whole night, erect
and motionless like spectres. They seemed as if they could never 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, and
the next day they attempted in vain to rise.

In the mean time, such as the winter had almost wholly spared, and who
still retained some portion of courage, prepared their melancholy meal.
It consisted, ever since they had left Smolensk, of some slices of
horse-flesh broiled, and some rye-meal diluted into a _bouillie_ with
snow water, or kneaded into muffins, 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 they were struck by the frost and
despair together, and gave themselves up for lost. They then laid
themselves down upon the snow, behind their more fortunate comrades, and
there expired. Many of them, devoid of the means and the strength
necessary to cut down the lofty fir trees, made vain attempts to set
fire to them at the trunk; but death speedily surprised them around
these trees in every sort of attitude.

Under the vast pent-houses which are 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 squeezed
against each other round the fires, and as the living could not remove
the dead from the circle, they laid themselves down upon them, there to
expire in their turn, and serve as a bed of death to some fresh victims.
In a short time additional crowds of stragglers presented themselves,
and being unable to penetrate into these asylums of suffering, they
completely besieged them.

It frequently happened that they demolished their walls, which were
formed of dry wood, in order to feed their fires; at other times,
repulsed and disheartened, they were contented to use them as shelters
to their bivouacs, the flames of which very soon communicated to these
habitations, and the soldiers whom they contained, already half dead
with the cold, were completely killed by the fire. Such of us as these
places of shelter preserved, found next day our