384 The Wife of the Polish Patriot. [APRIL, 



make that fearful passage of the Bcresina from which she had all night 

 recoiled with horror. Aimee's cloak had half fallen from her shoulders. 

 Her own countenance, and the face of the boy who was bound to her 

 bosom, were revealed to her brave deliverer. She was deprived of 

 speech of motion. Shots rattled around her like hail-stones, and fell 

 with ceaseless pattering into the waters; while, from time to time, a 

 heavier plash announced the sinking of some hapless being, the victim 

 either of the enemy's fire, or of his own steed's exhaustion. The noble 

 but half-worn-down charger of Aimee's protector sometimes gallantly 

 battled with the current ; sometimes so nearly sank beneath his burden, 

 that the waters broke over his saddle-bow, and almost enveloped the 

 persons of the mother and her boy. But Aimee powerless, motionless 

 scarcely alive save to one absorbing emotion felt that that swimming 

 steed supported with its failing strength the whole family of Ladoinski ; 

 she felt that she was pressed to the bosom of her husband, while the 

 child of so much care and anxiety reclined against her own. A con- 

 sciousness of more straining exertion on the part of the animal that bore 

 her, at length convinced Aimee that he was pushing his way up the 

 long-desired right bank of the Beresina ! The sound of plashing died 

 away; and she felt that they were quitting its fatal margin for ever. 



It was about seven years after this period that the narrator, travelling 

 in one of the smaller principalities of Germany, obtained an introduction 

 to Eugene de Beauharnois, the son-in-law of the mighty Emperor of the 

 West, and the former viceregal possessor of the fair provinces of north- 

 ern Italy. The prince was then residing in a private situation, but 

 honoured with the respect and consideration of all parties. At his resi- 

 dence I met the Pole, his devoted wife, and their precociously intelli- 

 gent son. From their own lips I received the particulars here related. 

 They were given with glowing gratitude of expression, in the presence 

 of the ex- Viceroy himself, through whose farther intervention Ladoinski 

 and Aimee reached the Prussian frontier in safety. I have deemed it an 

 act of justice to the fallen potentate to relate a circumstance, so honour- 

 able to his character, with as little departure from the dryness of truth 

 as possible. Perhaps it is a fact not unworthy of record, that the drivers 

 with the wain which should have conveyed Aimee across the Beresina, 

 perished in that fatal crash of the larger bridge which precipitated such 

 numbers into an icy grave. The manner in which Roman (left for dead 

 on the road to Smolensk) was resuscitated by a party of compatriots, 

 and the mode by which he contrived to join Victor's division, would of 

 themselves make a much better romance than the narrative just related. 

 It is a singular fact, however, that Ladoinski was in Smolensk before the 

 arrival of Aimee, and only consented to leave it when informed that her 

 murdered body, with the corpse of his little son, was stretched, cold and 

 stiff, on the fatal high-road from Moscow. Roman followed the standard 

 of his wife's protector, when Eugene, in his viceroyal dominions, made 

 head against the Austrians, whom Ladoinski regarded as the joint- 

 enemies with Russia of Polish independence ; and when Beauharnois' 

 successless campaign drove that prince into obscurity, Roman retired 

 with him to the same privacy, and, peacefully occupied in the bosom 

 of his family, determined only to resume his lance when it could im- 

 mediately, and with rational prospect of success, serve the cause of his 

 country. 



