“Seeing Napoleon beginning to brandish his stick, I thought he meant to strike the colonel with it; but at that moment he stepped back with his legs spread wide apart. Leaning his left hand on his stick and grinding his teeth together, he cast a furious glance at the heavens and shook his fist! A cry of passionate anger broke from his lips; he repeated his menacing gesture, and added one short expressive word—a word blasphemous enough by itself. I assure you that in all my life I never saw a more fearful expression of face and figure! He was evidently quite forgetful of the care with which he had striven till then to hide his feelings from us, and his endeavours to appear cheerful—though, of course, no one was deceived. We were so attentively engaged in watching his movements, and were so much surprised at the scene, that we only recollected ourselves at last when he gave orders to continue the advance.” “That night,” says Ségur, “Napoleon had no sleep. Duroc and Daru, thinking he was asleep, began to talk of the desperate position in which the French were placed, unaware that he could hear all they said. When they uttered the words ‘royal prisoner’ he could keep silence no longer, but broke in, ‘Do you think that they would dare?’ Daru, after the first moment of surprise, replied that if the Emperor was obliged to yield at last he must be prepared for the worst; that he must not count on the magnanimity of his adversary, for politics, in the widest sense of the word, knew nothing of the ethics of everyday life, they have their own code.” “‘And France?’ asked Napoleon. ‘What will France say?’ “‘Oh! as for France—one may fit one’s conjectures to one’s fancy, for it would be hard to say what the result will really be in France. The best thing,’ added Daru, ‘both for us and for your Majesty, would be if you could somehow get back into France, through the air, if it may not be along the road; for you would be more likely to save us by being there, than by staying here.’ “‘In fact, I am in the way?’ asked Napoleon. “‘Yes, your Majesty.’ “‘And would not you like to be a royal prisoner?’ “Daru answered in the same jesting strain that ‘he would be satisfied to be an ordinary prisoner of war.’ “To this the Emperor made no reply; but after a long pause he asked if all the despatches had been burnt. “‘Your Majesty did not wish that to be done?’ “‘Go at once and burn everything—our position, to be frank, is not one to boast of.’” Marshal St. Cyr received strict orders to drive the Russians over the river. He performed this task; but the problem how the French army was to cross under the enemy’s fire without any pontoons still remained unsolved, and troubled the minds of every soldier from the highest to the lowest.