h to Borizoff that the news of
the fall of Minsk[174] became generally known in the army. The leaders
themselves now began to look around them with consternation; and, after
witnessing such a succession of frightful spectacles their imagination
depicted a still more fatal futurity. In their private conversation they
did not hesitate to say that, "like Charles XII. in Russia, Napoleon had
carried his army to Moscow only to destroy it."

Deploring, then, the rash obstinacy of the stay at Moscow, and the fatal
hesitation at Malo-jaroslavetz, they proceeded to reckon up their
losses. Since their departure from Moscow they had lost all their
baggage, five hundred cannon, thirty-one standards, twenty-seven
generals, forty thousand prisoners, and sixty thousand dead: all that
remained were forty thousand unarmed stragglers and eight thousand
effective soldiers.

With respect to the loss of Minsk the governor of that place had been
negligently chosen. He was, it was said, one of those men who undertake
everything, who promise everything, and who do nothing. On the 16th of
November he lost that capital, and with it four thousand seven hundred
sick, the warlike stores, and two million rations of provisions. It was
five days since the news of this loss had reached Dombrowna, and the
news of a still greater calamity came on the heels of it.

This same governor had retreated towards Borizoff. There he neglected to
inform Oudinot, who was only at the distance of two marches, to come to
his assistance; and failed to support Dombrowski, who made a hasty march
thither: the result was that the latter was overpowered by the fire of
the Russian artillery, which took him in flank, and, attacked by a force
more than double his own, he was driven across the river, and out of the
town as far as the Moscow road.

This disaster was wholly unexpected by Napoleon. Finally, when the
emperor learned at Dombrowna the loss of Minsk, he had no suspicion that
Borizoff was in such imminent danger, as when he passed the next day
through Orcha he had the whole of his bridge-equipage burned.

It was on the day immediately subsequent to that fatal catastrophe, at
the distance of three marches from Borizoff, and upon the high road,
that an officer arrived and announced to Napoleon this fresh disaster.
The emperor, striking the ground with his stick, and casting a furious
look to heaven, pronounced these words: "Is it, then, written above that
we shall no