which mustered 30,000 in the morning, only 8000 survived.  These men had fought in close order, and unshaken, under the fire of eighty pieces of artillery.  The result of this terrible day was, that Buonaparte withdrew his troops and abandoned all hope of forcing his way through the Russians.  In no contest by many degrees so desperate had he hitherto been engaged.  Night found either army on the ground they had occupied at daybreak.  The number of guns and prisoners taken by the French and the Russians was about equal; and of either host there had fallen not less than 40,000 men.  Some accounts raise the gross number of the slain to 100,000.  Such was the victory in honour of which Napoleon created Marshal Ney Prince of Moskwa.

Buonaparte, when advised by his generals, towards the conclusion of the day, to bring forward his own guard and hazard one final attack at their head, answered, “And if my guard fail, what means should I have for renewing the battle to-morrow?” The Russian commander, on the other hand, appears to have spared nothing to prolong the contest.—­During the night after, his cavalry made several attempts to break into the enemy’s lines; and it was only on receiving the reports of his regimental officers in the morning, that Kutusoff perceived the necessity of retiring until he should be further recruited.  His army was the mainstay of his country:  on its utter dissolution his master might have found it very difficult to form another; but while it remained perfect in its organisation, the patriotic population of the empire were sure to fill up readily every vacancy in its ranks.  Having ascertained then the extent of his loss, and buried his dead (among whom was the gallant Bagrathion) with great solemnity,—­the Russian slowly and calmly withdrew from his intrenchments, and marched on Mojaisk.  Napoleon was so fortunate as to be joined exactly at this time by two fresh divisions from Smolensko, which nearly restored his muster to what it had been when the battle began; and, thus reinforced, commanded the pursuit to be vigorously urged.  On the 9th, the French van came in sight of the Russian rear again, and Buonaparte prepared for battle.  But next morning Kutusoff had masked his march so effectually, by scattering clouds of Cossacks in every direction around the French, that down to the 12th the invader remained uncertain whether he had retreated on Kalouga, or directly to the capital.  The latter he, at length, found to be the case; and on the 14th of September Napoleon reached the Hill of Salvation; so named because from that eminence the Russian traveller obtains his first view of the ancient metropolis, affectionately called “Mother Moscow,” and hardly less sacred in his eyes than Jerusalem.  The soldiery beheld with joy and exultation the magnificent extent of the place; its mixture of Gothic steeples and Oriental domes; the vast and splendid mansions of the haughty boyards, embosomed in trees; and, high over all the rest, the huge towers of the Kremlin, at once the palace and the citadel of the old Czars.  The cry of “Moscow!  Moscow!” ran through the lines.  Napoleon himself reined in his horse and exclaimed, “Behold at last that celebrated city!” He added, after a brief pause, “it was time.”