general pillage, to procure luxuries, like coffee, sugar, tea, wine,
delicacies of all description. Notwithstanding the great conflagration at
Moscow immense stores of all these things had come into the hands of the
French, and this had an influence on Moshaisk, forty miles away from the
metropolis, von Borke was fortunate enough to secure a supply of coffee,
tea, and sugar, sufficient not only for himself, but also for some friends,
and lasting even for some weeks on the retreat. But the supply of meat, and
especially bread, was inadequate for the mass of soldiers. Ten days had
elapsed when the situation of those in Moshaisk became grave again, namely,
when communication with Moscow was cut off. Orderlies did not arrive, no
more convalescents came, news could not be had, details of soldiers sent
out for supplies were killed or taken prisoner by Cossacks. The retreat of
the French army, the last act of the great drama, commenced.

While the Westphalians guarded the battle-field the army marched to Moscow,
exhausted, starving, finding new sufferings every day. On the road from
Moshaisk to Moscow they encountered frightful conditions in the villages
which were filled with wounded Russians. These unfortunates, abandoned to
cruel privations, dying as much from starvation as from their wounds,
excited pity. The water even was scarce, and when a source was discovered
it was generally polluted, soiled with all sorts of filth, infected by
cadavers; but all this did not prevent the soldiers from drinking it with
great avidity, and they fought among themselves to approach it. All these
details have to be known before studying typhus in the grand army.

* * * * *

The description of diseases given by the physicians who lived a century ago
is for us unsatisfactory; we cannot understand what they meant by their
vague designating of hepatitis, fibrous enteritis, diarrhoea and dysentery,