nted from going in quest of food by the
loss of a limb, or by debility, were the first to sink. These disasters
occurred wherever the emperor was not in person; his presence bringing,
and his departure carrying, every thing along with it; and his orders,
in fact, not being scrupulously obeyed but within the circle of his own
observation.

At Smolensk, there was no want of hospitals; fifteen spacious brick
buildings were rescued from the flames: there were even found some wine,
brandy, and a few medical stores; and our reserve waggons for the
wounded at length rejoined us: but every thing ran short. The surgeons
were at work night and day, but the very second night, all the materials
for dressing the wounded were exhausted: there was no more linen, and
they were forced to use paper, found in the archives, in its stead.
Parchment served for splinters, and coarse cloth for compresses; and
they had no other substitute for lint than tow and birch down (_coton du
bouleau_).

Our surgeons were overwhelmed with dismay: for three days an hospital of
a hundred wounded had been forgotten; an accident led to its discovery:
Rapp penetrated into that abode of despair. I will spare my reader the
horror of a description. Wherefore communicate those terrible
impressions which harrow up the soul? Rapp did not spare them to
Napoleon, who instantly caused his own wine, and a sum of money, to be
distributed among such of those unfortunate men as a tenacious life
still animated, or whom a disgusting food had supported.

But to the vehement emotion which these reports excited in the bosom of
the emperor, was superadded an alarming consideration. The conflagration
of Smolensk was no longer, he saw, the effect of a fatal and unforeseen
accident of war, nor even the result of an act of despair: it was the
result of cool determination. The Russians had studied the time and
means, and taken as great pains to destroy, as are usually taken to
preserve.

The same day the courageous answers of one of their popes (the only one
found in Smolensk,) enlightened him still more in regard to the blind
fury which had been excited in the whole Russian nation. His
interpreter, alarmed by this animosity, conducted the pope to the
emperor. The venerable priest first reproached him, with firmness, for
his alleged sacrilegious acts: he knew not that it was the Russian
general himself who had caused the storehouses and churches to be set on
fire, and who had ac