With a handful of followers, but armed with a false report of Napoleon's capture in Russia, this man had apprehended several officials, until the scheme collapsed of sheer inanity.[279] "How now, if we were at Moscow," exclaimed the Emperor, on hearing this curious news; and he saw with chagrin that some of his generals merely shrugged their shoulders.
After crossing the Beresina, he might hope that the worst was over and that the stores at Vilna and Kovno would suffice for the remnant of his army.

The cold for a time had been less rigorous.

The behaviour of Prussia and Austria was, in truth, more important than the conduct of the retreat.

Unless those Powers were kept to their troth, not a Frenchman would cross the Elbe.
At Smorgoni, then, on December the 5th, he informed his Marshals that he left them in order to raise 300,000 men; and, intrusting the command to Murat, he hurried away.

His great care was to prevent the extent of the disaster being speedily known.