PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, JANUARY 6, 1814The Russian Christmas. It is bitterly cold; the Fahrenheit thermometer shows twenty-five below. A skin of ice glitters on the colossal bronze statue of Peter the Great; a crust of snow sheaths the cornice of the church of St. Catherine; a frieze of icicles droops from the carved façades of the Hermitage and the Winter Palace. On the gravelled promenades, the snow squeaks beneath the runners of the one-horse sleighs that dart along the frigid banks of the Neva.It is eleven o’clock. Above the great colonnade of the new church of Our Lady of Kazan—perhaps the most magnificent building in the city—the bells are ringing for a Te Deum to mark the recent successes of the Allies over Napoleon. Just one year ago, all Europe was opposed to Russia; now all Europe is with her in the holy crusade against the French. Wellington is through the Pyrenees and into France—and the Iberian peninsula is lost to Bonaparte. Blücher and Bernadotte have stopped him at Leipzig.
What do You think about Pierre Berton's War Of 1812?
