e, their haggard
faces, begrimed with dirt and smoke, their tattered uniforms and the
grotesque habiliments which they had substituted for them, in short,
their strange, hideous look, and their extreme ardour, excited alarm. It
was conceived that if the irruption of this crowd, maddened with hunger,
were not repelled, a general pillage would be the consequence, and the
gates were closed against it.

It was also hoped that by this rigour these men would be forced to
rally. A horrid struggle between order and disorder then commenced in
the remnant of that unfortunate army. In vain did some entreat, weep,
conjure, threaten, strive to burst the gates, and drop down dead at the
feet of their comrades, who had orders to repel them; they found them
inexorable: they were forced to await the arrival of the first troops,
who were still officered and in order.

These were the old and young guard. It was not till afterwards that the
disbanded men were allowed to enter; they and the other corps which
arrived in succession, from the 8th to the 14th, believed that their
entry had been delayed merely to give more rest and more provisions to
this guard. Their sufferings rendered them unjust; they execrated it.
"Were they then to be for ever sacrificed to this privileged class,
fellows kept for mere parade, who were never foremost but at reviews,
festivities, and distributions? Was the army always to put up with their
leavings; and in order to obtain them, was it always to wait till they
had glutted themselves?" It was impossible to tell them in reply, that
to attempt to save all was the way to lose all; that it was necessary to
keep at least one corps entire, and to give the preference to that which
in the last extremity would be capable of making the most powerful
effort.

At last, however, these poor creatures were admitted into that Smolensk
for which they had so ardently wished; they had left the banks of the
Borysthenes strewed with the dying bodies of the weakest of their
number; impatience and several hours' waiting had finished them. They
left others on the icy steep which they had to climb to reach the upper
town. The rest ran to the magazines, and there more of them expired
while they beset the doors; for they were again repulsed. "Who were
they? to what corps did they belong? what had they to show for it? The
persons who had to distribute the provisions were responsible for them;
they had orders to deliver them only to aut