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