Rougeard and his companions succeeded in reaching Smolensko, but only to find it a scene of intolerable wretchedness and unutterable confusion. The Emperor and the Old Guard had left some days previously, and for the disorganized troops pouring every hour into the miserable, ruined city, there was neither food nor shelter, neither order nor discipline. So our little coterie still kept together, and hoping against hope determined to continue their march towards the frontier.
Ten or twelve weary days of marching followed. Always hungry, always cold, always tired, Henri would have given up the struggle once and again, but for the thought which kept for ever
“Beating in upon his weary brain,
As though it were the burden of a song”—
“I must see my mother and my sister again; I cannot die without my mother’s forgiveness.”
Usually their only food was a little horse-flesh, but even that failed them frequently; nor could fuel be always found for the fire of their bivouac. From the bodies of their comrades that strewed the way they sometimes obtained articles of clothing—a sad resource, but all, even the gentle Henri, were now becoming inured to sights of horror. Sometimes they would meet with other coteries whose condition was as pitiable as their own, or they would be alarmed by a few stray shots from the “clouds of Cossacks” that hovered about them. Rougeard informed them that the enemy was beside, not behind them; the Russians having very prudently chosen their lines of march parallel to that of the retreating French armies, which were thus kept from straying to the right or to the left, and sternly restricted to the track their own cruelty had already rendered a desert.
At last a serious misfortune happened to the little band. A long day’s march, absolutely without food and in piercing cold, had exhausted them all. Rougeard, who was by far the strongest of the party, said to his companions, “Rest in the shelter of this wall, while I go a little further towards the lights I see yonder. I daresay some of our people are there; perhaps they will respect my uniform, and spare us a little food.” He moved away, but turned back for a moment to add, “Keep up your hearts, my lads. If your strength is good for one day’s marching more, I think you may see the Beresina before to-morrow night.”
That was the last time they looked upon the face or heard the voice of Pierre Rougeard. Whether he was buried in the snow, was murdered or made prisoner by the Russians, they could not tell. His loss dissolved the coterie which his influence had held together. Its members went their several ways, and far too sad a task would it be for us to follow them. Each in his own measure fulfilled the awful doom that had fallen upon the host to which he belonged. For the word had gone forth: “Thus saith the Lord, Such as are for death, to death; such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.”
We may, however, follow for a little way the fortunes of Rougeard. The bivouac fires he saw at a distance proved to be those of a Russian regiment of volunteers. He fell into the hands of the sentries, and in spite of a resistance as desperate as his exhausted condition permitted him to make, was secured, and brought at once to the colonel, a Russian nobleman named Demidoff. To his questions Rougeard replied with proud fearlessness; but he owned, upon being asked, that he was famishing with hunger. Demidoff, who perhaps had been reading the Book his sovereign loved so well, led the prisoner to his own tent, where an elegant and abundant dinner had just been served. “Sit down, my friend,” he said to him, “eat and drink; you are welcome.”
But the veteran did not obey. His brave, proud heart, which no peril of field or flood or wilderness had ever daunted, was melted, was crushed by the unexpected kindness. A great shudder passed over his frame. Trembling “as certainly he never would have trembled before the enemy,” he said with uncontrollable emotion, “Can it be that a Russian, an officer, bids me sit down to eat and drink with him, after all the horrors we have committed in his country, and against his Emperor?”[42]