n dragging themselves along to places where dead
bodies were heaped together, and offered them a horrible retreat. It has
been affirmed by several persons, that one of these poor fellows lived
for several days in the carcase of a horse, which had been gutted by a
shell, and the inside of which he gnawed. Some were seen straightening
their broken leg by tying a branch of a tree tightly against it, then
supporting themselves with another branch, and walking in this manner to
the next village. Not one of them uttered a groan.

Perhaps, when far from their own homes, they looked less for compassion.
But certainly they appeared to support pain with greater fortitude than
the French; not that they suffered more courageously, but that they
suffered less; for they have less feeling in body and mind, which arises
from their being less civilized, and from their organs being hardened by
the climate.

During this melancholy review, the emperor in vain sought to console
himself with a cheering illusion, by having a second enumeration made of
the few prisoners who remained, and collecting together some dismounted
cannon: from seven to eight hundred prisoners, and twenty broken cannon,
were all the trophies of this imperfect victory.

CHAP. XIII.

At the same time, Murat kept pushing the Russian rear-guard as far as
Mojaisk: the road which it uncovered on its retreat was perfectly clear,
and without a single fragment of men, carriages, or dress. All their
dead had been buried, for they have a religious respect for the dead.

At the sight of Mojaisk, Murat fancied himself already in possession of
it, and sent to inform the emperor that he might sleep there. But the
Russian rear-guard had taken a position outside the walls of the town,
and the remains of their army were placed on a height behind it. In this
way they covered the Moscow and the Kalouga roads.

Perhaps Kutusof hesitated which of these two roads to take, or was
desirous of leaving us in uncertainty as to the one he had taken, which
was the case. Besides, the Russians felt it a point of honour to bivouac
at only four leagues from the scene of our victory. That also allowed
them time to disencumber the road behind them and clear away their
fragments.

Their attitude was equally firm and imposing as before the battle, which
we could not help admiring; but something of this was also attributable
to the length of time we had taken to quit the field of Borodino, an