res, to augment his force by ten thousand
men, and to protect the recovery or the retreat of a great part of his
wounded. But on this very first day he could perceive that his cavalry
and artillery might be said rather to crawl than to march.

A melancholy spectacle added to the gloomy presentiments of our chief.
The army had, ever since the preceding day, been pouring out of Moscow
without intermission. In this column of one hundred and forty thousand
men and about fifty thousand horses of all kinds, the hundred thousand
combatants marching at its head with their knapsacks and their arms,
upward of five hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and two thousand
artillery wagons, still exhibited a formidable appearance, worthy of
soldiers who had conquered the world. But the rest, whose numbers were
in an alarming proportion, resembled a horde of Tartars after a
successful invasion. They formed three or four files of almost infinite
length, in which there was a confused mixture of chaises, ammunition
wagons, handsome carriages, and, in short, vehicles of every kind. Here
trophies of Russian, Turkish, and Persian colors, and the gigantic cross
of Ivan the Great; there, long-bearded Russian peasants carrying or
driving along our booty, of which they constituted a part; and some
dragging even wheelbarrows filled with whatever they could remove. The
fools were not likely to proceed in this manner till the conclusion of
the first day, and yet their senseless avidity made them think nothing
of battles and a march of two hundred leagues.

Among these followers of the army were particularly remarked a multitude
of men of all nations, without uniform and without arms, and servants
swearing in every language, and urging by dint of shouts and blows the
progress of elegant carriages, drawn by pigmy horses harnessed with
ropes. These were filled with provisions, or with booty saved from the
flames. They carried, also, many French women with their children.
Formerly these females had been happy inhabitants of Moscow; but they
now fled from the hatred of the Muscovites, which the invasion had drawn
upon their heads, and the army was their only asylum.

A few Russian girls, voluntary captives, also followed. It looked like a
caravan, a wandering nation, or, rather, one of those armies of
antiquity returning loaded with slaves and with spoils after a great
devastation. It was inconceivable how the head of this column could draw
and protect