g to tempt
the enemy to cross, intending to give them battle before all had made
the passage; but Napoleon kept his troops in hand, except that his
artillery maintained a fire to the right against the Russians. At eight
o'clock in the evening some skirmishers crossed the river, and fires
shortly broke out in St. Petersburg, and in an hour several hundred
houses, extending for a mile along the river, were in a blaze, while
those in Smolensk were still burning fiercely. At night the Russians
again fell back. The direct road lay parallel with the river, but as it
was commanded by the enemy's guns General Barclay directed the force,
divided into two columns, to march by cross roads. These led over two
steep hills, and, owing to the harness breaking, these roads soon became
blocked, and the march was discontinued till daylight enabled the
drivers to get the five hundred guns and the ammunition trains up the
hills.

The French, finding that the Russian army was going off, crossed the
river in force and furiously attacked their rear-guard, and tried to
penetrate between it and the main body of the army, but Prince Eugene's
division was sent back to assist General Korf, who commanded there. In
the meantime two columns of the French moved along the main road to
Moscow with the evident intention of heading the Russian army at
Loubino, the point where the cross road by which they were travelling
came into it. This they might have accomplished owing to the much
shorter distance they had to travel and the delays caused by the
difficulty of getting the guns over the hills, but a small Russian
corps under Touchkoff had been sent forward to cover that point. Ney had
crossed the river early by two bridges he had thrown over it, and
Touchkoff, as he saw this force pressing along the main road, took up a
position where he covered Loubino, and for some hours repulsed all the
efforts of the French to pass.

At three o'clock the pressure upon Touchkoff became so severe that
several regiments from Barclay's column, which was passing safely along
while he kept the road open for them, were sent to his assistance, and
the fight continued. Napoleon believed that the whole Russian force had
taken post at Loubino, and sent forward reinforcements to Ney. The woods
were so thick that it was some time before these reached him, the guns
of one of the columns being obliged to go a mile and a half through a
wood before they could turn, so dense was the