The Expiation: I, By Victor Hugo

It snowed. Someone was defeated by his conquering.

For the first time, the eagle lowered its head.

Heavy days! The emperor came back slowly,

Letting Moscow in smoke burn behind him.

It snowed. The sharp winter came upon one, tumblingly.

After that white plain, another white plain.

Unrecognized now, chiefs and banners.

Yesterday la grande armée and now a flock of something.

Wings and centre were no longer told apart.

It snowed. The wounded hid themselves in the bellies

Of dead horses; at the edge of deserted encampments

You might see trumpeters frozen to their post,

Remaining upright, caparisoned and still, white in frost,

Sticking their stony mouths to trumpets of copper.

Bullets, grapeshot, shells, mixed with white flakes,

Fell down; grenadiers, surprised that they were trembling,

Marched in thought, ice at their grey moustaches.

It snowed. It snowed always! The cold wind

Whistled. A surface of frozen rain, in some dim place—

Men walked on this with bare feet and without food.

These were no longer living hearts, folk of war.

It was a dream wandering in cold haze, a mystery,

A procession of shades under a black sky.

The vast loneliness, fearful to look at,

Everywhere appeared: a mute avenger.

The sky made noiselessly of the thick snow

An immense shroud for this army;

And everyone, feeling death was present, was alone.

—Will one ever get from out this deadly empire?

Two enemies! The czar, the north. The north is worse.

Men discarded cannon to burn the gun-carriages.

Who lay down, died. A group sad and confused:

They fled: the desert devoured the line.

You were able through folds which the snow raised

To see that regiments had gone to sleep there.

O defeats of Hannibal! tomorrows of Attila!

Runaways, wounded, dying, caissons, handcarts, litters,

These crowded at bridges in order to cross rivers.

Ten thousand went to sleep, a hundred waked.

Ney, whom an army followed a while ago, now

Got away, fighting for his watch with three Cossacks.

Every night: Qui-vive! Watch! Assaults! Attacks!

—These phantoms take their guns, and on them

They see rush, frightening, darksome—

With cries like the voices of bald vultures—

Horrible squadrons, whirls of fierce men.

A whole army in this way lost itself in the night.

The emperor was there, upright, looking.

He was like a tree given over to the ax.

On this giant, grandeur spared until then,

Unhappiness, sinister woodman, had mounted;

And he, living oak, insulted by the hatchet,

Trembling under a spectre of dreary retaliations,

Watched his branches fall about him.

Leaders, soldiers, all died. Each had his turn.

While surrounding his tent lovingly,

Some saw his shadow go and come on the cloth surface:

(These were they who remained, and, believing always in his star,

Accused destiny of a deep insult to greatness).

He felt suddenly his very being frightened.

Stupefied by disaster, and not knowing what to believe,

The emperor looked towards God; the man of glory

Trembled; Napoleon saw that he was expiating

Something, perhaps; and, leaden-colored, disquieted,

Before his legions strewn on the snow:

Is it my punishment, he says, God of armies?

Then he hears himself called by name

And someone speaking to him in the shadows, says: No.