Perhaps under no circumstance did Larrey's courage and zeal show to better advantage than in the awful retreat from Moscow. For example, after the terrible battle of Borodino, Larrey made two hundred amputations, practically with his own hands, where there were neither couches nor coverings of any kind, when the cold was so intense that the instruments often fell from the benumbed fingers of the surgeons, and when food consisted of horse flesh, cabbage stalks and a few potatoes. And all this while the savage Cossacks were hovering around equally ready to kill both surgeons and patients. Soon after came the passage of the Beresina, with its attendant horrors. General Zayonchek, over sixty years of age, had his knee crushed, and was in need of immediate amputation, which Larrey performed under the enemy's fire, amid the falling snow, with no shelter except a cloak, held by two officers over the patient while the operation was being performed. The General recovered, and died fourteen years later as Viceroy of Poland. It was after this passage of the Beresina by the Imperial Guard that it was discovered that all the requisites for the sick and wounded had been left behind and on the other side. Larrey at once recrossed the river, and found himself amidst a furious, struggling crowd, in danger of being crushed to death, when suddenly the soldiers recognized him. Immediately they took him up in their arms, crossed the river with him, crying, "let us save him who saved us," and forgot their own safety in their regard for him whose merciful kindness they had so often experienced. Another incident in Larrey's career: Ever faithful to Napoleon, his adored master, through victory or reverse, Larrey stood one night with a small group of medical men gazing over the field of Waterloo, and upon the wounded and dying who lay groaning around him. Suddenly they were charged by a squadron of Prussian Lancers, at whom Larrey fired his pistols and galloped away, but was overtaken by the Prussians, who shot his horse, sabred him, and left him for dead. After a while he recovered his senses, and tried to make his way across lots to France, but was again captured by another detachment of cavalry, who robbed him of everything, and then took him to headquarters, where it was ordered that he be shot. Think of such a fate for one who had saved so many lives! But the order would have been carried out promptly had not one of the Prussian surgeons recognized Larrey, having attended his lectures several years previously. Accordingly he was brought before Bülow, and finally before Marshall Blücher, whose son had been wounded and captured by the French in the Austrian Campaign, and whose life had been saved by Larrey's exertions. You may imagine that it did not take long to reverse that order for execution.