Some hours afterwards, when the latter wished to excuse himself, he could draw nothing from Ney but a severe look, and these words, "Monsieur le Maréchal, I have no reproaches to make to you; God is our witness and your judge!"
When the two corps had fairly recognized each other, they no longer kept their ranks. Soldiers, officers, generals, all ran towards each other. Those of Eugene shook hands with those of Ney; they touched them with a joyful mixture of astonishment and curiosity, and pressed them to their bosoms with the tenderest compassion. The refreshments and brandy which they had just received they lavished upon them; they overwhelmed them with questions. They then all proceeded together in company, towards Orcha, all impatient, Eugene's soldiers to hear, and Ney's to tell their story.
CHAP. VIII.
They stated, that on the 17th of November they had quitted Smolensk with twelve cannon, six thousand infantry, and three hundred cavalry, leaving there five thousand sick at the mercy of the enemy; and that had it not been for the noise of Platof's cannon, and the explosion of the mines, their marshal would never have been able to bring away from the ruins of that city seven thousand unarmed stragglers who had taken shelter in them. They dwelt upon the attentions which their leader had shown to the wounded, and to the women and their children, proving upon this occasion that the bravest was again the most humane.
At the gates of the city an unnatural action struck them with a degree of horror which was still undiminished. A mother had abandoned her little son, only five years old; in spite of his cries and tears she had driven him away from her sledge which was too heavily laden. She herself cried out with a distracted air, "that he had never seen France! that he would not regret it! as for her, she knew France! she was resolved to see France once more!" Twice did Ney himself replace the unfortunate child in the arms of his mother, twice did she cast him off on the frozen snow.
This solitary crime, amidst a thousand instances of the most devoted and sublime tenderness, they did not leave unpunished. The unnatural mother was herself abandoned to the same snow from which her infant was snatched, and entrusted to another mother; this little orphan was exhibited in their ranks; he was afterwards seen at the Berezina, then at Wilna, even at Kowno, and finally escaped from all the horrors of the retreat.
The officers of Ney continued, in answer to the pressing questions of those of Eugene; they depicted themselves advancing towards Krasnoë, with their marshal at their head, completely across our immense wrecks, dragging after them one afflicted multitude, and preceded by another, whose steps were quickened by hunger.
They described how they found the bottom of each ravine filled with helmets, hussar-caps, trunks broken open, scattered garments, carriages and cannon, some overturned, others with the horses still harnessed, and the poor animals worn out, expiring and half devoured.
How, near Korythinia, at the end of their first day's march, a violent cannonading and the whistling of several bullets over their heads, had led them to imagine that a battle had just commenced. This discharge appeared to proceed from before and quite close to them even upon the road, and yet they could not get sight of a single enemy. Ricard and his division advanced with a view to discover them, but they only found, in a turn of the road, two French batteries abandoned, with their ammunition, and in the neighbouring field a horde of wretched Cossacks, who immediately fled, terrified at their audacity in setting fire to them, and at the noise they had made.