On the other hand, when leaving Wilna, many of them had thrown away their winter garments, that they might load themselves with provisions. Their shoes were worn out by the length of the march, and the rest of their apparel by the successive actions in which they had been engaged; but, in spite of all, their attitude was still lofty. They carefully concealed their wretched plight from the notice of the emperor, and appeared before him with their arms bright and in the best order. In this first court of the palace of the Czars, full sixteen hundred miles from their resources, and after so many battles and bivouacs, they were anxious to appear still clean, alert, and prompt, for herein consists the pride of the soldier; and here they piqued themselves upon it the more, on account of the difficulty, in order to astonish, and because man prides himself on whatever requires extraordinary effort.
The emperor complaisantly affected to know no better, catching at everything to keep up his hopes; when all at once the first snows fell. With them fell all the illusions with which he had endeavored to surround himself. From that moment he thought of nothing but retreat, without, however, pronouncing the word, and yet no positive order for it could be obtained from him. He merely said that in twenty days the army must be in winter quarters, and he urged the departure of his wounded. On this as on other occasions, he would not consent to the voluntary relinquishment of anything, however trifling: there was a deficiency of horses for his artillery, now too numerous for an army so reduced; but it did not signify, and he flew into a passion at the proposal to leave part of it behind. "No; the enemy would make a trophy of it;" and he insisted that everything should go along with him.
In this desert country he gave orders for the purchase of 20,000 horses, and he expected forage for two months to be provided on a tract where the most distant and dangerous excursions were not sufficient for the supply of the passing day. Some of his officers were astonished to hear orders which it was so impossible to execute; but we have already seen that he sometimes issued such orders to deceive his enemies, and more frequently to indicate to his own troops the extent of their necessities, and the exertions they were called on to make in order to supply them.
His distress manifested itself only in paroxysms of ill-humor, and this most frequently in the morning, at his levee. There, amid his assembled chiefs, in whose anxious looks he imagined he could read disapprobation, he seemed desirous to awe them by the severity of his manner, by his sharp tone, and his abrupt language. From the paleness of his face, however, it was evident that Truth, whose best time for obtaining a hearing is in the stillness of night, had annoyed him grievously by her presence, and oppressed him with her unwelcome light. Sometimes, on these occasions, his bursting heart would overflow, and pour forth its sorrows without any restraint. His agitation was manifested at such times by movements of extreme impatience; but, so far from lightening his griefs, he only aggravated them by those acts of injustice for which he reproached himself, and which he was afterwards anxious to repair.
It was only to Count Daru that he unbosomed himself frankly, but without any weakness. He said "he should march upon Kutusoff, crush or drive him back, and then turn suddenly towards Smolensk." Daru, who had before approved this course, replied that "it was now too late; that the Russian army was re-enforced, his own weakened, and his victory forgotten; that, the moment his troops turned their faces towards home, they would slip away from him by degrees; that each soldier, laden with booty, would try to get the start of the army, for the purpose of disposing of it in France." "What, then, is to be done?" exclaimed the emperor. "Remain here," replied Daru; "make one vast intrenched camp of Moscow, and pass the winter in it. He would answer for it that there would be no want of bread and salt: the rest foraging on a large scale would supply. Such of the horses as they could not procure food for might be salted down. As to lodgings, if there were not houses enough, the cellars might make up the deficiency. Here we might stay till the return of spring, when our re-enforcements and all Lithuania in arms would come to relieve, to join us, and to complete the conquest."
After listening to this proposal the emperor was for some time silent and thoughtful: he then replied, "This is a lion's counsel! But what would Paris say? What would they do there? What have they been doing there for the last three weeks that they have not heard from me? Who knows what would be the effect of a suspension of communication for six months? No: France would not accustom itself to my absence, and Prussia and Austria would take advantage of it."
Still Napoleon could not make up his mind either to stay or to depart. Though overcome in this struggle of pertinacity, he deferred from day to day the avowal of his defeat. Amid the threatening storm of men and elements which was gathering around him, his ministers and aids-de-camp saw him pass whole days in discussing the merits of some new verses which he had received, or the regulations for one of the French theatres at Paris, which he took three evenings to finish. As they were acquainted with his deep anxiety, they could not but admire the strength of his genius, and the facility with which he could take off the whole force of his attention from, or fix it on, whatever subject he pleased.
It was merely remarked that he prolonged his meals, which had hitherto been so simple and so short. He seemed desirous of stifling thought by repletion. He would then pass whole hours half reclined, and as if torpid, awaiting with a novel in his hand the catastrophe of his terrible history. In contemplating this obstinate and inflexible character thus struggling with impossibility, his officers would observe to each other that, having arrived at the summit of his glory, he no doubt foresaw that from his first retrograde step would date its decline; that for this reason he continued immovable, clinging to, and lingering a few moments longer on, his proud elevation.
Kutusoff, meanwhile, was gaining the time which we were losing. His letters to Alexander described "his army as being in the midst of plenty; his recruits arriving from all quarters, and being rapidly trained; his wounded recovering in the bosom of their families; the whole of the peasantry on foot, some in arms, some on the look-out from the tops of steeples or in our camp, while others were stealing into our habitations, and even into the Kremlin. Rostopchin received a daily report of what was passing at Moscow as regularly as before its capture. If they undertook to be our guides, it was for the purpose of delivering us into his hands. His partisans were every day bringing in some hundreds of prisoners. Everything concurred to destroy the enemy's army and to strengthen his own; to serve him and to betray us; in a word, the campaign, which was over for us, was but just about to begin for them."
Kutusoff neglected no advantage. He made his camp ring with the news of the victory of Salamanca. "The French," said he, "are expelled from Madrid. The hand of the Most High presses heavily upon Napoleon. Moscow will be his prison, his grave, and that of the whole of his Grand Army. We shall soon subdue France in Russia!" It was in such language that the Russian general addressed his troops and his emperor; and still he kept up appearances with Murat. At once bold and crafty, he contrived gradually to prepare a sudden and impetuous warfare, and to cover his plans for our destruction with demonstrations of kindness and honeyed words.