Napoleon reached Orsha on November 19th, and at once set strenuously to work to restore order. Stringent orders were given that all stragglers were to rejoin their respective corps in specified localities. What effect these orders produced cannot easily be estimated; demoralisation was so advanced and the mass of disbanded troops so great, that it appears that little could be done to reform the skeleton units. Something, however, could be done to rally and refresh the scanty relics of the fighting force. There were in the town stores sufficient to supply the troops with food for some days. There were, apparently, fifty guns, some hundreds of horses, and Eblé’s reserve train of sixty pontoons with all its equipment. Six batteries were organised out of the artillery, each of six guns. Two went to Davout, who had saved only eight guns out of 150; two to Eugène, who had not one left; two were assigned to Latour-Maubourg--for what reason is not very clear. Mounted cavalry officers were collected into what was called the Sacred Squadron, under Grouchy. It has been stated that it was destroyed as soon as created; but it was certainly in existence a week later. Severe orders were issued to destroy superfluous vehicles, and to hand over the horses thus freed to the artillery. Generals were restricted to a single vehicle, and soldiers were forbidden to possess carts or pack-horses. These orders were largely non-effective; there were not gendarmes and faithful troops enough to execute them, and too many people interested in resisting or neglecting them--as the passage of the Berezina was soon to show. Reasonable and necessary as it undoubtedly was to diminish the mass of baggage and assist the artillery, it was surely the height of imprudence to destroy the bridge-train. Eblé, alive to the danger, pressed to be allowed to keep fifteen pontoons, but in vain, and he could only save 2 field forges, 2 waggons of charcoal and 6 of implements. At Smolensk he had seen to it that each man carried a tool, and a supply of clamps and large nails. To his wise precautions the piteous remnants of the _Grande Armée_ were to owe their salvation. When Napoleon gave the order to burn the pontoons, Chichagov had been four days in possession of Minsk, and was already close to Borisov with his advance-guard! Comment is needless.