rs, appear eager to follow this new direction.

At this sight a strong suspicion seized their minds. Can the Muscovites,
aware of our rash and thoughtless negligence, have conceived the hope of
burning with Moscow our soldiers, heavy with wine, fatigue and sleep; or
rather, have they dared to imagine that they should involve Napoleon in
this catastrophe; that the loss of such a man would be fully equivalent
to that of their capital; that it was a result sufficiently important to
justify the sacrifice of all Moscow to obtain it; that perhaps Heaven,
in order to grant them so signal a victory, had decreed so great a
sacrifice; and lastly, that so immense a colossus required a not less
immense funeral pile?

Whether this was their plan we cannot tell, but nothing less than the
Emperor's good fortune was required to prevent its being realized. In
fact, not only did the Kremlin contain, unknown to us, a magazine of
gunpowder; but that very night, the guards, asleep and carelessly
posted, suffered a whole park of artillery to enter and draw up under
the windows of Napoleon.

It was at this moment that the furious flames were driven from all
quarters with the greatest violence towards the Kremlin; for the wind,
attracted no doubt by this vast combustion, increased every moment in
strength. The flower of the army and the Emperor would have been
destroyed, if but one of the brands that flew over our heads had
alighted on one of the powder-waggons. Thus upon each of the sparks that
were for several hours floating in the air, depended the fate of the
whole army.

At length the day, a gloomy day, appeared: it came to add to the horrors
of the scene, and to deprive it of its brilliancy. Many of the officers
sought refuge in the halls of the palace. The chiefs, and Mortimer
himself, overcome by the fire with which, for thirty six hours, they had
been contending, there dropped down from fatigue and despair.

They said nothing and we accused ourselves. Most of us imagined that
want of discipline in our troops and intoxication had begun the
disaster, and that the high wind had completed it. We viewed ourselves
with a sort of disgust. The cry of horror which all Europe would not
fail to set up terrified us. Filled with consternation by so tremendous
a catastrophe, we accosted each other with downcast looks: it sullied
our glory; it deprived us of the fruits of it; it threatened our present
and our future existence; we were now but a