On leaving Lubino Barclay had sent forward Toll to look for a favourable field of battle. While the First Army was marching to Solovievo, Bagration moved on towards Dorogobuzh. Toll, who was accompanied by Clausewitz, found a position, which he considered satisfactory, about 5 miles west of the town, behind the small river Uzha, which here flowed into the Dnieper from the south. It was open in front, giving free play to the action of the powerful Russian artillery, and woods behind afforded cover for reserves. On the right, however, a hill beyond the Uzha commanded part of the main position, and thus appeared to Barclay and Bagration, who met to confer, a cardinal defect. Barclay, whose temper had probably scarcely been softened by persecution, blamed Toll, and the latter, always gruff to the verge of rudeness, growled a reply to the effect that he could not _make_ positions--if they were not to be _found_ that was the fault of the country. Barclay, recognising that there was reason in the answer, if little courtesy, refrained from an angry reply; but Bagration was furious, and his natural generosity impelled him to praise the very man whom he had recklessly assailed. “If you cannot choose positions,” he told the luckless young Quartermaster-General, “that is not to say that others cannot! How dare you, you unlicked cub, address the commander-in-chief so? He owes his position to his great qualities, and deserves every consideration. I am his senior, but I set the example by serving under him. You and your blue riband! (Toll was a Knight of St. Andrew.) You think that you honour him by serving under him; but it is the other way about. It is disgraceful that a young swelled-head like you should hold such language towards the man on whom depends the fate of the army and the empire. Thank his generosity that worse does not befall you, for if I had my way I would change that blue riband for a common soldier’s belts!” The threat was by no means an empty one, for a Russian commander-in-chief had power to degrade officers to the ranks. Bagration’s words certainly afford food for reflection, seeing his remarks of a few days since, but it is good to know that one of the last actions of his honourable life was to endeavour to make some amends to his ill-used colleague. The position being deemed unfavourable, Bagration suggested another in front of Dorogobuzh. Clausewitz describes this--perhaps partly out of pique--as very bad. It at any rate appears that it was intersected by the Dnieper, though the river was not here a very formidable obstacle.