Once again the snow had compacted and frozen so that the passage of the Grand Army was marked by a long, winding gleam of ice that was treacherous underfoot. The temperature continued to fall and had not risen above freezing since they had left the nightmare of the Berezina river behind them. The nights were bitter and dawn, when it came, was bleak. Any men, horses or equipment left in the open were covered in a heavy rime of frost. Increasingly, those who could not find shelter for the night did not survive to see the dawn. Only that morning, Napoleon had passed a peculiar scene by the side of the road. A soldier, a woman and two children were sitting around the remains of a small fire, built in the lee of a crumbling wall. They sat, cross-legged, wrapped in blankets, the children leaning into their mother with their heads resting against her, as if asleep. But they were unaturally still, and Napoleon stopped to look at them.

‘Frozen to death,’ he muttered as he stared into their white faces, wondering at the peaceful expressions on all four. ‘Frozen to death,’ he repeated in horror, before spurring his horse forward again.

That night, the headquarters staff and the Imperial Guard halted at Molodetchna. The soldiers found billets in the village and tried to scavenge some scraps of meat and vegetables to make soup, while the Emperor and his staff took over the village’s one tavern. The Russian armies were mostly behind them and so now the battle was for survival. Regular communications had been re-established with Warsaw and an escorted courier sent by the Minister of Police had arrived in the village earlier in the day. In addition to the official messages, Savary had instructed his official to brief the Emperor on the dangerous situation in Paris.

Napoleon had retreated to the tavern’s kitchen with Berthier to hear what the man had to say in private. A small cauldron was steaming over the cooking fire and the tavern’s owner was peeling vegetables to add to the stock.

‘Out,’ Napoleon said to him, pointing at the door.

The tavern keeper shook his head and pointed to the cauldron. Napoleon clicked his fingers and then pointed to the hilt of his sword before he repeated his order. ‘Out!’

Once the door had closed, he turned to the courier. ‘What’s alarming Savary so much that he has sent you all the way out here?’

‘You already know about Malet’s attempted coup, I take it, sire?’

‘I know. Savary’s last report was that he had rounded up the plotters and dealt with them.’