ades, my task is done; it is now for you to bear your testimony to
the truth of the picture. Its colors will no doubt appear pale to your
eyes and to your hearts, which are still full of these great
recollections. But who does not know that an action is always more
eloquent than its description; and that, if great historians are
produced by great men, the former are still more rare than the latter?

FOOTNOTES:

[125] Namely, at Kowno, Pilony, south of Kowno, and Grodno, still
further south. At Kowno a monument bears the following inscription in
Russian: "In 1812 Russia was invaded by an army numbering 700,000 men.
The army recrossed the frontier numbering 70,000."

[126] See map facing p. 1. The upper dotted line represents the advance
to Moscow; the lower, the line of retreat from that city.

[127] =Moskwa=, =Kologa=: these and other Russian geographical names are
variously spelled.

[128] Count Segur was elected a member of the French Academy, and his
history of the retreat has not only passed through many editions in
France, but it has been translated into all the leading languages of
Europe.

[129] The history of Napoleon after the Russian retreat will form the
subject of a note at the close of Count Segur's narrative.

[130] =Moscow=: the ancient capital of Russia is situated on the Moskwa
river (a tributary of the Oka), from which the city derives its name. It
first appears in history in the middle of the twelfth century. It early
became the metropolis and seat of government, and continued so until a
short time after the founding of St. Petersburg by Peter the Great, in
1703.

For centuries Moscow was both the political and religious centre of the
empire. Here the Czars were crowned, here they resided, here they were
buried. Here, too, the patriarch, or former head of the Russian church,
had his residence, amid cathedrals, monasteries, and shrines, which have
always been regarded with peculiar reverence.

To the Russian peasant the city still remains sacred. It is the heart,
as it were, of his native land. He cherishes toward it the same feeling
which the devout Mohammedan does for Mecca, or the devout Catholic for
Rome. He calls it "Our Holy Mother Moscow"; and when he comes in sight
of its gilded spires and cupolas he makes the sign of the cross, falls
upon his knees, and utters a prayer.

In the centre of Moscow stands the Kremlin, or fortress--for so the
Tartar name is usually translated. This famo