been flat hitherto. The
Borodino, running in a wider valley than many of these rivers, which are
merely great ditches, seemed to offer possibilities of defence. It was
the only hope for Moscow.

"At last," wrote Charles to Desiree on September 6, "we are to have a
great battle. There has been much fighting the last few days, but I have
seen none of it. We are only eighty miles from Moscow. If there is a
great battle to-morrow we shall see Moscow in less than a week. For
we shall win. I have now found out from one who is near him that
the Emperor saw and remembered me the day he passed us in the
Frauengasse--our wedding-day, dearest. Nobody is too insignificant for
him to know. He thought that my marriage to you (for he knows that you
are French) would militate against the work I had been given to do in
Dantzig, so he gave orders for me to be sent at once to Konigsberg and
to continue the work there. De Casimir tells me that the Emperor is
pleased with me. De Casimir is the best friend I have; I am sure of
that. It is said that under the walls of Moscow the Emperor will dictate
his terms to Alexander. Every one wonders that Alexander of Russia did
not make proposals of peace when Vilna and Smolensk fell. In a week we
may be at Moscow. In a month I may be back at Dantzig, Desiree...."

And the rest would have been for Desiree's eyes alone, had it ever been
penned. For next in sacredness to heaven-inspired words are mere human
love letters; and those who read the love-letters of another commit a
sacrilege. But Charles never finished the letter, for the dawn surprised
him where he wrote in a shed by the miserable Kalugha, a streamlet
running to the Moskwa. And it was the dawn of September 7, 1812.

"There is the sun of Austerlitz," said Napoleon to those who were near
him when it arose. But it was not. It was the sun of Borodino. And
before it set the great battle desired by the French had been fought,
and eight French generals lay dead, while thirty more were wounded.
Murat, Davoust, Ney, Junot, Prince Eugene, Napoleon himself--all were
there; and all fought to finish a war which from the first had been
disliked. The French claimed it as a victory; but they gained nothing by
it, and they lost forty thousand killed and wounded.

During the night the Russians evacuated the position which they had
held, and lost, and retaken. They retreated towards Moscow, but Napoleon
was hardly ready to pursue.

These things, however,