lect. When Moscow was reached, it proved to
be deserted. Napoleon had won the empty shell of a city, and was as far
as ever from the conquest of Russia.

It is not our purpose here to give the startling story of the burning of
Moscow, the sacrifice of a city to the god of war. Though this is one of
the most thrilling events in the history of Russia, it has already been
told in this series.[1] We are concerned at present solely with the
retreat of the grand army from the ashes of the Muscovite capital, the
most dreadful retreat in the annals of war.

Napoleon lingered amid the ruins of the ancient city until winter was
near at hand, hoping still that the emperor Alexander would sue for
peace. No suit came. He offered terms himself, and they were not even
honored with a reply. A deeply disappointed man, the autocrat of Europe
marched out of Moscow on October 19 and began his frightful homeward
march. He had waited much too long. The Russian armies, largely
increased in numbers, shut him out from every path but the wasted one by
which he had come, a highway marked by the ashes of burnt towns and the
decaying corpses of men and animals.

On November 6, winter suddenly set in. The supplies had largely been
consumed, the land was empty of food, famine alternated with cold to
crush the retreating host, and death in frightful forms hovered over
their path. The horses, half fed and worn out, died by thousands. Most
of the cavalry had to go afoot; the booty brought from Moscow was
abandoned as valueless; even much of the artillery was left behind. The
cold grew more intense. A deep snow covered the plain, through whose
white peril they had to drag their weary feet. Arms were flung away as
useless weights, flight was the only thought, and but a tithe of the
army remained in condition to defend the rest.

The retreat of the grand army became one of incredible distress and
suffering. Over the seemingly endless Russian steppes, from whose
snow-clad level only rose here and there the ruins of a deserted
village, the freezing and starving soldiers made their miserable way.
Wan, hollow-eyed, gaunt, clad in garments through which the biting cold
pierced their flesh, they dragged wearily onward, fighting with one
another for the flesh of a dead horse, ready to commit murder for the
shadow of food, and finally sinking in death in the snows of that
interminable plain. Each morning, some of those who had stretched their
limbs round the b