At length the longed-for Smolensk was visible. At the sight of its strong walls and lofty towers, the whole stragglers of the army, which now included treble the number of those who kept their ranks, rushed headlong to the place. But instead of giving them ready admission, their countrymen in the town shut the gates against them with horror; for their confused and irregular state, their wild, dirty, and unshaved appearance, their impatient cries for entrance--above all, their emaciated forms, and starved, yet ferocious aspects--made them to be regarded rather as banditti than soldiers. At length, the Imperial Guards arrived and were admitted; the miscellaneous crowd rushed in after them. To the guards, and some few others who had kept order, rations were regularly delivered; but the mass of stragglers, being unable to give any account of themselves or their regiments, or to bring with them a responsible officer, died, many of them, while they besieged in vain the doors of the magazines. Such was the promised distribution of food--the promised quarters were nowhere to be found. Smolensk, as is already recorded, had been burnt by the Russians, and no other covering was to be had than was afforded by miserable sheds, reared against such blackened walls as remained yet standing. But even this was shelter and repose, compared to the exposed bivouac on wreaths of snow; and as the straggling soldiers were compelled by hunger to unite themselves once more with their regiments, they at length obtained their share in the regular distribution of rations, and an approach towards order and discipline began to prevail in the headmost division of the Grand Army of France. The central part of the army, under Davoust, who had relinquished the rear-guard to Ney, continued to advance from Wiazma to Dorogobuje; but at this point his distress became extreme, from the combined influence of the storm, the enemy, and the disheartened condition of men driven from their standards by want of food, searching for it in vain, and afterwards unable from weakness to resume their ranks. Many fell into the hands of the incensed peasants, by whom they were either killed, or stripped naked and driven back to the high-road.