THE LAST OF A VETERAN OF NAPOLEON'S GRANDE ARMÉE.
Innumerable were the appeals made to him daily to end their sufferings with a pistol-ball; and, although he could not bring himself to give them the relief they craved, on several occasions, when he saw that the case was altogether beyond hope, and that but a few hours of mortal agony remained, he yielded to their entreaties, handed them one of his pistols, and walked a few paces away, until the sharp report told him that their sufferings were over.
The horrors of the hospitals at Wilna and other places affected him even more than the scenes of carnage that he had witnessed at Borodino. At Wilna the Earl of Tyrconnel was seized with a fever and died, and Frank lay for some time ill, and would probably have succumbed had not Sir Robert obtained a lodging for him at the house of a landed resident, three or four miles from the infected city. He was, in a sense, thankful for the illness, because it spared him the sight of the last agony of the broken remains of Napoleon's army. Quiet and rest soon did their work. The breakdown was the result more of over-fatigue, and of the horrors of which he was so continually a witness, than of actual fever. Frank, therefore, rapidly recovered, and declared after a fortnight that he could again sit on his horse.
The general, however, would not hear of this.
"I shall be leaving for St. Petersburg myself in a few days," he said, "and we will travel together by post. You will be sorry to hear that to-day Kutusow has been decorated with the great order of St. George. The Emperor himself begged me not to be present. He called me into his cabinet and confessed to me that it would be too humiliating to him were I to be there. He acknowledged that he felt by decorating this man with the great Order he was committing a trespass upon the institution; but he had no choice. It was a cruel necessity to which he had to submit, although he well knew that the marshal had done few things he ought to have done, with nothing against the enemy that he could avoid, and that all his successes had been forced upon him."
Sir Robert himself had urgent need of change and rest. The responsibility upon his shoulders had been tremendous. The Emperor had relied upon him entirely for information as to the true state of things in the army, and the Russian generals regarding him as specially the Emperor's representative, had poured their complaints into his ears.
Had they but received the slightest encouragement from him they would have led their divisions against the French in spite of the orders of the marshal, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he persuaded them to restrain their exasperated troops, and to submit to carry out the disastrous policy, which entailed as much loss and suffering upon the Russian soldiers as upon the French.
It was the end of January when Sir Robert Wilson and Frank reached St. Petersburg, and, putting up in apartments assigned to them in the palace, rested for a few days.
One bright morning Frank strolled down to the Nobles' Club, of which he and the general had been made honorary members. It was his first visit to St. Petersburg. His fur coat was partly open and showed his British uniform. He was looking about with interest at the scene in the Nevsky Prospect when he noticed a gentleman in a handsomely appointed sledge looking fixedly at him. As the uniform attracted general attention he thought little of this, but after going a short distance the sledge turned and passed him at a slow rate of speed. The gentleman again gazed fixedly at him, then stopped the coachman, and leaped from the sledge to the pavement.
"Frank!" he exclaimed, "is it you, or am I dreaming?"