appearance, on a sky which was darkened by the thickest smoke Frequently was seen the glare of the burning torches, which the incendiaries were hurling from the tops of the highest towers, on those parts of the city which had yet escaped destruction, and which resembled at a distance so many passing meteors. Nothing could equal the anguish that absorbed every feeling heart, and which was increased in the dead of the night, by the cries of the miserable victims who were savagely murdered, or by the screams of the young females, who fled for protection to their weeping mothers, and whose ineffectual struggles tended only to inflame the passion of their violators. To these dreadful groans and heartrending cries, which every moment broke upon the ear, were added, the howling of the dogs, which, chained to the doors of the palaces, according to the custom at Moscow, could not escape from the fire which surrounded them.'

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Overpowered with regret, and with terror, I flattered myself that sleep would for a while release me from these revolting scenes; but the most frightful recollections crowded upon me, and all the horrors of the day again passed in review. My wearied senses seemed at last sinking into repose, when the light of the near and dreadful conflagration piercing into my room, suddenly awoke me, I thought that my chamber was a prey to the flames. It was no idle dream, for when I approached the window, I saw that our quarters were on fire, and that the house in which lodged was in the utmost danger. Sparks were thickly falling in our yard, and on the wooden roof of our stables. I ran quickly to my landlord and his family. Perceiving their danger, they had already quitted their habitation, and had retired to a subterranean vault which afforded them more security. I found them with their servants all assembled there, nor could I prevail on them to leave it, for they dreaded our soldiers more than the fire. The father was sitting on the threshold of the vault, and appeared desirous of first exposing himself to the calamities which threatened his family. Two of his daughters, pale, with dishevelled hair, and whose tears added to their beauty, disputed with him the honour of the sacri fice. It was not without violence that I could snatch them from the building, under which they would otherwise soon have been buried. When these unhappy creatures again saw the light, they contemplated within difference the loss of all their property, and were only astonished that they were still alive. Though they were convinced that no personal injury would now be offered them, they exhibited not any tokens of gratitude; but resembled those miserable criminals, who, having been ordered to execution, are bewil dered when a reprieve unexpectedly arrives, and whom the agonies of death render insensible to the gift of life." P. 211.

The conflagration did not cease for four whole days, and during this time, and long after, the galley-slaves signalized themselves by the audacity with which they executed the orders Dd

VOL. IV. OCTOBER, 1815.

they

they had received. Provided with phosphorus, they lighted the fire a new wherever it appeared to be extinguished. The French shot several of these wretches. But their punishment being thus too prompt and summary, produced little effect. During this time the army bivouacked in the middle of the fields, ander grottos, Chinese pavilions, and green houses.

"This picturesqué camp," observes our author, “ was rendered: still more extraordinary by the new costume adopted by the soldiers, most of whom, to shelter themselves from the inclemency of the weather, had put on the same clothing which used to be seen at Moscow. "" Thus we saw,” continues Mr. Labaume, walking in our camp, soldiers dressed à la Tartare, à la Cosaque, à la Chinoise; one wore the Polish cap, another the high bonnet of the Persians, the Baskirs, or the Kalmouks. In short our army presented the image of a carnival."

In the mean time the soldiers still went on marauding, and in digging amongst the ruins they discovered entire magazines, whence they drew a profusion of articles of every description. Though encamped in the fields and exposed to the inclemency of the weather, they ate off China plates, drank out of silver vases, and possessed almost every elegant and expensive article which luxury could invent. But this vain shew of artificial and useless wealth, was soon succeeded by real want. Brandy and sugar, coffee and wine were very plentiful in the camp, but the soldiers had no bread, and the horses no forage.

Napoleon stopped at Moscow five weeks, and during this time he lost all the fruit of his victory, and gave an opportunity to the weather and to the enemy to annihilate his army. He did so against the advice of his generals, and particularly of Ney and Murat, who, together with many of the rest did not forgive him for the scorn with which he received their councils. It is notorious, that seeing the ruins of Moscow, and the desolated state of the country, immediately after the conflagration all the French generals endeavoured to persuade Napoleon to retreat; and had he adopted so wise a plan he would have been able to reach Poland, or at least Smolensko, long before the winter or the Russians had acquired sufficient strength to make any impression on his army. Instead of that he lost all the time which he ought to have employed in marching, and thus he offered an opportunity to the Russians to excite a general insurrection against him, and to post their armies on the different roads by which he was to pass, at a time when famine and cold had already thinned his ranks.

Considered in this point of view, the general opinion, which ascribes to the Russians the credit of having effected his total

tuin by the burning of Moscow, may be liable to some objec tion. If the annihilation of the French army proceeded from the effect of the time which the Russians had to reorganize new troops, and of the winter, which overtook Napoleon in his retreat, it is clear that the burning of Moscow was the very mea sure which would have saved him, by compelling the French to evacuate the town and retreat to Smolensko sooner than the Russians could have collected a sufficient force to oppose them, and even sooner than the winter could have overtaken them on the road. And indeed had Bonaparte listened to the advice of his generals he would have had nearly two months of fine wea ther, during which time he would have retreated unmolested, since the Russians could not have had time to collect the forces, with which they overpowered his army.

To justify the Russians it has been asserted that their government had reason to fear, from the character of Napoleon, that the population of Moscow, instead of revolting against the French, might have become instrumental to their projects, and that many of the inhabitants led away by an example so dangerous, and seduced by brilliant promises, might have abandoned the interests of their country. Be this as it may, the extraordinary success which crowned this bold and gigantic mea sure, is not to be attributed so much to the policy of the Russians, but to the obstinacy of Bonaparte, who, led away by fallacious representations, hoped to intimidate the Czar into a

peace.

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However it must be owned that this hope of Bonaparte was not without some foundation, it is notorious that the Emperor Alexander had already listened to the terms which had been offered to him; and that the Archduke Constantine was actually on his road to Moscow to treat with Napoleon. This he knew, and for this reason he rejected the advice of his generals, and remained to wait for the arrival of Constantine. But the Russian nobles, who did not wish to submit to Bonaparte, because they had been ruined by his continental system, stopped the Archduke and obliged him to return back. Napoleon at last be came acquainted with the transaction; but it was too late to remedy the loss of time he had lavished away, and notwith standing all his activity he could not begin his retreat before the 18th of October.

"Those who did not witness the departure of the French army from Moscow, can form but a faint idea of what the Greek and Roman armies were, when they abandoned the ruins of Troy or of Carthage. But they who observed the appearance of our army at this moment acknowledged the accuracy of those interest. Dd 2 ing

ing scenes which are so admirably described in the writings of Virgil and Livý. The long files of carriages, in three or four ranks, extended for several leagues, loaded with the immense booty which the soldiers had snatched from the flames; and the Mosco vite peasants, who were now become our servants, resembled the slaves which the ancients dragged in their train. Others carrying with them their wives and children, or the wretched prostitutes of Moscow, represented the warriors amongst whom the captives had been divided. Afterwards came numerous waggons filled with trophies, among which were Turkish or Persian standards torn from the vaulted roofs of the palaces of the Czars, and, last of all, the celebrated cross of Saint Iwan gloriously closed the rear of an army which, but for the imprudence of its chief, would have been enabled to boast that it had extended its conquests to the very limits of Europe, and astonished the people of Asia with the sound of the same cannon with which the pillars of Hercules had re-echoed." P. 244.

In order to deceive the Russians, Napoleon made his first movements towards the great road to Kaluga. In this way he stole four days march upon the Russians, but at Malo-Jaroslavitz he was overtaken by their columns, who by the new road of Kaluga were advancing to force e position which the French occupied. The Viceroy, at the head of the fourth corps, ensured the success of the day, but the victory was dearly pur chased.

"The town in which we had fought no longer remained. We could not even distinguish the lines of the streets, on account of the numerous dead bodies with which they were heaped. On every side we saw a multitude of scattered limbs and human heads, crushed by the wheels of the artillery. The houses formed a pile of rains, and under their burning ashes, appeared many skeletons half consumed. Many of the sick and wounded had, on quitting the field of battle, taken refuge in these houses. The small number of them who had escaped the flames, now presented themselves before us, with their faces blackened, and their clothes and hair dreadfully burnt. In a piteous tone, they besought us to afford them some relief, or kindly to terminate their sufferings by death. The most ferocious were affected at this sad spectacle, and, turning hastily away, could not refrain from shedding tears. A scene so distressing made every one shudder at the evils to which des potism exposes humanity, and we almost fancied that those barbarous times were returned, when we could only appease the gods by offering human victims on their sanguinary altars.

"Towards the afternoon, Napoleon, having arrived with a numerous suite, coolly surveyed the field of battle, and heard with ouit emotion the heart-rending cries of the unhappy wounded whe eagerly demanded assistance. Although accustomed for twenty

years

years to the calamities of war, he could not, when he entered the town, repress his astonishment at the desperation with which both parties had fought. Had he intended to continue his march on Tula and Kaluga, the experience of this battle would have deterred him. Even his insensibility was, on this occasion, forced to render justice to those to whom it was due*. He gave a convincing proof of it by praising the valour of the fourth corps, and saying to the Viceroy, The honour of this glorious day belongs entirely to yout."" P. 258.

The victory of Malo-Jaroslavitz discovered to the French two melancholy truths. First, that the Russians had been reinforced by numerous battalions, and that they all fought with an obstinacy which made the French despair of gaining many such victories; and in the second place, that having been outAanked by Prince Kutusoff, they were reduced to the miserable necessity of retreating by the great road of Smolensko, through the desert which they had made. In order to prevent the Russians from pressing hard upon him, Napoleon constantly burnt and destroyed every thing which he found on his route. But this necessary measure was so closely put into execution by the soldiers that the following corps were deprived of all power to shelter themselves from the inclemency of the night. This, together with the necessity of contending with an exasperated enemy, may give the reader an idea of the hardships and fatigues to which the rear-guard of the French army was contiunally exposed. Pressed on all sides by the cossacks, obliged to keep within the beaten road which the passage of the army, had rendered impracticable, without tents, without food, and sometimes even without fire, they fed their horses on the thatch, which they could occasionally tear down from the roofs of the huts, and themselves with the carcasses of those animals which fatigue, cold, and want of food caused to fall by hundreds.

In the midst of so much misery, which would have annihilated any army, the French still faced the enemy with their accustomed resolution, and endured their misfortunes with an undaunted and almost ferocious resignation. Trusting that they were able to reach Smolensko, where they hoped to rejoin the divisions they left on the Nieper and the Dwina, looking on the beautiful country of Lithuania as their winter quarters, and

“The twenty-seventh Bulletin.”

+"Being lately at Mantua, I was told by Sir Robert Wilson, who was an eye-witness of the combat of Malo-Jaroslavitz, that Prince Eugene, with only 20,000 men, had sustained the shock of nine Russian divisions, of 10,000 men each."

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were