osts without meeting with a
single vidette; every where the same negligence was perceptible, and the
temerity so natural to Frenchmen and to conquerors. Every one was
asleep; there was no watchword, no patroles; our soldiers seemed to
despise these details, as too trivial. Wherefore so many precautions?
They attacked--they were victorious: it was for the Russians to defend
themselves! This officer has since said, that he was tempted to take
advantage that very night of our imprudence, but that he did not find
any Russian corps within his reach.

The enemy, in his haste to burn the bridges over the Gjatz, left behind
some of his cossacks; they were taken and conducted to the emperor, who
was approaching on horseback. Napoleon wished to question them himself.
He sent for his interpreter, and caused two of these Scythians, whose
strange dress and wild look were remarkable, to be placed by his side.
In this manner he entered Gjatz, and passed through that town. The
answers of these barbarians corresponded with the account of the
Frenchman; and during the night of the 1st of September, all the reports
from the advanced posts confirmed their accuracy.

Thus Barclay had, singly against all, supported till the very last
moment that plan of retreat, which in 1807 he had vaunted to one of our
generals as the only expedient for saving Russia. Among us, he was
commended for having persisted in this prudent defensive system, in
spite of the clamours of a proud nation irritated by misfortune, and
before so aggressive an enemy.

He had, no doubt, failed in suffering himself to be surprised at Wilna,
and for not considering the marshy course of the Berezina as the proper
frontier of Lithuania; but it was remarked that, subsequently, at Witepsk
and Smolensk, he had forestalled Napoleon; that on the Loutcheza, on the
Dnieper, and at Valoutina, his resistance had been proportionate to time
and place; that this petty warfare, and the losses occasioned by it, had
been but too much in his favour; every retrograde step of his drawing us
to a greater distance from our reinforcements, and carrying him nearer to
his: in short, all that he had done, he had done judiciously, whether he
had hazarded, defended, or abandoned.

And yet he had drawn upon himself general animadversion! But this was,
in our opinion, his highest panegyric. We thought the better of him for
despising public opinion, when it had gone astray; for having contented
himself