No town taken by assault ever witnessed such excesses. An officer asserted that since the Revolution in France he had never seen such insubordination in an army. All the streets were strewn with bodies of the dead, lying side by side with the carcases of horses and other animals that had perished by fire or famine. The author of the _Journal de la Guerre_ confirms these details—“In one quarter,” he relates, “cries of ‘Murder!’ were heard, dying away into sighs and groans; in another, the inhabitants were besieged in their houses, defending their already pillaged and devastated hearths against a soldiery infuriated by drunkenness and exasperated by resistance. In yet another quarter one saw men and women, scarcely clothed, dragged through the streets and threatened with death if they did not reveal the spot in which their supposed wealth was concealed.... The shops were wide open, the shopmen had left, and the goods were scattered about in every direction.” The Russian author, A. F. de B——, gives the following details—“So soon as one troop of marauders left the house, another took its place, so that not even a shirt or a shoe was left.... People no longer dared to go out into the streets. Even the soldiers placed on guard began to loot, imposing silence on the wretched inhabitants by threats and blows.... Some, having lost all their wardrobe, were obliged to wear female apparel. Men were to be seen wearing elegant bonnets trimmed with feathers or flowers... on their shoulders were fur tippets, and their feet were squeezed into ladies’ boots....” Even the French officers took part in this absurd masquerade. The weather was becoming cold, and satin pelisses trimmed with fur were for this reason worn over military uniforms and accoutrements. What concealment could be effectual against men who had made war and plundered in every corner of Europe? Hearths and ovens were broken to pieces in the search for treasure. The earth was turned up with sword and bayonet; even the cemeteries were visited, the resting-places of the dead violated, new graves opened, and coffins ransacked.... The sick were thrown out of their beds in order that the plunderers might search the mattresses.... The tubs in which orange-trees were planted, the flower-pots in hot-houses, were emptied of their contents in the same frenzied hunt for loot. An Englishman living in Moscow succeeded in outwitting the pillagers. He dug a deep hole, put into it all his coffers, and, without quite filling up the cavity, interred the body of a French soldier, which he then covered over with a slight layer of earth. The French, feeling certain that there must be something hidden, began to dig, but immediately desisted when they recognized their dead comrade.