21 ded neither succour, nor even one glance of pity to those who, exhausted by fatigue and disease, expired around them. How many unfortunate beings, on that dreadful day, dying of cold and famine, struggled hard with the agonies of death! We heard some of them faintly bidding their last adieu to their friends and comrades. Others, as they drew their last breath, pronounced the name of their mother, their wives, their native country, which they were never more to see. The rigour of the frost soon seized on their benumbed limbs, and pene- trated through the whole frame. Stretched on the road, we could distinguish only the heaps of snow which covered them, and which, at almost every step, formed little indulations like so many graves. At the same time, vast flights of ravens, abandoning the plain to take refuge in the neighbouring forests, croaked mournfully as they passed over our heads; and troops of dogs, which had followed us from Moscow, and lived solely on our mangled remains, howled a- round us, as if they would hasten the period when we were to become their prey. "From that day the army lost its courage and its military attitude. The soldier no longer obeyed his officer. The officer separated himself from his general. The regiments, disbanded, marched in dis-
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