military requisitions and the excesses of the stragglers of the Grand Army,
a desert had been made of the city before Napoleon had begun his retreat.
No more cattle, no provisions, and the inhabitants gone, camping with wife
and children in the deepest parts of the forests. Those who had remained or
returned to the villages, organized against marauders whom they received
with pitchforks or rifles, and these peasants gave no quarter.

"The enemy appeared nearly every day in our village (Bogorodsic)," says
Maria Stepanova, the wife of a pope, "and as soon as they were perceived
all men took up arms; our cossacks charged them with their long sabers or
shot them with their pistols, and behind the cossacks were running the
peasants, some with axes, some with pitchforks. After every excursion they
brought ten or more prisoners which they drowned in the Protka which runs
near the village, or they fusilladed them on the prairie. The unfortunates
passed our windows, my mother and I did not know where to hide ourselves in
order not to hear their cries and the report of the firearms. My poor
husband, Ivan Demitovitch, became quite pale, the fever took him,
his teeth chattered, he was so compassionate! One day the cossacks brought
some prisoners and locked them up in a cart-house built of stone. They are
too few, they said, it is not worth while to take any trouble about them
now; with the next lot which we shall take we will shoot or drown them
together. This cart-house had a window with bars. Peasants came to look at
the prisoners and gave them bread and boiled eggs; they did not want to see
them starving while awaiting death. One day when I brought them eatables I
saw at the window a young soldier--so young! His forehead was pressed
against the bars, tears in his eyes, and tears running down his cheeks. I
myself began to cry, and even to-day my heart aches when I think of him. I
passed lepecheks through the bars and went away without looking behind me.
At that time came an order from the government that no more prisoners
should be killed but sent to Kalouga. How we were contented!"