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Buoyed up by religious faith and by his people's heroism, Alexander silently defied the victor of Moscow and rebuked Kutusoff for receiving the French envoy. At last, on October 18th, the Russians threw away the scabbard and surprised Murat's force some forty miles south of Moscow, inflicting a loss of 3,000 men.
The First Consul made all his arrangements, and sent off the different corps to occupy the points he had marked out. I have already mentioned that Murat's task was the occupation of Piacenza. As soon as he was in possession of that town he intercepted a courier of General Melas. The despatch, which was addressed to the Aulic Council of Vienna, was delivered to us on the night of the 8th of June.
But on our left Marshal Lannes not only repelled all the enemy attacks on the Santon, but drove them back across the Olmutz road as far as Blasiowitz, where the more level ground allowed Murat's cavalry to make several very effective charges, which compelled the Russians to retire hurriedly to the village of Austerlitz.
The Bey no sooner got notice of Murat's presence than he determined to retreat and to proceed by the desert to Gizeh and the great Pyramids. I certainly never heard, until I returned to France, that Mourad had ascended to the summit of the great Pyramid for the propose of passing his time in contemplating Cairo! Napoleon said at St.
Your Majesty sent me 40,000 francs." "I must have foreseen that I should be buried there," said Murat, smiling. "Ah, sire, I should like to think that you did not refuse my second boon any more than my first. Sire, I entreat you on my knees." The old man fell at Murat's feet. "Die as a Christian!" "That would give you pleasure, then, would it?" said the king.
To the bloody butchery and broken faith of May second, the day of the Madrid riots, may be attributed the turn of Napoleon's fortunes. How far he was responsible for each of Murat's successive acts cannot be known. With exaggerated conceptions of the Emperor's ubiquity, some attribute every detail in every step to the direct intervention of the master.
Even so, when the English soldier, reeling from his anguish and weariness, was admitted into the beleaguered fortress, his first words, more homely in expression than Murat's, were to the same dreadful purpose "Your honour," he said, "all is dished;" and this being uttered by way of prologue, he then delivered himself of the message with which he had been charged, and that was a challenge from the Kandyan general to come out and fight without aid from his artillery.
Napoleon took advantage of his hesitation to keep up the hopes of Berthier, and to persuade him that matters were not yet so very urgent; and he sent back the officer to Murat's camp with the opinion which he would no doubt propagate, that the Emperor was immoveable, that he doubtless had his reasons for thus persisting, and that they must all redouble their exertions.
He made no serious effort to threaten the Russian communications with Moscow, nor did he wait for his artillery to overwhelm the ramparts and their defenders. The corps of Ney, Davoust, and Poniatowski, with Murat's cavalry and the Imperial Guard posted in reserve, promised an easy victory, and the dense columns of foot moved eagerly to the assault. They were received with a terrific fire.
On the tenth of October when Dokhturov had gone halfway to Forminsk and stopped at the village of Aristovo, preparing faithfully to execute the orders he had received, the whole French army having, in its convulsive movement, reached Murat's position apparently in order to give battle suddenly without any reason turned off to the left onto the new Kaluga road and began to enter Forminsk, where only Broussier had been till then.
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