Through Russian Snows: A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow by G. A. Henty (10 best books of all time .TXT) 📖

for a time, or if she could not sleep that she should at least lie absolutely quiet, so Stephanie has nestled down by her side, and I was able to come to you." He now led the way to a luxuriously furnished smoking-room.

"This is my snuggery," he said. "The library below is where I go into matters with my stewards, receive persons who come on business, and so on. This is where I read and receive my friends. Now, will you help yourself to those cigars, and let us talk. At present I know nothing. Stephanie was left down at our estate, near Kieff, under the charge of her French nurse, who has been with her since she was born. She was rather governess than nurse of late. She was a French émigré, and of good French family, and we had implicit confidence in her. I wrote to her when the invasion first began, saying that as at present we could not tell whether St. Petersburg or Moscow would be Napoleon's object of attack, but as all the centre of Russia would be involved in the war, I wished that Stephanie should remain quietly with her. I said that, should any French army approach Kieff, she was to take Stephanie at once to my estate near Odessa.

"After the invasion began I sent off several letters to the same effect, two by my own couriers, but owing to our army falling back so rapidly, I imagine that none of the letters ever reached the nurse. Of course, the whole postal communication of the country has been thrown into confusion. At last, two months ago, a messenger from Kieff brought me a letter from her making no allusion to those I had sent her, but saying that as she heard that the French army was at Moscow she felt sure I should wish her to bring Stephanie to us, and that, after a consultation with my steward, she would in three days start direct after sending off her letter. We were, of course, thunderstruck. She apparently had the idea that the whole of the French were at Moscow, and that it would, therefore, be perfectly safe to cross the roads between them and the frontier. The poor woman said that should they by any chance come across any body of her countrymen, she was sure that they would not interfere with a woman and child. Her anxiety seemed to relate solely to the weather and food, but she assured me that she would bring an abundance of wraps of all sorts, and a supply of provisions in the fourgon sufficient for the journey.

"Half an hour after I received the letter I sent off two couriers. They were, of course, to go round east of Moscow and then to Kieff. They were to drive at the top of their speed the whole way, and I obtained a special order for them to be instantly furnished with post-horses everywhere. In the meantime there was nothing to do but to wait. My orders were that immediately they arrived they were to send off a fresh messenger by the way they had come, saying whether Stephanie had started, and they were bearers of letters of instruction to the steward that six mounted men were instantly to follow the road the carriage had taken, making inquiries at every post-house, and to endeavour to trace them, and if the clue was anywhere lost to bring word to me. I waited ten days, then I got news that Stephanie had left five weeks before my messengers arrived there. The nurse's letter had been a very long time in coming to me, and they had started, as she said, three days after it was written, therefore if they had got safely through the country occupied by the French they should have arrived here at least three weeks before.

"According to the dates there was little doubt that they must have crossed the main road from Moscow to the frontier at the very time when the French army on its retreat would be moving along. All that we had heard and knew of the terrible distress, both of their army and of our own, showed that at that time the intense suffering of the French and the savage reprisals of our peasantry had reduced them to a state when nothing was respected, and that a pair of valuable horses and a heap of costly furs, to say nothing of the food carried, would be prizes almost beyond value. Deprived of these, a nurse and child would, in a few hours, die of the cold. That some such fate must have befallen them seemed almost certain, for otherwise they must have joined us.

"I could tell pretty well the road that they would follow, and started along it. Half way between here and Smolensk I met the six men. What they said confirmed my worst fears. They had learnt where the carriage had last halted for the night. The party had not travelled post, but had kept their own horses and had travelled only by day. Had they lingered only one day anywhere on the way they would have crossed the Moscow road on the day after the rear-guard of the French had passed.

"But news travelled slowly, and no doubt, at the post-house where they slept, no word that the French army was passing along had been received. Beyond that, the men had been able to gather no news whatever of the carriage. The country was a desert, tenanted only by dead; and the men's descriptions of what they saw were so horrible that my blood was frozen. However, I kept on my journey, taking them with me. We went to the post-house where the carriage had last stopped, and then took up the search. There were half a dozen roads by which they might have proceeded; however, we took the most easterly one, and then, when it crossed the main road, followed the latter. It was choked with deserted waggons and guns. Dead bodies lay everywhere; many partly devoured by wolves; all stripped of their clothing. After making our way through this terrible scene for a few miles, we saw, fifty yards from the road, the remains of a sleigh. Its bright yellow colour caught our eyes, and when we got to it there was no room for doubt. The body of the sleigh was gone—had been burnt for firewood; but the colour was that of my own carriage, and two of the men who belonged to the stables at Kieff said that they could swear to it, owing to a new iron that had been put on to one of the runners the day before it had started. But there were other signs. Portions of the harness lay about, and on one of these enough of the silver-work remained to show that it was ours.

"Then we searched farther. Turning over a mound of newly-fallen snow, we found the bodies of the coachman and the nurse. We searched for hours, but could not find that of the child; but as to her fate we had no doubt. She might have run away into the forest, or she might have been devoured by wolves. That she was dead was certain. I left four of the men there. They were to establish themselves in the nearest village, and to continue the search day by day, and to remain there, if necessary, till the spring came and the snow disappeared. I returned here ten days ago with the news that all hope was at an end, and that Stephanie was lost to us for ever. Now, sir, will you tell me how it was that you saved her? You were doubtless with the French army, though how you came to be there is almost as great a puzzle as how Stephanie was saved."

"I will tell you that afterwards, Count," Julian replied.

Then he related how, on marching past the overturned carriage, he heard what would doubtless have been Stephanie's last cry, and had found her lying half-frozen among the cushions. He stated the means he had taken to restore warmth to her, and how he had strapped her to his back under his warmly-lined cloak.

Then he gave, as well as he could remember, the details of each day's experience: how Stephanie had become a general pet of the soldiers; how they had manufactured a warm cloak and hood for her; how she had ridden on shoulders, and had joined in the marching songs of the regiment, and had really kept well and in good spirits on the march; how, as he got too weak to carry her, she had trotted by his side; and how his comrades, in spite of their exhaustion, had been willing to relieve him of her weight. Then he told how, at last, they had separated from the regiment when but a few hours' march from the Berezina; and how Stephanie in turn had saved his life from the peasants.

"So you see, Count," he concluded, "the kindness that I had shown your child has already been repaid to me many fold. Not only did she save my life from the peasants, but I have no doubt that her pretty talk, and the occupation she offered to my thoughts, and her warmth as she nestled close to me at night, were the means of my retaining my strength to a far greater degree than was the case with most of my comrades, and enabled me to survive when so many dropped dead from cold and exhaustion."

"That may be so, my friend," the count said. "God has doubtless rewarded you for your good action, but that in nowise lessens our obligations towards you. Now, will you tell me somewhat of your own history?"

"It is a long story, Count."

"All the better, my friend. I trust that my wife is asleep by this time, and the child with her, and nothing can be of greater interest to me than to hear it."

Julian therefore related his story in full, and produced the paper given him on his enlistment, guaranteeing that he should not be called upon to fight against his countrymen.

"Since we entered Russia, Count," he said, "and I have seen the savage manner in which the peasantry were treated, not so much by the French troops as by the allies, I bitterly regretted that I had enlisted; but, at the time, no notion of this had ever entered my mind. I have told you that the life at Verdun was intolerable. We died in hundreds, for a sort of dull despair seemed to settle on everyone; and, although for a long time I had borne up against it, I had come to the point when death would have been welcome. A return to my own country seemed closed to me, owing to the circumstances I have related to you; and I entered the French service, just as, in the wars a couple of hundred years ago, Englishmen and Scotchmen were to be found fighting as soldiers of fortune in the armies of well-nigh every power of Europe."

"I cannot blame you, Mr. Wyatt. Yours is a singular and most unfortunate story, and it seems to me that, had I been in your place, I should have acted precisely the same, and should have been glad to take service under any flag rather than have remained to rot in a prison. Certainly you had a thousand times better excuse than had the Austrians and Prussians, who, after having been our allies, entered upon this savage war of invasion without a shadow of excuse, save that it was the will of Napoleon. However, I think that it will be as well, in order to save any necessity for explanation, that I should introduce you to my friends as an English gentleman who has come to me with the warmest recommendations, and whom I am most anxious to serve in any way. This is not a time when men concern themselves in any way with the private affairs of others. There is not a family in Russia, high or low, who has not lost one or more members in this terrible struggle. Publicly, and as a nation, we rejoice at our deliverance, and at the destruction of our enemies. Privately, we mourn our losses.

"They have been terrible. As yet we scarcely know how great; but I imagine that they will be found to have been no less than that of the enemy. We hear that, in the pursuit, and without having taken any part in the actual fighting after Krasnoi, Kutusow's army alone has lost nearly 100,000 men from cold and fatigue; while, of the central army of Napoleon, but four hundred infantry and six hundred cavalry repassed the Niemen with their arms and standards. The other Russian divisions suffered as severely as those with Kutusow.