Moscow: A Story of the French Invasion of 1812

With a great jangling of sleigh-bells and much shouting from his driver, who addressed the three horses by every epithet both endearing and abusive that his vocabulary could pro...

At the Palais d'armes of old Pierre Dupré there was excitement. Both Karl Havet, Marie's fiancé, and young Maux, the second assistant, had received their conscription notices; b...

The war was in full swing, victory favouring the French troops, for the most part, though occasionally she would hearten the defending Russians with a smile or two of encouragem...

Maximof employed an agent to do the dirty work of the estate; he rarely came personally in contact with his people and scarcely knew the names of any of them. Kakin, the agent,...

To give any kind of description of the horrors of the retreat of the Grande Armée is very far from the intention of the writer of this history; the theme is both unpleasant and...

Vera went to old Pierre Dupré's fencing establishment with her cousin, Henri d'Estreville. She was anxious to see these two young women of whom Paris talked, though she felt tha...

During the next few weeks Paris and all France pursued but one topic of conversation. The Emperor's anger with Russia: would it end in war? Napoleon's threat--he had made it sev...

Marie Havet, _née_ Dupré, was much surprised and somewhat concerned on the evening of the day upon which Louise had found, to her almost uncontrollable joy and relief, that Henr...

Vera heard a banging at the front door--a sound which might have startled and even frightened her at another moment, but she was so full of her new grief that she scarcely notic...

Meanwhile Count Rostopchin, ex-Governor of Moscow, had had a difficult task to perform. General Kootoozof, making no secret of his intention of abandoning Moscow, unless the sta...

For many a year after the tragic death of his father the new manor-lord, little Sasha Maximof, would not be induced to live at the estate. He was afraid of the woods, wherein fo...

Napoleon and his Grand Army had been starved out of Moscow; they had made their futile attempt to destroy the Kremlin, they had delivered their last savage onslaught upon the in...

Little sixteen-year-old Vera Demidof looked very well in her stylish Parisian clothes. She was a pretty girl of true Russian type, and, Russian like, was an adept in the art of...

The rear-guard of the Grand Army fared worse and worse as the days and weeks passed, its numbers diminished until there remained but a straggling remnant which crept into Vilna,...

During these first few days of the French occupation Moscow became a very pandemonium of pillage and violence, of smoke and fire, of orgies and of cruelties too horrible to rela...

If any one had informed Henri d'Estreville on the morning when, departing for the war, he took a somewhat affectionate farewell of Louise Dupré, that his strange sensation of pa...

The Boyar Demidof, though not by profession a diplomat, had procured for himself an appointment as Attaché to the Embassy in Paris, in order to be near his daughter as well as h...

Early in the morning two days after Paul's visit to the Demidof mansion in the Sloboda quarter, a man came and knocked the house up. He asked to see Vera and explained his missi...

A well-known establishment in a suburb of Paris, in the early part of last century, was the fencing-school of old Pierre Dupré, _maître d'armes_ and retired Major in the French...

Henri d'Estreville sat at his midday meal at the restaurant specially frequented by the officers of his regiment. He wore the aspect of one who is more than ordinarily depressed...

At D'Estreville's second visit to old Pierre Dupré's he was accompanied by Paul de Tourelle and by Vera Demidof, now a beautiful girl of nineteen. The Baron was proud of his pre...

On the following morning Louise, busy over some service on Henri's behalf, heard herself hailed by a wounded man, lying in the larger room of the house now in use as a temporary...

Henri d'Estreville lost no time in complying with the request conveyed in the message which Michel Prevost had brought him. He hastened to present himself at old Dupré's establi...

The beginning of the war dragged. There was little fighting, for the Russian generals adopted the policy of retiring constantly before the enemy's advance, apparently afraid to...

Michel Prevost met D'Estreville by appointment at a café. "There is no one I can talk to about certain matters so readily as yourself," the Baron had said, and Michel replied, l...

The horses had brought their master to Drevno at a hand-gallop, and required some little time for resting. It was half-past four before the _troika_ drove up to the door, and qu...

At ten o'clock there came a loud knocking at the door, and Sasha, peeping out of an upper window, descried a group of three or four persons, French officers as he judged from th...

The terrible war of 1812 was over, and Russia had shaken herself free of the last Frenchman. Already the Tsar Alexander had taken in hand preparations for the terrible vengeance...

Vera now had leisure to examine her protectors more closely; one was a dapper little corporal who made eyes at her as she looked at him. She quickly withdrew her gaze and fixed...

Neither argument nor entreaty availed to shake the determination of Louise. Her father was entirely on her side, enthusiastically backing and applauding her resolve. Marie and h...

Destiny soon made it impossible that Vera Demidof should meet again either her cousin D'Estreville or Louise Dupré, for both presently left Moscow with their regiments in order...