It was true that the Russian army of Moldavia had just formed a junction with the remnant of the army of Volhynia; that Tchitchakof, an active and resolute general, had assumed the command of fifty-five thousand Russians; that the Austrian had paused and even thought it prudent, on the 23d of September, to retire behind the Bug; but he was to have recrossed that river at Bresk-litowsky, and Napoleon knew no more.

At any rate, without a defection, which it was too late to foresee, and which a precipitate return could alone prevent, he flattered himself that Schwartzenberg, Regnier, Durutte, Dombrowski, and twenty thousand men, divided between Minsk, Slonim, Grodno, and Wilna—­in short, that seventy thousand men; would not allow sixty thousand Russians to gain possession of his magazines and to cut off his retreat.

CHAP.  VI.

Napoleon, reduced to such hazardous conjectures, arrived quite pensive at Vereia, when Mortier presented himself before him.  But I perceive that, hurried along, just as we then were, by the rapid succession of violent scenes and memorable events, my attention has been diverted from a fact worthy of notice.  On the 23d of October, at half-past one in the morning, the air was shaken by a tremendous explosion which for a moment astonished both armies, though amid such mighty expectations scarcely any thing now excited astonishment.

Mortier had obeyed his orders; the Kremlin was no more:  barrels of powder had been placed in all the halls of the palace of the Czars, and one hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds under the vaults which supported them.  The marshal, with eight thousand men, had remained on this volcano, which a Russian howitzer-shell might have exploded.  Here he covered the march of the army upon Kalouga and the retreat of our different convoys towards Mojaisk.

Among these eight thousand men there were scarcely two thousand on whom Mortier could rely:  the others were dismounted cavalry, men of different countries and regiments, under new officers, without similar habits, without common recollections, in short, without any bond of union, who formed rather a rabble than an organized body; they could scarcely fail in a short time to disperse.

This marshal was looked upon as a devoted victim.  The other chiefs, his old companions in glory, had left him with tears in their eyes, as well as the Emperor, who said to him, “that he relied on his good fortune; but still in war we must sometimes make part of a fire.”  Mortier had resigned himself without hesitation.  His orders were to defend the Kremlin, and on retreating to blow it up, and to burn what yet remained of the city.  It was from the castle of Krasnopachra, on the 21st of October, that Napoleon had sent him his last orders.  After executing them, Mortier was to march upon Vereia and to form the rear-guard of the army.