1831.] [ 369 ] 



THE WIFE OF THE POLISH PATRIOT.* 

 BY THE AUTHOR OP " THE DEMON-SHIP." 



IT was on the night of the memorable 14th September, 1812, that 

 Aimee Ladoinski stood watching from her window the advancing troops 

 of the great Emperor of the West, as they pushed their way through the 

 silent and deserted streets of Moscow. The French were entering as 

 victors ; but it was not this circumstance although Aimee was a native 

 of France which caused her bosom to throb high with expectation. 

 Her husband had been a Polish settler at Moscow, but, on the first news 

 of insurrection in his native land, had hastily, and in disguise, quitted 

 the Russian capital, and repaired to what he deemed the scene of his 

 country's political regeneration ; and now, in the armed train of the 

 conqueror, he was returning as a victor to the captured metropolis of 

 his country's oppressor. To Aimee' s inexperienced eye, it seemed as if 

 those long files were interminable as if Western Europe had poured 

 her whole population into the drear and uninviting dominions of the 

 Czars. It was almost nightfal ere the tread of arms in Aimee's dwell- 

 ing, and the sound of a voice, commanding, in a stern tone of discipline, 

 the orderly conduct of his military followers, announced the arrival of 

 Captain Ladoinski. After the first emotions of meeting were over, and 

 while the patriot still fondly eyed his wife and boy, the young French- 

 woman began to scan with anxious affection the tall form and manly 

 features of her husband. " The helmet has worn the hair from my 

 brow," said the Pole, unconsciously answering her looks, " and that 

 gives a lengthened and sharp appearance to the features." " Have I 

 said that I mark a change in years ?" asked his wife, keeping on him 

 the same uneasy regard; " but wherefore is this arm bound?" " And 

 thou askest a Polish soldier wherefore he wears a bandage !" said the 

 husband, endeavouring to laugh ; " ask him why he carries a lance or 

 musket. But you shall look to this awful wound, which casts such a 

 cloud on that fair brow ; and let my boy be present, that he may see 

 betimes how lightly a patriot holds a patriot's wound ; and that he may 

 learn, like a soldier's son, to look boldly and unblanchingly on blood 

 that is spilled in the cause of justice." The husband half-jested ; but 

 bandage, and lint, and linen were instantly in the wife's hand. " Now 

 I grow dainty, and know not how to resist this temptation," said the 

 soldier, as turning his back to Aimee he unrolled a binding of parch- 

 ment, and removed a dressing of moss from his arm. They could not 

 escape the vigilant observation of Aimee. " And these/' she said, 

 shuddering, " are all the alleviations which your wretched hospital 

 provision affords to suffering bravery !" " And enough, too," answered 

 Roman Ladoinski ; " soldiers are not the soft ware to fear a little rub- 

 bing in this world's wild warfare." He added, with an involuntary look 

 of seriousness, if not gloom, ' ' Would to Heaven that I had been the 

 only, or even the worst sufferer, through that Scythian desart of Scy- 

 thian monsters which we have traversed ! would to Heaven that the 



* It is proper that the reader should be informed that this sketch is not a ficti- 

 tious narrative of adventures, but that it is derived from a personal knowledge of 

 the lady whose escape it records. Nor has the writer found it necessary to have 

 the slightest recourse to caricature, in the description of the remarkable interview 

 with two distinguished persons at Smolensk. 



M.M. New Series. VOL. XI. No. 64. 3 B 



