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On the 5th, the troops under General Oudinot declared for Louis; and on the 8th, Louis the Desired returned once more to Paris, and resumed the government under the protection of a foreign army. On the 15th, Napoleon took the fatal resolution of throwing himself upon the protection of the British Government.
He now held the same language to General Oudinot. He could not, he said, so far forget the purely moral nature of his power as to bind himself in a positive way, when there was nothing settled as to matters of detail, and especially when he was called upon to speak in presence of a first-class Power, whose exigencies were no secret.
Davoust was returning from the latter city, Oudinot from Frankfort; Massena, who had been on his way to Spain, was retiring toward Ulm by the Strasbourg route; the Saxons, Bavarians, and Wurtembergers were moving from their respective countries.
Everything conspired against us; for although, owing to a drop in the temperature, Ney had been able, a few days previously, to escape across the frozen Nieman, we found the Beresina unfrozen, despite the bitter cold, and we had no pontoons with which to make a bridge. On the 25th of November, the Emperor entered Borisoff, where Marshal Oudinot awaited him with the 6000 men he had left.
And when Marshal Oudinot who was in the lead suspended his march from any unknown cause, there was a general movement of alarm, and ominous rumors were circulated; and since men who have seen much are disposed to believe anything, false rumors were as readily credited as true, and the alarm lasted until the front of the army again moved forward, and their confidence was somewhat restored.
He left Moscow on October 18th, and, reaching the Beresina with but 12,000 men, was joined there by Oudinot and Victor, who had been holding the line of the Dwina, with 18,000. His passage of the river was opposed, but he succeeded in crossing, and on December 6th the miserable remnant of the Grand Army reached Vilna.
But the direction taken by the enemy's rear-guard, and the information obtained from some prisoners, convinced him that Barclay had been beforehand with him; that he had left Wittgenstein in front of Oudinot, and that the Russian general-in-chief was in Witepsk. He was, indeed, already prepared to dispute the possession of the defiles which cover that capital with Napoleon.
Marches and countermarches. Retreat to Polotsk. General St. Cyr. Oudinot is wounded. St. Cyr takes over. Chap. 11. Surprise attack on the enemy. Various incidents. We settle in Polotsk. Chap. 12. The advance of the Grande Armée. Capture of Smolensk. The battle for Moscow. Chap. 13. Bad news from Spain. Rostopschine. The fire of Moscow. Revival of the Russian army. Koutousoff's treachery.
Marshal Oudinot, in his belief that the enemy were going to cross the river, not only kept a division of infantry in position to repel them, but supported them with General Castex's cavalry, an unnecessary precaution, since a crossing of even a small river takes more time than is needed for the defenders to hurry into a position to oppose it.
An attack made at seven against Wagram by Oudinot failed. This hamlet was the key of the Austrian position, forming as it did the angle of their line, and the fighting there was desperate. By nine o'clock the French were thrown back all along, and compelled to resume the positions they had held in the morning.
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