We re-entered the Kremlin the morning of the 18th of September. The palace and the hospital for foundlings were almost the only buildings remaining uninjured. On the route our carriages were surrounded by a crowd of miserable Muscovites begging alms. They followed us as far as the palace, walking through hot ashes, or over the heated stones, which crumbled beneath their feet. The poorest were barefoot; and it was a heart-rending sight to see these creatures, as their feet touched the burning debris, give vent to their sufferings by screams and gestures of despair.

As the only unencumbered part of the street was occupied by our carriages, this swarm threw themselves pell-mell against the wheels or under the feet of our horses. Our progress was consequently very slow, and we had so much the longer under our eyes this picture of the greatest of all miseries, that of a people burned out of their homes, and without food or the means to procure it. The Emperor had food and money given them.

When we were again established at the Kremlin, and had resumed our regular routine of living, a few days passed in perfect tranquillity. The Emperor appeared less sad, and in consequence those surrounding him became somewhat more cheerful. It seemed as if we had returned from the campaign, and taken up again the customary occupations of city life; but if the Emperor sometimes indulged in this illusion, it was soon dispelled by the sight Moscow presented as seen from the windows of his apartments, and each time Napoleon's eyes turned in that direction it was evident that he was oppressed by the saddest presentiments, although he no longer manifested the same vehement impatience as on his first stay at the palace, when he saw the flames surrounding him and driving him from his apartments. But he exhibited the depressing calm of a careworn man who cannot foresee how things will result. The days were long at the Kremlin while the Emperor awaited Alexander's reply, which never came. At this time I noticed that the Emperor kept constantly on his table Voltaire's history of Charles XII.

The Emperor was a prey to his genius for administration, even in the midst of the ruins of this great city; and in order to divert his mind from the anxiety caused by outside affairs, occupied himself with municipal organization, and had already arranged that Moscow should be stocked with provisions for the winter.

A theater was erected near the Kremlin, but the Emperor never attended. The troupe was composed of a few unfortunate French actors, who had remained in Moscow in a state of utter destitution; but his Majesty encouraged this enterprise in the hope that theatrical representations would offer some diversion to both officers and soldiers. It was said that the first actors of Paris had been ordered to Moscow, but of that I know nothing positively. There was at Moscow a celebrated Italian singer whom the Emperor heard several times, but only in his apartments, and he did not form part of the regular troupe.

Until the 18th of October the time was spent in discussions, more or less heated, between the Emperor and his generals, as to the best course to be pursued. Every one well knew that retreat had now become inevitable, and the Emperor was well aware of this fact himself; but it was plainly evident that it cost his pride a terrible struggle to speak the decisive word. The last days preceding the 18th were the saddest I have ever known. In his ordinary intercourse with his friends and counselors his Majesty manifested much coldness of manner; he became taciturn, and entire hours passed without any one present having the courage to begin a conversation. The Emperor, who was generally so hurried at his meals, prolonged them most surprisingly. Sometimes during the day he threw himself on a sofa, a romance in his hand which he simply pretended to read, and seemed absorbed in deep reverie. Verses were sent to him from Paris which he read aloud, expressing his opinion in a brief and trenchant style; he spent three days writing regulations for the French comedy at Paris. It is difficult to understand this attention to such frivolous details when the future was so ominous. It was generally believed, and probably not without reason, that the Emperor acted thus from motives of deep policy, and that these regulations for the French comedy at this time, when no bulletin had yet arrived to give information of the disastrous position of the French army, were written with the object of making an impression on the inhabitants of Paris, who would not fail to say, "All cannot be going so badly, since the Emperor has time to occupy himself with the theater."

The news received on the 18th put an end to all uncertainty. The Emperor was reviewing, in the first court of the Kremlin palace, the divisions of Ney, distributing the cross to the bravest among them, and addressing encouraging words to all, when an aide-de-camp, young Beranger, brought the news that a sharp engagement had taken place at Winkowo between Murat and Kutusoff, and that the vanguard of Murat had been overwhelmed and our position taken. Russia's intention to resume hostilities was now plainly evident, and in the first excitement of the news the Emperor's astonishment was at its height. There was, on the contrary, among the soldiers of Marshal Ney an electric movement of enthusiasm and anger which was very gratifying to his Majesty. Charmed to see how the shame of a defeat, even when sustained without dishonor, excited the pride and aroused a desire to retrieve it in these impassioned souls, the Emperor pressed the hand of the colonel nearest to him, continued the review, and ordered that evening a concentration of all the corps; and before night the whole army was in motion towards Woronowo.

A few days before quitting Moscow, the Emperor had the churches of the Kremlin stripped of their finest ornaments. The ravages of the fire had relaxed the protection that the Emperor had extended to the property of the Russians.

The most magnificent trophy in this collection was the immense cross of the great Ivan. It was necessary to demolish a part of the tower on which it stood in order to take it down, and it required stupendous efforts to break this vast mass of iron. It was the Emperor's intention to place it upon the dome of the Invalides, but it was sunk in the waters of Lake Semlewo.

The evening before the Emperor was to hold a review, the soldiers were busily employed polishing their arms and putting everything in order, to conceal as far as possible the destitute condition to which they were reduced. The most imprudent had exchanged their winter clothing for provisions, many had worn out their shoes on the march, and yet each one made it a point of honor to make a good appearance on review; and when the glancing rays of the sun shone on the barrels of the well-polished guns, the Emperor felt again in witnessing this scene some slight return of the emotions with which his soul was filled on the glorious day of his departure for the campaign.

The Emperor left twelve hundred wounded at Moscow, four hundred of whom were removed by the last corps which quitted the city. Marshal Mortier was the last to go. At Feminskoe, ten leagues from Moscow, we heard the noise of a frightful explosion; it was the Kremlin which had been blown up by the Emperor's orders. A fuse was placed in the vaults of the palace, and everything arranged so that the explosion should not take place within a certain time. Some Cossacks came to pillage the abandoned apartments, in ignorance that a fire was smoldering under their feet, and were thrown to a prodigious height in the air. Thirty thousand guns were abandoned in the fortress. In an instant part of the Kremlin was a mass of ruins. A part was preserved, and a circumstance which contributed no little to enhance the credit of their great St. Nicholas with the Russians was that an image in stone of this saint remained uninjured by the explosion, in a spot where almost everything else was destroyed. This fact was stated to me by a reliable person, who heard Count Rostopchin himself relate it during his stay in Paris.

On the 28th of October the Emperor retraced his way to Smolensk, and passed near the battle-field of Borodino. About thirty thousand corpses had been left on this vast plain; and on our approach flocks of buzzards, whom an abundant harvest had attracted, flew away with horrible croakings. These corpses of so many brave men presented a sickening spectacle, half consumed, and exhaling an odor which even the excessive cold could not neutralize. The Emperor hastened past, and slept in the chateau of Oupinskoe which was almost in ruins; and the next day he visited a few wounded who had been left in an abbey. These poor fellows seemed to recover their strength at the sight of the Emperor, and forgot their sufferings, which must have been very severe, as wounds are always much more painful when cold weather first begins. All these pale countenances drawn with suffering became more serene. These poor soldiers also rejoiced to see their comrades, and questioned them with anxious curiosity concerning the events which had followed the battle of Borodino. When they learned that we had bivouacked at Moscow, they were filled with joy; and it was very evident that their greatest regret was that they could not have been with the others to see the fine furniture of the rich Muscovites used as fuel at the bivouac fires. Napoleon directed that each carriage of the suite should convey one of these unfortunates; and this was done, everybody complying with the order with a readiness which gratified the Emperor exceedingly; and the poor wounded fellows said in accents of most ardent gratitude, that they were much more comfortable on these soft cushions than in the ambulances, which we could well believe. A lieutenant of the cuirassiers who had just undergone an amputation was placed in the landau of the Emperor, while he traveled on horseback.

This answers every accusation of cruelty so gratuitously made against the memory of a great man who has passed away. I have read somewhere with intense disgust that the Emperor sometimes ordered his carriage to pass over the wounded, whose cries of agony made not the slightest impression on him; all of which is false and very revolting. None of those who served the Emperor could have been ignorant of his solicitude for the unfortunate victims of war, and the care he had taken of them. Foreigners, enemies, or Frenchmen,-all were recommended to the surgeon's care with equal strictness.

From time to time frightful explosions made us turn our heads, and glance behind us. They were caissons which were being exploded that we might no longer be encumbered with them, as the march became each day more painful. It produced a sad impression to see that we were reduced to such a point of distress as to be compelled to throw our powder to the winds to keep from leaving it to the enemy. But a still sadder reflection came into our minds at each detonation,-the grand army must be rapidly hastening to dissolution when the material remaining exceeded our needs, and the number of men still left was so much short of that required to use it. On the 30th, the Emperor's headquarters were in a poor hovel which had neither doors nor windows. We had much difficulty in enclosing even a corner sufficient for him to sleep. The cold was increasing, and the nights were icy; the small fortified palisades of which a species of post relays had been made, placed from point to point, marked the divisions of the route, and served also each evening as Imperial headquarters. The Emperor's bed was hastily set up there, and a cabinet arranged as well as possible where he could work with his secretaries, or write his orders to the different chiefs whom he had left on the road and in the towns.

Our retreat was often annoyed by parties of Cossacks. These barbarians rushed upon us, lance in hand, and uttering rather howls of ferocious beasts than human cries, their little, long-tailed horses dashing against the flanks of the different divisions. But these attacks, though often repeated, had not, at least at the beginning of the retreat, serious consequences for the army. When they heard this horrible cry the infantry was not intimidated, but closed ranks and presented bayonets, and the cavalry made it their duty to pursue these barbarians, who fled more quickly than they came.

On the 6th of November, before leaving the army, the Emperor received news of the conspiracy of Malet and everything connected with it. He was at first astonished, then much dissatisfied, and ended by making himself very merry over the discomfiture of the chief of police, General Savary; and said many times that had he been at Paris no one would have budged, and that he could never leave at all without every one losing their heads at the least disturbance; and from this time he often spoke of how much he was needed in Paris.

Speaking of General Savary recalls to my memory an affair in which he was somewhat nonplussed. After quitting the command of the gendarmerie, to succeed Fouche in the office of minister of police, he had a little discussion with one of the Emperor's aides-de-camp. As he went so far as to threaten, the latter replied, "You seem to think you have handcuffs always in your pockets."

On the 8th of November the snow was falling, the sky covered with clouds, the cold intense, while a violent wind prevailed, and the roads were covered with sleet. The horses could make no progress, for their shoes were so badly worn that they could not prevent slipping on the frozen ground.

The poor animals were emaciated, and it was necessary that the soldiers should put their shoulders to the wheels in order to lighten their burdens.

There is something in the panting breath which issues from the nostrils of a tired horse, in the tension of their muscles, and the prodigious efforts of their loins, which gives us, in a high degree, the idea of strength; but the mute resignation of these animals, when we know them to be overladen, inspires us with pity, and makes us regret the abuse of so much endurance.

The Emperor on foot in the midst of his household, and staff in hand, walked with difficulty over these slippery roads, meanwhile encouraging the others with kind words, each of whom felt himself full of good-will; and had any one then uttered a complaint he would have been badly esteemed by his comrades. We arrived in sight of Smolensk. The Emperor was the least fatigued of all; and though he was pale, his countenance was calm, and nothing in his appearance indicated his mental sufferings; and indeed they must needs have been intense to be evident to the public. The roads were strewn with men and horses slain by fatigue or famine; and men as they passed turned their eyes aside. As for the horses they were a prize for our famished soldiers.

We at last reached Smolensk on the 9th, and the Emperor lodged in a beautiful house on the Place Neuve. Although this important city had suffered since we had passed through before, it still had some resources, and we found there provisions of all kinds for the Emperor's household and the officers; but the Emperor valued but little this privileged abundance, so to speak, when he learned that the army needed food for man and beast. When he learned of this his rage amounted to frenzy, and I have never seen him so completely beside himself. He had the commissary in charge of the provisions summoned, and reproached him in such unmeasured terms that the latter turned pale, and could find no words to justify himself, whereupon the Emperor became still more violent, and uttered terrible threats. I heard cries from the next room; and I have been told since that the quartermaster threw himself at the feet of his Majesty, beseeching pardon, and the Emperor, when his rage had spent itself, pardoned him. Never did he sympathize more truly with the sufferings of his army; never did he suffer more bitterly from his powerlessness to struggle against such overwhelming misfortunes.

On the 14th we resumed the route which we had traversed a few months before under far different auspices. The thermometer registered twenty degrees, and we were still very far from France. After a slow and painful march we arrived at Krasnoi. The Emperor was obliged to go in person, with his guard, to meet the enemy, and release the Prince of Eckmuhl. He passed through the fire of the enemy, surrounded by his old guard, who pressed around their chief in platoons in which the shell made large gaps, furnishing one of the grandest examples in all history of the devotion and love of thousands of men to one. When the fire was hottest, the band played the air, 'Where can one be better than in the bosom of his family?' Napoleon interrupted them, exclaiming, "Play rather, 'Let us watch over the safety of the Empire.'" It is difficult to imagine anything grander.

The Emperor returned from this combat much fatigued. He had passed several nights without sleeping, listening to the reports made to him on the condition of the army, expediting orders necessary to procure food for the soldiers, and putting in motion the different corps which were to sustain the retreat. Never did his stupendous activity find more constant employment; never did he show a higher courage than in the midst of all these calamities of which he seemed to feel the weighty responsibility.

Between Orcha and the Borysthenes those conveyances for which there were no longer horses were burned, and the confusion and discouragement became so great that in the rear of the army most of the stragglers threw down their arms as a heavy and useless burden. The officers of the armed police had orders to return by force those who abandoned their corps, and often they were obliged to prick them with their swords to make them advance. The intensity of their sufferings had hardened the heart of the soldier, which is naturally kind and sympathizing, to such an extent that the most unfortunate intentionally caused commotions in order that they might seize from some better equipped companion sometimes a cloak, sometimes food. "There are the Cossacks!" was their usual cry of alarm; and when these guilty tricks became known, and our soldiers recovered from their surprise, there were reprisals, and the confusion reached its height.

The corps of Marshal Davoust was one of those which suffered most in the whole army. Of the seventy thousand men with which it left France, there only remained four or five thousand, and they were dying of famine. The marshal himself was terribly emaciated. He had neither clothing nor food. Hunger and fatigue had hollowed his cheeks, and his whole appearance inspired pity. This brave marshal, who had twenty times escaped Russian bullets, now saw himself dying of hunger; and when one of his soldiers gave him a loaf, he seized it and devoured it. He was also the one who was least silent; and while thawing his mustache, on which the rain had frozen, he railed indignantly against the evil destiny which had thrown them into thirty degrees of cold. Moderation in words was difficult while enduring such sufferings.

For some time the Emperor had been in a state of great anxiety as to the fate of Marshal Ney, who had been cut off, and obliged to clear for himself a passage through the midst of the Russians, who followed us on every side.

As time passed the alarm increased. The Emperor demanded incessantly if Ney had yet been seen, accusing himself of having exposed this brave general too much, asking for him as for a good friend whom one has lost. The whole army shared and manifested the same anxiety, as if this brave soldier were the only one in danger. A few regarding him as certainly lost, and seeing the enemy threaten the bridges of the Borysthenes, proposed to cut them; but the army was unanimous in their opposition to this measure.

On the 20th, the Emperor, whom this idea filled with the deepest dejection, arrived at Basanoni, and was dining in company with the Prince of Neuchatel and the Duke of Dantzic, when General Gourgaud rushed in with the announcement that Marshal Ney and his troops were only a few leagues distant. The Emperor exclaimed with inconceivable joy, "Can it be true?" M. Gourgaud gave him particulars, which were soon known throughout the camp. This news brought joy to the hearts of all, each of whom accosted the other eagerly, as if each had found a long-lost brother; they spoke of the heroic courage which had been displayed; the talent shown in saving his corps in spite of snows, floods, and the attacks of the enemy. It is due Marshal Ney, to state here, that according to the opinion I have heard expressed by our most illustrious warriors, his safe retreat is a feat of arms to which history furnishes no parallel. The heart of our soldiers palpitated with enthusiasm, and on that day they felt the emotions of the day of victory! Ney and his division gained immortality by this marvelous display of valor and energy. So much the better for the few survivors of this handful of braves, who can read of the great deeds they have done, in these annals inspired by them. His Majesty said several times, "I would give all the silver in the vaults of the Tuileries to have my brave Ney at my side."

To Prince Eugene was given the honor of going to meet Marshal Ney, with a corps of four thousand soldiers. Marshal Mortier had disputed this honor with him, but among these illustrious men there were never any but noble rivalries. The danger was immense; the cannon of Prince Eugene was used as a signal, understood by the marshal, to which he replied by platoon fires. The two corps met, and even before they were united, Marshal Ney and Prince Eugene were in each other's arms; and it is said that the latter wept for joy. Such scenes make this horrible picture seem somewhat less gloomy. As far as the Beresina, our march was only a succession of small skirmishes and terrible sufferings.

The Emperor passed one night at Caniwki, in a wooden cabin containing only two rooms. The one at the back was selected by him, and in the other the whole service slept pell-mell. I was more comfortable, as I slept in his Majesty's room; but several times during the night I was obliged to pass into this room, and was then compelled to step over the sleepers worn out by fatigue. Although I took care not to hurt them, they were so close together that it was impossible not to place my feet on their legs or arms.

In the retreat from Moscow, the Emperor walked on foot, wrapped in his pelisse, his head covered with a Russian cap tied under the chin. I marched often near the brave Marshal Lefebvre, who seemed very fond of me, and said to me in his German-French, in speaking of the Emperor, "He is surrounded by a set of who do not tell the truth; he does not distinguish sufficiently his good from his bad servants. How will he get out of this, the poor Emperor, whom I love so devotedly? I am always in fear of his life; if there were needed to save him only my blood, I would shed it drop by drop; but that would change nothing, and perhaps he may have need of me."