of having burnt the old capital of the Czars might have satisfied the
conqueror with his expedition. But no sooner did he recede than the
Cossacks arose on every hand, and assailed the fugitives. The soldiers
of the West and South dropped and perished by thousands along the
frozen roads. The ice-darts in their sides were sharper than Russian
bayonets. A hundred and twenty thousand men rolled back horridly
across the hostile world. The bridges of the Beresina break down under
the retreating army, and in the following spring, when the ice-gorges
go down the river, 12,000 dead Frenchmen shall be washed up from the
floods!

There is constant battle on flank and rear. All stragglers perish. The
army dwindles away. It is almost destroyed. Ney brings up the rear
guard, wasted to a handful. At the passage of the Niemen, soiled with
dirt, blackened with smoke, without insignia, with only drawn sword,
and facing backward toward the hated region, the "Bravest of the
Brave" crosses the bridge. He is the last man to save himself from the
indescribable horrors of the Campaign of Russia.

The remnants of the Grand Army dragged themselves along until they
found refuge in Königsberg. Napoleon had gone ahead toward France.
After Moscow he took a sledge, and sped away across the snow-covered
wastes of Poland, on his solitary journey to Paris. There is a
painting of this scene by the Slavic artist Kowalski, which
represents the three black horses abreast, galloping with all speed
with the Emperor's sledge across the cheerless world which he
traversed. He came to his own capital unannounced. None knew of his
arrival until the next day. At four o'clock in the morning of that
day, some one entered his office at the Tuileries, and found him with
his war-map of Europe spread out on the floor before him. He was