To hazard a second battle, was in a great measure to place the fate of their grand army upon the issue; and this was too perilous an adventure, even for the protection of the capital. The consideration seems to have prevailed, that Napoleon being now in the centre of Russia, with an army daily diminishing, and the hard season coming on, every hour during which a decisive action could be delayed was a loss to France, and an advantage to Russia. This was the rather the case, that Witgenstein, on the northern frontier, being reinforced by Steingel with the army of Finland; and, on the south, that of Moldavia being united to Tormasoff--Lithuania, and Poland, which formed the base of Napoleon's operations, were in hazard of being occupied by the Russians from both flanks, an event which must endanger his supplies, magazines, reserves, and communications of every kind, and put in peril at once his person and his army. Besides, the Russian generals reflected, that by evacuating Moscow, a measure which the inhabitants could more easily accomplish than those of any other city in the civilized world, they would diminish the prize to the victor, and leave him nothing to triumph over save the senseless buildings. It was therefore determined, that the preservation of the army was more essential to Russia than the defence of Moscow, and it was agreed that the ancient capital of the Czars should be abandoned to its fate. Count Rostopchin, the governor of Moscow, was a man of worth and talent, of wit also, as we have been informed, joined to a certain eccentricity. He had, since the commencement of the war, kept up the spirits of the citizens with favourable reports and loyal declarations, qualified to infuse security into the public mind. After the fate of Smolensk, however, and especially after the recommencement of Buonaparte's march eastward, many of the wealthy inhabitants of Moscow removed or concealed their most valuable effects, and left the city themselves. Rostopchin continued, however, his assurances, and took various means to convince the people that there was no danger. Among other contrivances, he engaged a great number of females in the task of constructing a very large balloon, from which he was to shower down fire, as the people believed, upon the French army. Under this pretext, he is stated to have collected a large quantity of fire-work and combustibles, actually destined for a very different purpose. [Sidenote: THE RUSSIANS ABANDON MOSCOW.]