"Thanks be to Heaven I have never yet loved woman in that foolish manner," said Michel. "You are right, my friend. Tell me, is it worth while to love when an accident, such as this from which you now suffer, may in an instant turn love to misery? Is there any woman in this world for whose sake it is worth while to break one's heart?" "I thought the same but a short while since. You are young, Michel; do not boast. One day you too will love." "_Absit omen!_" laughed the other. "I say that there is no woman worth loving; worth, that is, breaking one's heart over, in case she should prove unfaithful, or die or what not." "And I say that one such, at least, there has been. Do not speak so positively, Michel, my friend, of matters in which you are altogether ignorant." "Well, have it your own way; but I swear that I, for one, shall never love a woman." "I am sorry that my grief has had so deterrent an effect upon you," Henri sighed, "though I will not say that I am surprised; for indeed, now that I have lost her before she was won, I wish with all my heart I had never seen her. Like you, I am tempted to swear that I shall never give my heart of hearts to another woman." "Oh, oh!" laughed Michel. "That is not easily believed; for they say that once a heart has become susceptible to womankind there is no more controlling its vagaries. Be sure, my friend, that we shall find you falling in love, and maybe far more seriously than before, with the first fair lady you see." Henri looked reproachfully at his friend. "Let us talk of other things," he said; "it is too early as yet to make of love a jesting matter; my heart is sorer than you think, Michel, or perhaps you would speak more sympathetically. Remember that my grief is as yet very green." "Forgive me," said Michel, a softer look stealing into his eyes. "I will jest no more. Come, we will walk in the streets of Paris; _Sapristi!_ it is better than Moscow, ha?" CHAPTER XXVII. Napoleon and his Grand Army had been starved out of Moscow; they had made their futile attempt to destroy the Kremlin, they had delivered their last savage onslaught upon the inhabitants, lighted the last fire, desecrated the last church, exploded the last mine, insulted the last woman; they had manoeuvred in the direction of St. Petersburg and of the rich Volga provinces in order to cover the movements of the main force, and finally they had thrown to the winds all subterfuge and frankly made off with all speed towards the frontier and France, leaving behind them a city of smoke and of fire, of starvation, of desertion and of the dead. Within the cathedrals was the stench of stabled horses, with all the filth attendant thereon. Dead bodies of men and women, of horses and dogs, lay about the streets unremoved. Scarcely a house within a twelve-mile radius of the centre of the city but was wholly or partially burned, pillaged, and its contents pulled hither and thither and destroyed.