control and guide as far as possible. The calm, grave expression of his face was in startling contrast to the weakness of his aged frame.

At eleven in the forenoon a messenger came to say that the redoubt taken by the French had been recaptured, but that Bagration was wounded. Koutouzow exclaimed loudly and shook his head.

"Go and fetch up Prince Pierre Ivanovitch," he said to an aide-de-camp; then, turning to the Prince of Wurtemberg, he said, "Would your highness at once take the command of the first division?"

The prince rode off, but before he reached the village of Séménovski he sent back his aide-de-camp to ask for reinforcements. Koutouzow frowned; then he sent Doctourow forward to take the command, instead of the prince, whom he begged to return, as he found that he could not dispense with his advice under such serious circumstances. When he was told that Murat had been taken prisoner he smiled; his staff eagerly congratulated him.

"Wait a little, gentlemen," he said. "Wait. The battle is certainly ours, and the news that Murat is taken is not so very astonishing; but we must not crow

However, he sent an aide-de-camp to make the fact known to the troops. Somewhat later Scherbinine arrived to tell him that the outworks at Séménovski had been taken once more by the French, and Koutouzow understood from the expression of his face, and the rumors that reached him from the scene of action, that things were going but badly. He rose and led him aside.

66

66

My good fellow," he said, go and see what Yermelow is doing, and what he can do."

Koutouzow was at Gorky, the very centre of the Russian position. Napoleon's attack on the left had been bravely repulsed again and again by Ouvarow's cavalry, but in the centre his troops had not got beyond Borodino. By three o'clock the French had given up attacking, and Koutouzow could read acute excitement on the faces of those who came up from the field, as well as of those who remained with him. The success was far beyond his hopes, but his strength was beginning to fail; his head drooped, and

he kept dropping asleep. Some dinner was brought to him. While he was eating, Woltzogen came to talk to him. It was he who had said in Prince André's hearing that the war must have room to spread, and who hated Bagration. He had come, by Barclay's request, to report progress as to the military operations of the left wing. The wiseacre Barclay, seeing a crowd of fugitives and wounded, while the farthest line had given way, had come to the conclusion that the battle was lost, and had sent off his favorite aide-decamp to carry the news to Koutouzow. The commander-in chief was mumbling a piece of roast-fowl, and he looked complacently up at Woltzogen, who approached with an air of indifference and a superficial smile, and saluted with affected grace. He looked as though he would convey, "I, as an experienced and distinguished soldier, may leave it to the Russians to offer incense to this useless old dotard, whom I know how to estimate at his true worth."

"The old gentleman "-the Germans always spoke of Koutouzow as "the old gentleman"-"is making himself comfortable!" thought Woltzogen, glancing at the plate; and he proceeded to report on the situation of the left flank as he had been desired, and as he himself had believed that he had seen it.

All the chief points of our position are in the enemy's hands; we cannot dislodge them for lack of men. Our troops are flying, and it is impossible to stop them."

Koutouzow ceased eating, and looked up astonished; he seemed not to understand the words. Woltzogen saw that he was much moved, and went on with a smile.

"I do not think I should be justified in concealing from your highness what I saw. The troops are completely routed.'

"You saw you saw that?" cried Koutouzow, starting up with a fierce frown. With his trembling hands he gesticulated threats, and almost choking, exclaimed,

66

How dare you, sir, tell me such a thing as that? You know nothing about it! Go and tell your general that it is false, and that I know the true state of things better than he does." Woltzogen would have interrupted him, but Koutouzow went on, The enemy's

66

"Ah! here is my hero!" said Koutouzow, waving his hand to him.

This was Raïevsky. He had been all day in the hottest place in the field. His report was that the Russians were holding their own, and that the French did not dare to renew the attack.

"Then you do not think, as some others do, that we are forced to retire?" asked Koutouzow, in French.

"On the contrary, highness. In a doubtful action the side that stands steady longest is the conqueror, and in my opinion-'

"Kaïssarow!" exclaimed the commander-in-chief, "make out the order of the day for me. And you, " he added to another officer, "ride down the lines and say that we attack to-morrow."

Meanwhile Woltzogen had been to Barclay and come back again, and he now said that his chief begged to have the orders he had carried confirmed by writing. Koutouzow, without even looking at him, at once had the order written out which relieved the ex-commander-in-chief of all responsibility.

By that mysterious moral intuition which is known as esprit de corps, Koutouzow's order of the day was communicated instantaneously to the farthest corner of the field. Not, of course, that the original words were exactly repeated; in fact, the expressions given to Koutouzow were not his at all; but every one understood their purport and bearing. They were not the utterance, indeed, of a more or less skilful orator, but they perfectly expressed the feeling of the com

His

The terrible sight of the battle-field strewn with corpses and wounded men, the crushing responsibility that weighed upon him, the news that reached him every few minutes of so many generals being killed or severely wounded, together with the loss of his prestige, all made an extraordinary impression on the Emperor Napoleon. He, who was usually glad to look on the dead and dying, and fancied that his callousness was a proof of his magnanimity and fortitude, felt morally defeated, and he hastened to quit the field of battle and return to Schevardino. face was yellow and puffy, his eyes bloodshot, and his voice hoarse. Seated on his camp-stool, he could not help listening to the noise of the guns, but he did not raise his eyes. He was awaiting with agonized impatience the end of this business in which he had been the prime mover, and which he now was impotent to stay. For a moment a natural and human impulse had risen superior to the mirage which had so long bewitched him, and for once he brought home to himself the keen apprehension of suffering that had come over him on the battle-field. He thought of the contingency for himself of death and anguish, and he ceased to long for Moscow, for glory, for conquest; he sighed but for one thing; rest, quiet, liberty. Nevertheless, when he had reached the height above Séménovski, and the general in command of the artillery proposed to bring up a few batteries to support the firing on the Russian troops drawn up in compact masses in front of Kniazkow, he had agreed at once, and desired to be informed of the result. Not long after an aide-de-camp came to tell him that two hundred cannon had been turned on the Russians, but that they held their own. Our fire mows them down in rows, and they do not stir!"

66

Do they want any more?" said Napoleon, huskily.

"Sire?" said the aide-de-camp, who had not heard.

'Do they want any more?" repeated

Napoleon. "Well, if they do, give it them." And so he came back into the false world of chimeras that he had created for himself, and resumed the painful, cruel, and inhuman part that he was destined to fill.

This man, who was no doubt more directly responsible than any one else for the events of his time, was, till his dying day, disabled by his darkened intellect and conscience from understanding the real bearing of the acts he committed, opposed as they were to the eternal laws of truth and right; and as half the world approved of these acts, he could not repudiate them without being illogical. To-day was not the first time that he had felt a secret satisfaction at comparing the number of Russian corpses with the French; it was not the first time that he had written to Paris that the field of battle was a glorious sight. Why should he say this? Because there were 50,000 dead lying there; and even at St. Helena, where he spent his leisure in recording his past achievements, he could dictate as follows:

"The war with Russia ought to have been the most popular war of modern times; it was on the side of good sense and sound interests, of the peace and security of Europe; it was purely pacificatory and conservative.

"It was, for the great cause, the end of hap-hazard and the beginning of security. A new horizon and new scenes were about to unfold themselves, bright with ease and prosperity for all. The European system was actually established; all that was wanting was to organize it.

"I, myself, satisfied on these great questions and tranquil on all sides-I, too, should have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. Those ideas were stolen from me. In that great council of sovereigns we should have discussed matters as family interests, and settled accounts with the nations with a high hand.

"In this way Europe would soon have been but one people, and every one, travel where he might, would have still been in the common fatherland. I should have insisted on all the navigable rivers being free to all, on common rights in all seas, and on the great standing armies being reduced merely to an efficient guard for the various sovereigns.

"On my return home, having made France great, strong, magnificent, glorious,

and tranquil, I should have defined her immutable frontier. Thenceforth every war would have been purely defensive, and all aggrandizement would have been regarded as anti-national. I should have made my son the partner of my throne; my dictatorship would have been at an end; his constitutional sovereignty would have begun. Paris would have been the capital of the world, and France the envy of all nations.

"Then my leisure and old age would have been dedicated during my son's apprenticeship to making a tour with the empress-driving our own horses and taking our time like a country couplevisiting all the nooks of Europe, receiving petitions, redressing wrongs, sowing good seed wherever we went, and founding monumental benefactions.

Yes, he the torturer of the nations, foreordained by Heaven to fill that partracked his brain to prove that his sole aim had been to do them good, that he could control the destinies of millions, and load them with benefits by his arbitrary volition!

"Of 400,000 men who crossed the Vistula," he wrote, "half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, Wurtembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, and Neapolitans. The imperial army, properly speaking, contained about one-third of Dutch, Belgians, Rhinelanders, Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, natives of the thirtysecond military district, of Bremen, Hamburg, etc. There were hardly 140,000 men who spoke French. The invasion of Russia cost France itself less than 50,000; the Russian army lost four times as many men as the French army in the course of the retreat, and various actions between Vilna and Moscow; the burning of Moscow cost the lives of 100,000 Russians who perished of cold and misery in the forests; and then, in the march from Moscow to the Oder, the Russian army also suffered from the severity of the season. 50,000 men reached Vilna, and less than 18,000 got as far as Kalisch."

Only

So he really believed that the war in Russia had depended solely on his will and pleasure, and yet the horrors of the accomplished fact caused him no pang of remorse!

Heaps of men in every variety of uniforn were lying in confusion, tens of thou

sands of them, in the fields and meadows belonging to M. Davydow and the crown serfs. On those fields and meadows, for hundreds of years the peasants of the neighborhood had pastured their beasts and harvested their crops. Near the am'bulance tents for about a dessiatine' the ground and grass were soaked in blood; crowds of soldiers, some sound and some wounded, and of different arms, were making their weary way in terror towards Mojaisk or Valouïew; others, hungry and worn out with fatigue, mechanically formed in line and followed their officers; while others, again, stayed on where they had been posted, and went on firing. Over the field where, a few hours since, all had looked bright and smiling, where bayonets had glittered and the iridescent mists of morning had veiled the scene, there now hung a dense fog, made heavy by smoke, and exhaling a strange reek of powder and blood. Black clouds had gathered overhead; a fine drizzle was bedewing the dead, the wounded, and the utterly weary. It seemed to be saying to them, Enough, enough, hapless wretches! Bethink your selves. What are you doing?" Then a thought seemed to dawn in the minds of the poor creatures, and they began to ask themselves whether they were to go on with this butchery. The idea did not, however, gain ground till the evening; till then, though the struggle was drawing to a close, and the men felt all the horror of their position, a mysterious and inexplicable impulse had guided the hand of the gunner who had survived of the three told off to serve each cannon, and who stood faithful, though covered with sweat, powder, and blood. He alone carried the cartridges, loaded the gun, aimed it, and lighted the slow match! The balls met and crossed, carried death to numberless victims, and still the fearful work went on, the outcome, not of any human will, but of the Will which governs men and worlds.

Any one looking on at the fast dispersing French and Russian armies, might have thought that a very slight effort on the part of one or the other would have sufficed to annihilate the foe. But neither side made that last effort, and the battle died away by degrees. The Russians did not take up the offensive, because, having

1 Nearly three acres.

| been collected on the road to Moscow from the first, and charged to defend it, they stayed there till the end. Indeed, if they had decided on attacking the French, the disorder of their ranks would not have admitted of it; for, even without quitting their position, they had lost half their numbers. The effort could only have been possible or perhaps, indeed, easy-to the French, who were kept up by the traditions of fifteen years of success under Napoleon, by their confidence of victory, the comparative smallness of their lossnot more than a quarter of the whole efficient force-the knowledge that behind them lay a reserve of more than 20,000 fresh troops, besides the Guards who had not charged, and their wrath at having failed to dislodge the enemy from his positions. Historians have said that Napoleon might have decided the day in his favor if only he had brought up the "Vieille Garde;" but to say this is to assume that winter may suddenly become spring. The failure cannot be imputed to Napoleon. Every man, from the commander-in-chief to the humblest private, knew that such an effort was out of the question; in point of fact, the spirit of the French army was thoroughly quelled by this formidable foe, who, after losing half his force, was as resolute at last as at first.

The victory won by the Russians was not, indeed, one of those which are bedizened with those rags nailed to a pole which are dignified as flags, or which derive their splendor from extent of conquest; but it was one of those triumphs which carry home to the soul of the aggressor a twofold conviction of his adversary's moral superiority and of his own weakness. The invading army, like some wild beast broken loose, had been mortally wounded. It was consciously rushing on to ruin; but the first impetus had been given, and now, come what might, it must reach Moscow. The Russian army, on the other hand, though twice as weak, was no less inexorably impelled to resist. At Moscow. still bleeding from the wounds inflicted at Borodino, these efforts were to lead inevitably to Napoleon's flight-to his retreat by the way by which he had come, to the almost total destruction of the 500,000 men who had followed him, and to the annihilation of his personal influence, overpowered as it was, even at Boro

dino, by an adversary whose moral force was so far superior.

ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE OF

TRENTON.

[George Washington, first President of the

United States, and the illustrious commander-in-chief

of the American armies during the Revolutionary war, born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, February 22, 1732, died at Mount Vernon, December 14, 1799. His copious writings, edited by Jared Sparks, appeared in 12 volumes, 1834, evince the clearness of his intellect, and the consummate judgment of a well-balanced and well-equipped leader of men.]

HEADQUARTERS, MORRISTOWN,

December 27, 1776.

TO THE PRESIDENT OF CONGRESS: Sir: I have the pleasure of congratulating you upon the success of an enterprise which I had formed against a detachment of the enemy lying in Trenton, and which was executed yesterday morning.

The evening of the twenty-fifth I ordered the troops intended for this service to parade back of McKonkey's ferry, that they might begin to pass as soon as it grew dark, imagining we should be able to throw them all over, with the necessary artillery, by twelve o'clock, and that we might easily arrive at Trenton by five in the morning, the distance being about nine miles. But the quantity of ice made that night impeded the passage of the boats so much that it was three o'clock before the artillery could all be got over; and near four before the troops took up their line of march.

This made me despair of surprising the town, as I well knew we could not reach it before the day was fairly broke. But as I was certain there was no making a retreat without being discovered, and harassed on re-passing the river, I determined to push on at all events. I formed my detachment into two divisions, one to march by the lower or river road, the other by the upper or Pennington road. As the divisions had nearly the same distance to march, I ordered each of them, immediately upon forcing the out-guards, to push directly into the town, that they might charge the enemy before they had time to form.

The upper division arrived at the enemy's advanced post exactly at eight o'clock and in three minutes after I found, from the fire on the lower road, that that division had also got up. The out-guards made but small opposition, though, for their numbers, they behaved very well, keeping up a constant retreating fire from behind houses. We presently saw their main body formed; but from their motions, they seemed undetermined how to act.

Being hard pressed by our troops, who had already got possession of their artillery, they attempted to file off by a road on their right, leading to Princeton. But, perceiving their intention, I threw a body of troops in their way; which immediately checked them. Finding, from our disposition, that they were surrounded, and that they must inevitably be cut to pieces if they made any further resistance, they agreed to lay down their arms. The number that submitted in this manner was twenty-three officers and eight hundred and eighty-six men. Colonel Rahl, the commanding officer, and seven others, were found wounded in the town. I do not exactly know how many they had killed; but I fancy not above twenty or thirty, as they never made any regular stand. Our loss is very trifling indeed,only two officers and one or two privates wounded.

I find that the detachment consisted of the three Hessian regiments of Lanspach, Kniphausen, and Rahl, amounting to about fifteen hundred men, and a troop of British light horse but immediately upon the beginning of the attack, all those who were not killed or taken pushed directly down towards Bordentown. These would likewise have fallen into our hands could my plan have been completely carried inte execution.

General Ewing was to have crossed be fore day at Trenton ferry, and taken pos session of the bridge leading out of town: but the quantity of ice was so great that, though he did everything in his power to effect it, he could not get over. This difficulty also hindered General Cadwala der from crossing with the Pennsylvania militia from Bristol. He got part of his foot over but finding it impossible to embark his artillery, he was obliged to desist.

I am fully confident that, could the