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THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN OF 1812SIR ROBERT WILSON.

It is long before we arrive at the secret causes of events, the hidden motives of the actors in them. The events themselves are patent to all; their form, their shape, their result, we all can from the first appreciate. Brilliant and accurate descriptions of them we can gather from cotemporary records, but these relate to the outward seeming alone. It is long years afterwards, when the generation who witnessed them have sunk into the tomb, and the men who acted in them have journeyed hence, that we first obtain a glimpse behind the curtain, and acquire a knowledge of the real objects pursued, and the true springs of action. Thus it is that on many points connected both with the diplomatic history and the military events of the first French Empire, we are only now beginning to have revealed to us the secret causes, and to see in their just character the men who carried them on. Upon the diplomacy of Napoleon I. much light has been shed by Thiers in his very valuable History of the Consulate and the Empire, and by the documents published in the Memoires of Joseph and Eugene. Many curious details have also been brought out by Marmont in his very interesting Memoires; and Koch, in his Life of Massena, has explained

VOL. LXXXVIII.-NO. DXXXVII.

much that is important regarding the military narrative of the campaigns in which that Marshal took a part. But there is no portion of this period both more interesting in itself, and upon which more new matter has been revealed, than the Russian campaign of 1812.

The brilliant eye-painting of Segur -the Times' correspondent of the campaign-left little to be desired regarding the external features of that most thrilling of military episodes. The Russian view was given with great clearness and great accuracy by Boutourlin, but he is essentially a supporter of one of the two great parties into which Russian public opinion was split-viz., that of the nobles, represented by Kutusoff; and that of the young Russians, by Milaradowitch and Bagrathion. He belonged to the former. Chambray has with great care and impartiality given the French account. He wrote with many advantages. Himself an actor in the events which he narrates, and furnished with all the information which the records of the French War-office could afford, he has produced a work which in some respects, and more especially with regard to the numbers of the French army at different periods, is the best which we possess. The keen Prussian

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