oldiers, he determined to cut
his way through, made his dispositions accordingly, and began his march.
He had at first to march along a slippery road, crowded with baggage and
runaways; with a violent wind blowing directly in his face, and in a
dark and icy-cold night. To these obstacles were shortly added the fire
of several thousand enemies, who lined the heights upon his right. As
long as he was only attacked in flank, he proceeded; but shortly after,
he had to meet it in front from numberless troops well posted, whose
bullets traversed his column through and through.

This unfortunate division then got entangled in a shallow; a long file
of five or six hundred carriages embarrassed all its movements; seven
thousand terrified stragglers, howling with terror and despair, rushed
into the midst of its feeble lines. They broke through them, caused its
platoons to waver, and were every moment involving in their disorder
fresh soldiers who got disheartened. It became necessary to retreat, in
order to rally, and take a better position, but in falling back, they
encountered Platof's cavalry.

Half of our combatants had already perished, and the fifteen hundred
soldiers who remained found themselves surrounded by three armies and by
a river.

In this situation, a flag of truce came, in the name of Wittgenstein and
fifty thousand men, to order the French to surrender. Partouneaux
rejected the summons. He recalled into his ranks such of his stragglers
as yet retained their arms; he wanted to make a last effort, and clear a
sanguinary passage to the bridge of Studzianka; but these men, who were
formerly so brave, were now so degraded by their miseries, that they
would no longer make use of their arms.

At the same time, the general of his vanguard apprised him that the
bridges of Studzianka were burnt; an aide-de-camp, named Rochex, who had
just brought the report, pretended that he had seen them burning.
Partouneaux believed this false intelligence, for, in regard to
calamities, misfortune is credulous.

He concluded that he was abandoned and sacrificed; and as the night, the
incumbrances, and the necessity of facing the enemy on three sides,
separated his weak brigades, he desired each of them to be told to try
and steal off, under favour of the darkness, along the flanks of the
enemy. He himself, with one of these brigades, reduced to four hundred
men, ascended the steep and woody heights on his right, with the hope of