es southeast
of the Niemen.

Napoleon himself, at the head of one of the three divisions, with a
force of over two hundred thousand, crossed the river at Kowno on the
23d of June, and began his march for Wilna.[126] The weather was
intensely hot, and in the course of a few weeks many thousand men fell
out of the ranks through sickness and fatigue, and great numbers of
horses died. The French hoped to encounter the Russian forces in a
decisive battle before advancing far into the country. But it was the
policy of the Czar not to fight, but to keep falling back, destroying
all supplies as fast as he retreated, and so compelling the French to
depend wholly upon their own resources.

Napoleon himself confessed that the Russians had the advantage. They, he
said, would be animated by love of their native land to repel invasion,
and all private and public interests would unite them. The French, on
the other hand, had nothing to urge them on but the love of conquest and
of glory, without even the hope of plunder, for in those desolate
regions there was nothing they could seize.

The first real encounter was at Smolensk, a walled city on the Dnieper,
about half way between Wilna and the ancient capital of Russia. After a
day of hard fighting, the Russians fired the city and abandoned it. The
French entered the smoking ruins. They were victors, but such a victory
was almost as disheartening as a defeat. From that place a weary
seven-days march brought the Grand Army to the village of Borodino, on
the banks of the Kologa, a tributary of the Moskwa.[127] Here the
Russian general, Kutusoff, had determined to make a stand in defence of
that holy city of Moscow, not many leagues distant, for which every
peasant stood ready to lay down his life. The result of the battle was
in favor of Napoleon, but it cost him the lives of thirty thousand men
to gain it; and though the Russians lost double that number, they knew
that the time was coming when the elements and the great barren spaces
of their country would fight for them. This was the 7th of September.
From that date the Russians resumed their old tactics and continued to
slowly retreat, burning the villages and the crops as they fell back. At
length, at noon of the 14th, the French emperor came in sight of "the
city of the Czars."

What followed from that time until Napoleon, baffled and beaten, reached
Paris, leaving the wreck of the Grand Army behind him, may best be
learned fro