ound, which melted with the efforts of the soldiers, and the
effect of the first fires, extinguished those fires, as well as the
strength and spirits of the men.

When at length the flames gained the ascendancy, the officers and
soldiers around them prepared their wretched repast; it consisted of
lean and bloody pieces of flesh torn from the horses that were knocked
up, and at most a few spoonfuls of rye-flour mixed with snow-water. Next
morning circular ranges of soldiers extended lifeless marked the
bivouacs; and the ground about them was strewed with the bodies of
several thousand horses.

From that day we began to place less reliance on one another. In that
lively army, susceptible of all impressions, and taught to reason by an
advanced civilization, discouragement and neglect of discipline spread
rapidly, the imagination knowing no bounds in evil as in good.
Henceforward, at every bivouac, at every difficult passage, at every
moment, some portion separated from the yet organised troops, and fell
into disorder. There were some, however, who withstood this wide
contagion of indiscipline and despondency. These were officers,
non-commissioned officers, and steady soldiers. These were extraordinary
men: they encouraged one another by repeating the name of Smolensk,
which they knew they were approaching, and where they had been promised
that all their wants should be supplied.

It was in this manner that, after this deluge of snow, and the increase
of cold which it foreboded, each, whether officer or soldier, preserved
or lost his fortitude, according to his disposition, his age, and his
constitution. That one of our leaders who had hitherto been the
strictest in enforcing discipline, now paid little attention to it.
Thrown out of all his fixed ideas of regularity, order, and method, he
was seized with despair at the sight of such universal disorder, and
conceiving, before the others, that all was lost, he felt himself ready
to abandon all.

From Gjatz to Mikalewska, a village between Dorogobouje and Smolensk,
nothing remarkable occurred in the imperial column, unless that it was
found necessary to throw the spoils of Moscow into the lake of Semlewo:
cannon, gothic armour, the ornaments of the Kremlin, and the cross of
Ivan the Great, were buried in its waters; trophies, glory, all those
acquisitions to which we had sacrificed every thing, became a burden to
us; our object was no longer to embellish, to adorn life, b