Barclay was charged by the old Russians with being too German in feeling, with manoeuvering timidly when he ought to fight, and--sacrilege of sacrileges!--with leaving the sacred image of the Virgin at Smolensk to fall into hostile hands. Yielding to the storm of popular feeling, Alexander appointed in his stead Kutusoff, the darling of the conservative Slavonic party; but Barclay was persuaded to remain as adviser, and his policy was sustained. The Russians withdrew before the French advance, until, on September third, their van halted on the right bank of the Kalatscha, opposite Borodino, to strike the decisive blow in defense of Moscow. On the fourth Napoleon's van attacked and drove before it the Russian rear, which was just closing in. He had a hundred and twenty-eight thousand men at hand, and six thousand more within reach. That night he issued a ringing address: recalling Austerlitz, he summoned the soldiers to behave so that future generations would say of each, "He was in that great battle under the walls of Moscow." Next morning a courier arrived, bringing a portrait of the little King of Rome. The Emperor hung it before his tent, and invited his officers to admire it. But at night the sinister news of Marmont's defeat at Salamanca arrived. Napoleon said nothing, but was heard in self-communing to deplore the barbarity of war. All night he seemed restless, fearing lest the Russians should elude him as they had in other crises; but, rising at five, and discerning their lines, he called aloud: "They are ours at last! March on; let us open the gates of Moscow." The Russians, roused by religious fervor, and elevated by a fatalistic premonition of success, had thrown up trenches and redoubts at advantageous points on their chosen battle-fields. In their first onset they advanced like devotees, with the cry, "God have mercy upon us!" and, as each forward rank went down before the relentless invaders, those behind pressed onward over the bodies of their comrades. But it was all in vain; throughout the fourth and fifth of September one outpost after another was taken, until at ten in the evening of the latter day the whole Russian force was thrown back on its main position, stretching from the bank of the Moskwa on the north, behind the Kalatscha, as far as Utizy on the south, such portions as were not naturally sheltered being protected by strong redoubts. There were a hundred and twenty thousand in all, of which about seventeen thousand were ununiformed peasantry. Opposite stood the French, Poniatowski on the right, Davout, with the guard, in the rear, then Eugene; behind Davout, to the left, Ney; and farther behind, in the same line, Junot. The orders were for an opening cannonade, Poniatowski to surround the Russian left, Eugene to cross the Kalatscha by three bridges thrown over during the night, and attack the Russian right, while Morand and Gerard, his auxiliaries, should move on the center, and storm the defenses erected there.