"Oh, oh!" laughed Michel. "That is not easily believed; for they say that once a heart has become susceptible to womankind there is no more controlling its vagaries. Be sure, my friend, that we shall find you falling in love, and maybe far more seriously than before, with the first fair lady you see."
Henri looked reproachfully at his friend.
"Let us talk of other things," he said; "it is too early as yet to make of love a jesting matter; my heart is sorer than you think, Michel, or perhaps you would speak more sympathetically. Remember that my grief is as yet very green."
"Forgive me," said Michel, a softer look stealing into his eyes. "I will jest no more. Come, we will walk in the streets of Paris; Sapristi! it is better than Moscow, ha?"
CHAPTER XXVII.
Napoleon and his Grand Army had been starved out of Moscow; they had made their futile attempt to destroy the Kremlin, they had delivered their last savage onslaught upon the inhabitants, lighted the last fire, desecrated the last church, exploded the last mine, insulted the last woman; they had manœuvred in the direction of St. Petersburg and of the rich Volga provinces in order to cover the movements of the main force, and finally they had thrown to the winds all subterfuge and frankly made off with all speed towards the frontier and France, leaving behind them a city of smoke and of fire, of starvation, of desertion and of the dead. Within the cathedrals was the stench of stabled horses, with all the filth attendant thereon. Dead bodies of men and women, of horses and dogs, lay about the streets unremoved. Scarcely a house within a twelve-mile radius of the centre of the city but was wholly or partially burned, pillaged, and its contents pulled hither and thither and destroyed.
Scarcely had the last Frenchman left the place to its silence and emptiness when back into this city of death and destruction began to creep, cautiously, at first, but presently to crowd into each gate that gave access within the walls, a dense mob of her banished inhabitants, each anxious to make his way to the quarter of the city in which his home had existed a month ago. Would it be found standing now? Of the Lares and Penates left behind in the terror and stress of sudden departure, would anything be left to him?
The great majority found their houses burned. Those whose four walls were still standing found their homes sacked and looted, their possessions ruthlessly destroyed and themselves ruined.
From end to end of Moscow a wail of despair arose and continued day long, for in the city proper, out of 6,000 wooden houses 4,500 were burned down, while of the 2,500 brick dwellings which had existed before the fires, only 500 now remained standing.