. In the footsteps of Napoleon, his life and its famous scenes. eir fagades crashingamid the ruins. The pitiless flames would not spare the hos-pitals, where thousands, unable to drag themselves into thestreets, perished in their wards. Above the roaring surgesof fire, there rang out the groans of the dying, the shrieks ofthe plundered, the crack of the soldiers musketry, the howl-ing of the dogs chained to the gates of the houses. On the third day. Napoleons ofScers repeatedly came towarn him that the fire was roaring at the Kremlin gates and tobeg him to retreat before it. But not until it w
. In the footsteps of Napoleon, his life and its famous scenes. eir fagades crashingamid the ruins. The pitiless flames would not spare the hos-pitals, where thousands, unable to drag themselves into thestreets, perished in their wards. Above the roaring surgesof fire, there rang out the groans of the dying, the shrieks ofthe plundered, the crack of the soldiers musketry, the howl-ing of the dogs chained to the gates of the houses. On the third day. Napoleons ofScers repeatedly came towarn him that the fire was roaring at the Kremlin gates and tobeg him to retreat before it. But not until it was difSeult forhim to breathe and Berthier had come to report that he hadbeen almost swept from the battlements in a red whirlwind,did the Emperor consent to take flight. The hill of the Kremlin rose like an island in a tossing seaof fire, and Napoleon had great difficulty in finding an avenueof escape. In street after street he was turned back by ahail of flying embers, and the hoofs of the horses wereburned by the blistering paving stones. With a cloak over. Bad News from France, by Verestchagin(By permission of the Berlin Photographic Company.) THE TORCH THAT FIRED THE WORLD 343 his face to protect his eyes and mouth from the stifling breathof the flames, he was wandering bewildered in the blindingatmosphere, when some soldiers, recognising the imperialparty, escorted it to the Petrofsky palace, the suburban villaof the Czars. Even there, at a distance of two miles, the Em-peror could read in the light of the blazing city. As he looked down upon the inferno he exclaimed, What apeople! They are the Scythians, indeed! Naturally he as-sumed that the Russians had fired their capital and doomed itto ashes rather than let it be his prey. Whether Moscowreally was immolated on the pyre of patriotism, the worldnever will surely know. When it was seen that its destruc-tion had driven out the invaders and saved the empire, theharebrained governor who at first had blamed the French forb
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectnapoleo, bookyear1915
