About midnight
The miserable creatures preferred to be trampled and crushed to death rather than stir from their places , and died without a sound , smiling at the dead ashes of their fires , forgetful of France . Not before ten o'clock that night did the Duc de Belluno reach the other side of the river . Before committing his men to the pontoon bridges that led to Zembin , he left the fate of the rearguard at Studzianka in Eble 's hands , and to Eble the survivors of the calamities of the Beresina owed their lives . About midnight , the great General , followed by a courageous officer , came out of his little hut by the bridge , and gazed at the spectacle of this camp between the bank of the Beresina and the Borizof road to Studzianka . The thunder of the Russian cannonade had ceased . Here and there faces that had nothing human about them were lighted up by countless fires that seemed to grow pale in the glare of the snowfields , and to give no light . Nearly thirty thousand wretches , belonging to every nation that Napoleon had hurled upon Russia , lay there hazarding their lives with the indifference of brute beasts .