caution of a man whose life is worth that of many common men. It was only what every great royal and imperial general is accustomed to do. The early hours of December second, 1805, were misty, although there was a sharp frost; but by seven the sun had dimly risen, and soon the thick fog lay only along the streams. At that hour the Russians and Austrians began their marching. Those behind the Pratzen heights passed swiftly up, and, uniting with those already there, marched in the general direction of the forest near Turas, intending to cross the intervening Goldbach and with their own left, which stood at Telnitz and Sokolnitz, surround Napoleon's right wing. The battle-field of Austerlitz is approximately an isosceles triangle, the short base extending north and south between Raigern and Brünn, a distance of about seven miles, and the equal sides, twelve miles in length, converging in Austerlitz to the eastward. About half-way on a perpendicular let fall from the apex, and parallel with the base, the Goldbach flows on the west side of the Pratzen plateau, nearly due south, the villages of Schlapanitz, Puntowitz, Kobelnitz, Sokolnitz, and Telnitz being at about equidistant intervals from north to south on its banks. A mile north of Schlapanitz the road from Brünn to Olmütz forms the north side of the triangle; the forest of Turas lies about two miles to the west of Puntowitz, on a high plain. In a line eastward of Schlapanitz, about a mile from that village and from each other, are the villages of Girzikowitz and Blasowitz. Napoleon's bivouac was on the high hill northwest of Schlapanitz, at the base of which, on the other side, was Bellowitz. North of the Olmütz road is a commanding hill, dubbed by the veterans of the Egyptian expedition with an Egyptian name, Santon, from a fancied resemblance of the little spire which crowned it to a minaret. This was to be the pivot of the battle, and Napoleon fortified it with a redoubt and eighteen pieces of cannon. South of it stood the left wing under Lannes; next toward the south stood the cavalry under Murat; then the center under Bernadotte; and Soult with the right was west of Puntowitz. Oudinot was eastward, in front of the imperial bivouac, with ten battalions; and ten battalions of the guard, with forty field-pieces, were westward behind it. Davout, having arrived the night before, was at Raigern. Legrand stood between him and Sokolnitz, on a pond lying southeast of that village.