eally was.

On the 27th, so little had he recovered from his error that he made his
chasseurs reconnoitre and attack Borizof; they crossed over upon the
beams of the burnt bridge, but were repulsed by the soldiers of
Partouneaux's division.

On the same day, while he was thus irresolute, Napoleon, with about five
thousand guards, and Ney's corps, now reduced to six hundred men,
crossed the Berezina about two o'clock in the afternoon; he posted
himself in reserve to Oudinot, and secured the outlet from the bridges
against Tchitchakof's future efforts.

He had been preceded by a crowd of baggage and stragglers. Numbers of
them continued to cross the river after him as long as daylight lasted.
The army of Victor, at the same time, succeeded the guard in its
position on the heights of Studzianka.

CHAP. VII.

Hitherto all had gone on well. But Victor, in passing through Borizof,
had left there Partouneaux with his division. That general had orders to
stop the enemy in the rear of that town, to drive before him the
numerous stragglers who had taken shelter there, and to rejoin Victor
before the close of the day. It was the first time that Partouneaux had
seen the disorder of the grand army. He was anxious, like Davoust at the
beginning of the retreat, to hide the traces of it from the Cossacks of
Kutusoff, who were at his heels. This fruitless attempt, the attacks of
Platof by the high road of Orcha, and those of Tchitchakof by the burnt
bridge of Borizof, detained him in that place until the close of the
day.

He was preparing to quit it, when an order reached him from the Emperor
himself, to remain there all night. Napoleon's idea, no doubt, was, in
that manner to direct the whole attention of the three Russian generals
upon Borizof, and that Partouneaux's keeping them back upon that point,
would allow him sufficient time to operate the passage of his whole
army.

But Wittgenstein left Platof to pursue the French army along the high
road, and directed his own march more to the right. He debouched the
same evening on the heights which border the Berezina, between Borizof
and Studzianka, intercepted the road between these two points, and
captured all that was found there. A crowd of stragglers, who were
driven back on Partouneaux, apprised him that he was separated from the
rest of the army.

Partouneaux did not hesitate: although he had no more than three cannon
with him, and three thousand five hundred s