A cavalryman of the regiment Duke Louis, who, during February, 1813, had been admitted into the hospital of Wilna, suffering from quiet mania without being feverish, was constantly searching for something.
Hands and feet had been frozen. He became ill with typhus and was more or less delirious for two weeks.
After the severity of the sickness had abated he again began to search anxiously for something, and after the fever had left him he explained that thirty thousand florins, which he had brought with him to the hospital, had been taken away.
It was learned that this cavalryman had been sent, together with other comrades, with dispatches to Murat; that these men had defended Murat with great bravery when he was in danger in the battle of Borodino.
Murat, in recognition of their bravery, which had saved him, had given them a wagon with gold, which they were to divide among themselves.
The share of each of these cavalrymen amounted to over thirty thousand florins, and the gold was transported on four horses, but these horses, for want of food, had broken down under the load, and the gold had fallen into the hands of the Cossacks.
The patient became quite ecstatic when, during his convalescence, he was told that he had brought no gold with him into the hospital; only gradually could he be made to understand that he had been mistaken.
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He said, however, that he could not recollect having been robbed during the retreat, although this fact had been testified to by two witnesses.
Two years after he had left the hospital and quitted the military service, when he was perfectly well and vigorous again, he recollected that on a very cold day he had been taken prisoner by Cossacks, who had left him, naked and unconscious, in the snow.