But amid all these horrors there were noble acts of devotion. Those there were who abandoned everything to save some of the unfortunate wounded by carrying them on their shoulders; while others, unable to extricate their half-frozen comrades from the throng, sacrificed their lives in defending them either against their own countrymen, or from the blows of their enemies.
On the most exposed part of the hill, an officer of the emperor, Colonel the Count de Turenne, repulsed the Cossacks, and in defiance of their cries of rage and their fire, he distributed before their eyes the private treasure of Napoleon to the guards whom he found within his reach. These brave men, fighting with one hand, and collecting the spoils of their leader with the other, succeeded in saving them. Long afterward, when they were out of all danger, each man faithfully restored what had been intrusted to him. Not a single piece of money was lost.
This catastrophe at Ponari was the more disgraceful, as it might easily have been foreseen, and no less easily prevented: for the hill could have been turned by its sides. The property we here abandoned, however, was at least of some use by arresting the pursuit of the Cossacks. While these were busy in collecting their plunder, Ney, at the head of a few hundred French and Bavarians, supported the retreat as far as Évé. As this was his last effort, we must not neglect to describe the close of that retreat which he had continued uninterruptedly, and in the most methodical manner, ever since he left Viazma on the 3d of November.
§ 24. Conclusion.
Finally Ney and his men arrived at Kowno, which was the last town of the Russian empire. On the 13th of December, after marching forty-six days under the most terrible sufferings, they once more came in sight of a friendly country. Instantly, without halting, or looking behind them, the greater part plunged into, and dispersed themselves in, the forests of Prussian Poland. Some there were, however, who, on their arrival on the friendly bank of the Niemen, turned round; and there, when they cast a last look on that land of horrors from which they were escaping, and found themselves on the same spot whence, five months before, their countless eagles[179] had taken their victorious flight, tears gushed from their eyes and they broke out into exclamations of the most poignant sorrow.
"This, then, was the bank which they had studded with their bayonets! this the allied country which had disappeared, only five months before, under the steps of their immense army, and which then seemed to them to be metamorphosed into moving hills and plains of men and horses! These were the same valleys from which, under the rays of a brilliant sun, had poured forth the three long columns of dragoons and cuirassiers, resembling three rivers of glittering iron and brass. And now, men, arms, eagles, horses, the sun itself, and even this frontier river, which they had crossed replete with ardor and hope, had all disappeared. The Niemen was now only a lengthened line of masses of ice, arrested and chained to each other by the increasing severity of the winter. Instead of the three French bridges, brought from a distance of five hundred leagues, and thrown across it with such audacious promptitude, a Russian bridge alone was standing. Finally, in place of those innumerable warriors, of their four hundred thousand comrades, who had been so often their partners in victory, and who had dashed onward with so much pride and joy into the territory of Russia, they now saw issuing from these pale and frozen deserts only a thousand infantry and horsemen still under arms, nine cannon, and twenty thousand miserable wretches covered with rags, with downcast looks, hollow eyes, cadaverous and livid complexions, and long beards matted with frost; some disputing in silence the narrow passage of the bridge, which, in spite of their small numbers, did not suffice for the eagerness of their flight; others fleeing dispersed over the rough ice of the river, toiling and dragging themselves along from one point to another: this was the whole Grand Army! and even many of these fugitives were recruits who had just joined it!"
Two kings, one prince, eight marshals, followed by a few officers, generals on foot, dispersed, and without attendants: finally, a few hundred men of the Old Guard, still armed—these were the remains of the Grand Army—these alone represented it!
Or rather, I should say, it still breathed only in Marshal Ney! Comrades! allies! enemies! here I invoke your testimony; let us pay the homage which is due to the memory of an unfortunate hero: the facts alone will suffice.
All were flying, and Murat himself, traversing Kowno as he had done Wilna, first gave, and then withdrew, an order, to rally at Tilsit, and subsequently fixed upon Gumbinnen. Ney then entered Kowno, accompanied only by his aids-de-camp, for all besides had given way or fallen around him. From the time of his leaving Viazma, this was the fourth rear guard which had been worn out and disappeared in his hands. But winter and famine, far more than the Russians, had destroyed them. For the fourth time he remained alone before the enemy, and, still undismayed, he sought for a fifth rear guard.