to martial prowess, for which, by his age and the state of his constitution, he was no longer qualified. When he joined the army he was seventy-four years old; and, though hale, so very corpulent that he was obliged to move about, even when in the field, in a little four-wheeled carriage with a head, called a droska. Such was the successor whom, as Alexander told the English general, Sir Robert Wilson, the nobility of Russia had selected to vindicate the arms of Russia, and defend their remaining possessions."-(WILSON, 131.)

Personally, Kutusoff was inclined to follow out the plan conceived by Barclay. But the circumstances of his appointment, and the feeling of the army, rendered any further retreat without a general battle impossible. Having chosen, therefore, a battle-ground at Borodino, seventyfive miles in front of Moscow, he hastened to occupy it, and strengthen it with earthworks.

It was not without great hesitation that Napoleon took the resolution of advancing from Smolensko direct upon Moscow. His most prudent course would have been to have taken up his position there behind the Dnieper and the Dwina, and employed himself during the winter in strengthening his position, securing his base, and reorganising Poland and Lithuania in his rear, ready to advance with the early spring on the Russian capital. But his active mind could not brook the prospect of the long inaction; he was deeply impressed with the idea, that if he could defeat the Russians in a general action, and occupy their capital, Alexander would immediately sue for peace; and he knew enough of the state of their army to be sure that they would not fall back much farther without fighting. Moreover, he felt strongly that the courses of the Dnieper and the Dwina ceased to be defensive lines the moment the hard frost set in. Influenced by these various considerations, and trusting much to his star, he took his final resolution at Dorogobouge to march straight on Moscow. At Gjatsk, on the 2d September, he halted for a day to refresh his men

for the great contest which was impending, and had returns sent in of the strength of each corps. From these it appeared that he had 103,000 infantry and 30,000 cavalry-in all, 133,000 combatants present with the eagles: 420,000 had crossed the Niemen, about 120,000 had been detached to the flanks or left in garrison; his loss up to this period alone, therefore, must have amounted to the enormous number of upwards of 160,000 men.

It was six o'clock on the morning of the 7th September when the strife of giants began at Borodino: 115,000 Russians, with 640 pieces of artillery, struggled there from the rising till the setting of the sun against 127,000 French and 580 guns.* No such terrible contest had yet occurred even in that age of ceaseless strife. Three redoubts covered the Russian left, one large fieldwork protected their centre. Around these the storm of battle ebbed and flowed-now surging over their blood-stained ramparts, now rolling down the heights beyond. Now heavy columns of French infantry forced their headlong way with the bayonet, anon with horrid yells the sturdy Russian foot, closing with a desperate courage, would win back their ground; then the glittering cuirasses of charging horsemen would sweep through the struggling crowd, or loose hordes of long-lanced Cossacks go swarming along the rear. When mutual exhaustion and the failing light brought this terrible battle to a close, the covering-works both on the Russian centre and left were in the hands of the assailants; but behind them, on the heights in rear of the ravines of Gorizkoe and Semenowski, the Muscovite masses lay, exhausted, but unbroken. About 80,000 killed and wounded men were stretched upon that field of blood, divided in about equal proportions between the two sides. But the French had two decided advantages: the guard, 20,000 strong, had never taken their muskets from their shoulders, while the last Russian reserves had been engaged; and on their right they had gained ground, which enabled

them to menace the Russian line of retreat.

These circumstances decided Kutusoff to retire, and accordingly, before dawn on the following morning, he evacuated the position, and fell back slowly, and in perfect order, to Mojaisk on the Moscow road. Benningsen, who had a keen eye for strategy, urged Kutusoff here,

"Not to fall back on Moscow, but to move with the main body of his forces in the direction of Kalouga, on which line he would be most advantageously posted in case the enemy persisted in his movement on Moscow to baffle his operation, or render it finally disastrous."-(WILSON, 161.)

But the commander-in-chief fell back leisurely along the main road, and, with some sharp rear-guard combats, arrived in front of Moscow, where he took up a defensive position on the 13th. Many of the generals, and the mass of the army, were eager for another combat beneath the walls of the capital; but at a council of war, held to decide the question, the opinion of Kutusoff prevailed,-that there was no good position covering the capital,

"That the Russian army, in another battle before Moscow, might be so shat tered as to be rendered incapable of resuming offensive operations in conjunction with the other armies on march, or manoeuvring to act on the rear and flank communications of the enemy, the success of which operations, as well as their own safety, depended on the co-operating support of the Russian main army; that the enemy would be obliged to weaken his disposable force by the occupation of Moscow, whereas the Russian army would be daily gaining strength; and finally, that it must always be kept in mind that the contest was for the Russian empire, and not for the preservation of any particular city, or the capital itself.”—(WILSON, 164.)

There can be no doubt that these reasons were perfectly sound, and fully justified by the event.

"On the morning of the 14th," says Wilson, before day-dawn, the troops commenced filing through the city, and were soon accompanied by all the inhabitants and populace who could find any means of conveyance. A hundred and eighty thousand souls, out of two hun

dred thousand, with sixty-five thousand carriages of every description, exclusive of the artillery and military ambulances, passed the barriers in funeral march.” (WILSON, 165.)

The nation accompanied their army, and the empty shell of the capital was alone left to the invaders. We now come to the very curious and much-vexed question, Who burnt Moscow? Wilson agrees with Thiers and Alison in attributing the deed to the governor Rostopchin. The reasons he assigns seem quite decisive upon the subject. When Kutusoff fell back towards the capital, Rostopchin publickly avowed his

"Resolve, if the city were not to be defended by the Russian army, to convoke all the authorities and inhabitants for the purpose of arranging a general and municipally regulated conflagration--a sacrifice which he was confident would unhesitatingly be made by their patriotism, excited by their horror of the invader. As a further security against the counteraction of his design, he insisted on and obtained a solemn promise from Kutusoff, that if any change should

occur in his resolution to defend the city, he would give him three full days' notice." (WILSON, 162.)

Kutusoff could or did not fulfil his promise; the meeting could not be held, and thus

"Rostopchin, the governor, was placed in a false position. He could neither deny nor adopt the act; but his previous announcement of that intention, his demand of Kutusoff for three days' notice,' the removal or destruction of all the fire-engines and apparatus, the release of several hundred malefactors, and the organisation of their bands under directing superiors, impress conviction that Rostopchin was the author and abettor of the transaction. He never forgave Kutusoff for the infraction of the promise a promise which he publicly declared Kutusoff swore by the white hairs of his head' to keep, and the breach of which compelled him to make clandestine preparations, and take measures as if he were instigating an offence against his countrymen and country; whereas, if it had been kept, an occasion would have been presented to him to assume the avowed responsible lead in an act of public virtue enhancing national fame." -(WILSON, 173.)

Of the stern character of the man,

and the fierce patriotic spirit which burned in every Russian breast, from the Emperor to the serf, the following anecdote will afford an illustration worth pages of declamation. Rostopchin possessed a magnificent palace residence at Woronowo, fitted up in the most superb and costly manner with articles of antique vertu. When the French approached the place, he desired the presence of several Russian generals and the English Commissioner.

"At the morning dawn a deputation of elders from the village appeared, stating that they had all made their dispositions to retire with the troops, and soliciting to be permitted to go to an estate of their suzerain's in Siberia, as they preferred to be removed there, or to any other province of the empire, rather than to be subjected to French dominion.' The permission being granted, the whole colony, seventeen hundred souls, began their march, and presented one of the most affecting sights ever beheld but not a plaint was heard. 'God give our Emperor and Russia victory,

with benedictions on their lord,' were the only exclamations or expressions that escaped their lips. Having posted their declaration on the church doors in three languages, Rostopchin, on hearing the pickets commence skirmishing, and seeing the enemy in movement, entered his palace, begging his friends to accompany him. On arriving at the porch, burning torches were distributed to every one. Mounting the stairs, and reaching his state bed-room, Rostopchin paused a moment, and then said to the English General, That is my marriage-bed; I have not the heart to set it on fire; you must spare me this pain.' When Rostopchin had himself set on fire all the rest of the apartment, then, and not before, his wish was executed. Each apartment was ignited as the party proceeded, and in a quarter of an hour the whole was one blazing mass. Rostopchin then proceeded to the stables, which were quickly in flames, and afterwards stood in front, contemplating the progress of the fire and the falling fragments. When the last cast of the Cavallo group was precipitated, he said, 'I am at ease :' and as the enemy's shots were now whistling around, he and all retired."-(WILSON, 179, 180.)

When Kutusoff evacuated Moscow, he fell back for two marches along the Kolomna road; wheeling then to his right, he made a semicircular

march round Moscow at a distance of about twenty-five miles from it, up the stream of the Pakra, till he reached Krasnoi Pakra on the old road to Kalouga; here he arrived on the 19th. By this most able movement the Russian general at once drew near to his own reinforcements, threatened the line of retreat of the enemy, and secured his own upon the important city of Kalouga, whilst he preserved to himself, and debarred them from, the richest provinces of the empire. Here he remained until the end of the

month, when Napoleon despatched a strong force under Murat and Poniatowski against him; he then fell back still along the old Kalouga road, from the banks of the Pakra to those of the Nara, and established himself at Taroutino, where he put a period to the long retreat of the Russian armies, and preserved in a much more secure position all the advantages of his former more advanced one on the Pakra. The camp of Taroutino was strong in itself, and now became the real capital of the mobilised Russian empire. It was the Torres Vedras of the Moscow campaign. In it Kutusoff remained undisturbed from the 2d October till the 24th of the same month, reorganising and recruiting his army. Of this period Wilson has left the following striking picture :

"The reinforcement and provisioning of the assembling army was one of the most extraordinary efforts of national zeal ever made. No Russian who possessed any article which could be rendered serviceable to the state, withheld it: horses, arms, equipment, provisions, and, in brief, everything that can be imagined, was poured into the camps. Militia performed the most remarkable marches, even for Russians, to reach the headquarters. Old and young, under and over the regulated ages, flocked to the standards and would not be refused service. Fathers of families, many seventy years of age and upwards, placed themselves in the ranks, and encountered every fatigue as well as peril with all the ardour of youth. Governors of distant provinces, without waiting for orders or requisitions, urged forward every supply they could collect; and so many cannon were despatched by relays, that a hundred and sixty beautiful new guns were in one day sent away as superfluous.

They expressed their "full confidence in the Marshal's loyalty, patriotism, and judgment; but recommend, under the considerations urged, and the suspicious temper of the army, to which they could testify, that the Marshal should annul the proposed interview out of the Russian camp, and invite General Lauriston to one at his own headquarters, as a more becoming and less disquieting proceeding. (WILSON, 188.) Kutusoff at last gave way, the midnight interview was given up, and Lauriston publicly received at the Russian headquarters, where he handed to the Russian commander a letter from Napoleon to the Emperor Alexander, and was told by Kutusoff, that as to concluding an armistice, "he had no authority on that head." This transaction may be said to have rendered inevitable all the horrors of the Moscow retreat. It placed Kutusoff and Sir Robert Wilson in an attitude of almost open hostility, and drew from the Emperor Alexander the following severe instructions to the former :-

"In the interview I had with you at the very moment of your departure, and when I confided my armies to your command, I informed you of my firm desire to avoid all negotiations with the enemy, and all relations with him that tended to

peace. Now, after what has passed, I

must repeat, with the same resolution, that I desire this principle adopted by me to be observed by you to its fullest extent, and in the most rigorous and inflexible manner."-(WILSON, 203.)

From this time until the 19th October, Napoleon lay inactive at Moscow, wasting those moments which never could return, not undervaluing the frightful peril of his position, but hoping to the last that Alexander would accept his terms. Clearly seeing on the one hand the dreadful military difficulty and danger of a retreat, fully appreciating on the other the great political advantage of his position in the capital which he had won, he could not bring his mind to abandon this political vantage-ground, and for the first time in his life to fall back before his enemics. He proposed, indeed, at one time, to

*

leave Moscow, and move with his main army to Weliki Luki in a northwesterly direction on to the St Petersburg road, whence he could at once either support an offensive point to be made upon that capital by the corps of Victor, St Cyr, and half of that of Macdonald (which had been left to guard his flanks and communications at Smolensko and Witepsk); or, in the event of that failing, retire directly upon Poland through Witepsk. But the unanimous opposition of his generals and army at the very mention of an offensive movement caused this to be given up. At last he became convinced that all hope of negotiations was fruitless, and that retreat he must. But the determination was made too late. The hand of fate was already upon him. Whilst he wasted time at Moscow, the vast Russian plan for enveloping and destroying his host was in full progress. Every day increased the numbers and efficiency of Kutusoff's army at Taroutino. The peace with Sweden had rendered disposable the army of Finland; the greater part of it, reinforced by the militia of St Petersburg, was moved up to the support of Count Wittgenstein, who was opposed on the line of the Dwina by the corps of Oudinot and Wrede, and might be reinforced by Victor from Smolensko. Wittgenstein, who would thus have about 50,000 men, was to act vigorously against Oudinot from the north, drive him back from Polotsk over the Dwina, advance to the banks of the Oula, and menace the line of retreat of the French army. Tchichagoff, who commanded the army of Moldavia, also 50,000 strong, rendered disposable by the treaty of peace with Turkey, was ordered up by hasty marches from the banks of the Danube to the marshes of Pinsk on the Polish frontier; he was there to join the force of Tormasoff, which was employed watching Reynier's corps and Schwartzenberg'sAustrians, and drive them back on Poland. Leaving a corps to keep them in check, he was then to march on the line of the Beresina, and establish himself on the important bridge of Borissow, directly on Napoleon's line of retreat.