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And when the French quitted Vilna, the Russians were glad enough to seek its shelter, Kutusoff creeping in with forty thousand men, all that remained to him of two hundred thousand. He could not carry on the pursuit, but sent forward a handful of Cossacks to harry the hare-brained few who called themselves the rearguard.
Did Kutusoff mean to forestall him there, as at Malo-Yaroslawetz, to cut off his retreat upon Smolensk, as he had done that upon Kalouga, and to coop him up in this desert without provisions, without shelter, and in the midst of a general insurrection?
Out of Pomerania into Moravia, to the plain of Olmutz, the great Russian army under the Czar and Kutusoff, came roaring. There they were united with a heavy division of the Austrians, under the Emperor Francis. The latter had fled from his capital, and staked his last fortunes on a battle in the field. The allied army was 80,000 strong.
This threat had no effect on Kutusoff; he persisted in remaining inactive; either because to the frost of age was superadded that of winter, and that in his shattered frame his mind was depressed by the sight of so many ruins; or that, from another effect of old age, a person becomes prudent when he has scarcely any thing to risk, and a temporiser when he has no more time to lose.
It was the vanguard of Kutusoff and Tchaplitz, commanded by O'Rourke, Landskoy, and Seslawin, which had attacked Loison's division, which was protecting the city, as well as the retreat of a column of dismounted cavalry, on its way to Olita, by way of Novoï-Troky. At first an attempt was made to resist. De Wrede and his Bavarians had also just rejoined the army by Naroc-Zwiransky and Niamentchin.
After coming in collision with Kutusoff, he retreated through this same town of Borowsk, and no sooner had he passed through it than it ceased to exist. It was thus that in future all was destined to be burned behind him.
The armies of Witgenstein and Tchichagoff, then, were about to be in communication with each other, and in possession of those points at which Napoleon was most likely to attempt his escape from Smolensko, into Poland; while the main army itself, having advanced side by side with the French, was now stationed to the south-west of Smolensko, in readiness to break the enemy's march whenever Kutusoff should choose; Milarodowitch, finally, and Platoff, were hanging close behind, and thinning every hour the miserable bands who had no longer heart, nor, for the most part, arms of any kind wherewith to resist them.
That night was an agreeable one for the emperor: he was informed that, at six in the evening, Delzons with his division, who was four leagues in advance of him, had found the town of Malo-jaroslavetz and the woods which command it unoccupied: this was a strong position within reach of Kutusoff, and the only point where he could cut us off from the new road to Kaluga.
But on the first of November, after waiting thirty-six hours, Napoleon had not seen any avant-courier of that army; he set out, wavering between the hope that Kutusoff had fallen asleep, and the fear that the Russian had left Wiazma on his right, and proceeded two marches farther towards Dorogobouje to cut off his retreat.
Napoleon at length sent Count Lauriston to the headquarters of Kutusoff, with another letter to Alexander, which the Count was to deliver in person. Kutusoff received the Frenchman in the midst of all his generals, and answered with such civility that the envoy doubted not of success.
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