It
is possible that the sudden inroads of destroying nations,
such as the Huns, or the Avars, or the Mongol 15
Tartars, may have inflicted misery as extensive; but there
the misery and the desolation would be sudden, like the
flight of volleying lightning. Those who were spared at
first would generally be spared to the end; those who
perished would perish instantly. It is possible that the 20
French retreat from Moscow may have made some nearer
approach to this calamity in duration, though still a feeble
and miniature approach; for the French sufferings did
not commence in good earnest until about one month
from the time of leaving Moscow; and though it is true 25
that afterward the vials of wrath were emptied upon the
devoted army for six or seven weeks in succession, yet
what is that to this Kalmuck tragedy, which lasted for
more than as many months? But the main feature of
horror, by which the Tartar march was distinguished from 30
the French, lies in the accompaniment of women[5] and
children. There were both, it is true, with the French
army, but so few as to bear no visible proportion to the
total numbers concerned. The French, in short, were
merely an army--a host of professional destroyers, whose
regular trade was bloodshed, and whose regular element 5
was danger and suffering. But the Tartars were a nation
carrying along with them more than two hundred and
fifty thousand women and children, utterly unequal, for
the most part, to any contest with the calamities before
them.
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