These were powerful motives, but they did not at all satisfy men who knew that excellent reasons may be found for committing the greatest faults.  They all agreed, “that they had seen the battle which had been won in the morning on the right, halt where it was favourable to us, and continue successively in front, a contest of mere strength, as in the infancy of the art! it was a battle without any plan, a mere victory of soldiers, rather than of a general!  Why so much precipitation to overtake the enemy, with an army panting, exhausted, and weakened? and when we had come up with him, why neglect to complete his discomfiture, and remain bleeding and mutilated, in the midst of an enraged nation, in immense deserts, and at 800 leagues’ distance from our resources?”

Murat then exclaimed, “That in this great day he had not recognized the genius of Napoleon!” The viceroy confessed “that he had no conception what could be the reason of the indecision which his adopted father had shown.”  Ney, when he was called on for his opinion, was singularly obstinate in advising him to retreat.

Those alone who had never quitted his person, observed, that the conqueror of so many nations had been overcome by a burning fever, and above all by a fatal return of that painful malady which every violent movement, and all long and strong emotions excited in him.  They then quoted the words which he himself had written in Italy fifteen years before:  “Health is indispensable in war, and nothing can replace it;” and the exclamation, unfortunately prophetic, which he had uttered on the plains of Austerlitz:  “Ordener is worn out.  One is not always fit for war; I shall be good for six years longer, after which I must lie by.”

During the night, the Russians made us sensible of their vicinity, by their unseasonable clamours.  Next morning there was an alert, close to the emperor’s tent.  The old guard was actually obliged to run to arms; a circumstance which, after a victory, seemed insulting.  The army remained motionless until noon, or rather it might be said that there was no longer an army, but a single vanguard.  The rest of the troops were dispersed over the field of battle to carry off the wounded, of whom there were 20,000.  They were taken to the great abbey of Kolotskoi, two leagues in the rear.

Larrey, the surgeon-in-chief, had just taken assistants from all the regiments; the ambulances had rejoined, but all was insufficient.  He has since complained, in a printed narrative, that no troop had been left him to procure the most necessary articles in the surrounding villages.

The emperor then rode over the field of battle; never did one present so horrible an appearance.  Every thing concurred to make it so; a gloomy sky, a cold rain, a violent wind, houses burnt to ashes, a plain turned topsy-turvy, covered with ruins and rubbish, in the distance the sad and sombre verdure of the trees of the North; soldiers roaming about in all directions, and hunting for provisions, even in the haversacks of their dead companions; horrible wounds, for the Russian musket-balls are larger than ours; silent bivouacs, no singing or story-telling—­a gloomy taciturnity.