Page:Works of Voltaire Volume 20.djvu/184

164 deserted. The general drew them up with as much ease as if they had not been vanquished. The czar, on the other side, remained all night under arms; and forbade his officers, under pain of being cashiered, and his soldiers under pain of death, to leave their ranks for the sake of plunder.

Next morning at daybreak he ordered a fresh assault. Löwenhaupt had retired to an advantageous situation, at the distance of a few miles, after having spiked part of his cannon, and set fire to his wagons.

The Muscovites arrived in time to prevent the whole convoy from being consumed by the flames. They seized about six thousand wagons which they saved. The czar, desirous of completing the defeat of the Swedes, sent one of his generals, named Phlug, to attack them for the fifth time. That general offered them an honorable capitulation. Löwenhaupt refused it, and fought a fifth battle, as bloody as any of the former. Of the nine thousand soldiers he had left, he lost about one-half in this action, and the others remained unbroken. At last, night coming on, Löwenhaupt, after having sustained five battles against forty thousand men, passed the Sossa with about five thousand soldiers that remained. The czar lost about ten thousand men in these five engagements, in which he had the glory of conquering the Swedes, and Löwenhaupt that of disputing the victory for three days, and of effecting a retreat, without being obliged to surrender. Thus he arrived in his master's camp with the honor of having made such a noble