On the same day a more serious skirmish took place near Vilkomirz. Wittgenstein, falling back from Keidani, heard that Oudinot was marching up the right bank of the Vilia and, fearing that he might be anticipated at Vilkomirz, stationed his rear-guard, under Major-General Kulnev (4 battalions, 4 squadrons, 1 Cossack regiment and 6 guns), on the 27th at Develtova, requesting General Uvarov to support him with a regiment of Dragoons. Meanwhile the 1st Corps defiled through Vilkomirz on the Sventsiani road. As Kulnev, in his turn, was retiring through the place from Develtova, he was attacked by Castex with Oudinot’s advanced guard. The French cavalry charged the Russian Hussars and Cossacks and drove them into the town with considerable loss, but Kulnev succeeded in withdrawing his force across the Vilia, and burnt the bridge, and Castex could only cannonade the Russians until the arrival of infantry. Uvarov’s cavalry regiment, marching rather carelessly to join Kulnev along the river-bank, came under artillery fire and lost several men and horses. When Oudinot’s infantry began to arrive Kulnev followed his chief. He had lost about 300 men, including 240 prisoners. Oudinot reported a loss of 50 killed and wounded. The 2nd Corps occupied Vilkomirz, and bivouacked for the night some 2 miles on the Sventsiani road. Napoleon himself entered Vilna in the afternoon of the 28th. Alexander had sent his aide-de-camp, General Balashov, with a final message to his opponent, offering to reopen negotiations if the French troops withdrew across the Niemen. Napoleon, with his usual dramatic instinct, received Balashov in the quarters which Alexander had lately quitted. Needless to say, nothing came of the interview. Napoleon regarded the message as an insult, or at best as an attempt to gain time. He merely wrote a long letter to Alexander repeating all his real or imagined grounds for the war. Danilevski says that Balashov was directed to tell Napoleon that if he declined to listen to Alexander’s last overtures he must expect war to the death. It is also said that Napoleon asked questions concerning the roads to Moscow. Balashov replied that there were several, and His Majesty might do as other monarchs had done, and choose. Charles XII, for example, had taken the road that led by way of Poltava!