l warlike noises, to which
he seemed completely a stranger!" At this account, Ney, furious and
hurried away by his ardent and unmeasured character, exclaimed, "Are we
then come so far, to be satisfied with a field of battle? What business
has the emperor in the rear of the army? There, he is only within reach
of reverses, and not of victory. Since he will no longer make war
himself, since he is no longer the general, as he wishes to be the
emperor every where, let him return to the Tuilleries, and leave us to
be generals for him!"

Murat was more calm; he recollected having seen the emperor the day
before, as he was riding along, observing that part of the enemy's line,
halt several times, dismount, and with his head resting upon the cannon,
remain there some time in the attitude of suffering. He knew what a
restless night he had passed, and that a violent and incessant cough cut
short his breathing. The king guessed that fatigue, and the first
attacks of the equinox, had shaken his weakened frame, and that in
short, at that critical moment, the action of his genius was in a manner
chained down by his body; which had sunk under the triple load of
fatigue, of fever, and of a malady which, probably, more than any other,
prostrates the moral and physical strength of its victims.

Still, farther incitements were not wanting; for shortly after Belliard,
Daru, urged by Dumas, and particularly by Berthier, said in a low voice
to the emperor, "that from all sides it was the cry that the moment for
sending the guard was now come." To which Napoleon replied, "And if
there should be another battle to-morrow, where is my army?" The
minister urged no farther, surprised to see, for the first time, the
emperor putting off till the morrow, and adjourning his victory.

CHAPTER XI.

Barclay, however, with the right, kept up a most obstinate struggle with
Prince Eugene. The latter, immediately after the capture of Borodino,
passed the Kologha in the face of the enemy's great redoubt. There,
particularly, the Russians had calculated upon their steep heights,
encompassed by deep and muddy ravines, upon our exhaustion, upon their
entrenchments, defended by heavy artillery, and upon 80 pieces of
cannon, planted on the borders of these banks, bristling with fire and
flames! But all these elements, art, and nature, every thing failed
them at once: assailed by a first burst of that _French fury_, which has
been so celebrated, they sa