At the same time most of the artillerymen spiked their guns in despair, and scattered their powder about.  Others laid a train with it as far as some ammunition waggons, which had been left at a considerable distance behind our baggage.  They waited till the most eager of the Cossacks had come up to them, and when a great number, greedy of plunder, had collected about them, they threw a brand from a bivouac upon the train.  The fire ran and in a moment reached its destination:  the waggons were blown up, the shells exploded, and such of the Cossacks as were not killed on the spot dispersed in dismay.

A few hundred men, who were still called the 14th division, were opposed to these hordes, and sufficed to keep them at a respectful distance till the next day.  All the rest, soldiers, administrators, women and children, sick and wounded, driven by the enemy’s balls, crowded the bank of the torrent.  But at the sight of its swollen current, of the sharp and massive sheets of ice flowing down it, and the necessity of aggravating their already intolerable sufferings from cold by plunging into its chilling waves, they all hesitated.

An Italian, Colonel Delfanti, was obliged to set the example and cross first.  The soldiers then moved and the crowd followed.  The weakest, the least resolute, or the most avaricious, staid behind.  Such as could not make up their minds to part from their booty, and to forsake fortune which was forsaking them, were surprised in the midst of their hesitation.  Next day the savage Cossacks were seen amid all this wealth, still covetous of the squalid and tattered garments of the unfortunate creatures who had become their prisoners:  they stripped them, and then collecting them in troops, drove them along naked on the snow, by hard blows with the shaft of their lances.

The army of Italy, thus dismantled, thoroughly soaked in the waters of the Wop, without food, without shelter, passed the night on the snow near a village, where its officers expected to have found lodging for themselves.  Their soldiers, however, beset its wooden houses.  They rushed like madmen, and in swarms, on each habitation, profiting by the darkness, which prevented them from recognizing their officers or being known by them.  They tore down every thing, doors, windows and even the wood-work of the roofs, feeling little compunction to compel others, be they who they might, to bivouac like themselves.

Their generals strove in vain to drive them off; they took their blows without murmur or opposition, but without desisting; and even the men of the royal and imperial guards:  for, throughout the whole army, such were the scenes that occurred every night.  The unfortunate fellows remained silently but actively engaged on the wooden walls, which they pulled in pieces on every side at once, and which, after vain efforts, their officers were obliged to relinquish to them, for fear they should fall upon their own heads.  It was an extraordinary mixture of perseverance in their design, and respect for the anger of their generals.