After the first greeting, Aimée Ladoinski noticed that her husband was wounded, and although he spoke lightly of his wound, it was not a slight one. Moreover, it had been aggravated by want of attention, for Napoleon's surgeons did not at this time possess the proper appliances for dressing wounds. Captain Ladoinski's wound had been dressed with moss and bandaged with parchment! In a few minutes after making this discovery Madame Ladoinski had bandaged her husband's wound with lint and linen. It was a great relief to the warrior, and settling down in a comfortable chair he proceeded to question his wife as to how she had fared during his absence, and then to relate his own adventures.
Suddenly, as they sat talking, a fierce red light shone into the room, which had until then been in darkness, except for the feeble glimmer from a shaded lamp in the corner. Rising quickly, Madame Ladoinski went to the window, closely followed by her husband, who uttered an exclamation of surprise when he saw that a fire was raging in the newly captured city.
Taking up his lance Captain Ladoinski hurried out, to order his men to assist in subduing the fire, but at the doorway he was met by a messenger who made known to him Napoleon's command, that the troops billeted in that portion of the town were not to leave their quarters. Surprised at this order, Captain Ladoinski returned to his wife, and together they watched from their window the rapidly extending fire. The burning part of the city was at a considerable distance from where they stood, but it seemed to them that unless prompt measures were taken it would be impossible to save the city from utter destruction. Hundreds of soldiers were resting near them who might have been busily employed in checking the progress of the flames. The truth dawned on both of them. Napoleon did not see his way to save Moscow from this new calamity.
Now Aimée Ladoinski had resided for some time in Moscow, and its streets and palaces were familiar to her, and the thought of their ruthless destruction to thwart the designs of one man filled her with shame--shame that he who had caused this act of vandalism was a Frenchman.
Madame Ladoinski did not admire Napoleon, for she was at heart a Bourbon, and regarded him as an usurper. The reckless sacrifice of thousands of his fellow countrymen for his own aggrandisement filled her with loathing for the man, and she did not conceal her feelings from her husband, who made no attempt to defend the emperor. It was not for love of him that Captain Ladoinski had fought under 'the Little Corporal.' He was a Pole, and it was because Napoleon was fighting the oppressor of the Polish race--Russia--that he fought for the French. The Russians had been humbled, and he, a Pole, had marched as one of a victorious army into their capital. But secretly he wondered if the condition of much-persecuted Poland would be better under Napoleon than it was under Russia. His wife candidly declared that it would not be. Napoleon had promised he would free Poland from the Russian yoke, but she felt convinced that it would simply be to place the country under French rule.