prey rending the air with their sinister cries. The reflections which this
sight excited were profoundly painful. How many victims, and what result!
The army had marched from Wilna to Witebsk, from Witebsk to Smolensk,
hoping for a decisive battle, seeking this battle at Wiasma, then at Ghjat,
and had found it at last at Borodino, a bloody, terrible battle. The army
had marched to Moscow in order to earn the fruit of all that sacrifice, and
at this place nothing had been found but an immense conflagration. The army
returned without magazines, reduced to a comparatively small number, with
the prospect of a severe winter in Poland, and with a far away prospect of
peace,--for peace could not be the price of a forced retreat,--and for such
a result the field of Borodino was covered with 50 thousand dead. Here, as
we have learned, were found the Westphalians, not more than 3 thousand, the
remainder of 10 thousand at Smolensk, of 23 thousand who crossed the
Niemen.

Napoleon gave orders to take the wounded at Borodino into the baggage
wagons and forced every officer, every refugee from Moscow who had a
vehicle, to take the wounded as the most precious load.

The rear guard under Davout left the fearful place on October 31st., and
camped over night half-way to the little town of Ghjat. The night was
bitter cold, and the soldiers began to suffer very much from the low
temperature.

From this time on, every day made the retreat more difficult, for the cold
became more and more severe from day to day, and the enemy more pressing.

The Russian general, Kutusof, might now have marched ahead of Napoleon's
army, which was retarded by so many impediments, and annihilated it by a
decisive battle, but he did not take this risk, preferring a certain and