es of winter, all concurred to
render it horrible: the retreat became a flight; and Napoleon, compelled
to yield and run away, was a spectacle perfectly novel.

Several of our allies enjoyed it with that inward satisfaction which is
felt by inferiors, when they see their chiefs at length thwarted, and
obliged in their turn to give way. They indulged that miserable envy
that is excited by extraordinary success, which rarely occurs without
being abused, and which shocks that equality which is the first want of
man. But this malicious joy was soon extinguished and lost in the
universal distress.

The wounded pride of Napoleon justified the supposition of such
reflections. This was perceived in one of the halts of that day: there,
on the rough furrows of a frozen field, strewed with wrecks both Russian
and French, he attempted, by the energy of his words, to relieve himself
from the weight of the insupportable responsibility of so many
disasters. "He had in fact dreaded this war, and he devoted its author
to the execration of the whole world. It was ---- whom he accused of
this; it was that Russian minister, sold to the English, who had
fomented it, and the traitor had drawn into it both Alexander and
himself."

These words, uttered before two of his generals, were heard with that
silence enjoined by old respect, added to that which is due to
misfortune. But the Duke of Vicenza, perhaps too impatient, betrayed his
indignation by a gesture of anger and incredulity, and, abruptly
retiring, put an end to this painful conversation.

CHAP. IX.

From Gjatz the Emperor proceeded in two marches to Wiazma. He there
halted to wait for Prince Eugene and Davoust, and to reconnoitre the
road of Medyn and Yucknow, which runs at that place into the high road
to Smolensk. It was this cross-road which might bring the Russian army
from Malo-Yaroslawetz on his passage. But on the first of November,
after waiting thirty-six hours, Napoleon had not seen any avant-courier
of that army; he set out, wavering between the hope that Kutusoff had
fallen asleep, and the fear that the Russian had left Wiazma on his
right, and proceeded two marches farther towards Dorogobouje to cut off
his retreat. At any rate, he left Ney at Wiazma, to collect the first
and fourth corps, and to relieve, as the rear-guard, Davoust, whom he
judged to be fatigued.

He complained of the tardiness of the latter; he wrote to reproach him
with being still five