He was victorious at Moscow; but the Russians burned the city, and thus destroyed it for purposes of winter quarters. The czar delayed in his negotiations for peace so long that Napoleon was compelled to order a retreat, which began on October 19, 1812. His army was then harassed from the rear, and many lives were lost in these engagements. After two weeks of marching the soldiers met the first wave of Russian winter. The roads were frozen sheets of ice, and in a week nearly all the horses perished. The cavalry could no longer ward off the attacks of Cossacks. Many of the guns had to be abandoned. The army lacked the artillery necessary to fight a big battle. Food supplies had to be abandoned, as there were no horses to draw them. Thousands stretched out by the fire at night never to awaken in the morning. Cold and starvation killed them. At Smolensk the army presented an appalling spectacle. Napoleon headed it, clad in furs, his expression set and stern. Behind him came the captains, majors, and lieutenants, then a few harnessed wagons with the emperor’s war chest and papers; after that the straggling forces, many of them unarmed, limping, half frozen, some wandering away with wild looks, others falling by the roadside never to rise again. At the frontier Napoleon left this pitiful fragment of an army in charge of the king of Naples, took a horse, and rode to Paris. [Illustration: NAPOLEON ON BOARD THE BELLEROPHON--BY W. Q. ORCHARDSON] NAPOLEON ON BOARD THE BELLEROPHON, from the painting by W. Q. Orchardson, is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating “Napoleon Bonaparte.” FRIDAY DAILY READING IN THE MENTOR COURSE PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ON BOARD THE BELLEROPHON The Battle of Waterloo, June 18, 1815, was the final blow to Napoleon’s power. On that day hung the fate of Europe. Napoleon faced the allied forces of Prussia, England, Germany, and the Dutch, and had assembled an army of 70,000 to meet them. The allied forces were under command of the Duke of Wellington. They were bound together by one stern purpose,--to annihilate once for all the man whom they called the scourge of Europe. A heavy rainstorm prevented the emperor from carrying out his original plan of attack, which was to meet the enemy in two sections. The night of June 17 was stormy. A heavy rainstorm made the roads so heavy that the emperor could not move his cannon into the place desired until a short time before the enemy’s forces joined. Then, too, General Grouchy had been instructed to intercept the Prussian forces under Blücher, and hold them back while Napoleon fought his fight with Wellington. If he could not do that, he was at least to follow Blücher to Waterloo. The arrival, therefore, of Blücher and his forces in good fighting trim put the French into such confusion that a crushing defeat was inevitable. In the rout men had to save themselves as best they could.