372 The Wife of the Polish Patriot. [APRIL, 



at length, found thee. Go to thou art visited for thy sins. Remember 

 captured Warsaw ; let her pillaged churches and slaughtered citizens 

 come before thee. They who shall pass the heap of ashes that was 

 Moscow, shall say, ' Here once stood the proud capital of the conquerors 

 of Poland !' " " Oh, imprecate not Heaven's vengeance !" said Aimee, 

 anxiously. " I deal not out God's vengeance ; I mark his hand, and am 

 wise : and for the fire that is devouring the capital of my country's foe, 

 O Aimee, Aimee ! I see in it not the ruin of Russia, but of her 

 invader ; I mark in it the dark preface to a page written, within and 

 without, with lamentations, and mourning, and bitter woe. Yon fires 

 that heat this atmosphere to suffocation are but the prelude to a knell, 

 which will be tolled by a fiercer element over the bodies of the brave that 

 shall fall, not by the sword of the enemy, but by the piercing wintry 

 blasts of this drear country." 



In the fearful month of November, 1812, the gentle and delicate 

 Aimee found herself seated in a, baggage-waggon, amidst stores, and 

 spoil, and wounded men, carelessly huddled together, while the latter 

 craved in vain either for death or professional assistance. It is well 

 known that most of the French residents in Moscow, either from dread 

 of the indiscriminating vengeance of the Russians, or from divers 

 motives, accompanied the French army in its disastrous retreat on 

 Poland. Among these was Aimee Ladoinski, who, in the situation we 

 have described, supported on her knees the head of her wounded and 

 half-senseless husband, while she still pressed to her bosom the child, 

 whose feeble cry of cold and hunger often died away into a sleep, from 

 which even his mother was sometimes fain to arouse him, lest the mer- 

 ciless rigour of the night should produce the frozen slumber of death. 

 Ladoinski had received a sabre cut in heading a brave skirmish on the 

 preceding day. Sometimes she hoped it might be trivial often she 

 feared it would prove mortal ; but still she busied herself in changing 

 her husband's posture, in chafing his limbs, in listening to his intermit- 

 tant respiration. v The road they were travelling was encumbered by 

 stragglers, unable to keep up with the main body, by abandoned artil- 

 lery, and by baggage- waggons, whose horses were fast falling under 

 cold, fatigue, and want of forage. Smolensko, whither they were 

 destined, was, however, the watch-word which still kept alive the 

 courage and hopes of the exhausted troops. At length the vehicle 

 which contained the Pole and his family suddenly stopped. Aimee 

 heard others still crawling on their miserable journey, but theirs moved 

 not. A strange misgiving almost crushed for a moment the heart of 

 Aimee. She listened, and at length all seemed silence around them. 

 It is a well-known fact, that many of the wretched sufferers, whose 

 wounded bodies were placed in the wains, laden with military stores, or 

 the spoils of Moscow, met an untimely fate from the hands of the sordid 

 drivers. These fiends, loitering behind in unfrequented places, relieved 

 themselves, by murder, of the care of the helpless beings who only 

 retarded their progress, and increased the weight of their waggons. 

 Perhaps some faint report of those practices half recurred to the mind 

 of Aimee as the silence deepened around her. She listened yet more 

 attentively. " Not yet," said a voice ; " perhaps there be others behind 

 us." What the responsive voice uttered Aimee could not distinctly 



