The spectacular sequel to The Battle, winner of the Prix Goncourt and the Grand Prix Roman de l'Acadand#0233; mie Franand#0231; aise, this stunning second volume of Patrick Rambaud's Napoleonic trilogy opens in September 1812 with the French army at the gates of Moscow. Exhausted and demoralized, they are only a quarter of the 400,000-strong force that crossed the river Niemen three months before. But the sight of this famous city feels like a triumph and a chance, at last, to enjoy a conqueror's spoils. Napoleon rides to the Dorogomiland#0243; v Gate expecting to be met by city elders bearing tokens of surrender, but no one appears; Moscow has been evacuated. Oblivious to their predicament, Napoleon sends to Paris for comic novels and imagines that it is only a matter of time before Tsar Alexander sues for peace. Finally, a month later, Napoleon gives up and the Grand Armand#0233; e begins its tragic retreat. The French will endure their most brutal test as they lose over twenty thousand men due to fighting, the cold, and starvation. With the same pulse-quickening dramatic power he showed in The Battle, Rambaud brings this disastrous campaign to brilliant, near-hallucinatory life.