It was perhaps nine o'clock, an intensely dark night, and many of us were already asleep—a sleep continually broken by the cold and the pain we suffered from fatigue and hunger. The fire also was constantly going out. We thought of the next day, which should bring us to Smolensk, where we had heard our misery would be over, as food could be had there and we should take up our quarters.
I had just finished my miserable supper of horse's liver, with snow for drink; the Marshal had eaten some also, but he had besides a little biscuit and a drop of brandy—not a very delicate repast for a Marshal of France, but quite luxurious in our present unfortunate circumstances.
As we were eating, the Marshal saw a man leaning on his musket at the entrance to the barn, and asked him why he was there. The man replied that he was on sentry duty.
'For whom?' said the Marshal; 'and why should you do it? You cannot keep out cold and hunger from us. Come in and sit down by the fire.'
He then asked for some sort of pillow for his head. His servant brought him a portmanteau, and, wrapping himself in his cloak, he went to sleep. As I was following his example, in my bearskin, we were roused by an extraordinary noise. This was the north wind travelling over the forests, bringing with it heavy snow and twenty-seven degrees of frost, so that it became quite impossible for the men to stay where they had camped. We heard them shouting as they ran about towards any fire they saw; but the heavy snow-storms caught them, and they could soon run no more, or if they tried to do so, they fell and never rose again. In this way many hundreds perished, and thousands died of those who had stayed where they were camped. We were most fortunate in getting shelter in our corner of the barn. Many men took refuge with us, and thus saved their lives.
I must relate an act of devotion called forth by this disastrous night, when all the powers of hell seemed to be turned loose on us.
The Prince Émile of Hesse-Cassel was with us, and his contingent, composed of several regiments of cavalry and infantry. Like us, he bivouacked on the left side of the road, with the remainder of his unfortunate men, now reduced to five or six hundred. About a hundred and fifty dragoons were left; but these were almost all on foot, their horses being dead and eaten. These brave men, almost frozen with the cold, sacrificed themselves in this awful night to save their young Prince, not more than twenty years of age. They stood round him the whole night wrapped in their great white cloaks, pressed tightly one against the other, protecting him from the wind and cold. The next morning three-quarters of them were dead and buried beneath the snow, along with ten thousand others from different corps.
At daylight, to regain the road, we were obliged to go down to the ravine, where the evening before the artillerymen had made their bivouac. Not one was left alive; men and horses were all covered with snow—the men still round the fires, the horses harnessed to the guns, which we were forced to leave there.
It almost always happened that the weather became more endurable after a storm and excessive cold. It seemed as if Nature had wearied herself out in torturing us, and she must have breathing-space before she struck us again.