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His lieutenants seemed to have done more than himself: the actions of Mohilef, Molodeczna, and Valoutina, were regular battles, in which Davoust, Schwartzenberg, and Ney, were conquerors; on his right, his line of operation seemed to be covered; the enemy's army was flying before him; on his left, the Duke of Reggio, after drawing Wittgenstein upon Polotsk, was attacked at Slowna, on the 17th of August.
At length, after an arduous march, the head of the enemy's convoy came in sight of the high-road at the moment when the French had only to force the height of Valoutina and the passage of Kolowdnia, in order to reach that outlet. Ney had furiously carried that of the Stubna; but Korf, driven back upon Valoutina, had summoned to his aid the column which preceded him.
When the tidings of this misfortune reached the emperor, they put a stop to every thing to discussion and action. Every one was thunderstruck; the victory of Valoutina seemed no longer to be a success. Gudin was conveyed to Smolensk, and there received the unavailing attentions of the emperor; but he soon expired.
They then brought to mind our useless waste of lives before Smolensk, Junot's inaction at Valoutina, and they maintained, "that in spite of all these losses, Russia would have been completely conquered on the field of battle of the Moskwa, if Marshal Ney's first successes had been followed up.
The Petersburgh road quitted the river more abruptly: two marshy cross-roads branched off from it on the right, one at the distance of two leagues from Smolensk, the other at four; they ran through woods, and rejoined the high-road to Moscow, after a long circuit; the one at Bredichino, two leagues beyond Valoutina, the other farther off at Slobpnewa.
It was also from the same imperial head-quarters that he published the details of his review at Valoutina, with the intention of proclaiming to the present and future ages the names even of the private soldiers who had there distinguished themselves. But he added, that at Smolensk "the conduct of the Poles had astonished the Russians, who had been accustomed to despise them."
When Borelli informed him of Gudin's mortal wound, Napoleon's grief was violent; he gave vent to it in repeated questions and expressions of regret; then with that strength of mind which was peculiar to him, he subdued his uneasiness, postponed his anger, suspended his chagrin, and giving himself up wholly to his occupation, he deferred until the morrow the charge of battles, for night had come on; but afterwards the hopes of a battle roused him, and he appeared next morning with the day on the fields of Valoutina.
It had been remarked that a by-road, bolder and shorter, as they all are, ran straight across these low marshy grounds, between the Dnieper and the high-road, which it rejoined behind the plateau of Valoutina. It was this cross-road which Junot pursued after crossing the river at Prudiszy.
Smolensk was but one vast hospital, and the loud groans which issued from it drowned the shout of glory which had just been raised on the fields of Valoutina. The reports of the surgeons were frightful: in that country a spirit distilled from grain is used instead of wine and brandy made from grapes. Narcotic plants are mixed with it.
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.
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