Chapter Five“The troops are abandoning the City, sir,” Jacques announced as he served luncheon to Zoia and her father.
“Nearly everybody else seems to have left already,” Pierre Vallon replied.
Zoia looked at him in surprise and he explained,
“The Governor of the City has forbidden the people to leave and pleaded with them and brought them back and punished those he could catch, but they still continue to slip away with their carriages full of everything they can pack into them.”
“I am sure that the Russian Army has stopped the French,” Zoia pointed out. “I heard the guns in the distance soon after dawn. It must have been about six o’clock and I cannot bear to think of how many men will have been killed.”
“One cannot have war without casualties,” Pierre Vallon replied. “I can only pra
