Pirgnon seemed at ease amidst the chaos surrounding him. He spread his arms. ‘Is it my fault if I am still alive?’
‘In addition to Maria Dorlovna and Countess Sperzof, it was you who killed Élisa Lasquenet, the young actress, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes! Do you have any other crimes you wish to question me about? No? What a pity, your list will remain incomplete. Now my desires have won. No more remorse. I am a monster but that pleases me. And I dream of thrusting my sword into your body. Then, either I shall be killed in a final bloodbath or the Russians will spare me. Captivity will then be only an interlude before a whole series of “pleasant encounters”.’
Pirgnon lunged at Margont but the captain swiftly pulled back. The colonel swung his sabre to behead him. Margont crouched down and thrust the point of his sword towards Pirgnon’s stomach. The colonel, an excellent dueller, had anticipated this attack. The two blades met. There was a snapping sound as Margont’s sword broke, struck on the flat by the thicker metal of the sabre. Margont immediately leapt at his opponent and stabbed him with the remains of his sword. Pirgnon fell to his knees, surprised at being defeated. He put his hand to his stomach and looked at the blood on his palm. He was amazed to discover that it was of the same colour and the same consistency as that of his victims. So, the blood of others also coursed through his veins … He collapsed.
Margont put his cloak back on. He felt neither triumph nor relief. He did not even have the bitter, cruel taste in his mouth of the ‘justice’ he himself had administered. His mind was blank. Fear quickly began to fill the vacuum until it occupied not only his mind but his whole body: he was surrounded by Russians, Russians eager to make the French pay for this campaign, Russians whose appetite for killing appeared insatiable.
His stomach churning with anguish and his reflexes sharpened by the instinct of self-preservation, he caught up with Saber. His friend had gathered a group of about thirty élite soldiers, grenadiers, voltigeurs or men of resolve. These Frenchmen thought they were condemned to die and were preparing to charge in a frenzy. They wanted to kill. To kill out of hatred, out of desperation, to avoid thinking of their own deaths. To kill, kill, kill and in the end, alas, to die.
‘This way! We’re going to try to break out!’ exclaimed Saber, pointing to the left with his sabre.
‘But, sir, we need to try to get back to our lines,’ a sergeant-major protested.
‘That’s obvious to anyone, so the Russians have positioned a company of grenadiers between our troops and us. But over there, look: you can see militiamen.’
To the left, behind the regular troops, there were indeed combatants with grey or brown cloaks. Some were wearing hats instead of their regimental helmets and, not having been issued with muskets even, were wielding pikes. Saber launched his attack. The Russians were not expecting it at this point and were caught unawares. Saber’s group quickly dispatched the musketeers in the front line by battering or bayoneting them. Once up against the militiamen, who far outnumbered them, they took aim and fired the volley of shots they had held back until then. Given the situation, Saber gave the cruellest order he had ever issued: ‘Aim at their faces.’ When the militiamen, civilians with the sketchiest of training, poorly equipped and lacking experience, saw the faces of their comrades blown to pieces and turned into gaping, bleeding wounds, they threw their weapons to the ground and fled screaming. Then, the French launched themselves into the breach, shouting as they went. The circle emptied of its defenders like an abscess being drained. The survivors fled back to their lines under heavy fire, covered by Lefine, Fanselin and Piquebois, who had made a line of volunteers step forward a few paces. About a hundred soldiers survived this absurd assault.
Saber was carried along in triumph.
‘That was a fine action by your friend. I’ll refer it to the appropriate authorities,’ Margont heard someone say behind him.
He turned round to see Colonel Barguelot.
‘May I enquire what you are doing here, sir? Isn’t your regiment on its way to Vilna?’
‘That is correct. So it has no need of me for the moment. I shall easily catch up with it because one of my mounts has survived. This is where the action is, so that’s why I’m here.’
With that, Colonel Barguelot went to give out his orders while the bullets struck the tree trunks around him, spitting splinters of wood on to his cloak. He rallied those running away and pointed out a position to be strengthened to the sappers. He had not been able to accept the idea of his cowardice being revealed. He could not bear his image to be tarnished. To salvage it he was prepared to do anything, even to die. Some of his soldiers, who had stayed to escort him, said to one another: ‘There we were thinking our colonel was a coward, and now look at him in one of the most dangerous positions when he has no need to be there!’ Barguelot was radiant. He was surprised, scared even, by his own courage. But he revelled in the admiration he could read on their faces. So he continued to force himself to make superhuman efforts to appear confident and genial. On seeing that Margont was not leaving, he had made up his mind to stay. He believed that the captain wanted to fight and he had not been able to accept the idea of this man acquiring a reputation superior to his own. And he also wanted to scotch the rumours about his conduct during the campaign. So he had seized the last possible opportunity to restore his family name and what he considered to be its incomparable aura.
He marched off to find Marshal Ney, one of the bravest men of all time, and when the marshal asked him in surprise the reason for his visit, the colonel replied: ‘Marshal, if Colonel Barguelot has decided to go for a walk in a forest, not even fifty thousand Russians can make him change his mind.’
EPILOGUE
OF the four hundred thousand men of the Grande Armée who took part in this campaign, three hundred thousand perished or were taken prisoner. This disaster marked the beginning of the decline of Napoleon’s reign. The Russians also lost more than three hundred thousand combatants (half of them because of the winter) but were able to recover from such a catastrophe.
Margont survived. He had great difficulty convincing Prince Eugène that Colonel Pirgnon was the man he had been looking for. The deranged Pole accused of Élisa Lasquenet’s murder was freed. A few days later, Margont was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, cheerfully leap-frogging the rank of major, for ‘his heroic action in the fighting at the Berezina’. He did not have time to go to Warsaw because the Emperor was already reorganising his forces in the knowledge that Prussia and a large part of Germany were going to take advantage of his weakened state to rise up against him.
Colonel Barguelot, who had proved himself a coward at the Moskva but a hero at the Berezina, was not relieved of his command and regained the confidence of his regiment.
Colonel Delarse also survived. Ironically, he attended a Mass held in memory of several deceased officers, some of whom had refused to put him in charge of a regiment because they thought his days were numbered. He was at last made a brigadier-general.
Saber was awarded the Légion d’Honneur for his action at the Berezina. The survivors of the 35th called him ‘honorary colonel of the 35th of the Line’. This rank was no more than a mark of affection but it enabled Saber to proclaim to all and sundry that, as he had always said he would, he had ended the campaign as a colonel.