been coaxed or driven into the service of the Corsican, and were to adorn the supreme triumph of Napoleon's career.
And from beginning to end the Russian Campaign is a succession of dramatic contrasts and of tragic incidents. The conflict between the civilized Frenchman and the semi-barbarous Muscovite, the novel theatre of the war, the vast Russian plain alluring and devouring the invader, the guerilla tactics of the Cossacks, the ghastly shambles of Borodino, followed by the victorious entry into Moscow, the burning of the capital in the very hour of victory, the gradual approach of the Arctic winter, the hurried retreat, the infinite expanse covered with snow as with a winding sheet, the heroism of Murat and Ney, recalling the Homeric age, the disaster of the Berezina, the secret flight of Napoleon in the dead of night, and, as the last phase, a few straggling and famished hordes returning to the Polish frontier, a remnant of what had been, six months before, a formidable host—all those scenes and incidents are written in indelible characters in the annals of human folly and human suffering, and make the campaign of Russia one of the most impressive catastrophes of all times.
