On November 7th Eugen of Württemberg attacked Razout’s division before Dorogobuzh and after some obstinate fighting, partly owing to the indecision of its short-sighted commander, forced it to retreat through the town with a loss of several hundred men and 4 guns. Ney, who had hoped to delay Miloradovich for a day, was obliged to fall back towards Smolensk. Dorogobuzh was choked with disbanded men, who were ruthlessly murdered or stripped by the exasperated inhabitants. A watchmaker boasted of having killed 11 Frenchmen with a knife which he had concealed for the purpose! Miloradovich, however, was then obliged to draw off his infantry towards the south for the sake of food and shelter against the cold. He left the pursuit of Ney to Major-General Yurkovski with a brigade of dragoons and some Cossacks, while Platov followed Eugène towards Dukhovchina. At Mikalevka Napoleon learned of Malet’s audacious conspiracy in Paris, and the tidings doubtless did not tend to relieve his mind. On the 8th Junot’s corps arrived at Smolensk; but the day before that ruined town had been invaded by crowds of disbanded troops. Junot was not allowed to pass his corps into it, and cantoned it in villages on the Mstislavl road. Napoleon himself arrived on the 9th, only to be met by bad news from every side. Victor was proving unable to hold back Wittgenstein. Baraguay d’Hilliers’ division, as has been related, had pushed out to Ielnia, and was retiring upon Smolensk, when on this day his rear-guard brigade, 2000 strong, under General Augereau, was surrounded in the village of Liakhova by Orlov-Denisov, with his own flying detachment and those of Davidov, Seslavin, and Figner. Augereau was without artillery, and not being supported by Baraguay d’Hilliers, who showed great irresolution, was forced to surrender. Baraguay d’Hilliers retreated hastily to Smolensk with the rest of his division, and was very properly ordered home for trial. Besides Augereau’s brigade several depôts or posts of troops were captured by the Russian advanced detachments. Kutuzov reached Chelkanovo on the Smolensk-Mstislavl road, about 25 miles from Smolensk, on the 12th. He had not marched very rapidly--some 120 miles in 9 days--but it is true that both roads and weather were terrible. The Russians were well clothed and fairly well fed; but many of the Russian troops were young, and the snowy bivouacs had disastrous effects upon their unformed constitutions.