Krilof and His Fables/The Crow and the Hen
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The Crow and the Hen.
When the Prince of Smolensk,[1] using skill as a weapon against insolence, laid a snare for the modern Vandals, and left them Moscow for their ruin, then all its inhabitants, old and young, assembled together without loss of time, and departed from the city, like a swarm of bees leaving their hive. On all the disquiet which then took place a Crow looked down tranquilly from a housetop, whetting its beak the while.
"What! are not you ready to start, gossip?" cried a Hen to it from a passing cart. "Why, they say the enemy is at our very gates.
"What is that to me?" replied the bird of omen. "I shall remain here quietly. You and your sisters can do as you please. But people don't boil crows, or roast them either; so I shall have no difficulty in living on good terms with the new-comers. It may even happen, perhaps, that I may get some cheese from them, or a stray bone, or something or other. Farewell, my fowl! a happy journey to you."
The Crow really did stay; but, instead of its gaining anything by doing so, when the time came in which the Prince of Smolensk began to starve his guests, it was itself seized by them, and turned into soup.
[This fable was printed in the magazine called "The Son of the Fatherland," in November, 1812. Towards the end of September in that year, news began to reach St. Petersburg of the miserable state of Napoleon's army. "Eye-witnesses assert," said the preceding number of the magazine, "that the French go out to shoot crows every day, and cannot sufficiently praise their soupe aux corbeaux." In the same number appeared a caricature, styled "French crow-soup," representing four grenadiers, wounded, ragged, and emaciated, one of whom is plucking a crow, while the others are getting ready a carving-knife and a saucepan. When Murat's travelling kitchen fell into the hands of the Russians, the saucepans were full of horse and cat flesh. Later on in the retreat, a time came when some of the starving soldiers actually preyed on the dead bodies of their comrades.]
- ↑ Kutusof. He received the title of Smolensky after the battle of Krasnoe.