip de Segur

Release Date: April 3, 2006 [EBook #18113]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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HISTORY

OF THE

EXPEDITION TO RUSSIA,

UNDERTAKEN BY THE

EMPEROR NAPOLEON,

IN THE YEAR 1812.

BY GENERAL, COUNT PHILIP DE SEGUR.

Quamquam animus meminisse horret, luctuque refugit,
Incipiam--.

VIRGIL.

_SECOND EDITION, CAREFULLY REVISED AND CORRECTED._

IN TWO VOLUMES,

WITH A MAP AND SEVEN ENGRAVINGS.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

TREUTTEL AND WURTZ, TREUTTEL, JUN. AND RICHTER,
30, SOHO-SQUARE.

1825.

[Illustration: Portrait of Napoleon]

TO THE

VETERANS OF THE GRAND ARMY.

COMRADES,

I have undertaken the task of tracing the History of the Grand Army and
its Leader during the year 1812. I address it to such of you as the ices
of the North have disarmed, and who can no longer serve their country,
but by the recollections of their misfortunes and their glory. Stopped
short in your noble career, your existence is much more in the past than
in the present; but when the recollections are so great, it is allowable
to live solely on them. I am not afraid, therefore, of troubling that
repose which you have so dearly purchased, by placing before you the
most fatal of your deeds of arms. Who is there of us but knows, that
from the depth of his obscurity the looks of the fallen man are
involuntarily directed towards the splendor of his past existence--even
when its light illuminates the shoal on which the bark of his fortune
struck, and when it displays the fragments of the greatest of
shipwrecks?

* * * * *

For myself, I will own, that an irresistible feeling carries me back
incessantly to that disastrous epoch of our public and private
calamities. My memory feels a