ng position, where they might give
battle with advantage. On the other hand, there is no reason why we
should fight here. We have come down thirty or forty miles out of the
direct road to Moscow, and if, instead of doing so, we had crossed the
river, and had gone straight on, the Russians must have evacuated the
town and pushed on with all speed in order to get between us and Moscow.
But this marching about without getting a battle discourages men more
even than defeat, and I hope that it will do something to restore
discipline among the Germans and Austrians, ay, and among our own troops
too. I have been through a number of campaigns, and I have never seen
such disorder, such plunder, such want of discipline as has been shown
since we entered Russia. I tell you, Jules, even a defeat would do us
good. Look at the Russians; they never leave a straggler behind them,
never a dismounted gun, while the roads behind us are choked up with our
abandoned guns and waggons, and the whole country is covered with our
marauders. I should be glad if one of the brigades was ordered to break
up into companies and to march back, spreading out across the whole
country we have traversed, and shooting every man they met between this
and the frontier, whether he was French, German, Austrian, or Pole."

"It has been terrible," Julian agreed, "but at least we have the
satisfaction of knowing that Ney's corps d'armee has furnished a smaller
share of stragglers than most of the others."

"That is true enough, but bad is the best, lad. Some of our battalions
are nearly all young soldiers, and I can't say much for their conduct,
while the seven battalions of Spaniards, Wurtemburgers, and men from the
Duchy of Baden have behaved shamefully, and I don't think that the four
squadrons of Polish cavalry have been any better. We have all been bad;
there is no denying it; and never should we have conquered Germany,
crushed Prussia, and forced Austria to submit, had our armies behaved in
the way they have done of late. Napoleon would soon have put a stop to
it then. He would have had one or two of the worst regiments drawn up,
and would have decimated them as a lesson to the rest. Now his orders
seem to go for nothing. He has far too much on his mind to attend to
such things, and the generals have been thinking so much of pressing on
after the enemy that they have done nothing to see the orders carried
into effect. It was the same sort of thing that drove