Excerpts from Chapter 25: NEY'S LAST STAND

...

On 15 December Headquarters reaches Wilkowiski, that village where on 22 June Napoleon 'in a terrible voice' had declared war on Russia. Now Berthier writes to him: 'There were not 300 men of the Old Guard [on parade]; of the Young Guard fewer still, most of them unserviceable.' And next day, at Wirballen in a ciphered PS:

'The King of Naples is the first of men on the battlefield ... the King of Naples is the man least capable of commanding in chief. He should be replaced at once."

Himself, he possesses only what he stands up in. Even the carriage with the campaign's maps and documents has been lost. Fortunately, thanks to the energy and intelligence of its driver, it turns up next day at Gumbinnen. There 'for the first time since leaving Moscow' Larrey eats

'a complete meal, slept in a warm room and in a good bed. Lariboisière was so ill, so shattered, he could no longer speak. That evening he went to bed, never to get up again.'

Not very far away, across the Baltic, the former Marshal Bernadotte, now Crown Prince Elect of Sweden, has just heard about napoleon's disaster at the Bereniza. He too adds a hasty PS, to hsi letter to the Tsar:

I had expected, Your Majesty, that on being informed of your state's evacuation i should be able to congratulate you on having seized his person near Borissow. The opportunity was excellent, but it would have been to hope for too much at once."

After unsuccessfully trying next day (18 December) to convince the Prussian provincial governor Schön at Gumbinnen (where Griois finds the heroic Eblé 'in state of utter weakness and dejection ... no more than a shad6w of himself') that Murat has a whole French army at his heels, Interdant-Généal Dumas and some friends are just

'drinking some excellent coffee when a man in a brown greatcoat entered. He had a long beard. His face was blacked. And he looked as if he'd been burnt. His eyes were red and gleaming.

'"At last I'm here," he said. "Why, General Dumas, don't you know me?"

'"Why no. Who are you?"

'"I'm the rearguard of the Grand Army. I'm Marshal Ney."'

A few hours later, 'just as the clock was striking the last quarter before midnight', a shaky old post-chaise, 'one of those cumbersome vehicles mounted on two enormous wheels and with old-style shafts', gallops into Paris. Its two occupants are Napoleon and Caulaincourt. It dashes through the still unfinished Arc de Triomphe - 'only Amodru had stuck with us' - so rapidly the sentries have no time to halt it, and into the courtyard of the Carousel at the Tuileries. When they knock at the door of the Empress's apartments the Swiss porter, not even recognising them, refuses at first to admit them.

'Never in my life have I had such a sense of satisfaction,' writes Caulaincourt, who has hardly enjoyed a wink of sleep for the three weeks it's taken them to dash across Europe. At his levée next morning Napoleon tells his amazed ministers:

'"Well, gentlemen, fortune has dazzled me. I've let it lead me astray. Instead of following the plan I'd in mind I went to Moscow. I thought I'd sign peace there. I stayed there too long. I've made a grave mistake, but I'll have the means to repair it."'

And gets down to work, raising fresh armies to defend his crumbling empire.

1812: The Great Retreat: Table of Content

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