Yet justice requires the consideration of certain undoubted facts. Making all due allowance, it is true that the elements were Napoleon's worst foe when once his retreat was fairly under way, and it was not the least of Napoleon's magnificent achievements that after the crossing of the Beresina there was still the framework of an army which within a few months was again that marvelous instrument with which the campaigns of 1813 and 1814 were fought. This miracle was due to the shortsightedness and timidity of the Russian generals. Tchitchagoff is inexcusable both for the indifference he displayed regarding the various points at which the Beresina might be crossed, and for the ignorance which made him the easy dupe of feints and misleading reports. As to Wittgenstein, the caution which he exercised because operating alone was near in its character to cowardice; his snail-like movements prevented any efficient coöperation in the general plan, and he failed in grasping a situation of affairs which left open but a single line of retreat for Napoleon. Neither of these two had any adequate conception of the losses suffered by the French, and they permitted the last opportunity for annihilating the invaders to escape. As to Kutusoff, who was fully informed concerning the utter disintegration of the "grand army," his conduct in holding back the main Russian force at the crucial moment is utterly indefensible; he saved thousands of his troops, perhaps, but he has passed into history as the man who is indirectly responsible for the rivers of blood which were still to drench the continent of Europe. Both he and Wittgenstein unloaded all the blame on Admiral Tchitchagoff, and contemporary opinion sustained them. "Had it not been for the admiral," said the commander-in-chief, replying to a toast proposed to the conqueror of Napoleon, "the plain gentleman of Pskoff (namely, himself) could have said: Europe breathes free again." This opinion is one which history must reject as utterly false.
When the soldiers heard that their Emperor had departed there was an almost universal outburst of frenzied wrath. "He flies," they shrieked, "as in Egypt! He abandons us after he has sacrificed us!" As has been remarked, this despair was natural, but the accusation was unjust. Napoleon's abandonment of the grand army at Smorgoni was not a desertion like the secret flight from Egypt; for now he was chief and not subordinate, his own judgment was the court of final appeal. Moreover, it was necessary for the very existence of the army that its general should once more be emperor, the head of the state. Traveling incognito, he passed through Vilna, Warsaw, and Dresden. Maret was left in charge of matters in Lithuania, de Pradt was carefully instructed how to treat the Poles, and on December fourteenth, at Dresden, despatches were written to both Francis and Frederick William in order to assure their continued adhesion. The King of Saxony was firmly bound in the fetters of a personal fascination never entirely dispelled. Twice on the long, swift journey efforts were made by disenchanted German officers to assassinate Napoleon, but he escaped by the secrecy of his flight. Such conspiracies were the presage of what was soon to happen in Germany. They were trivial, however, when compared with the state of public opinion in Paris as displayed by the Malet conspiracy. In spite of all that he had done to establish a settled society, France was not yet cured of its revolutionary habits; it was only too clear that the constitution, codes, and admirable administrative system were operative, not from political habit, but by personal impulsion. This was the real sore; the conspiracy itself was a grotesque affair, the work of a brain-sick enthusiast, lightly formed and easily crushed.