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its farthest extremity, while the foreground is finely marked by the decaying towers of the fortress, or the dark foliage which shades its ramparts. We walked over the field of battle with a degree of interest, which nothing but the memorable operations of which it had formerly been the theatre, could possibly have excited. The accounts of the action, which we received from the inhabitants of the town, and peasantry in its vicinity, agreed perfectly with the official details which we had previously read; and although we could not give an opinion with confidence on a military question, it certainly appeared to us, that the operations of the French army had been ill combined. Indeed, some French officers with whom we conversed on the next day, allowed that the battle had been ill fought, but, as usual, laid all the blame upon Marmont. The main body of the French army, advancing by the road from Soissons, attacked the villages of Ardon and Semilly in front of the town, on the centre of Marshal Blucher's position, and his right wing, which was posted in the intersected ground to the west of the town, on the morning of the 9th of March. These parts of the position were occupied chiefly by the corps of Woronzoff and Buloff, and as they were very strong, no impression was made on them, and the troops who defended them maintained themselves, without support from the reserves, during the whole day. Late in the evening, the corps of Marmont, with a body of cavalry under Arrighi, appeared on the road from Rheims, advancing apparently without any communication or concert with the troops under Napoleon in person, (who were drawn up, for the most part, in heavy columns, in the immediate vicinity of the Soissons road), and made a furious attack on the extreme left of Marshal Blucher's position. The Marshal being satisfied by this time, that the troops in position about the town were adequate to the defence of it against Napoleon's force, was enabled to detach the whole corps of York, Kleist, and Sacken, with the greater part of his cavalry, to oppose Marmont, who was instantly overthrown, cut off from all communication with Napoleon, and driven across the Aisne, with the loss of four or five thousand prisoners, and forty pieces of cannon. The only assistance which Napoleon could give him in his retreat, was by renewing the attack on Ardon and Semilly, which he did next morning, and maintained the action during the whole of the 10th,
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