This army had left Moscow one hundred thousand strong; in five-and-twenty days it had been reduced to thirty-six thousand men.  The artillery had already lost three hundred and fifty of their cannon, and yet these feeble remains were always divided into eight armies, which were encumbered with sixty thousand unarmed stragglers, and a long train of cannon and baggage.

Whether it was this incumbrance of so many men and carriages, or a mistaken sense of security, which led the Emperor to order a day’s interval between the departure of each marshal, is uncertain; most probably it was the latter.  Be that as it may, he, Eugene, Davoust, and Ney only quitted Smolensk in succession; Ney was not to leave it till the 16th or 17th.  He had orders to make the artillery saw the trunnions of the cannon left behind, and bury them; to destroy the ammunition, to drive all the stragglers before him, and to blow up the towers which surrounded the city.

Kutusoff, meanwhile, was waiting for us at some leagues distance from thence, and preparing to cut in pieces successively those remnants of corps thus extended and parcelled out.

CHAP.  III.

It was on the 14th of November, about five in the morning, that the imperial column at last quitted Smolensk.  Its march was still firm, but gloomy and silent as night, and mute and discoloured as the aspect of the country through which it was advancing.

This silence was only interrupted by the cracking of the whips applied to the poor horses, and by short and violent imprecations when they met with ravines; and when upon these icy declivities, men, horses, and artillery were rolling in obscurity, one over the other.  The first day they advanced five leagues.  The artillery of the guard took twenty-two hours to get over that ground.

Nevertheless, this first column arrived, without any great loss of men, at Korythinia, which Junot had passed with his Westphalian corps, now reduced to seven hundred men.  A vanguard had pushed on as far as Krasnoe.  The wounded and disbanded men were on the point of reaching Liady.  Korythinia is five leagues from Smolensk; Krasnoe five leagues from Korythinia; Liady four leagues from Krasnoe.  The Boristhenes flows at two leagues on the right of the high road from Korythinia to Krasnoe.

Near Korythinia another road, that from Elnia to Krasnoe, runs close to the great road.  That very day Kutusoff advanced upon that road with ninety thousand men, which completely covered it; his march was parallel with that of Napoleon, whom he soon outstripped; on the cross-roads he sent forward several vanguards to intercept our retreat.

One of these, said to be commanded by Ostermann, made its appearance at Korythinia at the same time with Napoleon, and was driven back.

A second, consisting of twenty thousand men, and commanded by Miloradowitch, took a position three leagues in advance of us, towards Merlino and Nikoulina, behind a ravine which skirts the left side of the great road; and there, lying in ambush on the flank of our retreat, it awaited our passage.