“Now,” continued he, “my line is well covered; we will stop here:  behind this rampart, I can rally my troops, let them rest, receive reinforcements, and our supplies from Dantzic.  Thus the whole of Poland is conquered and defended; this is a sufficient result; it is gathering, in two months, the fruit that might be expected only from two years of war:  it is therefore sufficient.  Betwixt this and the spring, we must organize Lithuania, and recompose an invincible army; then, if peace should not come to seek us in our winter quarters, we will go and conquer it at Moscow.”

He then told the marshal in confidence, that his motive for ordering him to proceed beyond Smolensk, was only to drive off the Russians to the distance of a few marches; but he strictly forbade him to involve himself in any serious affair.  At the same time, it is true, he committed the vanguard to Murat and to Ney, the two rashest of his officers; and, unknown to Davoust, he placed that prudent and methodical marshal under the command of the impetuous king of Naples.  Thus his mind seemed to be wavering between two great resolutions, and the contradictions in his words were communicated to his actions.  In this internal conflict, however, it was remarked, what an ascendence his enterprising genius had over his prudence, and how the former so disposed matters as to give birth to circumstances which must necessarily hurry him away.

CHAP.  VII.

Meanwhile the Russians still defended the suburb on the right bank of the Dnieper.  On our side, the 18th, and the night of the 19th, were employed in rebuilding the bridges.  On the 19th of August, before day, Ney crossed the river by the light of the suburb, which was on fire.  At first, he saw there no enemies but the flames, and he began to climb the long and rugged declivity on which it stands.  His troops proceeded slowly and with caution, making a thousand circuits to avoid the fire.  The Russians had managed it with skill:  it met our men at every point, and obstructed the principal avenues.

Ney, and the foremost of his soldiers, advanced in silence into this labyrinth of flames, with anxious eye and attentive ear, not knowing but that the Russians might be waiting on the summit of the steep, to pour suddenly upon them, to overthrow and drive them back into the flames and the river.  But they breathed more freely, relieved from the weight of a great apprehension, when they perceived on the crest of the ravine, at the branching-off of the roads to Petersburgh and Moscow, nothing but a band of cossacks, who immediately fled by those two roads.  Having neither prisoners nor inhabitants, nor spies, the ground was, as at Witepsk, the only thing they could interrogate.  But the enemy had left as many traces in one direction as in the other, so that the marshal paused in uncertainty between the two until mid-day.