But the officer commanding this piquet had already drawn up his soldiers in a circle.  Without hesitation, he ordered them to fire, and then, making them present bayonets, proceeded at the pas de charge.  In an instant all fled before him; he remained in possession of the city; but without feeling more surprise about the cowardice of the Cossacks, than he had done at their attack, he took advantage of the moment, turned sharply round, and succeeded in rejoining the rear-guard without any loss.

The latter was engaged with Kutusoff’s vanguard, which it was endeavouring to drive back; for another catastrophe, which it vainly attempted to cover, detained it at a short distance from Wilna.

There, as well as at Moscow, Napoleon had given no regular order for retreat; he was anxious that our defeat should have no forerunner, but that it should proclaim itself, and take our allies and their ministers by surprise, and that, taking advantage of their first astonishment, it might be able to pass through those nations before they were prepared to join the Russians and overpower us.

This was the reason why the Lithuanians, foreigners, and every one at Wilna, even to the minister himself, had been deceived.  They did not believe our disaster until they saw it; and in that, the almost superstitious belief of Europe in the infallibility of the genius of Napoleon was of use to him against his allies.  But the same confidence had buried his own officers in a profound security; at Wilna, as well as at Moscow, not one of them was prepared for a movement of any description.

This city contained a large proportion of the baggage of the army, and of its treasures, its provisions, a crowd of enormous waggons, loaded with the Emperor’s equipage, a large quantity of artillery, and a great number of wounded men.  Our retreat had come upon them like an unexpected storm, almost like a thunderbolt.  Some were terrified and thrown into confusion, while consternation kept others motionless.  Orders, men, horses, and carriages, were running about in all directions, crossing and overturning each other.

In the midst of this tumult, several of the commanders pushed forward out of the city, towards Kowno, with every thing they could contrive to carry with them; but at the distance of a league from the latter place this heavy and frightened column had encountered the height and the defile of Ponari.

During our conquering march, this woody hillock had only appeared to our hussars a fortunate accident of the ground, from which they could discover the whole plain of Wilna, and take a survey of their enemies.  Besides, its rough but short declination had scarcely been remarked.  During a regular retreat it would have presented an excellent position for turning round and stopping the enemy:  but in a disorderly flight, where every thing that might be of service became injurious, where in our precipitation and disorder, every thing was turned against ourselves, this hill and its defile became an insurmountable obstacle, a wall of ice, against which all our efforts were powerless.  It detained every thing, baggage, treasure, and wounded.  The evil was sufficiently great in this long series of disasters to form an epoch.