It was usual for the army to halt before a beleaguered city and
await the advent in all humility of the vanquished. Commonly it was
the mayor of a town who came, followed by his councillors in their
robes, to explain that the army had abandoned the city, which now
begged to throw itself upon the mercy of the conqueror.
For this the army waited on that sunny September morning.
"He is putting on his robes," they said gaily. "He is new to this
work."
But the mayor of Moscow disappointed them. At last the troops moved
on and camped for the night in a village under the Kremlin walls.
It was here that Charles received a note from de Casimir.
"I am slightly wounded," wrote that officer, "but am following the
army. At Borodino my horse was killed under me, and I was thrown.
While I was insensible, I was robbed and lost what money I had, as
well as my despatch-case. In the latter was the letter you wrote to
your wife. It is lost, my friend; you must write another."
Charles was tired. He would put off till to-morrow, he thought, and
write to Desiree from Moscow. As he lay, all dressed on the hard
ground, he fell to thinking of what he should write to Desiree to-
morrow from Moscow. The mere date and address of such a letter
would make her love him the more, he thought; for, like his leaders,
he was dazed by a surfeit of glory.
As he fell asleep smiling at these happy reflections, Desiree, far
away in Dantzig, was locking in her bureau the letter which had been
lost and found again; while, on the deck of his ship, lifting gently
to the tideway where the Vistula sweeps out into the Dantziger
Bucht, Louis d'Arragon stood fingering reflectively in his jacket-
pocket the unread papers which had fallen from the same despatch-
case.
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