The Emperor left Witebsk August 13, and, placing the 2nd and 6th corps under the command of Saint-Cyr at Polotsk, he moved to Krasnoe, where part of the Grand Army was assembled in presence of the enemy. A battle was expected, but only a slight engagement took place with the Russian rear-guard, who were beaten and retreated nimbly. On the 15th, his fête day, the Emperor held a march past of the troops, who greeted him with enthusiasm. Next day the army came in sight of Smolensk, called by the Russians ‘the holy,' since they regard it as the key of Moscow and the palladium of their Empire. Ancient prophecies predicted great misfortunes to Russia whensoever she let Smolensk be taken. This superstition, studiously fostered by the Government, dates from the time when the town marked the extreme frontier of the Muscovites.

King Murat and Marshal Ney were the first to arrive before Smolensk, and thought, for some reason which did not appear, that the enemy had abandoned the place. Their reports to the Emperor having made him adopt the same opinion, he gave orders for the advance-guard to be marched into the town. Ney, in his impatience, awaited no further orders. He advanced towards the gate with a feeble escort of hussars, when suddenly a regiment of Cossacks, masked by a fold in the ground and a thicket, dashed upon our troopers, drove them back, and surrounded Marshal Ney, who was so close pressed that a pistol-bullet fired almost point-blank tore his coat collar. Luckily, Domanget's brigade came and relieved the marshal, and the arrival of General Razout's infantry permitted Ney to approach near enough to the town to convince himself that the Russians purposed to defend it.

Seeing that the ramparts were armed with a great number of guns, General Eblé of the artillery, a most able man, advised the Emperor to turn the place, by sending Prince Poniatowski's Polish corps to cross the Dnieper two leagues farther up. But Napoleon, following the opinion of Ney, assured him that Smolensk would be easily carried, gave the order to attack. Thereupon the corps of Davout, Ney, and Poniatowski made for the place from different sides. A murderous fire was opened from the ramparts, and this was not equal to that which came from the batteries on the high ground of the further bank. A sanguinary combat took place. Our troops were decimated by round-shot, grape, and shells, while our artillery could make no impression on the walls. At length, as night came on, the enemy, after disputing the ground valiantly foot by foot, was pushed back into Smolensk, and made ready to abandon it. But as they withdrew they set it on fire in various quarters, and thus the Emperor saw his hopes of taking a town which he had every reason to suppose was full of provisions vanish. Not till daybreak on the next morning did the French enter the place, the streets of which were heaped with corpses and smoking ruins. The capture of Smolensk had cost us 12,000 men, killed and wounded, and this huge loss we might have avoided by crossing the Dnieper, as General Eblé proposed, further up, for in that case General Barclay de Tolly would have had to evacuate the place and retreat towards Moscow on pain of being cut off. After burning the bridge the Russians took up their position for the moment upon the high ground of the right bank, but soon retreated along the road to Moscow. Marshal Ney pursued them with his own corps, strengthened by Gudin's division and Davout's. A short distance from Smolensk he came up with the Russian army at Valutina, engaged in a defile, with all its baggage. The action developed into a real battle, which would have been fatal to the enemy if General Junot, who had accomplished the passage of the Dnieper too slowly at Prondichewo, two leagues above Smolensk, and halted there for forty-eight hours, had marched upon the sound of Ney's guns, only a league away from him. But, though warned by Ney, Junot did not stir. In vain did the Emperor's aide-de-camp, Chabot, bring him an order to join Ney; in vain did Gourgaud repeat the order. Junot remained immovable.

Meanwhile Ney, engaged with infinitely superior forces, had brought all his troops successively into action, and ordered Gudin's division to capture the formidable positions occupied by the Russians. The order was carried out in the most intrepid fashion, but in the very first attack the brave general fell mortally wounded. Yet always maintaining his wonderful coolness, he wished before he died to assure the success of the troops whom he had so often led to victory and appointed General Gérard, though he was the junior major-general of the division, to succeed him in the command. Gerard at once placed himself at the head of the division, and by ten o'clock in the evening, after losing 1,800 men and slaying 6,000 of the enemy, he remained in possession of the field of battle, the Russians retiring in haste.

Next day the Emperor came to inspect the troops who had fought so valiantly. He distributed rewards freely, and confirmed Gérard in command of the division. General Gudin died a few hours later.

If Junot had chosen to take part in the fight he could have shut the Russian army into a narrow defile, where it would have been caught between two fires and compelled to lay down its arms, and this would have put an end to the war. Then people regretted King Jerome, who, though a poor general, would probably have come to the assistance of Ney, and everyone expected to see Junot severely punished. But he was the first officer in whom Napoleon had inspired a personal attachment, and he had followed him in every campaign from Toulon to Russia; the Emperor liked him and forgave him—a misfortune, for it was becoming necessary to make an example.

As soon as the capture of Smolensk was known in Russia a universal outcry arose against General Barclay de Tolly. He was a German; the nation accused him of not conducting the war with sufficient vigour, and demanded a Muscovite general to defend the ancient Muscovy. The Emperor Alexander was forced to give way, and conferred the command in chief of all his armies on General Kutusoff; he was past his prime and a man of little ability, best known for having been defeated at Austerlitz. But he had the merit, in the circumstance a great one, of being a Russian of the old stock; which gave him much influence, both over the troops and over the mass of the people.

The French advance-guard, always pushing the enemy before it, had passed Dorogobush before the Emperor made up his mind to leave Smolensk. It was oppressively hot, they had to march on shifting sands; and the supply of food was insufficient for such a mighty assemblage of men and horses, for the Russians had left nothing behind them but burnt villages and farms. When the army entered Wiazma that pretty town was in flames, and so was Ghiat. The nearer they drew to Moscow the scantier grew the resources of the country. Men, and especially horses, began to die. In a few days cold rain succeeded the intolerable heat, and continued till September 4; autumn was coming on. The army was not more than six leagues from Mojaisk, the last town left to take before reaching Moscow, when a considerable increase was perceived in the strength of the enemy's rear-guard, and there was every sign that a great battle was at last going to be fought. On the 5th our advance was checked for a moment by a powerful Russian column strongly intrenched on a rising ground garnished with twelve guns. The 57th of the line, which in the Italian days the Emperor had surnamed ‘The Terrible,' bravely maintained its reputation by capturing the enemy's redoubt and artillery. They were now on the ground where forty-eight hours later took place the battle which the Russians call Borodino, the French la Moskova.

On September 6 the Emperor issued a general order announcing a battle for the morrow. The army joyfully awaited the great day which was to end its misery, for the troops had received no rations for a month, each man living how he could. The final arrangements were made on both sides. For the Russians, Bagration commanded the left wing, 62,000 men; in the centre was the hetman Platoff, with his Cossacks, and 30,000 infantry in reserve; the right, consisting of 70,000 men, was under Barclay de Tolly, who, having been deposed from the chief command, had taken a secondary place. Kutusoff was commander-in-chief. To oppose his 162,000 men the Emperor Napoleon had barely 140,000 at his disposal. They were thus distributed: Eugène commanded the left, Davout the right, Ney the centre, Murat the cavalry, the guard was in reserve.

The battle was fought on September 7. The weather was overcast, and a cold wind raised clouds of dust. The Emperor, suffering terribly from headache, descended towards a kind of ravine, where he passed the greater part of the day in pacing about. From this spot he could see only a portion of the field, and to command the whole of it he had to ascend a neighbouring hillock. This he did only twice during the battle, and he has been reproached with inaction; but it must be remarked that at the point where he was with the reserve he was in a position to receive frequent reports as to what was taking place all along the line; while if he had been always going from one wing to another over ground so broken, the aides-de-camp bringing important intelligence would not have known where to find him. It must be remembered, too, that he was unwell, and the icy wind, blowing with great force, prevented him from staying on horseback.

As I was not present at the battle of the Moskwa I refrain from entering into details of the manœuvre, and merely say that, after unparalleled efforts, the French obtained a victory over the Russians, whose resistance was most obstinate. Naturally, the battle reckons as one of the most bloody of this age. The losses of the two armies were calculated at 50,000. The French lost forty-nine generals, killed and wounded, and had 20,000 men disabled. The Russian loss was greater by a third. General Bagration, their best officer, was killed, and, by a strange chance, the ground on which the battle was fought was his property. The French took very few prisoners—a proof of the valour with which the vanquished fought.

Several interesting episodes occurred during the action. Thus, when the Russian left, twice broken by the efforts of Murat, Davout, and Ney, and rallying as often, was coming a third time to the charge, Murat sent General Belliard to the Emperor with a request that he would send part of his guard to complete the victory, as otherwise it would take a second battle to beat the Russians. Napoleon was inclined to comply with this request; but Marshal Bèssieres, who commanded the guard, said, ‘Allow me to point out that your Majesty is at this moment seven hundred leagues from France.' Whether this remark decided the Emperor, or he did not think the battle sufficiently developed to employ his reserve, he refused to do so. Two similar requests met with the same answer.

One of the most remarkable feats performed in this battle, so fertile of brave actions, was the following. The front of the enemy's line was covered by high ground prodded with redoubts, redans, and, above all, a loopholed fort armed with eighty guns. The French, after heavy loss had carried all these works, but had been unable to hold their ground in the fort. General Montbrun, commanding the 2nd cavalry corps, observed by the aid of his telescope that the fort was not closed at the gorge, and that the Russian troops were entering by sections; while it was possible, by turning the high ground, to avoid the ramparts and the rocks, and bring the squadrons up to the gate by gently sloping ground practicable for horses. Accordingly he proposed to enter the fort in rear with his cavalry, while the infantry attacked in the front. This daring suggestion was approved by Murat and the Emperor, and its execution entrusted to Montbrun. But while that fearless general was preparing for action he was killed by a cannon-ball—a great loss to the army—and the Emperor sent General Caulaincourt, brother to the grand equerry, to take his place. Then was seen something unprecedented in the annals of war: a fort defended by many guns and several battalions, attacked and captured by a cavalry column. Caulaincourt, hastening on with a division of cuirassiers, the 5th regiment, under Colonel Christophe, leading, reached the entrance, made his way inside, and fell with a bullet through his head. Colonel Christophe and his cuirassiers avenged their general by putting part of the garrison to the sword. The fort remained in their hands, and the victory of the French was assured. In these days, with their insatiable thirst for promotion, people would be astonished if, after so fine a feat of arms, a colonel were not promoted. But under the Empire ambition was held in check; Christophe did not become a general for several years, and never expressed any dissatisfaction at the delay.

Although the Russians had been beaten, and forced to evacuate the field of battle, their commander- in-chief, Kutusoff, had the audacity to write to the Emperor Alexander that he had just won a great victory over the French. This misleading news reached St. Petersburg on the day of Alexander's fête, and caused the liveliest joy. Te Deum was sung, while Kutusoff was proclaimed the saviour of his country, and created field-marshal. But the truth was soon known, and joy turned to mourning. Still, Kutusoff was a field-marshal, and he desired no more. Any other than the timid Alexander would have severely punished the falsehood; but he could not do without Kutusoff, who therefore remained in command of the army.

The Russians, in their retreat towards Moscow, were overtaken on the morning of the 8th at Mojaisk, and in the cavalry action which ensued General Belliard was wounded. [Napoleon stayed three days at Mojaisk to await despatches. One which had come the day before the battle had done much to cause his indisposition, for it announced the defeat of Marshal Marmont at Salamanca. Marmont was one of Napoleon's mistakes. They had been together at the college of Brienne, where Marmont's schoolboy successes had led the Emperor to credit him with more military talent than his performances justified. When he replaced Masséna in 1811 he gave out that he was going to beat Wellington. He was now vanquished and wounded, and but for General Clausel his army would have lost still more heavily. This catastrophe might have made the Emperor reflect that while he was invading Russia he was losing Spain. Major Fabvier, who brought the despatch, was wounded in the action on the great redoubt—a long way to come in search of a bullet!]