The Russian army at length halted. Miloradowitch, with sixteen thousand recruits, and a host of peasants, bearing the cross and shouting, "'Tis the will of God!" hastened to join its ranks. We were informed that the enemy were turning up the whole plain of Borodino, and covering it with entrenchments, apparently with the determination of rooting themselves there, and not falling back any further.

Napoleon announced a battle to his army; he allowed it two days to rest, to prepare its arms, and to collect subsistence. He merely warned the detachments sent out in quest of provisions, that "if they did not return the following day, they would deprive themselves of the honour of fighting."

The emperor then endeavoured to obtain some information concerning his new adversary. Kutusof was described to him as an old man, the groundwork of whose reputation had been formerly laid by a singular wound. He had since skilfully profited by circumstances. The very defeat of Austerlitz, which he had foreseen, added to his renown, which was further increased by his late campaigns against the Turks. His valour was incontestable, but he was charged with regulating its vehemence according to his private interest; for he calculated every thing. His genius was slow, vindictive, and, above all, crafty—the true Tartar character!—knowing the art of preparing an implacable war with a fawning, supple, and patient policy.

In other respects, he was more an adroit courtier than an able general: but formidable by his renown, by his address in augmenting it, and in making others concur in this object. He had contrived to flatter the whole nation, and every individual of it, from the general to the private soldier.

It was added, that there was in his person, in his language, nay, even in his very dress, his superstitious practices and his age, a remnant of Suwarrow,—the stamp of an ancient Muscovite, an air of nationality, which rendered him dear to the Russians: at Moscow the joy at his appointment had been carried to intoxication; people embraced one another in the streets, and considered themselves as saved.

When Napoleon had learned these particulars, and given his orders, he awaited the event with that tranquillity of mind peculiar to extraordinary men. He quietly employed himself in exploring the environs of his head-quarters. He remarked the progress of agriculture; but at the sight of the Gjatz, which pours its waters into the Wolga, he who had conquered so many rivers, felt anew the first emotions of his glory: he was heard to boast of being the master of those waves destined to visit Asia,—as if they were proceeding to announce his approach, and to open for him the way to that quarter of the globe.

Murat

Portrait of Murat, King of Naples

On the 4th of September, the army, still divided into three columns, set out from Gjatz and its environs. Murat had gone on a few leagues before. Ever since the arrival of Kutusof, troops of cossacks had been incessantly hovering about the heads of our columns. Murat was exasperated at seeing his cavalry forced to deploy against so feeble an obstacle. We are assured that on that day, from one of those first impulses worthy of the ages of chivalry, he dashed suddenly and alone towards their line, stopped short a few paces from them, and there, sword in hand, made a sign for them to retire, with an air and gesture so commanding, that these barbarians obeyed, and fell back in amazement.

This circumstance, which was related to us immediately, was received without incredulity. The martial air of that monarch, the brilliancy of his chivalrous dress, his reputation, and the novelty of such an action, caused this momentary ascendancy to appear true, in spite of its improbability; for such was Murat, a theatrical monarch by the splendor of his dress, and truly a king by his extraordinary valour and his inexhaustible activity; bold as the attack, and always armed with that air of superiority, that threatening audacity, which is the most dangerous of offensive weapons.

He had not marched long, however, before he was forced to halt. At Griednewa, between Gjatz and Borodino, the high-road suddenly descends into a deep ravine, whence it again rises as suddenly to a spacious height, which Kutusof had ordered Konownitzin to defend. That general at first made a vigorous resistance against the foremost troops of Murat; but as the army closely followed the latter, every moment gave increased energy to the attack, and diminished that of the defence; presently the advanced-guard of the viceroy engaged on the right of the Russians, where a charge by the Italian chasseurs was withstood for a moment by the cossacks, which excited astonishment; they became intermixed.

Platof himself admitted that in this affair an officer was wounded near him, at which he was by no means surprised; but that he nevertheless caused the sorcerer who accompanied him to be flogged before all his cossacks, loudly charging him with laziness for neglecting to turn aside the balls by his conjurations, as he had been expressly directed to do.

Konownitzin was vanquished and retired; on the 5th his bloody track was followed to the vast convent of Kolotskoi,—fortified as habitations were of old in those too highly vaunted Gothic ages, when civil wars were so frequent; when every place, not excepting even these sacred abodes of peace, was transformed into a military post.

Konownitzin, threatened on the right and left, made no other stand either at Kolotskoi or at Golowino; but when the advanced-guard debouched from that village, it beheld the whole plain and the woods infested with cossacks, the rye crops spoiled, the villages sacked; in short, a general destruction. By these signs it recognized the field of battle, which Kutusof was preparing for the grand army. Behind these clouds of Scythians were perceived three villages; they presented a line of a league. The intervals between them, intersected by ravines and wood, were covered with the enemy's riflemen. In the first moment of ardour, some French horse ventured into the midst of these Russians, and were cut off.

Napoleon then appeared on a height, from which he surveyed the whole country, with that eye of a conqueror which sees every thing at once and without confusion; which penetrates through obstacles, sets aside accessaries, discovers the capital point, and fixes it with the look of an eagle, like prey on which he is about to dart with all his might and all his impetuosity.

He knew that, a league before him, at Borodino, the Kologha, a river running in a ravine, along the margin of which he proceeded a few wersts, turned abruptly to the left, and discharged itself into the Moskwa. He guessed that a chain of considerable heights alone could have opposed its course, and so suddenly changed its direction. These were, no doubt, occupied by the enemy's army, and on this side it could not be easily attacked. But the Kologha, both banks of which he followed, while it covered the right of the position, left their left exposed.

The maps of the country were insufficient; at any rate, as the ground necessarily sloped towards the principal stream, which was the most considerable merely from being the lowest, it followed, that the ravines which ran into it must rise, become shallower, and be at length lost, as they receded from the Kologha. Besides, the old road to Smolensk, which ran on its right, sufficiently marked their commencement; why should it have been formerly carried to a distance from the principal stream of water, and consequently from the most habitable places, if not to avoid the ravines and the hills which bordered them?

The demonstrations of the enemy agreed with these inductions of his experience,—no precautions, no resistance in front of their right and their centre; but before their left a great number of troops, a marked solicitude to profit by the slightest accidents of the ground, in order to dispute it, and finally, a formidable redoubt; this was, of course, their weak side, since they covered it with such care. Nay, more; it was on the flank of the high-road, and on that of the grand army, that this redoubt was situated; it was therefore of the utmost importance to carry it, if he would advance: Napoleon gave orders to that effect.

How much the historian is at a loss for words to express the coup d'oeil of a man of genius!

The villages and the woods were immediately occupied; on the left and in the centre were the army of Italy, Compans's division, and Murat; on the right, Poniatowski. The attack was general; for the army of Italy and the Polish army appeared at once on the two wings of the grand imperial column. These three masses drove back the Russian rear-guards upon Borodino, and the whole war was concentrated on a single point.

This curtain being withdrawn, the first Russian redoubt was discovered; too much detached in advance of their position, which it defended without being defended by it. The nature of the ground had compelled the choice of this insulated situation.

Compans skilfully availed himself of the undulations of the ground; its elevations served as platforms to his guns for battering the redoubt, and screened his infantry while drawing up into columns of attack. The 61st marched foremost; the redoubt was taken by a single effort, and with the bayonet; but Bagration sent reinforcements, by which it was retaken. Three times did the 61st recover it from the Russians, and three times was it driven out again; but at length it maintained itself in it, covered with blood and half destroyed.

Next day, when the emperor reviewed that regiment, he inquired where was its third battalion? "In the redoubt," was the reply of the colonel. But the affair did not stop there; a neighbouring wood still swarmed with Russian light troops, who sallied every moment from this retreat to renew their attacks, which were supported by three divisions: at length the attack of Schewardino by Morand, and of the woods of Elnia by Poniatowski, completely disheartened the troops of Bagration, and Murat's cavalry cleared the plain. It was chiefly the firmness of a Spanish regiment that foiled the enemy; they at last gave way, and that redoubt, which had been their advanced post, became ours.

At the same time the emperor assigned its place to each corps; the rest of the army formed in line, and a general discharge of musketry, accompanied at intervals with that of a few cannon, ensued. It continued till each party had fixed its limit, and darkness had rendered their fire uncertain.

One of Davoust's regiments then sought to take its rank in the first line. Owing to the darkness, it passed beyond it, and got into the midst of the Russian cuirassiers, who attacked it, threw it into disorder, took from it three pieces of cannon, and killed or took three hundred men. The rest immediately fell into platoons, forming a shapeless mass, but making so formidable a resistance, that the enemy could not again break it; and this regiment, with diminished numbers, finally regained its place in the line of battle.