[189] "Barrels of powder had been placed in all the halls of the palace of the Czars, and 183,000 pounds under the vaults which supported them. While Mortier was rapidly retiring, some Cossacks and squalid Muscovites approached: they listened, and emboldened by the apparent quiet which pervaded the fortress, they ventured to penetrate into it; they ascended, and their hands eager after plunder, were already stretched forth, when in a moment they were all destroyed, crushed, hurled into the air, with the buildings which they had come to pillage, and 30,000 stand of arms that had been left behind there; and then their mangled limbs, mixed with fragments of walls and shattered weapons, blown to a great distance, descended in a horrible shower."--SÉGUR, tom. ii., p. 129. [190] Twenty-sixth Bulletin of the Grand Army. [191] "The inhabitants of Russia do not recollect such a season as we have had for the last twenty years. The army is in an extremely rich country: it may be compared to the best in France or Germany."--_Twenty-sixth Bulletin._ [192] "Crossing his arms with violence, as if to grasp and to restrain himself."--SÉGUR, tom. ii., p. 131. [193] "The gendarmes remained motionless, like men accustomed to see these violent scenes terminate without effect, and sure of obeying best by disobeying."--SÉGUR, tom. ii., p. 131. [194] "Each of us endeavoured to appease the Emperor; the King of Naples, the Duke de Vicenza particularly, suggested to him how much, in the present situation of things, any violence towards a man who had his origin under the quality of a Russian general, would be to be lamented; there was no council of war, and the affair rested there."--RAPP, p. 229. [195] "The ground was covered all around with fragments of helmets and cuirasses, broken drums, gun-stocks, tatters of uniforms, and standards died with blood. On this desolate spot lay thirty thousand half-devoured corses. A number of skeletons, left on the summit of one of the hills, overlooked the whole. It seemed as if death had here fixed his empire: it was that terrible redoubt, the conquest and the grave of Caulaincourt. The cry, 'It is the field of the great battle!' formed a long and doleful murmur. Napoleon passed quickly--nobody stopped. Cold, hunger, and the enemy urged us on; we merely turned our faces as we proceeded, to take a last melancholy look at the vast grave of our companions in arms."--SÉGUR, tom. ii., p. 137.--"On arriving at Borodino, my consternation was inexpressible at finding the 20,000 men, who had perished there, yet lying exposed. In one place were to be seen garments yet red with blood, and bones gnawed by dogs and birds of prey; in another were broken arms, drums, helmets, and swords."--LABAUME, p. 265. [196] Ségur, tom. ii., p. 138.