hundred thousand
combatants marching at the head with their knapsacks, their arms,
upwards of five hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and two thousand
artillery-waggons, still exhibited a formidable appearance, worthy of
soldiers who had conquered the world. But the rest, in an alarming
proportion, resembled a horde of Tartars after a successful invasion. It
consisted of three or four files of infinite length, in which there was
a mixture, a confusion of chaises, ammunition waggons, handsome
carriages, and vehicles of every kind. Here trophies of Russian,
Turkish, and Persian colours, and the gigantic cross of Ivan the
Great--there, long-bearded Russian peasants carrying or driving along
our booty, of which they constituted a part: others dragging even
wheelbarrows filled with whatever they could remove. The fools were not
likely to proceed in this manner till the conclusion of the first day:
their senseless avidity made them think nothing of battles and a march
of eight hundred leagues.

In these followers of the army were particularly remarked a multitude of
men of all nations, without uniform and without arms, and servants
swearing in every language, and urging by dint of shouts and blows the
progress of elegant carriages, drawn by pigmy horses harnessed with
ropes. They were filled with provisions, or with the booty saved from
the flames. They carried also French women with their children. Formerly
these females were happy inhabitants of Moscow; they now fled from the
hatred of the Muscovites, which the invasion had drawn upon their heads;
the army was their only asylum.

A few Russian girls, voluntary captives, also followed. It looked like a
caravan, a wandering nation, or rather one of those armies of antiquity
returning loaded with slaves and spoil after a great devastation. It was
inconceivable how the head of this column could draw and support such a
heavy mass of equipages in so long a route.

Notwithstanding the width of the road and the shouts of his escort,
Napoleon had great difficulty to obtain a passage through this immense
throng. No doubt the obstruction of a defile, a few forced marches and a
handful of Cossacks, would have been sufficient to rid us of all this
incumbrance: but fortune or the enemy had alone a right to lighten us in
this manner. As for the Emperor, he was fully sensible that he could
neither deprive his soldiers of this fruit of so many toils, nor
reproach them for securing it. B