The division of the Viceroy Eugene, consisting of about the same number as that of Napoleon, but inferior in quality, as comprehending none of the Imperial Guard, could not be collected till late on the 15th November, when the wearied wretches were once more put into march, by promises of a safe arrival in that Lithuania, which so few of them were ever to see again. On the 16th, Davoust, after some high words with Ney, who would have hurried his departure, set out with another fourth part of the grand army, approaching to, or exceeding 10,000 men in number. Ney remained till the 17th of November. As he had once more the perilous task of covering the retreat, which duty he had performed so admirably betwixt Wiazma and Smolensk, his division was fortified with about 4000 of the Imperial Guard, to whom, as better fed than the other troops, besides their high character as veterans, more could be trusted even in the most desperate circumstances. Ere the French left the town, they obeyed the strict commands of the Emperor, in blowing up the towers with which Smolensk was surrounded, that it might not again, as Napoleon expressed himself, form an obstacle to a French army. Such was the language of this extraordinary man, as if affecting to provide for re-entering into Russia, at a time when it was the only question whether he himself, or any individual of his army, should ever be able to leave the fatal country.--We must next attend to the motions of the Russians. The general voice of the Russian army had demanded Prince Golitcheff Koutousoff, as a chief who would put an end to Barclay de Tolly's system of retreat, and oppose the invaders in a pitched battle. He had done so at Borodino, but it was his last effort of the kind. His character was naturally the reverse of enterprising. Age had increased his disposition to extreme prudence, and the success which attended his procrastinating and cautious measures, while stationed at Taroutino, in the neighbourhood of Moscow, had riveted him to his own system, of risking as little as possible. It was in vain pointed out to him, that the Russian troops were in high condition, and that against an enemy so utterly broken and dispirited as the French then were, every thing might be trusted to those brave soldiers, who had not shrunk from an equal conflict with the same troops when in their vigour; and who, if then worsted, had left the enemy very little to boast of, having insulted his camp, and occupied the field of battle, even on the very night of his victory. Could Suwarrow have been recalled from the dead, or even the noble Bagration (the god of the army, as his name signifies in Russian;) or had Barclay de Tolly, Bennigsen, or Miloradowitch, been permitted to act when the moment of action approached, it seems probable that Napoleon would have revisited the Kremlin, not as a conqueror but as a prisoner. But Koutousoff, trusting to the climate of Russia, was