Note 212 — Chapter LXII

"Napoleon's confidence increased with his peril; in his eyes, and in the midst of these deserts of mud and ice, that handful of men was always the grand army! and himself the conqueror of Europe! and there was no infatuation in this firmness: we were certain of it, when, in this very town, we saw him burning with his own hands every thing belonging to him which might serve as trophies to the enemy, in the event of his fall. There also were unfortunately consumed all the papers which he had collected in order to write the history of his life; for such was his intention when he set out for that fatal war. He had then determined to halt as a threatening conqueror on the borders of the Dwina and the Boristhenes, to which he now returned as a disarmed fugitive. At that time he regarded the ennui of six winter months, which he would have been detained on these rivers as his greatest enemy; and to overcome it, this second Cæsar intended there to have dictated his Commentaries."—Ségur, tom. ii., p. 235.