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side from the shut-up dwellings: the next moment light burst forth from them, and the flames were raging through the apart

ments.

All was uproar and confusion. The serene air and moonlight of the night before had given way to driving clouds, and a wild tempest, like the roar of the sea, swept over the city. Flames arose on every side, blazing and crackling in the storm; white clouds of smoke and sparks in an incessant shower went driving towards the Kremlin. The clouds themselves seemed turned into fire, rolling wrath over 'devoted Moscow. Mortier, crushed with the responsibility thrown upon his shoulders, moved with his Young Guard amid this desolation, blowing up the houses and facing the tempest and the flames-struggling nobly to arrest the conflagration.

He hastened from place to place amid the ruins, his face blackened with smoke, and his hair and eyebrows singed with the fierce heat. At length the day dawned, and Mortier, who had strained every nerve for thirty-six hours, entered a palace and dropped down from fatigue. The manly form and stalwart arm that had so often carried death into the ranks of the enemy, at length gave way, and the gloomy marshal lay and panted in utter exhaustion. The night of tempest was succeeded by a day of fiery storm; and when night again 'enveloped the city, it was one broad flame, waving to and fro in the blast!

The wind had increased to a perfect hurricane, and shifted from quarter to quarter, as if on purpose to swell the sea of fire and extinguish the last hope. The fire was approaching the Kremlin already the roar of the flames, the crash of falling houses, and the crackling of burning timbers, were borne to the ears of the startled Emperor. He arose and walked to and fro, stopping 'convulsively and gazing on the terrific scene. Murat and others of his marshals rushed into his presence, and on their knees besought him to flee; but he still clung to that haughty palace, as if it were his empire.

At length the shout, "The Kremlin is on fire!" was heard above the roar of the conflagration, and Napoleon reluctantly consented to leave. He descended into the streets with his staff, and looked about for a way of egress, but the flames blocked every passage. At length they discovered a postern gate leading to the Moskwa, and passed through it; but they had entered still further into the danger.

As Napoleon cast his eye round the open space, girdled and arched with fire, smoke, and cinders, he saw one single street yet

open, but all on fire. Into this he rushed, and amid the crash of falling houses and the raging of the flames, over burning ruins, through clouds of rolling smoke, and between walls of fire, he pressed on. At length, half 'suffocated, he emerged in safety from the blazing city, and took up his quarters in the imperial palace of Petrowsky, nearly three miles distant.

Mortier, relieved from his anxiety for the Emperor, redoubled his efforts to arrest the conflagration. His men cheerfully rushed into every danger. Breathing nothing but smoke and ashescanopied by flame and smoke and cinders-surrounded by walls of fire that rocked to and fro, and fell with a crash amid the blazing ruins, carrying down with them roofs of red-hot ironhe struggled against an enemy that no boldness could awe or courage overcome.

Those brave troops had heard the tramp of thousands of cavalry sweeping to battle, without fear; but now they stood in still terror before the march of the conflagration, under whose burning footsteps was heard the incessant noise of falling houses and palaces and churches. The continuous roar of the raging •hurricane, mingled with that of the flames, was more terrible than the thunder of artillery; and before this new foe, in the midst of this battle of the elements, the awe-struck army stood powerless and affrighted.

When night again descended on the city, it presented a spectacle the like of which had never been seen before, and which 'baffles all description. The streets were streets of fire; the heavens a canopy of fire; and the entire body of the city a mass of fire, fed by a hurricane that sped the blazing fragments in a constant stream through the air. Incessant explosions, from the blowing up of stores of oil and tar and spirits, shook the very foundations of the city, and sent vast volumes of smoke rolling furiously toward the sky. Huge sheets of canvas on fire came floating, like messengers of death, through the flames; the towers and domes of the churches and palaces, glowing with red-heat over the wild sea below, then tottering a moment on their bases, were huried by the tempest into the common ruin.

Thousands of wretches, before unseen, were driven by the heat from the cellars and 'hovels, and streamed in an incessant throng along the streets. Children were seen carrying their parents, the strong the weak; while thousands more were 'staggering under loads of plunder which they had snatched from the flames. These, too, would frequently take fire in the falling shower, and the miserable creatures would be compelled to drop them and flee

for their lives. Oh, it was a scene of woe and fear inconceivable and indescribable! A mighty and closely-packed city of houses and churches and palaces, wrapped from limit to limit in flames, which are fed by a whirling hurricane, is a sight this world has seldom seen.

But this was within the city. To Napoleon without, the spectacle was still more sublime and terrific. When the flames had overcome all obstacles, and had wrapped everything in their red mantle, that great city looked like a sea of rolling fire, swept by a tempest that drove it into billows. Huge domes and towers, throwing off sparks like blazing firebrands, now disappeared in their maddening flow, as they rushed and broke high over their tops, scattering their spray of fire against the clouds. The heavens themselves seemed to have caught the conflagration, and the angry masses that swept it rolled over a bosom of fire.

Columns of flame would rise and sink along the 'surface of this sea, and huge volumes of black smoke suddenly shoot into the air, as if volcanoes were working below. The black form of the Kremlin alone towered above the chaos-now wrapped in flame and smoke-again emerging into view-standing amid this scene of desolation and terror, like Virtue in the midst of a burning world, enveloped but unscathed by the devouring element. Napoleon stood and gazed on the scene in silent awe. Though nearly three miles distant, the windows and walls of his apartment were so hot that he could scarcely bear his hand against them. Said he, years afterwards,—

"It was the spectacle of a sea and billows of fire, a sky and clouds of flame; mountains of red rolling flames, like immense waves of the sea, alternately bursting forth and 'elevating themselves to the skies of flame above. Oh! it was the most grand, the most sublime, the most terrific sight the world ever beheld !"

abstain', refrain'.
apart'ment, room.
baf'fles, defies'.
beto kened, foretold'.
can'opied, over-arched'.
conflagration, burn'ing.
convulsively, spasmod'i-

cally.
devōt'ed, doomed.
discovered, found.
el'evating, rais'ing.

enveloped, enshroud'ed. exer'tion, ef'fort.

explo'sions, reports'.
fal'tering, tot'tering.
fatigue', exhaust'ion.
fire brands, fag'ots.
forebod'ings, por tents.
hov'els, cel'lars.
hurricane, tem'pest.
indescribable, beyond the
power of words.
is'suing, emerg'ing.
oc'cupants, inhabitants.
om'inous, inauspicious.
pil'lage, plun'der.

J. T. HEADLEY.

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'Moscow.-Napoleon, having humbled Austria and Prussia, resolved to strike a terrible blow at Russia, because she refused to join him in the plan he had devised for the ruin of English commerce. In 1812 he led into that country an army of 500,000 men, a larger army, it is said, than, up till that time, had ever been led into the field by a single general. After gaining several victories, he advanced to Moscow in September. What took place there is described in the lesson. The severity of winter compelled him to begin a precipitate retreat, during which his grand army was all but totally destroyed.

2 The first light, &c.-The failure of the Russian campaign was Napoleon's first great reverse, and led directly to his fall. It proved to Europe that he was vulnerable, and stirred up Prussia and Austria to make the stupendous effort which enabled them to throw off his yoke. The combined Russians, Prussians, and Austrians defeated him at Leipsic in 1813.

3 The Kremlin, the imperial palace at Moscow; built about 1376, burned down in 1812, and rebuilt in 1816.

4 The Moskwa, the river on which Moscow stands. It is a tributary of the Oka, as that is of the Volga.

QUESTIONS.-What struck Murat as strange when he entered Moscow? What directions did Napoleon give to Mortier? What kept the latter wakeful that night? From what did he infer some secret purpose, to be fulfilled? What cry reached him at midnight? What commands did Napoleon give him when he went to him at daylight? How did Mortier answer him? By what means was the fire spread the next night? What increased its fury? To what place did Napoleon cling? What danger had he to encounter before he escaped from the city? What means did Mortier adopt to try to arrest the progress of the fire? What was the aspect of the city on the third night? Who then thronged the streets? Where did they come from? From what point was the spectacle most sublime? What building alone towered above the chaos? What did Napoleon say of the scene, years afterwards?

1

THE RETREAT OF THE FRENCH ARMY FROM
MOSCOW.

MAGNIFICENCE of ruin! what has Time,
In all it ever gazed upon of war,

Of the wild rage of storm, or deadly 'clime,
Seen, with that battle's vengeance to compare?
How glorious shone the invaders' pomp afar!
Like pampered lions from the spoil they came:
The land before them silence and despair,
The land behind them massacre and flame.

Blood will have tenfold blood! What are they now?-A name.

Homeward by hundred thousands, column deep,
Broad square, loose squadron, rolling like the flood,
When mighty torrents from their channels leap,
Rushed through the land the haughty multitude,
Billow on endless billow: on through wood,
O'er rugged hill, down sunless, 'marshy vale,

The death-devoted moved, to 'clangour rude
Of drum and horn, and dissonant clash of mail,
Glancing disastrous light before that sunbeam pale.

Again they reached thee, Borodino !1 Still
Upon the loaded soil the carnage lay,

The human harvest, now stark, stiff, and chill;
Friend, foe, stretched thick together, clay to clay.
In vain the startled legions burst away-

The land was all one naked 'sepulchre:

The shrinking eye still glanced on grim Decay; Still did the hoof and heel their passage tear

Through cloven helms and arms, and corses mouldering drear.

The field was as they left it; 'fosse and fort
Streaming with slaughter still, but desolate—

The cannon flung 'dismantled by its port:

Each knew the mound, the black ravine whose strait Was won and lost, and thronged with dead, till Fate Had fixed upon the victor-half undone.

There was the hill from which their eyes elate Had seen the burst of Moscow's golden zone:

But Death was at their heels-they shuddered and rushed on.

The hour of vengeance strikes! Hark to the gale,
As it bursts hollow through the rolling clouds,
That from the North in sullen 'grandeur sail
Like floating Alps. Advancing darkness broods
Upon the wild horizon; and the woods,

Now sinking into brambles, echo shrill,

As the gust sweeps them; and those upper floods Shoot on their leafless boughs the sleet-drops chill, That on the hurrying crowds in freezing showers 'distil.

They reach the wilderness! The majesty
Of solitude is spread before their gaze,-
Stern nakedness-dark earth and wrathful sky:
If ruins were there, they long had ceased to blaze;
If blood was shed, the ground no more betrays,
E'en by a skeleton, the crime of man:

Behind them rolls the deep and 'drenching haze,
Wrapping their rear in night; before their van
The struggling daylight shows the unmeasured desert wan.

Still on they sweep, as if their hurrying march
Could bear them from the rushing of His wheel

Whose chariot is the whirlwind. Heaven's clear arch
At once is covered with a 'livid veil:

In mixed and fighting heaps the deep clouds reel:
Upon the dense horizon hangs the sun,

In 'sanguine light, an orb of burning steel:

The snows wheel down through twilight, thick and dun. Now tremble, men of blood-the 'judgment has begun!

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