Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 20.djvu/182

162 against the Russians, flocked to the camp and supplied the army with provisions.

Charles hoped that General Löwenhaupt at least would come and repair this misfortune. He was to bring with him about fifteen thousand Swedes, who were better than a hundred thousand Cossacks, together with ammunition and provisions. At length he arrived, in much the same condition as Mazeppa.

He had already passed the Boristhenes above Mohilou, and advanced twenty leagues beyond it, on the road to the Ukraine. He was bringing the king a convoy of eight thousand wagons, with the money which he had levied on his march through Lithuania. As he approached the town of Lesno, near the confluence of the rivers Pronia and Sossa, which fall into the Boristhenes far below, the czar appeared at the head of nearly forty thousand men.

The Swedish general who had not sixteen thousand all told, scorned to shelter himself in a fortified camp. A long train of victories had inspired the Swedes with so much confidence that they never informed themselves of the number of their enemies, but only of the place where they lay. Accordingly, on the seventh of October, 1708, in the afternoon Löwenhaupt advanced against them with great resolution. In the first attack the Swedes killed fifteen hundred Russians. The czar's army was thrown into confusion, and fled on all sides. The Emperor of Russia saw himself upon the point of being entirely defeated. He was sensible that the safety of his dominions depended upon the success of this day, and that he would