In the year 1812, Napoleon Buonaparte, after conquering nearly the whole of Europe, invaded Russia, and led his victorious army to Moscow, the ancient capital of that country. Soon this city, with its winding streets, its hills, its splendid churches, its fine houses and cottages so mixed together, its corn-fields, woods, and gardens, as well as the Kremlin, consisting of several churches, palaces, and halls collected on the top of a hill and surrounded by walls, fell into the power of the French.

Rostopchin, the Governor, impelled by bigoted patriotism, resolved to set fire to the city confided to him by his imperial master Alexander, the Czar of all the Russias.

It was truly a heart-rending sight to witness the misfortunes of the inhabitants, forced to quit their homes to escape a horrible death.

The provisions stored in the granaries and other places were consumed in the flames.

The conflagration lasted about ten days, until almost the whole of Moscow was laid in ashes. The main body of the Russian army had retired towards Tula, and taken up a strong position on the road leading towards that town, in order to prevent the French from advancing into the interior of the country. Thus they were hemming them in on all sides, only leaving them the choice of being starved or burned, or returning by the way they had come, and wintering in Poland. This latter expedient might have saved the army had it been adopted in time.

The terrible Cossacks, first-rate riders, with lances ten feet long, and a musket slung over their right shoulder, were swarming around everywhere, and annoying the French outposts, cutting off the foraging parties, and hindering them in their attempt to penetrate into the south of Russia, where they would have found plenty of provisions for the winter.

Winter was fast coming on a Russian winter, in all its bitter severity. The snow began to fall, the rivers to freeze, and crows and other birds died by hundreds.

God had sent His frost, and of the 400,000 enemies who had entered Russia, but very few lived to behold again their native land.

Amid the confusion and panic that prevailed in the burning city, Catharine Somoff, the little daughter of a Russian merchant, had been separated from her relations and friends, and to her dismay found herself alone in the crowd.

The weather was intensely cold. Forsaken and half frozen, the child wandered up and down, not knowing where to find shelter. Both her parents had mysteriously disappeared, and it seemed as if no one would claim her. So passed the long hours of the night; and at the dawn of day, Catharine, worn out by fatigue, cold, and hunger, fell down in front of a church which the flames had not yet reached, hoping to go to sleep.

Sleep soon comes to childhood; and, without doubt, this poor child, exposed to such a temperature, would never have unclosed her eyes any more in this world, had not a sutler’s wife providentially come to fix up her little provision market near this church, and, noticing the lonely one, felt womanly compassion for the desolate, unprotected Catharine. This humane French-woman took all possible care of her indeed, treated her as her own child, and by degrees the young Muscovite, thus rescued from an untimely death, grew to love her protectress with all the strength of her affectionate nature.

Meantime the French army had commenced its retreat, and the sutler’s wife had to leave Moscow.

Were M. Somoff and his wife alive, or had they perished, like numbers of their fellow-countrymen, by famine or by fire, or amid the numerous ills of a captured city? This was a problem not to be solved for many long years. Nothing could be heard of them, so Catharine left her native place with her kind friend and protectress, the sutler’s wife.

The snow was very deep, and every puff of wind increased the inconvenience of travelling; in some parts the snow-drifts were so bad that the poor horses sank into them till nothing but their heads was to be seen. The days were short, and the fugitives made but little progress, although they were often obliged to march during the night. It was owing to this that so many unhappy creatures wandered from their regiments. The weather was unusually cold. Even those who were fortunate enough to have on a complete dress of coarse cloth lined with sheep-skin, the wool left on and worn next the body, and over all a large cloth shubb lined with wolf-skin, the fur inside, and a warm lamb-skin cap, their feet encased in boots lined with fur, found their sufferings very great. What must it have been for those unfortunates who had but tattered pelisses and sheep-skins half burnt? how fared they? They were perishing from exposure, hunger, and cold. Wretched men were seen fighting over a morsel of dry bread, or bitterly disputing with each other for a little straw, or a piece of horse-flesh, which they were attempting to divide.

It is difficult to imagine what the tenderly-nurtured Catharine Somoff had to undergo in this perilous journey. The hills and forests around presented only some white, indistinct masses, scarcely visible through the thick fog. At a short distance before them lay the fatal river the Beresina, the scene of untold horrors, which, now half-frozen, forced its way through the ice that impeded its progress. The two bridges were so completely choked up by the crowds of people, horsemen, foot-soldiers, and fugitives, that they broke down. Then began a frightful scene, for the bodies of dead and dying men and horses so encumbered the way, that many poor fellows, struggling with the agonies of death, caught hold of those who mounted over them; but these kicked them with violence to disengage themselves, treading them under foot. Thousands of victims fell into the waves and were drowned.

The reader will not be surprised to hear that at this awful time the little Catharine was separated from her protectress, who was probably drowned or killed, or else imagined the child to be engulfed in the waters of the fatal river. At all events, the Russian child and the sutler’s wife never met again in this world.

’There is a power
Unseen, that rules th’ illimitable world
That guides its motions, from the brightest star
To the least dust of this sin-tainted mould;
While man, who madly deems himself the lord
Of all, is nought but weakness and dependence.
This sacred truth, by sure experience taught,
Thou must have learnt, when, wandering all alone,
Each bird, each insect, flitting through the sky,
Was more sufficient for itself than thou.’