The weather had changed, the roads were frozen, horribly rough, but still much more passable than before.

Once again the Emperor resorted to the peasantry.

They, too, had been intoxicated with the news of his victories, many of which they had witnessed and, in the plunder resulting, had shared.

They brought their horses which they had hidden in ravines and forests when the country was overrun by the enemy.

This time, instead of attaching them to the guns which their own teams--recruited from the captures--could draw on the hard roads, Napoleon had them hitched to the big farm wagons.