horized officers, bringing
receipts, for which they could exchange the rations committed to their
care." Those who applied had no officers; nor could they tell where
their regiments were. Two thirds of the army were in this predicament.

These unfortunate men then dispersed through the streets, having no
longer any other hope than pillage. But horses dissected to the very
bones every where denoted a famine; the doors and windows of the houses
had been all broken and torn away to feed the bivouac-fires: they found
no shelter in them, no winter-quarters prepared, no wood. The sick and
wounded were left in the streets, in the carts which had brought them.
It was again, it was still the fatal high-road, passing through an empty
name; it was a new bivouac among deceitful ruins; colder even than the
forests which they had just quitted.

Then only did these disorganized troops seek their colours; they
rejoined them for a moment in order to obtain food; but all the bread
that could be baked had been distributed: there was no more biscuit, no
butcher's meat, rye-flour, dry vegetables, and spirits were delivered
out to them. It required the most strenuous efforts to prevent the
detachments of the different corps from murdering one another at the
doors of the magazines: and when, after long formalities, their wretched
fare was delivered to them, the soldiers refused to carry it to their
regiments; they fell upon their sacks, snatched out of them a few pounds
of flour, and ran to hide themselves till they had devoured it. The same
was the case with the spirits. Next day the houses were found full of
the bodies of these unfortunate wretches.

In short, that fatal Smolensk, which the army had looked forward to as
the term of its sufferings, marked only their commencement.
Inexpressible hardships awaited us: we had yet to march forty days under
that yoke of iron. Some, already overloaded with present miseries, sunk
under the alarming prospect of those which awaited them. Others revolted
against their destiny; finding they had nothing to rely on but
themselves, they resolved to live at any rate.

Henceforward, according as they found themselves the stronger or the
weaker, they plundered their dying companions by violence or stealth, of
their subsistence, their garments, and even the gold, with which they
had filled their knapsacks instead of provisions. These wretches, whom
despair had made robbers, then threw away their arms to sav