ould be
cut off from support, and till winter, famine, and fatigue had wasted
his resources. And in order to ensure this final result they were
willing to make large sacrifices. Smolensko was reduced to ashes, while
Napoleon was on his route to Moscow, lest it should afford a shelter to
his troops, and Napoleon had not been long in the imperial city, when
the flames were seen casting their lurid glare to heaven on every side.
In a brief space Moscow was in ruins, and Napoleon was compelled, in the
month of October, to give orders to his troops to return to France. Few
of his proud army, however, were destined again to behold their native
country.

"Now did the Most High
Exalt his still small voice; to quell that host,
Gathered his mighty power, a manifest ally;
He, whose heaped waves confounded the proud boast
Of Pharaoh, said to Famine, Snow, and France,
'Finish the strife by deadliest victory.'"
--Wordsworth

Scarcely had Napoleon commenced his retrograde march when the snow,
like a violent storm of the Alps, beat around the devoted heads of
his soldiers, and their progress was henceforth a combat against their
pitiless foes the Cossacks, who hovered around them, and the still more
pitiless elements. Danger awaited him at every step and on every hand,
and when he arrived on the margin of the Beresina, his vast army was
reduced to about 14,000 men. And not all these reached France. The
Russians under Wittgenstein now appeared in his rear, and one of his
divisions was either destroyed or captured. Napoleon had passed over the
Beresina with a part of his army by means of two frail bridges, leaving
the defence of the retreat to Victor. A scene ensued which defies
description. The retreating French tumbled each other into the stream,
or voluntarily rushed in to escape the fire of the Russians; and in the
midst of their terror one of the bridges gave way, and the crowd passing
over it perished. When that river was frozen, it presented to the eye
of the beholder one vast heap of human beings. Those who gained the
opposite bank were saved, and Napoleon, leaving them under the care
of Murat, repaired to Paris. He was stripped of everything; and yet he
hoped to repair his fortunes. It is said that in the beginning of the
next year, when the snow had melted away, 300,000 human bodies and
160,000 dead horses were burnt upon the Russian soil.

WAR WITH AMERICA.

During this year the