“Milder yet thy snowy breezes Pour on yonder tented shores, Where the Rhine’s broad billow freezes, Or the tent-brown Danube roars. Oh, winds of winter, list ye there To many a deep and dying groan; Or start, ye demons of the midnight air, At shrieks and thunders louder than your own! Alas! even your unhallowed breath May spare the victim, fallen low; But man will ask no truce to death, No bounds to human woe.” Rougeard and his companions succeeded in reaching Smolensko, but only to find it a scene of intolerable wretchedness and unutterable confusion. The Emperor and the Old Guard had left some days previously, and for the disorganized troops pouring every hour into the miserable, ruined city, there was neither food nor shelter, neither order nor discipline. So our little coterie still kept together, and hoping against hope determined to continue their march towards the frontier. Ten or twelve weary days of marching followed. Always hungry, always cold, always tired, Henri would have given up the struggle once and again, but for the thought which kept for ever “Beating in upon his weary brain, As though it were the burden of a song”-- “I must see my mother and my sister again; I cannot die without my mother’s forgiveness.” Usually their only food was a little horse-flesh, but even that failed them frequently; nor could fuel be always found for the fire of their bivouac. From the bodies of their comrades that strewed the way they sometimes obtained articles of clothing--a sad resource, but all, even the gentle Henri, were now becoming inured to sights of horror. Sometimes they would meet with other coteries whose condition was as pitiable as their own, or they would be alarmed by a few stray shots from the “clouds of Cossacks” that hovered about them. Rougeard informed them that the enemy was _beside_, not _behind_ them; the Russians having very prudently chosen their lines of march parallel to that of the retreating French armies, which were thus kept from straying to the right or to the left, and sternly restricted to the track their own cruelty had already rendered a desert. At last a serious misfortune happened to the little band. A long day’s march, absolutely without food and in piercing cold, had exhausted them all. Rougeard, who was by far the strongest of the party, said to his companions, “Rest in the shelter of this wall, while I go a little further towards the lights I see yonder. I daresay some of our people are there; perhaps they will respect my uniform, and spare us a little food.” He moved away, but turned back for a moment to add, “Keep up your hearts, my lads. If your strength is good for one day’s marching more, I think you may see the Beresina before to-morrow night.”