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Jacob Brafman, a native of the government of Minsk, had deserted his race and religion in the last years of Nicholas' conscription, hoping thereby to escape the nets of the vigilant Kahal "captors" who wished to draft him into the army.
He probably thought it too rash to turn the Berezina at its sources, in order to join Tchitchakof; for a vague rumour had already reached us of the march of this army from the south upon Minsk and Borizof, and of the defection of Schwartzenberg.
Why the man from Minsk should have selected me, in my plain serge traveling gown, I cannot tell, unless it was because he saw that I did not wear the garb of the Russian merchant class, or look like them, and observation or report had taught him that the aristocratic classes above the merchants are most susceptible to the pleasure of patronizing converts; though to do them justice, Russians make no attempt at converting people to their church.
This was the most difficult passage in our retreat, and both these hostile armies were already close to it, at the time that Napoleon was at the distance of twelve days' journey, with the winter, famine, and the grand Russian army between them. At Smolensk it was only suspected that Minsk was in danger; the officers who were present at the loss of Polotsk gave the following details respecting it:
In Western Russia the name of Krasiloff was synonymous with all that was cruel and brutal. It was he who ordered the flogging of the five young women at Minsk, those poor unfortunate creatures who were knouted by Cossacks, who laid their backs bare to the bone.
The first season he intended to seize Minsk and Smolensk, winter there, and organize his conquests. If this should not produce a peace, he would advance in the following season into the heart of the country, and there await the Czar's surrender. To his army he issued an address as direct and ringing as that which had echoed sixteen years before across the plains of Lombardy.
Mikail's conclusions were accepted, and the cry rang throughout Russia, "Down with the Jews!" In all the land there was not a man who dared raise his voice in defence of the unfortunate people. That Minsk, the would-be slayer of Melikoff, had once been a Jew, served to increase the outcry against the race.
Finally, when the Emperor learned at Dombrowna the loss of Minsk, he had no idea that Borizof was in such imminent danger, as when he passed the next day through Orcha, he had the whole of his bridge-equipage burnt.
"Ah! but remember when that young fellow shot at you and grazed two of your fingers at Minsk," remarked the conjurer with a grin. "Yes, quite so. I don't like this fellow Naglovski and his friends. I will see Kurloff."
In the midst of it, its commander, gloomy and silent, seemed to be anxiously measuring his line of communication with the fortresses on the Vistula. For the space of more than two hundred and fifty leagues it offered but two points where he could halt and rest, the first Smolensk, the second Minsk. He had made those towns his two great depôts, where immense magazines were established.
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