These were the old and young guard.  It was not till afterwards that the disbanded men were allowed to enter; they and the other corps which arrived in succession, from the 8th to the 14th, believed that their entry had been delayed merely to give more rest and more provisions to this guard.  Their sufferings rendered them unjust; they execrated it.  “Were they then to be for ever sacrificed to this privileged class, fellows kept for mere parade, who were never foremost but at reviews, festivities, and distributions?  Was the army always to put up with their leavings; and in order to obtain them, was it always to wait till they had glutted themselves?” It was impossible to tell them in reply, that to attempt to save all was the way to lose all; that it was necessary to keep at least one corps entire, and to give the preference to that which in the last extremity would be capable of making the most powerful effort.

At last, however, these poor creatures were admitted into that Smolensk for which they had so ardently wished; they had left the banks of the Borysthenes strewed with the dying bodies of the weakest of their number; impatience and several hours’ waiting had finished them.  They left others on the icy steep which they had to climb to reach the upper town.  The rest ran to the magazines, and there more of them expired while they beset the doors; for they were again repulsed.  “Who were they? to what corps did they belong? what had they to show for it?  The persons who had to distribute the provisions were responsible for them; they had orders to deliver them only to authorized officers, bringing receipts, for which they could exchange the rations committed to their care.”  Those who applied had no officers; nor could they tell where their regiments were.  Two thirds of the army were in this predicament.

These unfortunate men then dispersed through the streets, having no longer any other hope than pillage.  But horses dissected to the very bones every where denoted a famine; the doors and windows of the houses had been all broken and torn away to feed the bivouac-fires:  they found no shelter in them, no winter-quarters prepared, no wood.  The sick and wounded were left in the streets, in the carts which had brought them.  It was again, it was still the fatal high-road, passing through an empty name; it was a new bivouac among deceitful ruins; colder even than the forests which they had just quitted.

Then only did these disorganized troops seek their colours; they rejoined them for a moment in order to obtain food; but all the bread that could be baked had been distributed:  there was no more biscuit, no butcher’s meat, rye-flour, dry vegetables, and spirits were delivered out to them.  It required the most strenuous efforts to prevent the detachments of the different corps from murdering one another at the doors of the magazines:  and when, after long formalities, their wretched fare was delivered to them, the soldiers refused to carry it to their regiments; they fell upon their sacks, snatched out of them a few pounds of flour, and ran to hide themselves till they had devoured it.  The same was the case with the spirits.  Next day the houses were found full of the bodies of these unfortunate wretches.