An orderly served wine, chilled in the mansion’s ice house, and Napoleon waited for him to leave the room before he addressed the others.

‘My friends, we have been obliged to advance far deeper into Russia than I had anticipated. It seems that the Tsar is prepared to sacrifice his entire country rather than face us in battle. The army has been on the march for two months and every day we lose more men and horses to sickness, starvation and exhaustion. The main strike force has been reduced to little over a hundred and fifty thousand men. Today, our scouts have confirmed that General Bagration has succeeded in uniting with the main Russian army. Murat estimates that the Tsar now has a hundred and twenty-five thousand men between us and Moscow.’

Napoleon looked round the table at Berthier, Ney, Murat and Davout. There was a time, when he was younger and unburdened by the duties of an emperor, when Napoleon would have continued the advance without hesitation. And these men would have followed him on the instant. Now? He was no longer so sure of them.

He leaned back, raised his glass and took a quick sip before he continued. ‘A number of choices lie before us. At present the army is reaching the end of its endurance. It is imperative that the men are rested if we are to continue to advance on the road to Moscow, where I am sure the Tsar will turn to fight us. At the same time it would provide us with the chance for our supply convoys to reach us. We will need them to sustain us for the final march to Moscow, as we can be certain the Russians will destroy any stocks of food or forage in our path.’ He paused a moment. ‘There is little doubt that continuing our advance entails a number of risks. Which brings me to a second course of action. We halt now and winter in Smolensk. It would give us time to reorganise our supplies and rest the men so that we can renew the campaign in the spring in easy striking range of Moscow. However, I will not pretend that it will be easy to maintain such a large army as ours through the winter. The last choice is the most difficult. We retreat back over the Niemen and winter in Poland and reconsider the strategic situation next spring.’ Napoleon folded his hands together and looked round at the others. ‘Well?’

‘Retreat is out of the question, sire,’ Ney replied at once. ‘Our enemies would say that we had been defeated. They are already parading our reverses in Spain as proof that France is starting to crumble. I say we press on. One great victory is all we need. Then we can afford to rest and feed our men.’