The Officer's Prey

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.

Lefine, Piquebois and Fanselin also escaped death on Russian soil.

No one had time to rest because in April 1813 the Saxony campaign began.