“I would have given three hundred millions to avoid the loss of such a man.” Although Napoleon, in some things the most magnificent charlatan upon record, dealt largely in speeches of this sort, we may believe that in this instance the cry came from the heart. What would the Emperor have said, had he then been told that three years later, on the 7th December 1815, the anniversary of one of those days when Ney so bravely breasted the Muscovite torrent, an execution would take place in an alley of the Luxemburg gardens, and that there, by sentence of a French chamber and the bullets of French soldiers, a premature end would be put to the glorious career of him he had surnamed the Bravest of the Brave! Previously to the junction of Ney and Eugene, Colonel Rasinski, whilst reconnoitring in the gray of the morning, falls in with a sledge containing three persons muffled in furs, whom he at first takes for Russians, but who prove to be Ludwig and his two companions. Upon the occasion of so happy a meeting, M. Rellstab is of course profuse in tears and embraces; Jaromir and Boleslaw are summoned to assist at the jubilee, and thenceforward the three Poles, the two Germans, Bianca, her waiting-maid Jeannette, and the faithful Willhofen, keep together as far as Wilna, save and except those amongst them whom death snatches by the way. The party is soon increased by an infant, the daughter of Colonel Regnard, and of a French actress, of which Bianca takes charge. Here again the author of “1812” has made good and effective use of an incident thus briefly recorded by Ségur. “At the gates of the town (Smolensko) an infamous act struck all witnesses with a horror that still survives. A mother abandoned her son, a child of five years old; in spite of his cries and tears she repulsed him from her overloaded sledge, wildly exclaiming that ‘he had not seen France! he would not regret it! But as to her, she knew France! she must see her country again!’ Twice did Ney have the poor child replaced in its mother’s arms, thrice she threw it upon the frozen snow. But amongst a thousand instances of sublime and tender devotedness, this solitary crime was not left unpunished. This unnatural parent was herself abandoned upon the snow, whence her victim was raised and confided to another mother. At the Beresina, at Wilna, and Kowno, the orphan was seen, and he finally escaped all the horrors of the retreat.”