such a prodigious mass of equipages in so long a route.

Notwithstanding the width of the road and the shouts of his escort,
Napoleon had great difficulty in obtaining a passage through this
immense throng. No doubt the obstruction of a defile, a few forced
marches, or a handful of Cossacks would have been sufficient to rid us
all of this encumbrance; but fortune or the enemy had alone a right to
lighten us in this manner. As for the emperor, he was fully sensible
that he could neither deprive his soldiers of this fruit of so many
toils, nor reproach them for securing it. Besides, provisions concealed
the booty; and was it for him, who could not give his troops the
subsistence he should have done, to forbid their carrying it along with
them? Lastly, in case of the failure of military conveyances, these
vehicles would be the only means of preservation for the sick and
wounded.

Napoleon therefore extricated himself in silence from the immense train
which he drew after him, and advanced on the old road leading to Kaluga.
He pushed on in this direction for some hours, declaring that he would
go and beat Kutusoff on the very field of his victory. But all at once,
about midday, opposite to the castle of Krasnopachra, where he halted,
he suddenly turned to the right with his army, and in three marches
across the country gained the new road to Kaluga.

The rain, which overtook him in the midst of this manoeuvre, spoiled the
cross-roads, and obliged him to halt in them. This was a most
unfortunate circumstance. It was with difficulty that our cannon were
drawn out of the sloughs.

At any rate, the emperor had masked his movement by Ney's corps and the
remnants of Murat's cavalry, which had remained behind the Motscha and
at Woronowo. Kutusoff, deceived by this feint, was still waiting for the
Grand Army on the old road, while, on the 23d of October, the whole of
it had been transferred to the new one, and had but one march to make in
order to pass quietly by him, and to get between him and Kaluga.

On the first day of this flanking march, a letter was sent from Berthier
to Kutusoff, as a last attempt at peace, or perhaps merely as a ruse. No
satisfactory answer was returned to it.

On the 23d the imperial quarters were at Borowsk. 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-jarosl