, Napoleon at two o'clock gave orders
for a general assault, and the whole of the French troops advanced
against the suburbs. The attack of Ney's corps was directed against the
Krasnoi suburb, which faced them, and against an advanced work known as
the citadel. For two hours a terrible struggle went on. The Russians
defended all the suburbs with desperate tenacity, every house and garden
was the scene of a fierce encounter, men fought with bayonet and clubbed
muskets, the cannon thundered on the heights, and Poniatowski
established sixty guns on a hill on the French right, but a short
distance from the river, and with these opened fire upon the bridges. It
seemed that these must soon be destroyed, and the retreat of the Russian
troops in Smolensk entirely cut off. In a short time, however, the
Russians on the other side of the river planted a number of guns on a
rise of equal height to that occupied by Poniatowski's artillery, and as
their guns took his battery in flank, he was ere long forced to withdraw
it from the hill.

[Illustration: PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF SMOLENSK.]

It was only after two hours' fighting that the Russians withdrew from
the suburbs into the town itself, and as the bridges across the river
had not suffered greatly from the fire of the great French battery,
Barclay sent Prince Eugene of Wurtemberg across to reinforce the
garrison. As soon as the Russians retired into the town a hundred and
fifty guns opened fire on the wall to effect a breach, and at five a
desperate assault was made upon one of the gates, which was for a moment
captured, but Prince Eugene charged forward with his division and
recaptured it at the point of the bayonet. The French shell and grape
swept the streets and set fire to the town in a score of places, and
several of the wooden roofs of the towers upon the wall were also in
flames. After a pause for a couple of hours the French again made a
serious and desperate assault, but the Russians sternly held their
ground, and at seven o'clock made a sortie from behind the citadel, and
drove the French out of the Krasnoi suburb. At nine the cannonade
ceased. The French fell back to the position from which they had moved
in the morning, and the Russians reoccupied the covered ways in front of
the wall to prevent a sudden attack during the night.

"What did I tell you, Jules?" the old sergeant said mournfully, when the
shattered remains of the regiment fell out and proceeded to cook the