he was carried to
the hospital and would recover.

From that day until the month of September they often sang the _Te
Deum_, and fired twenty-one guns for new victories. It was nearly
always in the morning, and Monsieur Goulden cried:

"Eh, Joseph! Another battle won! Fifty thousand men lost!
Twenty-five standards, a hundred guns won. All goes well, all goes
well. It only remains now to order a new levy to replace the dead!"

He pushed open my door, and I saw him, bald, in his shirt-sleeves, with
his neck bare, washing his face in the wash-bowl.

"Do you think, Monsieur Goulden," I asked, in great trouble, "that they
will also take the lame?"

"No, no," he said kindly; "fear nothing, my child, you could not serve.
We will fix that. Only work well, and never mind the rest."

He saw my anxiety, and it pained him. I never met a better man. Then
he dressed himself to go to wind up the city clocks--those of Monsieur
the Commandant of the place, of Monsieur the Mayor, and other notable
personages. I remained at home. Monsieur Goulden did not return until
after the _Te Deum_. He took off his great brown coat, put his peruke
back in its box, and again pulling his silk cap over his ears, said:

"The army is at Wilna or at Smolensk, as I learn from Monsieur the
Commandant. God grant that we may succeed this time and make peace,
and the sooner the better, for war is a terrible thing."

I thought, too, that, if we had peace, so many men would not be needed,
and that I could marry Catharine. Any one can imagine the wishes I
formed for the Emperor's glory.

II

It was on the 15th of September, 1812, that the news came of the great
victory of the Moskowa. Every one was full of joy, and all cried, "Now
we will have peace! now the war is ended!"

Some discontented folks might say that China yet remained to be
conquered; such mar-joys are always to be found.

A week after, we learned that our forces were in Moscow, the largest
and richest city in Russia, and then everybody figured to himself the
booty we would capture, and the reduction it would make in the taxes.
But soon came the rumor that the Russians had set fire to their
capital, and that it was necessary to retreat on Poland or to die of
hunger. Nothing else was spoken of in the inns, the breweries, or the
market; no one could meet his neighbor without saying, "Well, well,
things go badly; the retreat has commenced."

People grew pale, and hund