How the Emperor could have advanced
without us is incomprehensible to me, and, indeed, it was only
then that I understood that his judgment was weakening and that
he was no longer the man that he had been. However, a soldier
has to obey orders, and so I remained at this village, which was
poisoned by the bodies of thirty thousand men who had lost their
lives in the great battle. I spent the late autumn in getting my
horses into condition and reclothing my men, so that when the
army fell back on Borodino my Hussars were the best of the
cavalry, and were placed under Ney in the rear-guard.
What could he have done without us during those dreadful days?
"Ah, Gerard," said he one evening-- but it is not for me to
repeat the words. Suffice it that he spoke what the whole army
felt. The rear-guard covered the army and the Hussars of
Conflans covered the rear-guard. There was the whole truth in a
sentence.
Always the Cossacks were on us. Always we held them off. Never
a day passed that we had not to wipe our sabres.
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