overwhelmed it. Fifty
soldiers and eleven officers were all of it that Roguet was able to
preserve.

That general had lost the half of his men. It was now two o'clock, and
his unshaken fortitude still kept the Russians in astonishment, when at
last, emboldened by the Emperor's departure, they began to press upon
him so closely, that the young guard was nearly hemmed in, and very soon
in a situation in which it could neither hold out, nor retreat.

Fortunately, some platoons which Davoust had rallied, and the appearance
of another troop of his stragglers, attracted the enemy's attention.
Mortier availed himself of it. He gave orders to the three thousand men
he had still remaining to retreat slowly in the face of their fifty
thousand enemies. "Do you hear, soldiers?" cried General Laborde, "the
marshal orders ordinary time! Ordinary time, soldiers!" And this brave
and unfortunate troop, dragging with them some of their wounded, under a
shower of balls and grape-shot, retired as slowly from this field of
carnage, as they would have done from a field of manoeuvre.

CHAP. VI.

As soon as Mortier had succeeded in placing Krasnoe between him and
Beningsen, he was in safety. The communication between that town and
Liady was only interrupted by the fire of the enemy's batteries, which
flanked the left side of the great road. Colbert and Latour-Maubourg
kept them in check upon their heights. In the course of this march a
most singular accident occurred. A howitzer shell entered the body of a
horse, burst there, and blew him to pieces without wounding his rider,
who fell upon his legs, and went on.

The Emperor, meanwhile, halted at Liady, four leagues from the field of
battle. When night came on, he learned that Mortier, who he thought was
in his rear, had got before him. Melancholy and uneasy, he sent for him,
and with an agitated voice, said to him, "that he had certainly fought
gloriously, and suffered greatly. But why had he placed his Emperor
between him and the enemy? why had he exposed himself to be cut off?"

The marshal had got the start of Napoleon without being aware of it. He
exclaimed, "that he had at first left Davoust in Krasnoe, again
endeavouring to rally his troops, and that he himself had halted, not
far from that: but that the first corps, having been driven back upon
him, had obliged him to retrograde. That besides, Kutusoff did not
follow up his victory with vigour, and appeared to hang upon o