The rear-guard, under Ney, suffered yet more than these. Every house had been burnt before their arrival, and their sufferings from the enemy were the severer, that they were the last French whom they had to work their revenge upon. Yet Ney continued to evince a degree of personal firmness and resolution which has been rarely witnessed. At the passage of the Dnieper, he was attacked by the enemy, and all was nearly lost in one general confusion, when the Maréchal, seizing a musket to encourage the few men who could be brought to act, succeeded, against all the hopes of the Russians, and equally against the despairing calculations of the French, in bringing over a part of his rear-guard. But he lost on this fatal spot a great part of his artillery, and a great number of his soldiers. We can give only one unvarying sketch of Ney's dreadful retreat. On every point he was attacked by the same wasting, wearying warfare, and every cessation from fighting was necessarily employed in pushing forward towards Smolensk, which he was approaching on the 13th of November, when suddenly the hills to his left were covered with a disorderly mob of fugitives, whom a band of Cossacks were pursuing and slaughtering at pleasure. Having succeeded in dispersing the Cossacks, the next apparition was that of the army of Italy, to which the flying stragglers belonged. This corps d'armée was on its return, as the reader is aware, from Dowkhowtchina towards Smolensk, and was, as usual, severely pushed at every step by the Cossacks. The passage of the Wop had stripped the soldiers of baggage, provisions such as they had, and artillery and cavalry. They kept their march, however, with sufficient regularity. It was only the stragglers whom the Cossacks chased before them, and wounded, took, and slew at pleasure. These wretched fugitives no sooner saw Ney's army, than they flew to shelter themselves under its protection, and by doing so communicated their own terror to the Maréchal's ranks. All, both stragglers and soldiers, began to hurry towards the Dnieper, over which was a bridge, which their numbers soon choked up. Great loss was sustained, until Eugene and the indefatigable Ney again presented a defensive front, and repelled the assailants, who had again gathered around them. They were so near Smolensk, that Napoleon could send them refreshments and succour, during the action. The viceroy and Ney at length extricated themselves from their persecutors, and entered Smolensk, where Davoust had before found refuge. Napoleon allowed his army, which was now entirely collected, five days to consume such supplies as were to be found in the place, and to prepare for the terrors of a farther retreat. But though such a delay was indispensable, the evil news which continued to arrive from every quarter, positively prohibited his prolonging this period of repose.[202] [Sidenote: OPERATIONS OF THE RUSSIANS.]