The enemy, in his haste to burn the bridges over the Gjatz, left behind some of his cossacks; they were taken and conducted to the emperor, who was approaching on horseback.  Napoleon wished to question them himself.  He sent for his interpreter, and caused two of these Scythians, whose strange dress and wild look were remarkable, to be placed by his side.  In this manner he entered Gjatz, and passed through that town.  The answers of these barbarians corresponded with the account of the Frenchman; and during the night of the 1st of September, all the reports from the advanced posts confirmed their accuracy.

Thus Barclay had, singly against all, supported till the very last moment that plan of retreat, which in 1807 he had vaunted to one of our generals as the only expedient for saving Russia.  Among us, he was commended for having persisted in this prudent defensive system, in spite of the clamours of a proud nation irritated by misfortune, and before so aggressive an enemy.

He had, no doubt, failed in suffering himself to be surprised at Wilna, and for not considering the marshy course of the Berezina as the proper frontier of Lithuania; but it was remarked that, subsequently, at Witepsk and Smolensk, he had forestalled Napoleon; that on the Loutcheza, on the Dnieper, and at Valoutina, his resistance had been proportionate to time and place; that this petty warfare, and the losses occasioned by it, had been but too much in his favour; every retrograde step of his drawing us to a greater distance from our reinforcements, and carrying him nearer to his:  in short, all that he had done, he had done judiciously, whether he had hazarded, defended, or abandoned.

And yet he had drawn upon himself general animadversion!  But this was, in our opinion, his highest panegyric.  We thought the better of him for despising public opinion, when it had gone astray; for having contented himself with watching our motions in order to profit by them, and for having proved that, most frequently, nations are saved in spite of themselves.

Barclay showed himself still greater during the rest of the campaign.  This commander in chief, and minister at war, who had been deprived of the command, that it might be given to Kutusof, voluntarily served under him, and was seen to obey with as much zeal as he had commanded.

CHAP.  V.

The Russian army at length halted.  Miloradowitch, with sixteen thousand recruits, and a host of peasants, bearing the cross and shouting, “’Tis the will of God!” hastened to join its ranks.  We were informed that the enemy were turning up the whole plain of Borodino, and covering it with entrenchments, apparently with the determination of rooting themselves there, and not falling back any further.

Napoleon announced a battle to his army; he allowed it two days to rest, to prepare its arms, and to collect subsistence.  He merely warned the detachments sent out in quest of provisions, that “if they did not return the following day, they would deprive themselves of the honour of fighting.”