five o'clock
As we advanced towards Brienne the distant thunder of large guns was heard ; which gradually grew louder and more sustained , and betokened that the battle had already begun . The roads , blocked up with dense masses of infantry and long trains of wagons , prevented our rapid advance ; and when we tried the fields at either side , the soil , cut up with recent rains , made us sink to the very girths of our horses . Still , order after order came for the troops to press forward , and every effort was made to obey the command . It was five o'clock as we debouched into the plain , and beheld the fields whereon the battle had been contested ; for already the enemy were retiring , and the French troops in eager pursuit . Behind , however , lay the town of Brienne , still held by the Russians , but now little better than a heap of smoking ruins , the tremendous fire of the French artillery having reduced the place to ashes . Conspicuous above all rose the dismantled walls of the ancient military college ; the school where Napoleon had learned his first lesson in war , where first he essayed to point those guns which now with such fearful havoc he turned against itself . What a strange , sad Subject of contemplation for him who now gazed on it !