Notwithstanding, it appeared as if Miloradowitch, from his elevated position, was satisfied with merely insulting the passage of the Emperor, and of that old guard which had been so long the terror of Europe.  He did not dare to gather up its fragments until it had passed on; but then he became bold, concentrated his forces, and descending from the heights, took up a strong position with twenty thousand men, quite across the high road; by this movement he separated Eugene, Davoust, and Ney from the Emperor, and closed the road to Europe against these three leaders.

CHAP.  IV.

While he was making these preparations, Eugene was using all his efforts at Smolensk to collect his scattered troops; with great difficulty he tore them from the plunder of the magazines, and he did not succeed in rallying eight thousand men until late on the 15th of November.  He was obliged to promise them supplies of provisions, and to show them the road to Lithuania, in order to induce them to renew their march.  Night compelled him to halt at three leagues distance from Smolensk; the half of his soldiers had already left their ranks.  Next morning he continued his march, with all that the cold of the night and of death had not fastened round their bivouacs.

The noise of the cannon which they had heard the day before had ceased; the royal column was advancing with difficulty, adding its own fragments to those which it encountered.  At its head, the viceroy and the chief of his staff, buried in their own melancholy reflections, gave the reins to their horses.  Insensibly they left their troop behind them, without being sensible of it; for the road was strewed with stragglers and men marching at their pleasure, the idea of keeping whom in order had been abandoned.

In this way they advanced to within two leagues of Krasnoe, but then a singular movement which was passing before them attracted their absent looks.  Several of the disbanded soldiers had suddenly halted; those who followed as they came up, formed a group with them; others who had advanced farther fell back upon the first; they crowded together; a mass was soon formed.  The viceroy surprised, then looked about him; he perceived that he had got the start of the main body of his army by an hour’s march:  that he had about him only fifteen hundred men of all ranks, of all nations, without organization, without leaders, without order, without arms ready or fit for an engagement, and that he was summoned to surrender.

This summons was answered by a general cry of indignation!  But the Russian flag of truce, who presented himself singly, insisted:  “Napoleon and his guard,” said he to them, “have been beaten; you are surrounded by twenty thousand Russians:  you have no means of safety but in accepting honourable conditions, and these Miloradowitch proposes to you.”

At these words, Guyon, one of the generals whose soldiers were either all dead or dispersed, rushed from the crowd, and with a loud voice called out, “Return immediately to whence you came, and tell him who sent you, that if he has twenty thousand men, we have eighty thousand!” The Russian, confounded, immediately retired.