to prohibit all pillage. "For this," said he, "you shall be answerable with your life. Defend Moscow against all, whether friend or foe." The bright moon rose over the mighty city, tipping with silver the domes of more than two hundred churches, and pouring a flood of light over a thousand palaces and the dwellings of more than three hundred thousand inhabitants. The weary army sank to rest; but there was no sleep for Mortier.

When he had entered the city, scarcely a living soul met his gaze as he looked down the long streets; and when he broke open the buildings, he found them all furnished and in order - but no occupants! This sudden abandonment of their homes betokened some secret purpose. The midnight moon was stealing over the city when the cry of "Fire!" reached the ears of Mortier: the first light over Napoleon's faltering empire was kindled, and that most wondrous scene of modern times commencedTHE BURNING OF Moscow.

Mortier, as governor of the city, immediately issued his orders, and was putting forth every exertion, when at daylight Napoleon hastened to him. Affecting to disbelieve the reports that the inhabitants were firing their own city, he gave more rigid commands to Mortier to keep the soldiers from the work of destruction. The marshal simply pointed to some iron-covered houses, from every crevice of which smoke was issuing, like steam from the sides of a pent-up volcano. Sad and thoughtful, Napoleon turned toward the Kremlin, the ancient palace of the Czars, which rose high above all the surrounding edifices.

In the morning Mortier was enabled to subdue the fire. But the next night, September 15th, the sentinels on watch upon the lofty Kremlin saw at midnight the flames bursting through the houses and palaces; and the cry "Fire! fire!" again passed through the city. Fiery balloons were seen dropping from the air and alighting on the houses; dull explosions were heard on every side from the shut-up dwellings the next moment light burst forth from them, and flames were raging through the apartments.

All was uproar and confusion. The serene air and moonlight of the night before had given way to driving clouds; and a wild tempest, like the roar of the sea, swept over the city. Flames arose on every side, blazing and crackling in the storm; clouds of smoke and of sparks in an incessant shower went driving toward the Kremlin. The clouds themselves seemed turned into fire, rolling wrath over devoted Moscow. Mortier, crushed with the responsibility thrown upon his shoulders, moved with his Young Guard amid this desolation, blowing up the houses and facing the tempest and the flames-struggling nobly to arrest the conflagration.

He hastened from place to place amid the ruins, his face blackened with smoke and his hair and eyebrows singed with the fierce heat. When the day dawned, he entered a palace and dropped down from fatigue. The manly form and stalwart arm that had so often carried death into the ranks of the enemy gave way, and the gloomy marshal lay in utter exhaustion.

When night again enveloped the city the wind had increased to a perfect hurricane, and shifted from

quarter to quarter, as if on purpose to swell the sea of fire and extinguish the last hope. The fire was approaching the Kremlin: already the roar of the flames, the crash of falling houses, and the crackling of burning timbers were borne to the ears of the startled Emperor. He arose and walked to and fro, gazing on the terrific scene. Murat and others of his marshals rushed into his presence, and on their knees besought him to flee; but he still clung to that palace as if it were his empire.

But when the shout, "The Kremlin is on fire!" was heard above the roar of the conflagration, he reluctantly consented to leave. He descended into the streets with his staff, and looked about for a way of egress, but the flames blocked every passage. At length they discovered a gate leading to the Moskwa, and passed through it; but they entered still farther into the danger.

Napoleon saw one single street yet open, but all on fire. Into this he rushed, and amid the crash of falling houses, and the raging of the flames, over burning ruins, through clouds of rolling smoke, and between walls of fire, he pressed on. Half suffocated he emerged in safety from the blazing city, and took up his quarters in the imperial palace of Petrowsky, nearly three miles distant.

Mortier now redoubled his efforts to arrest the conflagration. Canopied by flame and smoke and cinders, and surrounded by walls of fire that rocked to and fro and fell with a crash amid the blazing ruins, he struggled against an enemy that no boldness could awe or courage overcome.

His brave troops had heard the tramp of cavalry

sweeping to battle without fear; but now they stood in terror before the march of the conflagration. The roar of the hurricane, mingled with that of the flames, was more terrible than the thunder of artillery; and before this new foe, in the midst of this battle of the elements, the awe-struck army stood powerless and affrighted.

When night again descended on the city it presented a spectacle that baffles all description. The streets were streets of fire; the heavens a canopy of fire; and the entire body of the city a mass of fire, fed by a hurricane that sped the blazing fragments in a constant stream through the air. Incessant explosions shook the foundations of the city, and sent vast volumes of smoke rolling furiously toward the sky. Huge sheets of canvas on fire came floating, like messengers of death, through the flames. The towers and domes of churches and palaces were hurled by the tempest into the common ruin.

Thousands of wretches, driven by the heat from cellars and hovels, streamed in an incessant throng along the streets. Oh, it was a scene of woe and fear inconceivable and indescribable! A mighty and close-packed city of houses, and churches, and palaces, wrapped from limit to limit in flames, fed by a whirling hurricane, is a sight this world has seldom seen.

When the flames had overcome all obstacles, and had wrapped everything in their red mantle, the great city looked like a sea of rolling fire, swept by a tempest that drove it into billows. The heavens themselves seemed to have caught the conflagration. Columns of flame rose and sunk along the surface

of this sea, and huge volumes of black smoke suddenly shot into the air, as if volcanoes were working below.

Years afterward Napoleon said:

"It was the spectacle of a sea and billows of fire, a sky and clouds of flame; mountains of red rolling flames, like immense waves of the sea, alternately bursting forth and elevating themselves to the skies above. Oh! it was the grandest, the most sublime, the most terrific sight the world ever beheld!"

can' o pied, covered as with a canopy. Mor' ti er' (mor' te a′), former marshal of France.

Mos' cow, (kō), former capital of Russia.
Mu' rat' (mü' rä'), former marshal of
France and King of Naples.

THE TRIUMPHANT RIGHT.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

Great truths are portions of the soul of man;
Great souls are portions of Eternity;

Each drop of blood that e'er through true heart ran
With lofty message, ran for thee and me;

For God's law, since the starry song began,
Hath been, and still forevermore must be,
That every deed which shall outlast Time's span
Must spur the soul to be erect and free;
Slave is no word of deathless lineage sprung;
Too many noble souls have thought and died,
Too many mighty poets lived and sung,

And our good Saxon, from lips purified

With martyr-fire, throughout the world hath rung Too long to have God's holy cause denied.