At Vilna, indeed, there were 4,000,000 rations of biscuit and flour and 3,600,000 of meat, besides an immense quantity of grain; 27,000 spare muskets, 30,000 pairs of boots, and great stores of clothing and equipment. But little of this was destined to be of use to the unhappy victims of Napoleon’s overweening ambition. The scenes on the road between Vilna and the Berezina would pass all belief were there not trustworthy witnesses, both French and Russian, to bear testimony to them. The road and its borders were strewn with dead men and horses and abandoned guns and vehicles, often broken and half-burned, the fugitives having endeavoured to utilise them as fuel. Along this way of sorrow trailed an endless stream of human beings of both sexes, falling at every step to mingle with the corpses upon which they trampled. Those who fell were quickly stripped of their wretched rags by the passers-by--themselves doomed to the same fate before long. To dwell upon the horrors which marked every mile of the flight is useless. They may be gathered from countless works composed by eyewitnesses. The sense of humanity had been in many cases extinguished, and there are well-attested incidents of cannibalism. Langeron vouches for having seen bodies from which the flesh had been hacked. The intense cold produced insanity; men took refuge in heated ovens and were roasted to death, or sprang into the fires. To be taken prisoner brought no alleviation of the lot of the hapless fugitives. The Cossacks usually stripped them; often, too, the Russians, exasperated at the destruction of Moscow and the ravages of the invaders, gave no quarter even to those who surrendered. Besides, they could do nothing to provide for them even had they the will. Prisoners died, as before, by the roadside, stripped, famished, frozen; at Vilna they were packed into buildings where pestilence raged amid cold, filth, and lack of proper food. On towards Vilna, to which they looked forward as a haven of rest, the wretched horde streamed. The Cossacks hung about the route, dashed at will into the huddled mass, mixed with the crowd, and killed and plundered with deadly dexterity. Around the head-quarters still moved a considerable but steadily diminishing body of fighting men, but discipline had vanished, and even the Guard marched in confusion, and paid little heed to orders. Here and there among the piteous crowd that followed were to be found groups of armed officers and men, often sick and worn out, but retaining spirit to sell their lives dearly when attacked, but these were few. Even the rear-guard was not an organised body--merely a band of desperate warriors held together, usually, by the personal influence of the one Marshal of France who returned from Russia with added renown.