The battle of Borodino, famous in the annals of war, had begun. The roar of the guns, borne upon the wind, was heard eighty miles away from the battle-field. The Emperor was seen throughout the whole day sitting or slowly walking up and down near the landslip on the left front of the captured Shevardino redoubt; but he could scarcely view the battle from that place after it had been for some time in progress. He rose now and again, walked a few paces and seated himself once more. Those who attended him regarded him with astonishment. They were accustomed under such circumstances to see him managing affairs with a confident and tranquil air; but instead of this they now saw nothing but feebleness, lethargy, and inertia. Some ascribed his want of energy to fatigue; others thought that he was tired of everything, even of fighting, while some suspected internal sufferings. The last supposition was probably the correct one. Napoleon’s attendant, Constant, positively asserts that during the whole of the battle of Borodino he was suffering from an attack of his chronic malady. He had contracted, moreover, some time previously a severe cold which he had neglected, and it was rendered still worse by the anxieties of the day. So seriously, in fact, did it affect him that he almost lost his voice. “Napoleon never once mounted his horse,” says de la Fluse, “during the whole of the battle. He walked about with his officers, pacing up and down upon the same spot. It was said that his indisposition prevented him from riding. “His aide-de-camp was kept busy in receiving and delivering his orders. Behind Napoleon were the Guards and a few corps in reserve. A regimental band was playing a succession of military airs, recalling the battle-fields of the first Revolution, such as ‘_Allons enfants de la patrie!_’ But at Borodino these strains had no effect on the soldiers, and some of the older officers laughed at the contrast of the two periods. The panorama of a bloody battle was spread before our eyes, but we could see nothing, owing to the smoke of a thousand guns thundering without a pause. I got as close as I could to the Emperor, who kept looking through his glass at the field of battle. He was dressed in his grey overcoat, and spoke but little. When a cannon-ball rolled towards his feet, as sometimes happened, he stepped on one side just like the rest of us.” By three o’clock in the afternoon the French had captured the redoubt on the Semyonof heights, but the Russian army, far from taking to flight, had no intention even of retiring. Napoleon, aghast at the unprecedented losses of men, officers, and generals, put a stop to any further attack, and, in spite of all representations, refused to allow the reserves to be used for a final decisive assault. [Illustration: AT BORODINO.]