the morning of the 22nd.  Russian troops entered it immediately afterwards, in time to preserve the Kremlin, which had been undermined and attempted to be blown up in a last access of rage; and within a few hours, so completely had the patriotic peasants baffled Napoleon, the town swarmed with people, and all the market-places were crowded with every species of provision.  The Emperor’s bulletins announced that “Moscow had been found not to be a good military position,”—­that it was “necessary for the army to breathe on a wider space.”  The precipitancy, however, with which the French retired was such that they left their sick and wounded to the mercy of the Russians; and yet thousands of waggons, laden with the spoil of Moscow, attended and encumbered their march.

Kutusoff now perceived that he had to expect the attack of a greater than Murat.  The Russian general occupied a position at Taroutino, on the old road to Kalouga (the central one of three nearly parallel routes), so strong by nature, and so improved by art, that Napoleon judged it hopeless to attack him there.  He therefore made a lateral movement, and pushed on by the western road—­meaning, after he had passed Taroutino, to strike back again into the central one, and so interpose himself between Kutusoff and Kalouga.  The old Russian, however, penetrated this plan; and instantly, by a manoeuvre of precisely the same kind—­marching to the eastward, and thence back to the centre again,—­baffled it.  The French van, having executed the first part of their orders, and regained the middle road in the rear of Taroutino, advanced without opposition as far as Malo-Yaraslovetz, and occupied that town.  But at midnight they were assaulted furiously within it, and driven back across the river Louja, where the leading divisions of the army bivouacked.  Early in the morning the French retook Malo-Yaraslovetz at the point of the bayonet, and the greater part of the day was spent in a succession of obstinate contests, in the course of which the town five times changed masters.  In the evening, Napoleon came up with his main body.  He found his troops, indeed, in possession of the place; but beyond it, his generals informed him, Kutusoff and his whole army were now posted, and this on a position at least as strong as that of Taroutino, which he himself had considered unassailable.

The Emperor’s headquarters were in the wretched and filthy hut of a poor weaver, and here an angry debate ensued between Murat and Davoust; the former of whom urged the necessity of instantly attacking the Russian, while the latter pronounced such an attempt to be worthy of a madman.  The Emperor heard them in gloomy silence, and declared that he would judge for himself in the morning.  He dismissed them all, and, if Segur may be believed, spent the night in great agitation; now rising, now lying down again—­incessantly calling out—­yet refusing to admit anyone within a temporary screen of cloth which concealed his person from the eyes of his attendants.  This was the first occasion on which Buonaparte betrayed in his demeanour that dark presentiment which had settled on his mind ever since he beheld the flames of Moscow.