; a
few articles requisite to cleanliness, a bandage, and a quantity of
lint, and sixty cartridges.

In the two sides were placed four biscuits of sixteen ounces each; under
these, and at the bottom, was a long, narrow, linen bag, filled with ten
pounds of flour. The whole knapsack and its contents, together with the
straps and the hood, rolled up and fastened at top, weighed
thirty-three pounds twelve ounces.

Each soldier carried also a linen bag, slung in form of a shoulder-belt,
containing two loaves of three pounds each. Thus with his sabre, his
loaded knapsack, three flints, his turn-screw, his belt and musket, he
had to carry fifty-eight pounds weight, and was provided with bread for
four days, biscuit for four, flour for seven, and sixty rounds of
ammunition.

Behind it were carriages laden with provisions for six more days; but it
was impossible to reckon with confidence on these vehicles, picked up on
the spot, which would have been so convenient in any other country with
a smaller army, and in a more regular war.

When the flour-bag was emptied, it was filled with any corn that could
be found, and which was ground at the first mill, if any chanced to be
met with; if not, by the hand-mills which followed the regiments, or
which were found in the villages, for the Russians are scarcely
acquainted with any others. It took sixteen men twelve hours to grind in
one of them the corn necessary for one hundred and thirty men for one
day.

As every house in this country has an oven, little want was felt on that
score; bakers abounded; for the regiments of the first corps contained
men of all trades, so that articles of food and clothing were all made
or repaired by them during the march. They were colonies uniting the
character of civilized and nomadic. The emperor had first conceived the
idea, which the genius of the prince of Eckmuehl had appropriated; he had
every thing he wanted, time, place, and men to carry it into execution;
but these three elements of success were less at the disposal of the
other chiefs. Besides, their characters being more impetuous and less
methodical, would scarcely have derived the same advantages from it;
with a less organizing genius, they would therefore have had more
obstacles to surmount; the emperor had not paid sufficient attention to
these differences, which were productive of baneful effects.

CHAP. II.

It was from Slawkowo, a few leagues beyond Dorogobouje, that