emperor in
his tent, appear out of it full of confidence and hope. This attitude
was dictated by honour; the multitude has imputed it to flattery.

Newerowskoi, almost crushed, hastened to shut himself up in Smolensk. He
left behind him some cossacks to burn the forage; the houses were
spared.

CHAP. III.

While the grand army was thus ascending the Dnieper, along its left
bank, Barclay and Bagration, placed between that river and the lake of
Kasplia, towards Inkowo, believed themselves to be still in presence of
the French army. They hesitated; twice hurried on by the counsel of
quarter-master-general Toll, they resolved to force the line of our
cantonments, and twice dismayed at so bold a determination, they stopped
short in the midst of the movement they had commenced for that purpose.
At length, too timid to take any other counsel than their own, they
appeared to have left their decision to circumstances, and to await our
attack, in order to regulate their defence by it.

It might also be perceived, from the unsteadiness of their movements,
that there was not a good understanding between these two chiefs. In
fact, their situation, their disposition, their very origin, every thing
about them was at variance. On the one hand the cool valour, the
scientific, methodical, and tenacious genius of Barclay, whose mind,
German like his birth, was for calculating every thing, even the chances
of the hazard, bent on owing all to his tactics, and nothing to fortune;
on the other the martial, bold, and vehement instinct of Bagration, an
old Russian of the school of Suwarrow, dissatisfied at being under a
general who was his junior in the service--terrible in battle, but
acquainted with no other book than nature, no other instructor than
memory, no other counsels than his own inspirations.

This old Russian, on the frontiers of Russia proper, trembled with shame
at the idea of retreating without fighting. In the army all shared his
ardour; it was supported on the one hand by the patriotic pride of the
nobles, by the success at Inkowo, by the inactivity of Napoleon at
Witepsk, and by the severe remarks of those who were not responsible; on
the other hand, by a nation of peasants, merchants, and soldiers, who
saw us on the point of treading their sacred soil, with all the horror
that such profanation could excite. All, in short, demanded a battle.

Barclay alone was against fighting. His plan, erroneously attributed