of
the bridge of Muotta, had been forced to retreat, so that he found
himself in the position in which he had hoped to place Molitor.

No time was to be lost in retreating. Souvarow hurried through the
passes of Engi, Schwauden, and Elm. His flight was so hurried that he
was obliged to abandon his wounded and part of his artillery. Immediately
the French rushed in pursuit among the precipices and clouds. One saw
whole armies passing over places where chamois-hunters took off their
shoes and walked barefoot, holding on by their hands to prevent
themselves from falling. Three nations had come from three different
parts to a meeting-place in the home of the eagles, as if to allow those
nearest God to judge the justice of their cause. There were times when
the frozen mountains changed into volcanoes, when cascades now filled
with blood fell into the valleys, and avalanches of human beings rolled
down the deepest precipices. Death reaped such a harvest there where
human life had never been before, that the vultures, becoming fastidious
through the abundance, picked out only the eyes of the corpses to carry
to their young--at least so says the tradition of the peasants of these
mountains.

Souvarow was able to rally his troops at length in the neighbourhood of
Lindau. He recalled Korsakoff, who still occupied Bregenz; but all his
troops together did not number more than thirty thousand men-all that
remained of the eighty thousand whom Paul had furnished as his contingent
in the coalition. In fifteen days Massena had defeated three separate
armies, each numerically stronger than his own. Souvarow, furious at
having been defeated by these same Republicans whom he had sworn to
exterminate, blamed the Austrians for his defeat, and declared that he
awaited orders from his emperor, to whom he had made known the treachery
of the allies, before attempting anything further with the coalition.

Paul's answer was that he should immediately return to Russia with his
soldiers, arriving at St. Petersburg as soon as possible, where a
triumphal entry awaited them.

The same ukase declared that Souvarow should be quartered in the imperial
palace for the rest of his life, and lastly that a monument should be
raised to him in one of the public places of St. Petersburg.

Foedor was thus about to see Vaninka once more. Throughout the campaign,
where there was a chance of danger, whether in the plains of Italy, in
the defiles of Tes