The French, having forced back and defeated Tchitchagoff, were now delivered from all immediate danger; and Napoleon, who had hitherto refused to quit the army, hastened to Paris, where internal affairs called for his presence, leaving Murat his successor in command. From this time forward the Russians, except Platoff and his Cossacks, desisted from the pursuit; but this alleviation of their misfortunes was fully compensated by other evils. A change had already taken place in the weather; the storms which had hitherto been experienced were succeeded by a still more dreadful calm. Icy needles were seen floating in the air; the very birds fell stiff and frozen, everything possessing life or motion seemed congealed by the intensity of cold. “In this empire of death we passed on like unhappy spirits. The dull, uniform sound of our march, the crackling of the snow, the low groans of dying men, alone broke this mighty melancholy silence. There was no more anger, no more imprecations, nothing to indicate a trace of heat; strength scarce remained even for prayer, and the majority fell even without complaint, whether through weakness or resignation, or that men only complain when they hope to move, and believe that they are pitied. “In fact, when for an instant they stopped through exhaustion, the winter laid her icy hand on them, and seized them as her prey. It was in vain then that, feeling themselves numbed, they arose, and speechless, stupified, advanced some paces like automatons: the blood freezing in their veins checked the beating of their hearts, and thence rushed to the head; then stricken by death, they staggered like drunken men. Real tears of blood dropped from their eyes, inflamed by the unvaried glare of snow, by want of sleep, and by the smoke of the bivouacs; deep sighs burst from their breasts; they looked to heaven, to us, and to the earth with a dismayed, fixed, and wild eye; it was their last adieu, perhaps a reproach to that savage nature which so tormented them. Soon they dropped, on their knees first, then on their hands; their heads wandered still some moments to right and left; a few sounds of agony escaped from the gasping mouth, which in its turn fell on the snow, and reddened it with livid blood, and their sufferings were over. “Such were the last days of the grand army; its last nights were still more dreadful. When surprised by the dark at a distance from all dwellings, they stopped on the border of some wood; there they lighted fires, before which they spent the night, upright and immoveable as spectres. Unable to get enough of heat, they crowded so close to them, that their clothes and even frozen portions of their bodies were burnt. Then a horrible pain compelled them to enlarge their circle, and on the morrow they endeavoured in vain to rise.”[218]