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The projected march of our armies was unknown to the enemy when, on the 9th August, their vanguard made an attack upon General Sebastiani, who was badly defended. He at once called General Montbrun, and they both charged the Russian squadrons forty times in the course of the day, and then fell back upon Marshal Ney's forces.
Two of the three villages, which formed our advanced position, already had been carried; and towards the third, La Bothière, they were advancing quickly. Ney's corps, ordered up to its defence, rushed boldly on, and the clattering musketry announced that they were engaged; while twelve guns were moved up in full gallop to their support, and opened their fire at once.
Without being cast down by this unforeseen obstacle the Marshal took the bold decision to force a passage, and ordered the 48th of line, commanded by Colonel Pelet, to attack with the bayonet. At Ney's command, the French soldiers, although tired, hungry and numb with cold, rushed the Russian batteries and captured them.
Had Napoleon given those orders on the 15th, all might have gone well; for all his available forces, except Ney's and Reynier's corps, were near at hand, making a total of nearly 150,000 men, while Schwarzenberg had as yet not many more. But those orders on the 16th were not only belated: they contributed to the defeat on the north side. The Emperor's thoughts were concentrated on the south.
She could not conceal a certain nervous trepidation when she first took the hand my father extended; and in touching rebuke of the Captain's stately bow, she held out to him the hand left disengaged, with a look which brought Roland at once to her side. It was a desertion of his colors to which nothing, short of Ney's shameful conduct at Napoleon's return from Elba, affords a parallel in history.
On went the horsemen amid the wrecks of the French columns, capturing two eagles, and two thousand prisoners; onwards still they galloped, and sabred the artillerymen of Ney's seventy-four advanced guns; then severing the traces, and cutting the throats of the artillery horses, they rendered these guns totally useless to the French throughout the remainder of the day.
Dessolles accordingly informed us that Alexander at last gave the following answer to the Marshals: "Gentlemen, I am not alone; in an affair of such importance I must consult the King of Prussia, for I have promised to do nothing without consulting him. In a few hours you shall know my decision." It was this decision which the Marshals went to wait for at Ney's.
Fortunately the jealousies of the French generals, which throughout the campaign contributed in no slight degree to the success of the British, was now the cause of their safety, for Montbrun, who commanded the French heavy cavalry, refused to obey Ney's order to charge straight down to the bridge, in which case the whole English infantry would have been cut off; the French hussars, however, being on the British rear, charged among them whenever the ground permitted them to do so.
It was in returning with it towards Smolensk that his stragglers had been driven back on Ney's troops, to whom they communicated their panic; all hurried together towards the Dnieper; here they crowded together at the entrance of the bridge, without thinking of defending themselves, when a charge made by the 4th regiment stopped the advance of the enemy.
I have no positive proofs of the fact, but in my opinion Ney's life was a pledge of gratitude which Fouche thought he must offer to the foreign influence which had made him Minister. About this time I learned a fact which will create no surprise, as it affords another proof of the chivalrous disinterestedness of Macdonald's character.
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