m. he stood
dressed in a shirt only, with his bare feet on the frozen ground, and at 2
p. m. he was admired as an artist by a large audience that gave him warm
clothes, which meant protection against the danger of freezing to death,
and a place near the fire.
During that afternoon and the following night more French soldiers of all
arms, mostly emaciated and miserable, were escorted to the camp by Russian
militia, peasants, armed with long, sharp lances. It was the night from
October 30th. to 31st., at the time of the first snowfall, with a
temperature of -12 deg. Reaumur (about 5 degrees above zero Fahrenheit). Of
the 700 prisoners, many of them deprived of their clothing, as Schehl had
been deprived, who had to camp without a fire, quite a number did not see
the next morning, and the already described snow hills indicated where
these unfortunates had reached the end of their sufferings. The commanding
officer of the Cossacks ordered the surviving prisoners to fall in line for
the march back to Moscow. The escort consisted of two Cossacks and several
hundred peasant-soldiers. Within sixteen hours the 700 had been reduced to
500. And they had to march back over the road which they had come yesterday
as companions of their emperor. The march was slow, they were hardly an
hour on the road when here and there one of the poor, half naked, starving
men fell into the snow; immediately was he pierced with the lance of one of
the peasant soldiers who shouted stopai sukinsin (forward you dog), but as
a rule the one who had fallen was no longer able to obey the brutal
command.
Pages:
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180