The Emperor wished first to secure this advantage by his presence; the order to march was even given, but withdrawn, we know not why.  He passed the whole of that evening on horseback, not far from Borowsk, on the left of the road, the side on which he supposed Kutusoff to be.  He reconnoitred the ground in the midst of a heavy rain, as if he anticipated that it might become a field of battle.  Next day, the 24th, he learned that the Russians had disputed the possession of Malo-Yaroslawetz with Delzons.  Owing either to confidence or uncertainty in his plans, this intelligence gave him very little concern.

He quitted Borowsk, therefore, late and leisurely, when the noise of a very smart engagement reached where he was; he then became uneasy, hastened to an eminence and listened.  “Had the Russians anticipated him?  Was his manoeuvre thwarted?  Had he not used sufficient expedition in that march, the object of which was to pass the left flank of Kutusoff?”

In reality there was in this whole movement a little of that torpor which succeeds a long repose.  Moscow is but one hundred and ten wersts from Malo-Yaroslawetz; four days would have been sufficient to go that distance; we took six.  The army, laden with provisions and pillage, was heavy, and the roads were deep.  A whole day had been sacrificed to the passage of the Nara and its morass, as also to the rallying of the different corps.  It is true that in defiling so near the enemy it was necessary to march close, that we might not present to him too long a flank.  Be this as it may, we may date all our calamities from that delay.

The Emperor was still listening; the noise increased.  “Is it then a battle?” he exclaimed.  Every discharge agitated him, for the chief point with him was no longer to conquer, but to preserve, and he urged on Davoust, who accompanied him; but he and that marshal did not reach the field of battle till dark, when the firing was subsiding and the whole was over.

The Emperor saw the end of the battle, but without being able to assist the viceroy.  A band of Cossacks from Twer had nearly captured one of his officers, who was only a very short distance from him.

It was not till then that an officer, sent by Prince Eugene, came to him to explain the whole affair.  “The troops had,” he said, “in the first place, been obliged to cross the Louja at the foot of Malo-Yaroslawetz, at the bottom of an elbow which the river makes in its course; and then to climb a steep hill:  it is on this rapid declivity, broken by pointed crags, that the town is built.  Beyond is an elevated plain, surrounded with wood from which run three roads, one in front, coming from Kalouga, and two on the left, from Lectazowo, the entrenched camp of Kutusoff.

“On the preceding day Delzons found no enemy there; but he did not think it prudent to place his whole division in the upper town, beyond a river and a defile, and on the margin of a precipice, down which it might have been thrown by a nocturnal surprise.  He remained, therefore, on the low bank of the Louja, sending only two battalions to occupy the town and to watch the elevated plain.