NAPOLEON AT THE BEREZINA RIVER 1812

MY FRIEND PASCAL CAZOTTES

Pascal has a sense of humour and I was very pleased that he liked by little Gimped tribute to one of today's most prolific and distinguished writers in the field of Napoleonic studies. His articles on the SNI/INS website are superb and detailed and a real treasure for those blessed with the ability to read the French language. Pascal has recently been involved in the mammoth task of editing a new French magazine VIVE L'EMPEREUR. As a mere author I blanch at the colossal effort, intellectual ability and stamina required for such a task.

As well as being a brilliant writer in his own language, Pascal translated my article about Napoleon and the Tamboran eruption into French and included it in the very first edition of the magazine. He has also sent me many very rare pictures and images from C19th French magazines, and here are some of them:

NAPOLEON SHOWS THEM HOW

Napoleon never forgot that he was a gunner and he was forever showing his men how to sight the pieces, often under a veritable hail of shot and shell. On many occasions his soldiers begged him to retire but the Emperor retorted that the bullet that would kill him had yet to be cast. His physical bravery was a constant example to his soldiers, especially the young Marie Louises whom he relied upon in 1814. When a spluttering shell landed amongst some of them, Napoleon rode his horse over the shell. When it exploded, it did for the unfortunate horse but the Emperor scrambled to his feet, dusted himself off and smiled a silent "Eh bien!"

Crossing the Niemen 1812

Here are more of the pictures that Pascal has sent me. Some are impossible to place but they give a vivid image of the times.

Coignet at Austerlitz

Plan of the Battle of Borodino

Ben Weider

Ben founded the International Napoleonic Society. He was a gentleman and a great scholar and the world is somewhat lost and more empty without him. Pascal and I cherish his memory and, in celebration of his great life we try to maintain his legacy - Ben wanted to make sure that Napoleon's memory would not be tarnished and besmirched by poor historians and lazy historiography. We salute you Ben.

Mon ami Pascal

C. JOHN TARTTELIN FINS 2012

THE REAL NAPOLEON - The Untold Story

THE REAL NAPOLEON - The Untold Story

I am very pleased to announce that I have just signed a contract with The History Press who are going to publish my book later this year - the 200th anniversary of The Grand Army's invasion of Russia. It is hard to believe that two whole centuries have passed since those momentous days when the likes of Coignet and Bourgogne showed just what human beings could endure during the coldest Russian winter in a century.

Recently, in a branch of Waterstones I noticed that they were still selling Paul Johnson's character assassination of The Emperor. He blamed Napoleon personally for 'all the wars' which is complete nonsense. Alongside it on the shelves was Frank McLynn's book - readable - but he was far from a fan as well.

Yesterday, I watched a superb programme about Carthage and how it was destroyed and its very memory erased from the pages of history by Rome. For five hundred years Carthage had an empire when Rome itself was "Hicksville on the Tiber" according to the excellent presenter Richard Miles. Rome was jealous of the Carthaginian state and, more especially, of its immense wealth.

The Romans had no navy but in a bizarre turn of fate they discovered an intact Carthaginian vessel complete with builders' marks - so they were able to reconstruct the design 'to the letter'. Despite being massacred in early sea battles they later bested the Carthaginian fleet and took control of the whole of the western Mediterranean. But they also razed the city of Carthage to the ground and distributed salt so that nothing would ever grow there again. The population that survived the terrible fire as the city was taken were made slaves.

But the greedy, brutal and vengeful Romans went even further. They slandered and traduced everything the Carthaginians had ever stood for. They had burnt the magnificent library at Carthage so there was not even books or scrolls to 'speak up' for the lost empire of the Carthaginians. The Romans then said that the nobles of Carthage had burnt their own babies and children alive to appease their voracious gods and that they had perverted sexual practices. (Which is pretty rich coming from the Romans! Caesar himself tried to hide his homosexual dalliances as a young man). In short they utterly destroyed the memory of a civilization that had lasted for centuries.

I was instantly struck by the parallels with Napoleon and the British Empire. While he was alive, the English aristocracy and politicians spoke such a load of tosh about Napoleon to their own people and anyone else that would listen, that it is surprising they classed him as human at all - The Corsican Ogre was one of the lesser slurs used against him. It was said he slept with Hortense, his stepdaughter and other such scandals manufactured to belittle and degrade him. He was always drawn as a pygmy with a large nose by the caricaturists like Gilray and never given the status of 'the old nobility' and aristocracy in Europe. It was open season on Napoleon all year round. And, of course, Pitt and a cabal of degenerates in the Cabinet tried to murder him - a task they happily delegated to d'Artois and his creatures.

The first thing Louis XVIII wanted when he re-entered Paris in 1814 was Napoleon's personal fortune. The Emperor had been very careful with money, unlike his Bourbon predecessors, and the 320lb Louis wanted some to spend on his boyfriends.

The Carthaginians have had a bad press for two thousand years, but in the two centuries since Napoleon's death, hundreds of 'history' books have been written about him that are better fiction that anything written by Dickens or H.G.Wells. More books have been written about Napoleon than any other individual in human history. (I am very happy to add one more). Most of these books were anti-Napoleon diatribes that rehashed the same old twaddle and presented it as 'history'. In The Real Napoleon, I take many of them to task - it wasn't hard to show them as ignorant purveyors of lies and misrepresentation. In short, like in  Animal Farm they started with "England good - Napoleon bad" and went on from there. And, of course, what was the 'bad' pig called in that book - Napoleon!

Thanks to regular readers of this blog, it is getting an average of  50 hits a day, over 1,000 a month - so I know there are people out there who are prepared to make up their own minds and are not going to drink in the bilge served up by so many 'English historians'.  Napoleon was no saint, he made mistakes - sometimes bad ones, like the invasion of Russia itself - but had Austria and Russia lived up to the peace treaties they signed years earlier with him, there would have been no need for further conflict on the continent of Europe. But then again, there was all that English gold just ready for anyone who would attack France...

A belated Happy New Year to all readers of this blog - I shall keep you posted as to the publication date of The Real Napoleon.

C. John Tarttelin 2012

SOLDIERS OF NAPOLEON'S GUARD

Across ice and snow, through storm and shell, they followed him. They marched across the achingly dry deserts of Egypt and dragged their weary freezing bodies through the winter hell of Russia in 1812. They were soldiers on Napoleon, men of the Guard and with their hero Le Tondu to lead them, nothing was impossible.

Men from tiny villages in the depths of rural France followed in his shadow and strode as conquerors into Spain, Germany, Austria and Italy. Most of the time, France was attacked as in 1805 when English gold glimmered and glinted in the eyes of Austria's Francis and Russia's Alexander, leading them to make the colossal error of judgment of joining in a coalition against France. Napoleon's armies were quickly sent against them and at Ulm Mack was forced to surrender after the Guard fought "not with our arms but with our legs" as one soldier put it. Little Coignet marched 120 miles in just over two days! Napoleon had 'his long boots on' and the Grand Army stepped into the glare of history.

Over the past two centuries ridicule has been heaped upon 'little' Napoleon and the achievements of his men of iron forgotten. He was in fact five feet six inches tall according to Maitland of HMS Bellerophon in 1815, when Napoleon made the error of assuming his vengeful enemies might harbour some degree of magnanimity towards him after Waterloo and placed himself in their care. After all that huge blob of matter called Louis XVIII, Jabba the Gut, had been put up in princely style by the English Establishment. Even during the Peace of Amiens they didn't kick out the Bourbons. Furthermore they still allowed Monsieur, second in line to the old French throne - D'Artois (evil incarnate straight from Hollywood central casting) to continue to plan his assassination attempts against Napoleon while based on English soil.

All very pointless for, as Cadoudal said, they tried to get rid of a First Consul and only succeeded in putting an Emperor in his place. Consummate arrogant fools with 'royal blood' only succeeded in blowing up innocent French civilians in the Rue de Saint Nicaise. An 11 year old girl who held the horse attached to a cartload of explosive was blown to bits, another woman watching for Napoleon, who was on his way to the opera, was blinded, and a third woman had her breasts blown off when the 'infernal machine' exploded. And all paid for with English gold. That's 'British fair play' for you. But you won't read about this in the history books. Generations of British 'historians' have blackened Napoleon's name and damned his character, for the crime of being a genius, the even worse crime of not being a 'gentleman' and the heinous crime of not being British!

Napoleon would not respond in kind, even though would-be assassins begged him to let them cross The Channel and rid him of the Bourbon menace. After Ulm, Coignet said that Napoleon chatted to the Austrian officers very amicably and even let them retain their swords and knapsacks. What an ogre that man was! By Jove the bounder was kind to his defeated enemies - what other sneaky expedients might he not pull out of his locker! Similarly at Tilsit he refrained from grabbing huge chunks of Russian territory as he could so easily have done. Lithuania was his for the asking but instead all he required Tsar Alexander to do was close his ports to English vessels. Hardly a large war indemnity for having attacked France in the first place. As Walter Runciman said, how many times did Napoleon forgive the kings he so often defeated - having been attacked by them in the first place - only to be so harshly treated by them in 1814 and 1815.

Papa Francis made sure Napoleon never saw his son again after he abdicated in 1814 and went to Elba and he made sure his own daughter Marie Louise, Napoleon's wife, was distracted by a one-eyed lover  - and she then conveniently 'forgot' her marriage vows. Francis was a nonentity as were George III, 'Prinny' the Prince Regent, Tsar Alexander and Prussia's Frederick William. Pathetic characters who thought that just because they had 'royal blood' they were somehow special. And how envious they were of Napoleon, how greedily they viewed his belated conquests after they had attacked him often without even declaring war - as with Austria in 1809 when she attacked Bavaria, France's ally, thinking Napoleon was too preoccupied with the trouble in Spain to do much about it.

No wonder his soldiers followed him when they saw evidence at every turn of the lies, the scheming, the convoluted machinations of the Royal Courts of Europe. After the gruelling Battle of Eylau Coignet saw his Emperor get down on his haunches and bake potatoes for his starving ADCs. Le Tondu was in the midst of his Guard and felt as safe as he would have been in the heart of Paris - he himself being the beating heart of the Grand Army. With Napoleon at its head, the Grand Army was for so long, unbeatable.

Copyright. John Tarttelin 2011

A SOULADREAM PRODUCTION

THE GREAT FIRE OF MOSCOW 1812

NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA

The Moscow fire was caused by Russians incendiaries let out of prison on the orders of Rostopchin, Governor of the city. He later denied the part he played and Leo Tolstoy gave the impression everything was Napoleon's fault in War and Peace.

Most of the city was devastated and hundreds of buildings were burnt to the ground - their cellars subsequently becoming traps for careless members of the Grand Army who did nor watch where they were putting their feet. It is often stated by many historians that the fire meant Napoleon could never have wintered in the city due to a lack of resources. However, anyone who reads the memoirs of Bourgogne and Coignet will discover that there was ample food for the Army had it been carefully utilized. At the time, a lot of supplies were wasted or squandered for the famished soldiers, seeing the inhabitants burning their own city, took to looting and stealing everything within their grasp. Had the Army retired the following Spring the retreat would have taken place in much milder weather. Then again, it is doubtful if Napoleon could have remained that long away from Paris for political reasons - it was his absence that led to the Malet conspiracy.

Although, as the map shows, some two-thirds of the city was burnt out, there were still plenty of massive mansions and houses for the troops to shelter in. Bourgogne states that: "To last for the winter we had seven large cases of sweet champagne, a large quantity of port wine, five hundred bottles of Jamaica rum, and more than a hundred large packets of sugar. And all this was for six non-commissioned officers, two women, and a cook." He adds: "We had a large number of hams, having found a shop full of them; add to all this a quantity of salt fish, a few sacks of flour, two large barrels filled with suet, which we had taken for butter, and as much beer as we wanted. These constituted our provisions, in case we had to spend the winter in Moscow."

Napoleon stayed far too long in Moscow. He kept hoping the Tsar would sue for peace now that French troops were in the city, but Alexander was determined to have nothing to do with his emissaries - to him it was already total war, even if Napoleon did not realize this. The unusually mild Russian autumn also added to the Emperor's determination to wait it out. But no message came from the Tsar.

The early glut of provisions was bad for the Army's morale. Soldiers set up impromptu markets and bartered for food, furs and valuables.

For Bourgogne, Moscow was the most beautiful city he had ever seen, and this from a man who had been to Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Warsaw and Vienna. On September 14th he got his first sight of the place: "It was a beautiful summer's day; the sun was reflected on all the domes, spires and gilded palaces... the effect was to me - in fact, to everyone - magical." Hence the shock when the inhabitants then set torches to their own buildings.

The religious Muscovites were outraged when they saw horses being stabled in their churches. It made the invading Army seem to them to be little more than a horde of godless savages, even if some did attend mass.

While Marshal Davout did his best to serve Napoleon, Murat seemed hell bent on destroying his own cavalry - posing for any passing Cossack who was near enough to see the glittering uniforms of his own creation. 

AND THEN CAME THE FIRE

The longer he waited, the worse it became for Napoleon and the Grand Army...

C. John Tarttelin FINS 2011

A SOULADREAM PRODUCTION

GREAT NAPOLEONIC PAINTINGS - AT THE BEREZINA RIVER 1812

AT THE BEREZINA RIVER Nov. 28th 1812

One of the most atmospheric and evocative paintings of the Great Retreat of Napoleon's Grand Army in 1812 was painted by the German artist Peter von Hess. What I particularly like about this painting is the fantastic detail and the all-encompassing sweep of the piece. Nothing escapes his masterly eye. Indeed there is so much of interest in this work that I have taken the liberty of enhancing different parts of the painting to demonstrate the wealth of information about the Retreat there is upon the canvas.

The story of the crossing of the Berezina is worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster yet it is a tale most people will never even have heard of. In England one is almost flushed with embarrassment at the constant references to Waterloo. In my country few have heard of Austerlitz - the Emperor's greatest triumph. Wellington defeated Napoleon in 1815 only with the assistance of the Prussians. In December 1805, Napoleon defeated Austria and Russia by himself. The young Tsar Alexander fled the battlefield in tears. Yet only two years later at Tilsit Napoleon treated him indulgently as if he had been his own younger brother.

Similarly, no one here speaks of the Berezina. Able was Eble before he saw this latterday River Styx. As Sergeant Bourgogne says: "We saw the brave pontonniers working hard at the bridges for us to cross. They had worked all night, standing up to their shoulders in ice-cold water, encouraged by their General (Eble). These brave men sacrificed their lives to save the army." When the first bridge was finished Marshal Oudinot crossed with his corps to prevent the Russians blocking the escape route. "On the next day (the 27th)...the Emperor crossed the Berezina with part of the Guard, and about a thousand men belonging to Marshal Ney's corps." 

Now let's immerse ourselves in Hess's wonderful portrayal of these events. In the left centre is a doughty member of the Old Guard his musket levelled at the approaching Russians, his bayonet ready.

Perhaps his dark blue overcoat looks a little too clean because by this time many of the men were dressed in rags as Bourgogne and Coignet attest. However, some of the Old Guard made herculean efforts to present themselves as if on the parade ground no matter what was happening around them, despite the Arctic temperatures and the chaos endemic everywhere. A shattered tree indicates the bombardments that the survivors had to endure at the hand of the pursuing Russians. Around our brave grognard lie his compatriots, some about to expire. An abandoned cannon is close by. At this stage of the Retreat many of the horses that had been pulling the guns had been eaten by the starving troops. At Gara, where he witnessed a terrible barn fire that cremated dozens of men while they were still alive and taking shelter inside the building, Bourgogne reveals the dark secret that other wretched men ate some of the cooked flesh that resulted. He adds that by then many would have eaten the devil himself - had he been cooked.

At the bottom right can be seen a Cossack wearing an orange brown coat on horseback. He is dragging a prisoner along with him, a rope attaching the man to the rider can just be seen. Meanwhile another exhausted victim is rooted out from beneath an overturned cart at the point of his lance. Hess might well have been thinking of Bourgogne himself here because he mentions hiding beneath a cart to escape the terrible long lances of the Cossacks. Abandoned goods are seen strewn all over the battlefield. Many of the soldiers in the Grand Army had left Moscow weighed down with gold, jewels and other trophies. As the snows fell and the temperature plummeted these items were thrown away. Rich precious first editions of rare leather bound books could be seen in the snow, their pages fluttering in the wind. Instead, men fought each other for tiny items of food, stealing from those that only too recently had been their best friends. When a man stumbled and seemed about to face his maker he was stripped of his clothing, sometimes before he had even died.

Frenchmen and their Allies who became prisoners of the Cossacks and irregular troops often faced a dire situation. Some officers in the regular Russian army insisted on proprieties but many others simply refused to take prisoners. Inevitably, those captured were stripped naked and forced to march in the snow until they dropped dead or reached a benighted sanctuary in some makeshift prison camp. If the furious peasants got hold of them the outlook was even worse. Their Holy Mother Russia violated, the peasants had no thought of humanity or compassion. French throats were slit as if they were just more pigs being butchered for the table. The heads of prisoners were bashed in with atavistic glee, the executioners feeling no more compunction than they would have felt in the act of swatting an insect. Many stragglers received over a dozen stabs from Cossack lances and miraculously a few of these survived and managed to get all the way back to France!

In the extreme bottom right of the painting, a group of dying men remain motionless, too exhausted even to attempt to escape their vengeful pursuers. One man lies on the snow with his feet actually in the fire. This reflects awful incidents that actually took place. The men were so cold and frostbitten that they had lost all sense of feeling in their limbs, especially their feet. As a result they often smelt flesh burning without realizing it was their own body that was on fire. Soldiers being soldiers, they drank whatever intoxicating liquor was at hand. Having eaten little, only a few mouthfuls were enough to make them drunk. Despite having got as far as Vilna, far beyond the Berezina, hundreds of men died after imbibing, their bodies cluttering the streets. Boarded-up houses showed that the locals were too afraid to let these famished wraiths inside their homes.

Perhaps the most heart-rending accounts of these terrible days by the river concern ordinary civilians who had been caught up in the war. Many French tutors, musicians and actors who had been working in Moscow thought it best to leave the city with their compatriots - a bad mistake if ever there was one. The 'wives' of the soldiers also accompanied their 'husbands'. And there was a litany of washerwomen, prostitutes and others who swelled the ranks of the fleeing horde. Most would become victims on the long death march out of Russia. 

At the extreme bottom left of the painting we see a young woman sprawled out in front of a fire, the flames of which are dying down and about to go out. In her arms she seems to be holding a baby. Hess had obviously read his Bourgogne, for the brave Sergeant recounted how one of the cantinieres gave birth only to find her infant frozen solid a few days later. A cuirassier stands nearby, his fallen horse at his feet and a comrade begging him for help. During the Retreat, starving women offered their bodies for morsels of food and were usually rejected. In their own eyes they might still have been the beautiful young women they had been before the Retreat. But after weeks  of frozen terror with little to eat, their shrivelled breasts and washboard ribs were far from attractive and sex was the last thing on a dying soldier's mind.

At the Berezina, hundreds of civilians rushed to cross the two flimsy bridges when the Russians attacked. Killed in the crush their bodies piled up to the height of a man. Other unfortunates were heaved into the ice cold river and slowly sank beneath the water. Starving wraiths, mindless freezing automatons, like zombies they each played their part in this infamous horror story until their last breath left their bodies. At the Berezina so many died it was as if the last breath of the Grand Army was being heard before the stillness and silence of the grave. For weeks afterwards their corpses would be eaten by wolves, lynx, foxes and bears, and the omnivorous wild boar. While from the skies came the eagles, owls and crows to peck out their eyes and nibble on their ghastly remains... 

C. John Tarttelin FINS 2011

A SOULADREAM PRODUCTION 

GREAT NAPOLEONIC PAINTINGS - RETREAT FROM MOSCOW

SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI - RETREAT FROM MOSCOW

by RICHARD CATON WOODVILLE (1911)

Richard Caton Woodville was a prolific painter of historical scenes. He was born on January 7th 1856 and grew up when Britain was at the height of Empire. Not surprisingly, his detailed and evocative works became extremely popular. My favourite, a copy of which I am lucky enough to possess, is his Retreat From Moscow.

At the centre of the painting is a thoughtful and troubled Napoleon, watching his famous eagles being destroyed by fire so that the closely pursuing Russians would not be able to snatch them as trophies. Not all the eagles met this fate, a few were taken all the way back to France by the most stalwart members of the Imperial Guard, clutched closely to their hearts, literally in one case.

The scene is the Berezina River after General Eble and his magnificent men had thrown two rickety bridges across the ice choked waters. In the turbulent swell up to their chests, they had gallantly put together the makeshift bridges, some of the men drifting off into oblivion when the freezing waters stilled their noble lifeblood in their veins. Sergeant Bourgogne recounts having heard that the Emperor himself handed them wine as they went about their task. What a disaster it was that the pontoon bridges had been so recently burnt so that their horse teams could be used to pull the last of the cannons!

It was the coldest Russian winter for a hundred years and the water in the Berezina should have been as hard as steel, but a sudden thaw meant it was almost impossible to cross without those bridges, especially for the stragglers in the Grand Army who were at death's door. Bourgogne himself, half-dead with cold and a recent victim of poisoning, dragged himself across one night in a lull amidst the fighting. Hundreds of others, unwilling to leave their fires could have done the same. In the end they were bombarded by Russian cannon fire and they all raced for the bridges at the same time. In the chaos, dozens were crushed and a veritable mountain of bodies soon clogged up the entrances to the bridges. Coignet and Bourgogne both say that the scene was so awful as men women, and even children, plunged into the icy river, they had to turn away. That nightmare vision haunted them both for the rest of their lives.

Although the prospect for the soldiers seem dire in Catin Woodville's painting, it was even worse than he depicted it. Many men had faces blackened by smoke from swirling campfires, the temperatures had been so low that they had to almost sit amongst the flames in order to warm themselves. They had red eyes having been half-blinded by the glare of the snow and the heat of the fires and clothes singed by the flames. Those who could still walk by this stage were very lucky. There was already a trail of corpses leading all the way back to Moscow.

Picart and Bourgogne had been lost amongst the wilds of the Lithuanian forest and only by following a couple of distant figures did they find a peasant hut where they were welcomed. Picart had been shot in the head during a recent episode with some Cossacks and had seemed demented to Adrien Bourgogone as they stumbled together through the thick snow. Cursing Napoleon, Picart seemed to have completely lost it and Bourgogne had been extremely worried for them both. But then Picart said :"If we find the Emperor everything will be all right." The old peasant woman sucked his wound clean after a musket ball fell from out of his makeshift hood. When there was a noise outside, Picart went outside with a firebrand and scared off a pack of wolves that had literally been at the door. By now many packs would have been used to the taste of human flesh and aware of the extreme vulnerability of the stragglers in the Grand Army.

In this desolate forested wilderness the two soldiers were inordinately lucky to find themselves amidst a family of Francophiles. The head of the family, an old man, almost bowed his head to the floor when he heard the name "'Napoleon" and he was over the moon when he was given a commander's cross with the Emperor's portrait upon it. Pressing it to his lips and heart he indicated the reverence with which he viewed the treasured item.

So, more than a thousand miles from Paris, in the furthest back of beyond, a humble peasant had not only heard about Napoleon, he held him in the utmost esteems and venerated even his image. Such was the Emperor's magic, such was his spell.

Behind Napoleon in the painting, as gaudily dressed as usual was Murat, King of Naples, the Emperor's brother-in-law. He has a haughty aspect and he certainly fancied himself. Although he had saved the day at Eylau with a magnificent charge amongst the snow, leading his splendid throng of sabres into the Russian centre and carving them up on the way in and on the way out, he was to prove a disaster for his comrades in 1812. Having married into the Bonaparte clan, he was a 'prince of the blood' in more ways than one and he was given command of the remnants of the Army when Napoleon returned to Paris after the Malet Conspiracy. Already, having been surprised by Kutuzov's Russians at Winkowo, which was the initial  cause of the Retreat, and having proved useless as Commander of the cavalry - he kept his forces bunched together and on the qui vivre all the time so that the troopers could neither rest properly nor forage - he had overseen the destruction of 99% of the cavalry. Only a Doomed Squadron of a few hundred remained with Generals acting as Colonels and Captains acting as troopers. When Bourgogne heard Murat was in charge he had grave forebodings. In the event, Murat fled to Naples and Eugene took command as he ought to have done in the first place.

Caton Woodville indicates all this by placing a cavalryman on foot in the foreground. By now over 50,000 horses had succumbed to the cold, to eating green rye or to the storm back in June which had killed 10,000 of them overnight. The figure still looks like a soldier when in fact most of the survivors in the Grand Army were now dressed in rags. Any old fur or item of apparel, even women's clothing, was wrapped around freezing shoulders or frostbitten feet. Many had lost their shoes or boots and their swollen feet could only be covered by wrapping rags around them. 

In the background  smoke swirls in the leaden sky as if carrying away the greatness of an Empire. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.

C. John Tarttelin FINS 2011

A SOULADREAM PRODUCTION