The village of Liadoui is built of wood upon an open situation not many leagues from Krasnoë. The Emperor slept at the post-house, a modest edifice which two companies of the fusiliers were to guard. I myself got a bivouac with the priest, who needed more than one blow from the butt end of a musket before he was glad to see me. The whole situation of the little force in Liadoui would have been considered dangerous at any other time, but we had to take the best we could, and the fact that there were Russians on both flanks had ceased to trouble us while we could get food and shelter.
For the first time now for many a day I got a dish of beef and rice that night, and a bottle of wine to wash it down. This His Majesty sent me from his own table, and be sure I shared it with my comrades. We were in consequence quite a happy company, and we sang "Veillons au salut de l'Empire" as merrily as we might have done in the barracks at Paris. Then came His Majesty's summons for Major Constant to attend him at once; and quitting my comrades with reluctance, I put on the great fur coat which I had carried from Moscow, and went across to the post-house.
Much to my surprise I found the Emperor alone. He sat in a spacious room overlooking the street, and the remains of his dinner were still upon the table. Clad in the well-known grey overcoat and the little cocked hat, without which none of us would have recognised him, I perceived also that he had a heavy cape of fur about his shoulders and wore fur-topped boots almost to his hips. He seemed mightily pleased to see me, and, pouring out a glass of wine, he bade me drink it.
"Do you remember this place?" he asked me as the first question.
I told him that the Vélites had not passed that way before, having taken the northern road to Moscow. He, however, hardly waited for my answer, but, watching me drink the wine, he said:
"I see that you do not know it. That is to the good; you will not ask me unnecessary questions. Now drink your wine and come and see your patient. She is young—you will not object to that. The Vélites, I understand, are critical; it is for that reason I chose a surgeon from your ranks."
He laughed as though pleased at the jest. Buttoning the fur cape closely about him, he left the room immediately, and I followed him, the wine freezing upon my moustache as soon as we were out in the bitter night.
Never have I known a cold so intense nor a wind that shrivelled the flesh so quickly. Yet the scene itself was picturesque enough, and under any other circumstances a man might have stopped to marvel at it. The moon now shone full and clear from a cloudless sky; the trees about Liadoui glistened with a thousand diamonds of the frost; the snow beneath our feet was as hard as iron and burnished with a sheen of silver light. Imagine upon this wooden houses with all their windows aglow, dark forms moving here and there, the distant rumble of cannon upon the road, and even the echo of musket shots, and you will see the picture as I saw and remember it.
Whither was the Emperor going, and upon what errand? I could not so much as imagine his purpose when we quitted the post-house and, crossing the street, entered upon a narrow footpath which seemed about to lead to the neighbouring forest. The peril of such a journey, with the Cossacks all about us and the night hawks everywhere, would have been patent to a child, and it even amazed an old soldier like myself, who could but marvel at such imprudence.
Was it possible that His Majesty could be about to visit the Russian camp secretly, as so many of our brave fellows had done?