chagoff from the Danube, had been able (as we have
already hinted) to bear down all the opposition of Schwartzenberg and
Regnier; had driven their forces before them, and taken possession of
Napoleon's great depot, Minsk, from which they might hope ere long to
communicate with Witgenstein. The armies of Witgenstein and Tchichagoff,
then, were about to be in communication with each other, and in
possession of those points at which Napoleon was most likely to attempt
his escape from Smolensko, into Poland; while the main army itself,
having advanced side by side with the French, was now stationed to the
south-west of Smolensko, in readiness to break the enemy's march
whenever Kutusoff should choose; Milarodowitch, finally, and Platoff,
were hanging close behind, and thinning every hour the miserable bands
who had no longer heart, nor, for the most part, arms of any kind
wherewith to resist them. But the whole extent of these misfortunes was
not known to any one of the French generals, nor even to Napoleon
himself, at the time when Beauharnois and Ney at length entered
Smolensko.

The name of that town had hitherto been the only spell that preserved
any hope within the soldiers of the retreat. There, they had been told,
they should find food, clothing, and supplies of all sorts: and there,
being once more assembled under the eye of the Emperor, speedily
reassume an aspect, such as none of the northern barbarians would dare
to brave.

But these expectations were cruelly belied. Smolensko had been, as we
have seen, almost entirely destroyed by the Russians in the early part
of the campaign. Its ruined walls afforded only a scanty shelter to the
famished and shivering fugitives; and the provisions assembled there
were so inadequate to the demands of the case, that after the lapse of a
few days, Buonaparte found himself under the necessity of once more
renewing his disastrous march. He had, as yet, received no intelligence
of the capture of Minsk by Tchichagoff. It was in that direction,
accordingly, that he resolved to force his passage into Poland.

Although the grand army had mustered 120,000 when it left Moscow, and
the fragments of various divisions besides had met the Emperor at
Smolensko, it was with great difficulty that 40,000 men could now be
brought together in anything like fighting condition. These Napoleon
divided into four columns, nearly equal in numbers: of the first, which
included 6000 of the imperial gua