All these were mere illusions. At Smolensk, where he arrived first, and from which he was the first to depart, he had rather been informed of his disasters than witnessed them himself. At Krasnoë, where our miseries had been more fully unfolded before him, the peril by which we were surrounded had diverted his attention from them; but at Orcha he could contemplate, at one view and leisurely, the whole extent of his misfortunes.
At Smolensk, thirty-six thousand combatants, one hundred and fifty cannon, the army-chest, and the hope of life, and of breathing at liberty on the other side of the Berezina, still remained; here there were scarcely ten thousand soldiers, almost without clothing or shoes, entangled amid a crowd of dying men, with but a few cannon, and a plundered army-chest.
§ 19. Arrival of Marshal Ney.
Being at length, on the 20th of November, compelled to quit Orcha, he left there Eugene, Mortier, and Davoust, and halted after a march of six miles from that place, still inquiring for Marshal Ney, who was advancing by a different route, and still expecting him. The same feeling of grief pervaded the portion of the army remaining at Orcha. As soon as the most pressing wants allowed a moment's rest, the thoughts and looks of every one were directed towards the Russian bank. They listened for any warlike sounds which might announce the arrival of Ney, or, rather, his last desperate struggle with the foe; but nothing was to be seen but parties of the enemy, who were already menacing the bridges of the Borysthenes.
After exhausting all their conjectures, they had relapsed into a gloomy silence, when suddenly they heard the steps of horses, and then the joyful cry, "Marshal Ney is safe! here are some Polish cavalry come to announce his approach!" One of his officers now galloped in, and informed them that the marshal was advancing on the right bank of the Borysthenes, and had sent him to ask for assistance.
When the two corps, Eugene's and Ney's, fairly recognized each other, they could no longer be kept in their ranks. Soldiers, officers, generals, all rushed forward together. The soldiers of Eugene, eagerly grasping the hands of those of Ney, held them with a joyful mixture of astonishment and curiosity, and embraced them with the tenderest sympathy. They lavished upon them the refreshments and brandy which they had just received, and overwhelmed them with questions. Then they proceeded in company towards Orcha, all burning with impatience, Eugene's soldiers to hear, and Ney's to relate, their story.
The officers of Ney 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 to the mercy of the enemy; and that, had it not been for the noise of Platoff's artillery and the explosion of the mines, their marshal would never have been able to draw from the ruins of that city seven thousand unarmed stragglers who had taken shelter among 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 are also the most humane.
At the gates of the city an unnatural action struck them with a horror that they still felt in all its force. A mother abandoned her little son, only five years old: in spite of his cries and tears, she drove him away from her sledge, which was too heavily laden. She exclaimed, at the same time, with a distracted air, that "he had never seen France! he would not regret it! but 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, and twice did she cast him from her on the frozen snow.
This solitary crime, amid a thousand instances of the most devoted and sublime tenderness, they did not leave unpunished. The unnatural parent was herself abandoned to the snow from which her infant was snatched, and intrusted to another mother: this little orphan was then in their ranks; he was afterward seen at the Berezina, then at Wilna, again at Kowno, and finally escaped from all the horrors of the retreat.