time gave battle, at the village of Borodino. This was one of the most
murderous conflicts of modern times. A thousand cannon vomited death
all day. Under the smoke a quarter of a million of men struggled like
tigers. At nightfall the French had the field. The defeated Russians
hung sullenly around the arena where they had left more than 40,000 of
their dead and wounded. The Frence losses were almost equally
appalling. "Sire," said Marshal Ney, "we would better withdraw and
reform." "_Thou_ advise a retreat, Michel?" said the marble head, as
it turned to the Bulldog of Battles.

Kutusoff abandoned Moscow. The inhabitants receded with him to the
great plains eastward. On the fifteenth of September, Napoleon entered
the ancient capital. The streets were as a necropolis. All was
silence. The conqueror took up his residence in the old palace of the
Czars. Here he would spend the winter in luxurious quarters. Here he
would extemporize theatres, and here he would issue edicts as from
Berlin and Milan. Lo, out of the Bazaar, near the Kremlin, bursts a
volume of flame! The surrounding region is lighted with the glare.
Moscow is on fire in a thousand places. The equinoctial gales fan the
flame. For five days there is the roar of universal combustion. Then
it subsides. But Moscow is a blackened ruin. Napoleon tries in vain to
open negotiations with the Czar; but Alexander and Kutusoff will not
hear. The French are left to enjoy the ashes of a burnt-up Russian
city.

Already winter was at hand. The snow was falling. The soldier of
fortune had at last found his destiny. On the nineteenth of October,
he left Moscow, and the retreat of the Grand Army began toward the
Niemen. Had the retreat been unimpeded, that army might have made its
way back to France with comparatively trifling losses. Indeed the fame