The officers, distressed at her grief, told her that when the wagon arrived at Smolensk, she and her boy were the only people in it. Of her husband they had seen or heard nothing, and the wagon-drivers had disappeared soon after reaching the city. They endeavoured to cheer her, however, by assuring her that he was, no doubt, not far away, and would soon return to her. But she, remembering what they had said when they believed her to be unconscious, was not calmed by their well-intentioned words. Two days passed, and nothing was seen or heard of Captain Ladoinski, although the officers who had taken an interest in his wife made every effort to obtain news of him. They were in their own minds convinced that he was dead, but in order that a searching enquiry might be made, they obtained for her an interview with two of the most powerful of Napoleon's officers--the King of Naples and Prince Eugene Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy. These officers listened quietly to the story of her husband's disappearance, and having expressed their sympathy with her, an aide-de-camp was summoned and ordered to make immediate enquiries among the wagon-drivers as to the fate of Captain Ladoinski. The aide-de-camp answered respectfully that he and several of his brother officers had already closely questioned every wagon-driver they could find, and that the men had sworn that Captain Ladoinski had died during the night of cold and of his wounds, and that his body had been thrown out into the snow. Madame Ladoinski, they declared, was insensible from cold when her husband died. Clasping her boy, Madame Ladoinski burst into tears. For a few minutes she sat sobbing bitterly, but then, in the midst of her grief, she remembered that she was encroaching on the time of the officers before her. Controlling her tears as well as she was able, she asked for a safe-conduct for herself and child. As a Frenchwoman and the widow of a Polish rebel she would receive, she reminded her hearers, no mercy if she fell into the hands of the Russians. Her husband had fought for the French, and she claimed French protection. Instantly the two marshals declared that she should have the protection she asked, and Prince Eugene offered her a seat in a wagon that would accompany his division when it started in the course of a few days. Madame Ladoinski accepted the offer with gratitude, whereupon the aide-de-camp was informed that she was to be placed in a baggage-wagon, and that the drivers were to be told that if their passengers did not reach the end of the journey in safety they would answer for it with their lives. On the other hand, if she arrived safely in Poland, and declared that she and her boy had been well-treated on the way, each driver would receive five hundred francs.