494

LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

was to be seen. Every individual was solely intent uponhis own salvation, and God knows how few could achieve it.

The instructions which Napoleon had left to Murat, datedBienitza, the 5th of December, were very well conceived,but as the execution of them was rendered quite impossibleby the desolating effects of the elements, it is absurd toinculpate Murat, as many writers have done, for their non-performance. The “ divisions,” “ corps,” “ guns,” &c., &c.,spoken of by the Emperor , no longer existed five days afterhis departure.

The army entered Wilna in the most horrible confusion;and it is a curious fact, that the passage of the French through this city was to them a far greater calamity thanthat of the river Beresina, with all its horrors. Wilna wasto have been the port of safety—the oasis, the terminus toall the agonies of the suffering multitudes. But in lieu ofthat, no preparations had been made for their reception,—no bread baked,—no quarters prepared. The immensemagazines of provisions of every kind were somehow orother under the control of the Jew purveyors and specu-lators;—no time had been had to make proper arrange-ments ;—it was a question of hours, or rather of minutes.Succour was required on the instant of arrival. Every manshould have been able to find shelter and food upon enter-ing the city. Instead of which, fifty thousand famished,half naked, crippled wretches were obliged to wander aboutthe streets all night; and such was the cold and their con-dition, that twenty thousand dead bodies were strewedabout next morning. The Jew speculators had thought itsafer to lock up the warehouses, in the expectation of thestores (which were not their’s) being left, so that they mightperhaps claim and sell them a second time. This oppor-tunity for horrid fraud was brief; but it served the purposeof the merehanls. The frost put many millions into their