t gave increased
energy to the attack, and diminished that of the defence; presently the
advanced-guard of the viceroy engaged on the right of the Russians,
where a charge by the Italian chasseurs was withstood for a moment by
the cossacks, which excited astonishment; they became intermixed.

Platof himself admitted that in this affair an officer was wounded near
him, at which he was by no means surprised; but that he nevertheless
caused the sorcerer who accompanied him to be flogged before all his
cossacks, loudly charging him with laziness for neglecting to turn aside
the balls by his conjurations, as he had been expressly directed to do.

Konownitzin was vanquished and retired; on the 5th his bloody track was
followed to the vast convent of Kolotskoi,--fortified as habitations
were of old in those too highly vaunted Gothic ages, when civil wars
were so frequent; when every place, not excepting even these sacred
abodes of peace, was transformed into a military post.

Konownitzin, threatened on the right and left, made no other stand
either at Kolotskoi or at Golowino; but when the advanced-guard
debouched from that village, it beheld the whole plain and the woods
infested with cossacks, the rye crops spoiled, the villages sacked; in
short, a general destruction. By these signs it recognized the field of
battle, which Kutusof was preparing for the grand army. Behind these
clouds of Scythians were perceived three villages; they presented a line
of a league. The intervals between them, intersected by ravines and
wood, were covered with the enemy's riflemen. In the first moment of
ardour, some French horse ventured into the midst of these Russians, and
were cut off.

Napoleon then appeared on a height, from which he surveyed the whole
country, with that eye of a conqueror which sees every thing at once and
without confusion; which penetrates through obstacles, sets aside
accessaries, discovers the capital point, and fixes it with the look of
an eagle, like prey on which he is about to dart with all his might and
all his impetuosity.

He knew that, a league before him, at Borodino, the Kologha, a river
running in a ravine, along the margin of which he proceeded a few
wersts, turned abruptly to the left, and discharged itself into the
Moskwa. He guessed that a chain of considerable heights alone could
have opposed its course, and so suddenly changed its direction. These
were, no doubt, occupied by the enemy's army, and