Supervision had become an impossibility. The men, left to
themselves, naturally lost all discipline under these circumstances of
deception and under so many provocations among a hostile population.
Notwithstanding all these conditions, they behaved well in general and to a
great extent showed self-control and humanity toward the conquered. The
example of pillage had been set by the Russians themselves. Koutouzof had
commanded the destruction of the mansions. The slaves burned the palaces of
their masters.
All eye-witnesses speak of the extreme destitution of the soldiers in
regard to clothing after one month's stay in Moscow. Already at this time,
even before the most terrible and final trials of the retreat which awaited
them, one had to consider them lost. When they first took to woman's
clothes or shoes or hats it was considered an amusement, a joke, but very
soon a mantilla, a soutane, a veil became a precious object and nobody
laughed at it when frozen members were wrapped in these garments. The
greatest calamity was the want of shoes. Some soldiers followed women
simply for the purpose of taking their shoes from them. A special chapter
of horrors could be written on the sufferings of the soldiers on the
retreat over ice and snow fields on account of the miserable supply of
shoes.
At first Napoleon reviewed the regiments near the ponds of the Kremlin, and
at the first reviews the troops marched proudly, briskly, with firm step,
but soon they began to fail with astonishing rapidity.
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