I asked how many there were in the Marshal's body-guard.
'About sixty,' answered a drummer sitting on his drum; 'and another sixty we found here well and fit. I have been with the Marshal ever since the crossing of the Dnieper, and with him at our back we can manage those dogs of Cossacks. Coquin de Dieu!' he said, 'if it were not so cold, and if I hadn't frozen hands, I would sound the attack myself all day to-morrow.'
I returned to the faubourg, and found all my comrades asleep on the floor. There was a large fire, and the room was warm, and as I was completely worn out, I lay down with them.
It might be perhaps two o'clock in the morning when I awoke, and as I had now missed the rendezvous I had given the Marshal's Grenadiers, I told my comrades that I was going to the town to get some bread, and that now was a favourable time, as all the soldiers would be asleep; and, besides, I had some Russian bank-notes. Several of them tried to get up and go with me, but could not do so. Only one, Bailly, a sergeant, succeeded in rising, and the others gave us their money, amounting to about fifty francs.
It was a beautiful moonlight night, but when we were in the street it felt so bitterly cold that it would not have taken much to send us back into the house.
We met no one in the faubourg. At the gates of the town there was no sentry. The Russians could have got in as easily as we did. When we were opposite the first house on the left, I caught sight of a light through the entrance to the cellar, and, stooping down, I saw it was a bakehouse, and that bread was being made. The smell had made us aware of it before. My comrade knocked, and they asked us what we wanted. We answered: 'Open the door! We are Generals!' They opened at once, and we went in. They took us into a large room, where a number of officers were lying on the floor. They did not trouble to ask us if we were really what we pretended to be. For some time past it had been hardly possible to distinguish an officer from a private.
A very fat woman was standing against the cellar door, so we asked her if she had any bread to sell. She said no, it was not baked yet; we might go down to the cellar and see for ourselves. An officer lying on some straw, wrapped in a great cloak, got up and went down with us. Two bakers were there fast asleep, and looking all round, we could see nothing; and we began to think that the woman had spoken the truth, when on stooping down I saw under a kneading-trough a large basket, which I drew out. In it we found seven large loaves of white bread, weighing three or four pounds each, as good as those made in Paris. What luck! What a glorious find for men who had had no bread for fifty days! I began by taking possession of two, which I put under my arm and my cape. My comrade did the same, and the officer took the three others. This officer was Fouché, a Grenadier-Vélite, then an Adjutant-Major in a regiment of the Young Guard, and a Major-General. We came out of the cellar, and found the woman still standing at the door. We said that we would return in the morning when the bread was baked, and she was so anxious to get rid of us that she opened the door, and we found ourselves in the street.[57]
As soon as ever we were free, we dropped our muskets into the snow, and began to bite into the loaves voraciously; but, as my lips were cracked and bleeding, I could not open my mouth as comfortably as I wished. Just then two men came up to us, asking if we had nothing to sell or exchange, and we saw that they were Jews. I told them that we had Russian bank-notes for a hundred roubles each, and asked how much they would give.
'Fifty,' said the first in German. 'Fifty-five,' said the other. 'Sixty,' went on the first.
He ended by offering us seventy-seven, and I made the condition that they should give us some café-au-lait. They consented. The second then came behind me and said, 'Eighty!' But the price was concluded, and, as the man had promised us coffee, we did not wish to bargain over again for twenty francs at most.