There was a moment when Bessières enumerated to him all the generals who were wounded on the day of the battle. This fatal list affected him so poignantly, that by a violent effort he recovered his voice, and interrupted the marshal by the sudden exclamation, "Eight days at Moscow, and there will be an end of it!"
Meantime, although he had hitherto placed all his futurity in that capital, a victory so sanguinary and so little decisive lowered his hopes. His instructions to Berthier of the 11th of September for marshal Victor exhibited his distress: "The enemy, attacked at the heart, no longer trifles with us at the extremities. Write to the duke of Belluno to direct all, infantry, cavalry, artillery, and isolated soldiers to Smolensk, in order to be forwarded from thence to Moscow."
In the midst of these bodily and mental sufferings, which he carefully concealed from his army, Davoust obtained access to him; his object was to offer himself again, notwithstanding his wound, to take the command of the vanguard, promising that he would contrive to march night and day, reach the enemy, and compel him to fight, without squandering, as Murat did, the strength and lives of the soldiers. Napoleon only answered him by extolling in high terms the audacious and inexhaustible ardour of his brother-in-law.
He had just before heard, that the enemy's army had again been found; that it had not retired upon his right flank, towards Kalouga, as he had feared it would; that it was still retreating, and that his vanguard was already within two days' march of Moscow. That great name, and the great hopes which he attached to it, revived his strength, and on the 12th of September, he was sufficiently recovered to set out in a carriage, in order to join his vanguard.
Quamquam animus meminisse horret, luctuque refugit, Incipiam--.
_SECOND EDITION, CAREFULLY REVISED AND CORRECTED._
TREUTTEL AND WURTZ, TREUTTEL, JUN. AND RICHTER, 30, SOHO-SQUARE.
[Illustration: Portrait of the Emperor Alexander]
We have seen how the Emperor Alexander, surprised at Wilna amidst his preparations for defence, retreated with his disunited army, and was unable to rally it till it was at the distance of a hundred leagues from that city, between Witepsk and Smolensk. That Prince, hurried along in the precipitate retreat of Barclay, sought refuge at Drissa, in a camp injudiciously chosen and entrenched at great expense; a mere point in the space, on so extensive a frontier, and which served only to indicate to the enemy the object of his manoeuvres.