ts of their pikes such of
their foot-soldiers as lengthened the line of march, or stepped out of
their ranks; for our squadrons harassed them incessantly, watched all
their movements, threw themselves into the smallest intervals, and
instantly carried off all that separated from the main body; they even
penetrated into it twice, but a little way, the horses remaining, as it
were, stuck fast in that thick and obstinate mass.

Newerowskoi had one very critical moment: his column was marching on the
left of the high-road through rye not yet cut, when all at once it was
stopped by a long fence, formed of a stout palisade; his soldiers,
pressed by our movements, had not time to make a gap in it, and Murat
sent the Wurtembergers against them to make them lay down their arms;
but while the head of the Russian column was surmounting the obstacle,
their rearmost ranks faced about and stood firm. They fired ill, it is
true, most of them into the air, like persons who are frightened; but so
near, that the smoke, the flash of the reports of so many shot,
frightened the Wurtemberg horses, and threw them into confusion.

The Russians embraced that moment to place between them and us that
barrier which was expected to prove fatal to them. Their column profited
by it to rally and gain ground. At length some French cannon came up,
and they alone were capable of making a breach in this living fortress.

Newerowskoi hastened to reach a defile, where Grouchy was ordered to
anticipate him; but Murat, deceived by a false report, had diverted the
greatest part of that general's cavalry in the direction of Elnia;
Grouchy had only 600 horse remaining. He made the 8th chasseurs dash
forward to the defile, but it found itself too weak to stand against so
strong a column. The vigorous and repeated charges made by that
regiment, by the 6th hussars, and the 6th lancers, on the left flank of
that dense mass, which was protected by the double row of birch-trees
that lined the road on each side, were wholly insufficient, and
Grouchy's applications for assistance were not attended to; either
because the general who followed him was kept back by the difficulties
of the ground, or that he was not sufficiently sensible of the
importance of the combat. It was nevertheless great, since there was
between Smolensk and Murat but this one Russian corps, and had that been
defeated, Smolensk might have been surprised without defenders, taken
without a battle, an