[_]
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTICE TO THE READER.
Perhaps I ought to state, before the work proceeds further,
that the chief authority to which I am indebted for the
facts alluded to in the foregoing pages, relative to the movements
of the French Army in Russia, the Defence of the
Russians, &c.,—is Count Ségur. Every circumstance (such
as the falling of Napoleon's horse on the banks of the Niemen,
—the appearance of the single Cossack at the first invasion
of the territory by the French, &c. &c.) is taken from his
work, “Histoire de Napoléon, et de la Grande Armée, pendant
l'Année 1812;” excepting merely those incidents which
refer to the love of De Courcy and Xenia. The story of the
Priest, however, who collected his flock in the Great Church
of Smolensko, and who was afterwards admitted to an audience
of Napoleon, is from the above work; and the sentiments
he is made to express, together with the clemency and
lenity the Emperor displayed towards him, are copied pretty
closely from the historian. But though I have taken Count
Ségur for my principal guide, I have also largely profited by
the pages of Labaume, Sir Walter Scott, &c. Perhaps I should
do well to add, that in the Greek religion the priests are permitted
to marry once.
For any slight oversights in the text, I am anxious to
plead as an excuse, severe indisposition and much suffering,
which has rendered the revision of these pages a most painful
task.
