nd action. Every one was thunderstruck;
the victory of Valoutina seemed no longer to be a success.

Gudin was conveyed to Smolensk, and there received the unavailing
attentions of the emperor; but he soon expired. His remains were
interred in the citadel of the city, which they honour: a worthy tomb
for a soldier, who was a good citizen, a good husband, a good father, an
intrepid general, just and mild, a man both of principle and talent; a
rare assemblage of qualities in an age when virtuous men are too
frequently devoid of abilities, and men of abilities without virtue. It
was a fortunate chance that he was worthily replaced; Gerard, the oldest
general of brigade of the division, took the command of it, and the
enemy, who knew nothing of our loss, gained nothing by the dreadful blow
he had dealt us.

The Russians, astonished at having been attacked only in front,
conceived that all the military combinations of Murat were confined to
following them on the high-road. They therefore styled him in derision,
"_the general of the high roads_," characterizing him thus from the
event, which tends more commonly to deceive than to enlighten.

In fact, while Ney was attacking, Murat scoured his flanks with his
cavalry, without being able to bring it into action; woods on the left,
and morasses on the right, obstructed his movements. But while they were
fighting in front, both were anticipating the effect of a flanking march
of the Westphalians, commanded by Junot.

From the Stubna, the high-road, in order to avoid the marshes formed by
the various tributary streams of the Dnieper, turned off to the left,
ascended the heights, and went farther from the basin of the river, to
which it afterwards returned in a more favourable situation. It had been
remarked that a by-road, bolder and shorter, as they all are, ran
straight across these low marshy grounds, between the Dnieper and the
high-road, which it rejoined behind the plateau of Valoutina.

It was this cross-road which Junot pursued after crossing the river at
Prudiszy. It soon led him into the rear of the left of the Russians,
upon the flank of the columns which were returning to the assistance of
their rear-guard. His attack was all that was wanted to render the
victory decisive. Those who were engaged in front with Marshal Ney would
have been daunted at hearing an attack in their rear; while the
uncertainty and disorder into which, in the midst of an action, it would
hav