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This curtain being withdrawn, the first Russian redoubt was discovered; too much detached in advance of their position, which it defended without being defended by it.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.