had inclined too much towards the right; the King of Naples remained alone, exposed to the havoc of the batteries of Seminskoe. He had nothing but cavalry; a deep ravine separated him from the village: it was not easy to take it, but it was necessary to do so under pain of being swept away by the grape-shot. General Belliard, who only perceives a screen of light cavalry, conceives the design of driving it off and moving by the left on the redoubt. Run to Latour Maubourg,' Murat said to him; 'tell him to take a brigade of French and Saxon cuirassiers, to pass the ravine, to put all to the sword, to arrive at full gallop at the back of the redoubt, and to spike all the cannon. If he should fail, let him return in the same direction. You shall place a battery of forty pieces of cannon and a part of the reserve to protect the retreat. Latour Maubourg put himself in movement, routed, dispersed the Russians, and made himself master of the works. Friant came up to occupy them. All the reserve passed, and esta blished itself on the left of the village. There remained a last retrenchment, which took us in flank and commanded our position. The reserve had taken one, it thought that it could take another. Caulincourt advanced, and spread far and wide confusion and death. He falls suddenly on the redoubt, and gets possession of it. A soldier hidden in an embrasure stretched him dead. He slept the sleep of the brave; he was not a witness of our disasters.

He

had paused. General Belliard went to reconnoitre a wood situated at some distance. perceived the road which converged on us; it was covered with troops and convoys, which were retreating. If they had been intercepted, all the right of the enemy's army had been taken in the segment in which it was placed. He came and informed Murat of it. Run and give an account of it to the Emperor,' said the Prince. He went, but Napoleon did not think the moment come. I do not see sufficiently clear on my chess-board;

expect news from Poniatowski. Return, examine, come back.' The General returned, indeed, but it was too late. The Russian guard was advancing; infantry, cavalry, all were coming up to renew the attack. The General had only time to collect a few pieces of cannon. Grape-shot, grape-shot, and nothing but grapeshot,' he said to the artillerymen. The firing began: its effect was terrible; in one instant the ground was covered with dead. The shattered column was dissipated like a shadow. It did not fire one shot. Its artillery arrived a few moments after; we got possession of it.

The battle was gained, but the firing was still terrible. The balls and shots were pouring down by my side. In the space of one hour I was struck four times; first with two shots rather slightly, then with a bullet on the left arm, which carried away the sleeve of my coat and shirt close to the skin. I was then at the head of the sixty-first regiment, which I had known in Upper Egypt. There were a few officers

present

present who were there; it was rather singular to meet here. I soon received a fourth wound; a ball struck me on my left hip, and threw me headlong from my horse--it was the twenty-second. I was obliged to quit the field of battle; I informed Marshal Ney of it, his troops were mixed with mine.

"General Dessaix, the only general of that division who was not wounded, succeeded me; amoment after he had his arm broken; Friant was not wounded till afterwards.

66

I was dressed by the surgeon of Napoleon, who also came himself to visit me. 'Is it, then, always your turn? How are things going on?' ' Sire, I think you will be obliged to make your guard charge.' 'I shall

"I began to be able to walk; on the 13th I went to the palace: Napoleon asked with kindness in what state my wounds were? how I was going on? He showed me the portrait of the King of Rome, which he had received at the moment we were going to begin the battle of the Moskowa. He had shown it to most of the generals. I had to carry orders; the battle began; we had other things to attend to. He wished now to make me amends; he looked for the medallion, and observed, with a satisfaction which betrayed itself in his eyes :- My son is the finest child in France.'"

The miseries of the retreat of the French army from Russia are known to every one. The following are fragments of General Rapp's account of them :

take good care not to do so. do not wish to see it destroyed. I am sure to gain the battle without its taking a part.' It did not charge in effect, with the exception of thirty pieces of cannon, which did wonders.

"The day ended; fifty thousand men lay on the field of battle. A multitude of generals were killed and wounded: we had for ty disabled. We made some prisoners, took some pieces of cannon this result did not compensate for the losses which it had cost us."

General Rapp proceeds to describe the entrance into Moscow, and its conflagration. Amidst all the horrors of those scenes there is a little touch of human feeling, which would be quite refreshing, could we forget that it was exhi bited by one who had shown himself utterly reckless of human life and happiness:1823.

The cold, the privations, were extreme; the hour of disasters had come on us! We found our wounded lying dead on the road, and the Russians waiting for us at Viasma. At the sight of these columns the soldiers collected a remnant of energy, fell upon them, and defeated them. But we were harassed by troops animated by abundance, and by hope of plunder. At every step we were obliged to halt, and fight; we slackened our march over a wasted country, which we should have gone over with the greatest rapidity. Cold, hunger, the Cossacks,-every scourge was let loose upon us. The army was sinking under the weight of its misfortunes; the road was strewed with the dead: our sufferings exceeded imagination. How many sick and wounded generals did I meet in this terrible retreat, whom I believed that I should never again

E

again see! Of this number was General Friant, whose wounds were still open; General Durosnel, who travelled with a nervous fever, almost continually delirious; and the brave General Belliard, who was wounded by a gun-shot, in the battle of the Moskowa.

"A part of the infantry crossed over (the Borysthenes), the remainder bivouacked in a little wood, on the bank where we were. We were engaged all night in getting the cannon across. The last was on the ascent, when the enemy appeared. They attacked immediately, with considerable masses; we received their charges without being shaken; but our end was attained: we had no object in fighting; we retreated. We left behind a few hundreds of men, whom wounds and exhaustion had put out of a condition to follow. Poor creatures! they complained, they groaned, and called for death; it was a heart-rending sight; but what could we do? Every one was bending under the burden of life, and supported it with difficulty. I had sufficient strength to share it with others. The Russians pursued us, they wished to pass by main force. Ney received them with that vigour, that impetuosity, which he always displayed in his attacks: they were repulsed, and the bridge became a prey to the flames. The firing ceased, we withdrew during the night. I joined Napoleon at Smolensko the day after the next in the evening. He knew that a ball had grazed my head, and that another had killed my horse; he observed be at ease now, you will not be killed this campaign.' 'I hope that your Ma

to me,

• You may

་

jesty may not be deceived; but you often gave the same assurance to poor Lannes, who nevertheless was killed.'-' No! no! you will not be killed.'-'I be lieve it; but I may be still frozen to death.'

66

Napoleon marched on foot at the head of his guard, and often talked of Ney; he called to mind his coup d'ail so accurate and true, his courage proof against every thing, in short all the qualities which made him so brilliant on the field of battle.' He is lost. Well! I have three hundred millions in the Tuileries, I would give them if he were restored to me.'-He fixed his headquarters at Dombrowna. He lodged with a Russian lady who had the courage not to abandon her house. I was on duty that day: the Emperor sent for me towards one o'clock in the morning; he was very much dejected; it was difficult for him not to be so; the scene was frightful. He observed to me, My affairs are going on very badly; these poor soldiers rend my heart; I cannot, however, relieve them.'-There was a cry of To arms!'-Firing was heard; every thing was in an uproar. 'Go, see what it is,' Napoleon said to me with the greatest sang-froid; I am sure that they are some rogues of Cossacks who want to hinder us from sleeping.' It was, in reality, a false alarm. - - .

---"Napoleon despaired of ever seeing the rear-guard. Neither did we see any more the Russian infantry; it was probable that they had taken some position: they ought to have let nothing escape. The next day we pushed on two leagues

farther;

farther; we halted in a wretched hamlet. It was there that the Emperor learned, towards the evening, of Ney's arrival, and his having joined the fourth corps. It may be easily conceived what joy he experienced, and in what manner he received the Marshal on the next day."

6. The Military Exploits, &c. &c. of Don Juan Martin Diez, the Empecinado: translated by a General Officer.

John Martin Diez was born in September 1775, in the town of Castrillo de Duero, near Valladolid, in Old Castile. "His parents, John and Lucy, were respected peasants, descended from persons of the same class; and John Martin, from his infancy, seemed destined to pursue the same course of life as his forefathers. By labouring in the fields he acquired great bodily strength, and gave early proof of the desire he felt to employ it in the service of his country; for, before he had attained his sixteenth year, he ran away from his family, and enlisted. He was, however discharged, at the earnest entreaties of his parents, upon the fair plea of his being under age.

"His father, it seems, died at the very moment that war was proclaimed against France, at the commencement of the French Revolution. John Martin follow ing the dictates of his heart, resolved to be a soldier, and instantly volunteered his services during the term of the war. He

was admitted as a private into the regiment of Dragoons of Spain, in which he served until the peace; and was always distinguished for his gallantry in the field, and for his subordination and regularity in quarters.

"At the close of the war he was discharged, and returned to his home soon after, he married Catalina de la Fuente, and went to live in the town of Fuentecen, two leagues from Castrillo, and there resumed the labours of the field.

"Here he acquired the nickname of Empecinado;* and here he was when the first division of Napoleon's troops entered Spain.

"From the knowledge he had acquired, during the war, of the character of the French, he conceived towards them the most inveterate antipathy: this was very soon made manifest to his neighbours; for as early as the year 1807, his sense of duty and obedience to the orders of government alone restrained his ardour, and prevented his commencing warfare upon these pretended allies. He continually declared these sentiments in his own and the neighbouring towns; and endeavoured to prove that the French troops ought at that moment to have been considered enemies to the country. When he was told that King Ferdinand had passed through Aranda de Duero, he was heard to say, 'The French are an infumous people; Napoleon is the worst among them; and, if Ferdinand once enters France, he will never get out of it, until we go

and fetch him.' This spirited conduct and correct opinion seemed to portend that he was one of those Spaniards destined by Providence to espouse the cause of his country, to defend her, and to free her from the slavery with which she was threatened by the despot of France.

"The instant it was known that King Ferdinand was at Bayonne, the Empecinado determined to make war against the French; and at the close of the month of March, having persuaded two of his neighbours to accompany him, he took the field, and thus most justly acquired the title of the first proclaimer of national liberty. One of his two companions was a boy of sixteen years old, Juan Garcia, of the town of Cuevas, near to Castrillo.

"He took post upon the highroad from France to Madrid, close to the village of Onrubia, four leagues from Aranda de Duero, conceiving this spot well calculated for the purpose of intercepting the French couriers. In a few hours he got possession of the correspondence of a courier, who escaped only by the fleetness of his horse, but who left behind him the guide and letter-bags.

"A few days afterwards he intercepted and killed another courier, and thus supplied himself with a horse and arms."

At first we find this intrepid chief, with twelve or fifteen companions, undertaking the most dashing affairs; and at last he is seen at the head of from 1500 to 5000 brave men, facing the strongest columns of the enemy in the field, baffling armies sent to surround him, shutting up garrisons, and cutting off supplies,

by an activity which seemed to quadruple his force, and make the name of Empecinado a shield to the people and a terror to their invaders.

"Amongst the early and bold operations of this chief, one in particular deserves notice, the capture of a convoy, in which was a carriage conveying a female relation or friend of Marshal Moncey. This coach was escorted by twelve soldiers, in the centre of two columns of six thousand men each, about a mile asunder. The Empecinado, with eight of his people, was concealed close to the town of Caravias. He allowed the leading column to pass, then boldly rushed upon the convoy, put to death the whole of the escort, seized and carried off the carriage; and when the alarm was given, Martin and his prize were in safety in the mountains, and he effectually eluded the long and strict search which was made after him. He was only able to save the life of one of the men servants and of the lady, whom he not only saved, but, as she was with child, he sent her to his own house that she might receive care and attention. The convoy turned out a prize of great value; it consisted of money, some jewels, and a variety of ornamental trinkets for women, military effects, such as officers' epaulets, gold and silver lace, and sword-blades. Martin divided a great portion of these things amongst his men; he took a share himself; but he reserved for the government the principal part, which he placed at the disposal of General Cuesta, in Salamanca; thus giving an unequivocal proof of his disinterested feelings, for an order had

been