ly distributed rewards. The division
of Claparede, the trophies and all the wounded that could be removed,
set out for Mojaisk; the rest were collected in the great foundling
hospital; French surgeons were placed there; and the Russian wounded,
intermixed with ours, were intended to serve them for a safeguard.

But it was too late. Amid these preparations, and at the moment when
Napoleon was reviewing Ney's divisions in the first court of the
Kremlin, a report was all at once circulated around him, that the report
of cannon was heard towards Vinkowo. It was some time before any one
durst apprise him of the circumstance; some from incredulity or
uncertainty, and dreading the first movement of his impatience; others
from love of ease, hesitating to provoke a terrible signal, or
apprehensive of being sent to verify this assertion, and of exposing
themselves to a fatiguing excursion.

Duroc, at length, took courage. The Emperor was at first agitated, but
quickly recovering himself, he continued the review. An aide-de-camp,
young Beranger, arrived shortly after with the intelligence that Murat's
first line had been surprised and overthrown, his left turned by favour
of the woods, his flank attacked, his retreat cut off; that twelve
pieces of cannon, twenty ammunition waggons, and thirty waggons
belonging to the train were taken, two generals killed, three or four
thousand men lost and the baggage; and lastly, that the King was
wounded. He had not been able to rescue the relics of his advanced guard
from the enemy, but by repeatedly charging their numerous troops which
already occupied the high road in his rear, his only retreat.

Our honour however was saved. The attack in front, directed by Kutusoff,
was feeble; Poniatowski, at some leagues distance on the right, made a
glorious resistance; Murat and his carbineers, by supernatural
exertions, checked Bagawout, who was ready to penetrate our left flank,
and restored the fortune of the day. Claparede and Latour-Maubourg
cleared the defile of Spaskaplia, two leagues in the rear of our line,
which was already occupied by Platof. Two Russian generals were killed,
and others wounded: the loss of the enemy was considerable, but the
advantage of the attack, our cannon, our position, the victory in short,
were theirs.

As for Murat, he no longer had an advanced guard. The armistice had
destroyed half the remnant of his cavalry. This engagement finished it;
the survivors, emaciat