The men themselves were loaded with pretty trinkets, and carried furs enough to clothe Paris. The costliest skins—ermine and sable and lion and bear—were used for every conceivable purpose; and it is no wonder that the army was followed by thousands of Jews, waiting to buy these treasures when their owners should be weary of them.
Truly would I say that such a scene as our exit from Moscow was never written before in the story of warfare, nor will ever be written again.
Imagine a great white wooded plain, a sandy road at the heart of it, and upon this road an interminable procession of carts and wagons to carry the baggage of the Grand Army.
Upon either side in the fields go cavalry and infantry, every man's knapsack packed with loot, the commonest troopers sucking the rarest liqueurs from costly bottles, the poorest fellows smoking pipes with bowls of gold and tobacco that only princes should have been able to afford. All was hope and gaiety. Paris lay twelve hundred leagues from us, yet to Paris and our homes we were going. Who shall wonder if the trumpets blew a merry blast and the bands set our feet dancing? Was not the Emperor in our midst, and should we not return in a blaze of glory?
In such content we marched for three days. There was not much discipline observed, and the men were permitted to go pretty well as they pleased, it being always understood that the dreaded Cossacks were on our flank and that any foolhardiness might bring a disaster upon us. This kept the stragglers more or less in touch with the main body of the army; but sometimes we officers would ride away into the woods to see what kind of hospitality we could find at a country house and to enjoy it according to our opportunities.
It was on such an occasion that Léon and I first met Zayde, and came near to losing our lives because of her. I must tell you of this before going on to speak of the other days which followed, when the north wind began to blow and all that wide landscape lay under its veil of the cruel snow.
We had been riding through a shady wood about a mile from the high road to Smolensk. Someone had discovered that there was a famous old monastery in the district noted for its hospitality; and although we expected little from any Russian monk, we were quite able to help ourselves should the opportunity be offered. This quest carried us farther and farther away from our comrades, until at last we appeared to have lost the road altogether, and to be as far away from any monastery as ever we were in all our lives. My own thought was for going back immediately, but the younger head would hear nothing of it, and my nephew protested loudly that I was becoming a coward.
"It is the good living in Moscow that has destroyed your nerve, uncle," said he. "How could we be better off than we are in this place? Soft grass to gallop on, shady trees above, and the sun shining as though it were mid-summer in our own France. We shall come to the monastery presently, and they will give us wine that Adam brewed. There will be plenty of loot to add to our saddle-bags, and perhaps there will be sisters to comfort us. Why should we go back? The road is over there any time we have a fancy to rejoin it."
I retorted by reminding him that the Cossacks were out, and that we might encounter them at any time. More than once I thought that I heard a distant sound of galloping, and I drew rein to call his attention to it. But he would not listen to me, and still riding southwards, as it seemed, he pulled up at length and cried in real astonishment:
"Why, uncle, what did I tell you? Here is Cleopatra herself and her treasures with her, as I am alive!"