Although General Barclay de Tolly was a military man of great reputation, yet as he had met with reverses at the beginning of the campaign, the general opinion designated as his successor, a general of great renown, Prince Kutusow; he took the command fifteen days before the entry of the French into Moscow, but he got to the army only six days before the great battle which took place almost at the gates of that city, at Borodino.  I went to see him the day before his departure; he was an old man of the most graceful manners, and lively physiognomy, although he had lost an eye by one of the numerous wounds he had received in the course of a fifty years’ service.  On looking at him, I was afraid that he had not sufficient strength to struggle with the rough young men who were pouncing upon Russia from all corners of Europe:  but the Russian courtiers at Petersburg become Tartars at the army:  and we have seen by Suwarow that neither age nor honors can enervate their physical and moral energy.  I was moved at taking leave of this illustrious Marshal Kutusow; I knew not whether I was embracing a conqueror or a martyr, but I saw that he had the fullest sense of the grandeur of the cause in which he was employed.  It was for the defence, or rather for the restoration of all the moral virtues which man owes to Christianity, of all the dignity he derives from God, of all the independence which he is allowed by nature; it was for the rescuing of all these advantages from the clutches of one man, for the French are as little to be accused as the Germans and Italians who followed his train, of the crimes of his armies.  Before his departure, Marshal Kutusow went to offer up prayers in the church of Our Lady of Casan, and all the people who followed his steps, called out to him to be the saviour of Russia.  What a moment for a mortal being!  His age gave him no hope of surviving the fatigues of the campaign; but there are moments when man has a wish to die for the satisfaction of his soul.  Certain of the generous opinions and of the noble conduct of the Prince of Sweden, I was more than ever confirmed in the resolution of going to Stockholm, previous to embarking for England; towards the end of September I quitted Petersburg to repair to Sweden through Finland.  My new friends, those whom a community of sentiment had brought about me, came to bid me adieu; Sir Robert Wilson, who seeks every where an opportunity of fighting, and inflaming his friends by his spirit:  M. de Stein, a man of antique character, who only lived in the hope of seeing the deliverance of his country; the Spanish envoy; and the English minister, Lord Tyrconnel; the witty Admiral Bentinck; Alexis de Noailles, the only French emigrant from the imperial tyranny, the only one who was there, like me, to bear witness for France; Colonel Dornberg, that intrepid Hessian whom nothing has turned from the object of his pursuit; and several Russians, whose names have been since celebrated by their exploits.  Never was the fate of the world