After several days I was given a new mission, in which we would face not marsh fires but the muskets of the Russian dragoons. It happened that General Castex had gone to visit Marshal Victor, and the 24th was out on patrol, so that my regiment was alone in the camp when there arrived two peasants, one of whom I recognised as Captain Bourgoing, Oudinot's aide-de-camp.
The Marshal, who had gone to Wilna after he had been wounded at Polotsk on the 18th of August, having heard that Saint-Cyr had been wounded in his turn on the 18th of October, and had left the army, decided to rejoin 2nd Corps and take up its command.
Oudinot knew that his troops were somewhere in the region of Sienno and was heading for that town when, on arriving at Rasna, he was warned by a Polish priest that a body of Russian dragoons and some Cossacks was roaming the area. The Marshal knew that there was a French cavalry unit at Zapole, so he wrote to the commander of this unit to request a strong escort, and sent the letter by Captain Bourgoing, who for additional safety disguised himself as a peasant. It was as well that he did so, for he had scarcely covered a league when he encountered a large detachment of enemy cavalry, who, thinking that he was a local inhabitant, took no notice of him. Soon after this, Captain Bourgoing heard the sound of gunfire, and increased his pace towards Zapole.
As soon as I heard of the serious position in which the Marshal found himself, I left with my regiment at the trot to bring him help. It was a good thing that we arrived when we did, for although the Marshal, joined by his aides-de-camp and some dozen French soldiers, was barricaded in a stone house, he was on the point of being captured by the dragoons when we arrived. When they saw us, the enemy mounted their horses and fled. My troopers went after them and managed to kill about twenty of them and take some prisoners; I had two men wounded. The marshal, glad to have escaped from the Russians, expressed his thanks, and I escorted him back to the French cantonments where he was out of danger.
At this period in time, it seemed that none of the marshals was prepared to recognise the right of seniority amongst themselves, for not one of them was willing to serve under the orders of his comrade, no matter how serious the situation. So as soon as Oudinot took command of the 2nd Corps, Victor, rather than remaining under his authority to join in combating Wittgenstein, took himself off with his 25,000 men to Kokhanov. Marshal Oudinot, left on his own, marched his men for several days round various parts of the province before setting up his headquarters at Tschereia, with his advance-guard at Loucoulm. It was here, during a minor action involving Castex's brigade that I received my promotion to colonel. If you recall that I had suffered, in the rank of major, a wound at Znaim in Moravia, two at Miranda de Corvo in Portugal, one at Jakoubowo, that I had fought in four campaigns in the same rank and that finally I had been in command of a regiment since the French entry into Russia, you may think that I had earned my new epaulets. I was grateful to the Emperor when I learned that he intended to keep me with the 23rd Chasseurs, for whom I had great affection, and where I was liked and valued. In fact this decision was welcomed by all ranks, and the troops whom I had so often led into battle came, both officers and men, to tell me of their satisfaction at my remaining their commander. The good General Castex, who had always treated me as a brother, welcomed me in front of the regiment, and even the Colonel of the 24th, with whom I had few dealings, came to congratulate me with all his officers, whose respect I had acquired.
However, the situation of the French army grew worse by the day. General Schwartzenberg, the Austrian commander-in-chief whom Napoleon had placed on the right wing of his army, had, by an act of low treachery, allowed the troops belonging to Admiral Tchitchakoff to pass, and they had seized control of Minsk, from where they threatened our rear. The Emperor must now have much regretted that he had given the command of Lithuania to the Dutchman Hogendorf, his aide-de-camp, who, having never been in action, did not know what to do to save Minsk, where he could have easily have combined the 30,000 men of the Durette, Loison, and Dombrowski divisions which had been placed at his disposal. The fall of Minsk, although a serious matter, was one to which the Emperor attached little importance, for he relied on crossing the Beresina at Borisoff, where there was a bridge protected by a fort, in good condition and manned by a Polish regiment. The Emperor was so confident about this that, in order to speed the march of his army he burned all his bridging equipment at Orscha. This was a disastrous mistake, for these pontoons would have assured us a quick crossing of the Beresina which, in the event, we had to effect at the cost of so much blood.
Despite his confidence in relation to the crossing, Napoleon, when he heard of the Russian occupation of Minsk, ordered Oudinot to proceed by forced marches to Borisoff. But we arrived there too late, because General Bronikovski, who was in command of the fort, seeing himself surrounded by a numerous enemy, thought it would be a praiseworthy act to save his garrison. So instead of putting up a determined resistance, which would have given Oudinot the time to come to his help, he abandoned the fort, crossed the bridge to the left bank with all his men, and set out for Orscha to join Oudinot's corps, which he met on the road. The Marshal gave him a very rough reception and ordered him to return with us to Borisoff.
Not only were the town, the bridge across the Beresina, and the fort which dominates it in the hands of Tchitchakoff, but the Admiral, carried away by this success and anxious to challenge the French, had marched from the town with the bulk of his army, the vanguard of which, consisting of a strong cavalry division, was led by General Lambert, the most competent of his lieutenants.
As the country was open, Oudinot put ahead of his infantry the division of Cuirassiers, and ahead of them Castex's brigade of light cavalry.
It was about three leagues from Borisoff that the Russian advance-guard, going in the opposite direction to us, came up against our Cuirassiers, who having done little fighting during the campaign, had asked to be in the front line. At the sight of this fine regiment, still strong in numbers and well-mounted, with their cuirasses gleaming in the sunlight, the Russian cavalry pulled up short; then, gathering their courage, they moved forward again, at which point our Cuirassiers, in a furious charge, overran them, killing or capturing about a thousand. Tchitchakoff, who had been assured that Napoleon's army was no more than a disorganised mass of men without arms, had not expected this display of vitality, and he beat a hurried retreat towards Berisoff.