On the 5th of September, Napoleon came in sight of the position of Kutusoff, and succeeded in carrying a redoubt in front of it. All the 6th the two armies lay in presence of each other, preparing for the contest. The Russians were posted on an elevated plain; having a wood on their right flank, their left on one of the villages, and a deep ravine, the bed of a small stream, in their front. Extensive field-works covered every more accessible point of this naturally very strong ground; and in the centre of the whole line, a gentle eminence was crowned by an enormous battery, serving as a species of citadel. The Russian army were 120,000 in numbers; nor had Napoleon a greater force in readiness for his attack. In artillery also the armies were equal. It is supposed that each had 500 guns in the field. Buonaparte addressed his troops in his usual style of language: "Soldiers! here is the battle you have longed for; it is necessary, for it brings us plenty, good winter-quarters, and a safe return to France. Behave yourselves so that posterity may say of each of you, _He was in that great battle beneath the walls of Moscow._" In the Russian camp, meanwhile, the clergy appeared in their richest vestments, and displaying their holiest images, called on the men to merit Paradise by devoting themselves in the cause of their country. The soldiers answered with shouts which were audible throughout all the enemy's lines. At four o'clock in the morning of the 7th, the French advanced under cover of a thick fog, and assaulted at once the centre, the right, and the left of the position. Such was the impetuosity of the charge that they drove the Russians from their redoubts; but this was but for a moment. They rallied under the very line of their enemy's fire, and instantly re-advanced. Peasants who, till that hour, had never seen war, and who still wore their usual rustic dress, distinguished only by a cross sewed on it in front, threw themselves into the thickest of the combat. As they fell, others rushed on and filled their places. Some idea may be formed of the obstinacy of the contest from the fact, that of one division of the Russians which mustered 30,000 in the morning, only 8000 survived. These men had fought in close order, and unshaken, under the fire of eighty pieces of artillery. The result of this terrible day was, that Buonaparte withdrew his troops and abandoned all hope of forcing his way through the Russians. In no contest by many degrees so desperate had he hitherto been engaged. Night found either army on the ground they had occupied at daybreak. The number of guns and prisoners taken by the French and the Russians was about equal; and of either host there had fallen not less than 40,000 men. Some accounts raise the gross number of the slain to 100,000. Such was the victory in honour of which Napoleon created Marshal Ney _Prince of Moskwa_.