Belliard, in consternation, returned to the king of Naples, and informed him of the impossibility of obtaining the reserve from the emperor; he said, “he had found him still seated in the same place, with a suffering and dejected air, his features sunk, and a dull look; giving his orders languishingly, in the midst of these dreadful warlike noises, to which he seemed completely a stranger!” At this account, Ney, furious and hurried away by his ardent and unmeasured character, exclaimed, “Are we then come so far, to be satisfied with a field of battle?  What business has the emperor in the rear of the army?  There, he is only within reach of reverses, and not of victory.  Since he will no longer make war himself, since he is no longer the general, as he wishes to be the emperor every where, let him return to the Tuilleries, and leave us to be generals for him!”

Murat was more calm; he recollected having seen the emperor the day before, as he was riding along, observing that part of the enemy’s line, halt several times, dismount, and with his head resting upon the cannon, remain there some time in the attitude of suffering.  He knew what a restless night he had passed, and that a violent and incessant cough cut short his breathing.  The king guessed that fatigue, and the first attacks of the equinox, had shaken his weakened frame, and that in short, at that critical moment, the action of his genius was in a manner chained down by his body; which had sunk under the triple load of fatigue, of fever, and of a malady which, probably, more than any other, prostrates the moral and physical strength of its victims.

Still, farther incitements were not wanting; for shortly after Belliard, Daru, urged by Dumas, and particularly by Berthier, said in a low voice to the emperor, “that from all sides it was the cry that the moment for sending the guard was now come.”  To which Napoleon replied, “And if there should be another battle to-morrow, where is my army?” The minister urged no farther, surprised to see, for the first time, the emperor putting off till the morrow, and adjourning his victory.

CHAPTER XI.

Barclay, however, with the right, kept up a most obstinate struggle with Prince Eugene.  The latter, immediately after the capture of Borodino, passed the Kologha in the face of the enemy’s great redoubt.  There, particularly, the Russians had calculated upon their steep heights, encompassed by deep and muddy ravines, upon our exhaustion, upon their entrenchments, defended by heavy artillery, and upon 80 pieces of cannon, planted on the borders of these banks, bristling with fire and flames!  But all these elements, art, and nature, every thing failed them at once:  assailed by a first burst of that French fury, which has been so celebrated, they saw Morand’s soldiers appear suddenly in the midst of them, and fled in disorder.

Eighteen hundred men of the 30th regiment, with general Bonnamy at their head, had just made that great effort.