e thought that they
had no more wants, that they were at rest, that their sufferings were
over. And, indeed, death, in a situation quiet, certain, and uniform,
may be felt as a strange event, a frightful contrast, a terrible change;
but in this tumult, this violent and ceaseless movement of a life of
action, danger, and suffering, it appeared nothing more than a
transition, a slight alteration, an additional removal, which excited
little alarm.

Such were the last days of the Grand Army: its last nights were still
more frightful. Those whom they surprised marching together, far from
every habitation, halted on the borders of the woods: there they lighted
their fires, before which they remained the whole night, erect and
motionless like spectres. They seemed as if they could not possibly have
enough of the heat: they kept so close to it as to burn their clothes,
as well as the frozen parts of their body, which the fire decomposed.
The most dreadful pain then compelled them to stretch themselves on the
ground, and the next day they attempted in vain to rise.

In the meantime, such as the winter had almost wholly spared, and who
still retained some portion of courage, prepared their melancholy meal.
It had consisted, ever since they left Smolensk, of some slices of
horseflesh broiled, and a little rye-meal made into a sort of gruel with
snow-water, or kneaded into paste, which they seasoned, for want of
salt, with the powder of their cartridges.

The sight of these fires was constantly attracting fresh spectres, who
were driven back by the first comers. These poor wretches wandered about
from one bivouac to another, until, struck by the frost and despair
together, and giving themselves up for lost, they laid themselves down
upon the snow behind their more fortunate comrades, and there expired.
Many of them, destitute of the means and the strength necessary to cut
down the lofty fir-trees, made vain attempts to set fire to them as they
were standing; but death speedily surprised them, and they might be seen
in every sort of attitude, stiff and lifeless about their trunks.

Under the vast sheds erected by the sides of the high road in some parts
of the way, scenes of still greater horror were witnessed. Officers and
soldiers all rushed precipitately into them, and crowded together in
heaps. There, like so many cattle, they pressed upon each other around
the fires, and as the living could not remove the dead from the circl