h excited their astonishment.

Mortier had obeyed his orders: the Kremlin was no more.[165] Barrels of
powder had been placed in all the halls of the palaces of the Czars, and
one hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds under the vaults which
supported them. The marshal, with eight thousand men, had remained on
this volcano, which a single Russian shell might have exploded. Here he
covered the march of the army upon Kaluga, and the retreat of our
different convoys towards Mojaisk.

Among these eight thousand men there were scarcely two thousand on whom
Mortier could rely; the others were dismounted cavalry, men of different
countries and regiments, under new officers, with dissimilar habits,
with no common recollections, in short, without any bond of union,
forming a rabble rather than an organized body, and who could scarcely
fail in a short time to disperse.

This marshal, therefore, was looked upon as a doomed man. The other
chiefs, his old companions in glory, had left him with tears in their
eyes, as well as the emperor himself, who said to him "that he relied on
his good fortune; but still, in war, we must sometimes make part of a
sacrifice." Mortier resigned himself without hesitation to his fate. His
orders were to defend the Kremlin, and on retreating to blow it up, and
to burn what still remained of the city. It was on the 21st of October,
that Napoleon sent him his last commands. After executing them, the
marshal was to march upon Vereia, and to form the rear guard of the
army.

In this letter Napoleon particularly recommended to him "to put the men
still remaining in the hospitals into the carriages belonging to the
young rear guard, those of the dismounted cavalry, and any others that
he might find. The Romans," he added, "awarded a civic crown to him who
had saved a citizen: so many soldiers as he should save, so many crowns
would the Duke of Treviso deserve."

At length, after four days' resistance, the French bade a final adieu to
that fatal city. They carried with them four hundred wounded, and, on
retiring, deposited in a safe and secret place a firework, skilfully
prepared, which was already slowly consuming: the rate of its burning
had been minutely calculated, so that it was known precisely at what
hour the fire would reach the immense collection of powder buried among
the foundations of these devoted palaces.

Mortier hastened his flight; but as he was retiring, some greedy
Cossacks and mis