Their determined countenance, in a strong position, and in front of a capital, deceived Napoleon; he conceived that they would regard it as a point of honour to maintain their ground.  It was only eleven o’clock; he ordered the attack to cease, in order to have an opportunity of exploring the whole front of the line, and preparing for a decisive battle on the following day.  In the first instance, he proceeded to post himself on a rising ground among the light troops, in the midst of whom he breakfasted.  Thence he observed the enemy’s army, a ball from which wounded an officer very near him.  The subsequent hours he spent in reconnoitring the ground, and in waiting for the arrival of the other corps.

Napoleon announced a battle for the following day.  His parting words to Murat were these:—­“To-morrow at five o’clock, the sun of Austerlitz!” They explain the cause of that suspension of hostilities in the middle of the day, in the midst of a success which filled the army with enthusiasm.  They were astonished at this inactivity at the moment of overtaking an army, the pursuit of which had completely exhausted them.  Murat, who had been daily deluded by a similar expectation, remarked to the emperor that Barclay only made a demonstration of boldness at that hour, in order to be enabled more tranquilly to effect his retreat during the night.  Finding himself unable to convince his chief, he rashly proceeded to pitch his tent on the banks of the Luczissa, almost in the midst of the enemy.  It was a position which gratified his desire of hearing the first symptoms of their retreat, his hope of disturbing it, and his adventurous character.

Murat was deceived, and yet he appeared to have been most clear-sighted; Napoleon was in the right, and yet, the event placed him in the wrong; such are the freaks of fortune!  The emperor of the French had correctly appreciated the designs of Barclay.  The Russian general, believing Bagration to be still near Orcha, had resolved upon fighting, in order to give him time to rejoin him.  It was the intelligence which he received that very evening, of the retreat of Bagration by Novoi-Bikof towards Smolensk, which suddenly changed his determination.

In fact, by daybreak on the 28th, Murat sent word to the emperor that he was about to pursue the Russians, who had already disappeared.  Napoleon still persisted in his opinion, obstinately affirming that the whole enemy’s army was in front of him, and that it was necessary to advance with circumspection; this occasioned a considerable delay.  At length he mounted his horse; every step he took destroyed his illusion; and he soon found himself in the midst of the camp which Barclay had just deserted.

Every thing about it exhibited the science of war; its advantageous site; the symmetry of all its parts; the exact and exclusive nicety in the use to which each of them had been destined; the order and neatness which thence resulted; in fine, nothing left behind, not one weapon, nor a single valuable; no trace, nothing in short, in this sudden nocturnal march, which could demonstrate, beyond the bounds of the camp, the route which the Russians had taken; there appeared more order in their defeat, than in our victory!  Though conquered, their flight left us lessons by which conquerors never profit; whether it be that good fortune is contemptuous, or that it waits for misfortune to correct it.