my had repulsed the attacks of the French and
resumed its march towards Moscow, Sir Robert Wilson left it and
proceeded to St. Petersburg, where he had promised the Russian generals
to inform the Czar of the opinion and disposition of the army, their
dissatisfaction with the general, and their determination to continue
the combat and to refuse to recognize any negotiations or armistice that
might be made with the enemy.

"I shall leave you here, Wyatt," the General said, on the morning after
the desperate defence of Loubino had saved the army. "There is little
chance of the French pressing the Russians any further. I think it
probable that they may go into winter quarters where they now are; but
in any case they cannot hope to outmarch us, and, if they follow, the
battle will be in the position the Russians may choose. Even were there
more fighting imminent, I should still start to-day for St. Petersburg;
I only came round by Smolensk, as you know, because I thought that the
Emperor would be found there. My first duty is to see him, and to report
to him the arrangements that have been made on the Danube with the Grand
Vizier and his people, by which the whole of the Russian army there will
be able to join in the defence against the French. As soon as I have
done so and explained to his Majesty the position here, I shall rejoin;
and I hope the Czar will also be coming down here, for his presence
would be most useful--not in the military way, for no men in the world
could fight better than the Russians are doing,--but the army fears,
above all things, that peace will be made before it has an opportunity
of wiping out, what it considers its disgrace, in allowing the French to
overrun so many rich provinces without striking a blow.

"In point of fact, the defence of Smolensk, and the way in which some
20,000 men yesterday withstood for hours the assault of three or four
times their number, would be sufficient to prove to the world their
fighting qualities. In my own mind, I consider that Barclay has acted
wisely in declining to hazard the whole fortune of the war upon a single
battle against an enemy which, from the first, has outnumbered him
nearly threefold, but he should never have taken up his position on the
frontier if he did not mean to defend it. Any other army than this would
have become a disorganized rabble long ago. There is nothing so trying
to troops as to march for weeks hotly chased by an enemy. Three times