“My taskmaster has no bowels; it is the nature of things.” This remark,
made by Napoleon long prior to the divorce, was now to be verified with
results calamitous to Europe and to himself. The war of 1812 was one
for which he had no enthusiasm, and into which he was drawn by almost
irresistible circumstances. To Metternich he said, “I shall have war
with Russia on grounds which lie beyond human possibilities, because
they are rooted in the case itself.”
The French Emperor felt himself committed to his Continental system.
His pride, his pledge, his self-preservation, were at stake. As long as
England could make war upon him, and league against him the kings and
cabinets of the Continent, his empire would never be secure. He might
weather the storm for his own life; but the same endless antagonism,
the same implacable hatred, would pursue his successor. To steady his
throne, he must have peace with Great Britain: this peace he could not
get till he conquered it; having no navy, he could only “conquer the
sea on the land,” and his only hope of doing this was to make good the
Continental boycott against English manufactures. If he could close all
Continental ports to British goods, he would starve England into peace.
But as long as Continental ports were but partially closed, his policy
would be a failure. Command of the seaboard was his great aim, hence
the invasion of Spain and Portugal, the annexation of Holland, the
Illyrian provinces, and the Duchy of Oldenberg.
The motive of Napoleon in granting Alexander such liberal terms
at Tilsit was to get another adherent to the Continental system.
The Czar took the benefits of the treaty and shirked its burdens.
His coöperation with Napoleon in the war of 1809 was nothing less
than a mockery, and when the Russian landlords clamored against the
Continental system, Alexander began to relax it. When the Emperor
complained of this violation of the treaty, the Czar retorted that
Napoleon himself did not enforce his system, that he licensed
violations of it--a retort in which there was truth enough to sting.
By a vast system of smuggling, misuse of the neutral flag, and the
forging of neutral papers, English goods continued to pour into the
Continent. Unless Napoleon could put a stop to this, he might as well
give up the contest. In October, 1810, he wrote to the Czar urging
him to seize these so-called neutral ships, alleging that they were
English. “Whatever papers they carry, your Majesty may be sure they are
English.” It is now admitted that this statement of the Emperor was
substantially correct. The Czar refused, and, to make his refusal the
more galling, he issued a ukase, allowing the admission of colonial
goods while it virtually prohibited French wines and silks. A plainer
declaration of commercial war he could not have made. That it would
lead to a clash of arms, he must have known. At any rate the Czar’s
entire line of conduct from 1810 was that of a monarch preparing for
a great war. It was in 1810 he sounded the Poles, seeking to know
whether they would side with Russia in a contest with Napoleon. His
armies were increased, his fortresses strengthened, and he made secret
approaches to England and to Austria.
In addition to the Continental system there were other grievances.
Napoleon had added Galicia to the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, after the
Treaty of Vienna in 1809, in violation of his agreement with the
Czar. He had taken possession of Oldenberg, whose Duke had married a
sister of the Czar. In each of these cases the Emperor had offered
explanations, and he had offered an equivalent in Germany for
Oldenberg; but the transactions themselves rankled in the Russian
memory--although she had really no right to object to Napoleon’s
treatment of Oldenberg which was a member of his Confederation of the
Rhine; and although she had accepted at his hands a valuable increase
of territory as the price of her lukewarm support in the war of 1809.
In the matter of the marriage, there had been irritation, Napoleon
suspecting that Alexander meant to procrastinate and then refuse, while
the Czar believed that the Emperor was wooing two princesses at the
same time, and coolly balancing the Russian against the Austrian. This
was not the truth, but was near it. A Napoleonic family council had
debated the two alliances, upon the assumption that the Emperor could
choose either, and had decided in favor of the Hapsburg. Alexander,
the Romanoff, therefore felt insulted. In fact, after this second
marriage of Napoleon, the Czar had believed that war was inevitable.
Nevertheless, the fault even here was with the Czar. Napoleon had asked
for his sister, and was entitled to a positive answer. Indefinite
adjournment, without a promise, was, to a man in Napoleon’s position,
a polite way of refusing.
Still there was no rupture. Diplomatic relations were strained, war
began to be talked of, preparations got under way, but diplomacy yet
hoped to solve the problem. The final quarrel seems to have taken place
over the wording of a new treaty. Alexander wanted Napoleon to say that
“Poland shall never be restored.” How could the Emperor guarantee such
a thing? He was not Destiny. He could not foresee what might be done
by others and by Time. He was willing to promise that _he_ would never
restore Poland, nor aid in its restoration. He wrote this promise in
the strongest terms. The Czar struck out the amendment, rewrote the
original, “Poland shall never be restored,” and demanded Napoleon’s
signature.
Was this an affront, or not? There the case, so far as the actual
rupture goes, rests. Napoleon considered it a humiliation to sign such
an indefinite, peremptory guarantee; he thought it an insult for the
Czar to show so plainly that he doubted his word.
England, of course, was buzzing at the Russian ear all this while.
Her agents moved heaven and earth to make the “two bullies” fight. No
matter which was worsted, Great Britain would be the gainer. She feared
France on the Continent, Russia on the Indian frontier. A duel between
these colossal powers would exhaust both, leaving England all the
stronger by comparison.
Russia and Turkey were at war on the Danube. The Christians were doing
their utmost to relieve the heathen of several thousand square miles of
land. England exerted herself to bring about peace between Turk and
Russian, in order that the Czar might not have a war in his rear as
Napoleon had in Spain.
It is said that a forged letter, in which Napoleon was made to state
that he agreed to a partition of Turkey, was shown at Constantinople.
The Turk had his suspicions of this letter; but an Englishman swore
that he recognized Napoleon’s writing. By some strange neglect, France
had no ambassador in Turkey at this critical moment. Andréossy had been
appointed, had set out, but had waited at Laybach for his credentials.
When they at length arrived, and he proceeded to Constantinople, it was
too late.
Before any declaration of war, and while diplomatic relations were
still maintained by the two governments, the Czar sent an agent to
Paris to pose as envoy and to work as spy. This man, Czernischeff,
bribed a clerk in the French war office to steal a complete statement
of the French forces, dispositions, equipments, etc. The clerk was
shot; the noble Russian escaped by sudden, secret, and rapid flight.
At practically the same time, Napoleon was equally well served at St.
Petersburg by a spy who stole the “states” of the Russian armies, and
the plates from which the great maps of Russia were printed. From
these plates Napoleon furnished his generals with maps for the Russian
campaign.
Napoleon fully realized the nature of the task he had before him in
a contest with Russia. To defend himself in Italy, Germany, or even
Poland against the Czar was one thing; to invade that vast empire with
the purpose of seizing its capital and compelling it to sign such
treaties as he had imposed upon Austria and Prussia, was another task
altogether--a task colossal, if not appalling. No one knew this better
than Napoleon, and his preparations were made on a scale such as Europe
had never seen.
In advance of the work of the soldier came that of the diplomat. Both
Russia and France sought alliances. Great Britain was, of course,
heartily with the Czar. Sweden, controlled by Bernadotte, took the same
side. He had demanded, as the price of his alliance, that Napoleon give
him Norway, thus despoiling the Danes. The Emperor refused, but offered
Finland, which Russia had seized. The Czar promised Norway, and thus
the Frenchman, Bernadotte, who probably had not yet spent all the money
Napoleon had supplied him with when he went to Sweden, pledged his
support to the enemies of France. For all practical purposes, Russia
likewise made an ally of Turkey. So utterly improbable did it seem that
Turkey would make peace with its hereditary enemy at the very moment
when it had the best opportunity fate had ever offered in all the long
struggle, that Napoleon had not even calculated upon such an event. It
took him completely by surprise.
Turkish recollections of Tilsit and Erfurth, Turkish fears of other
bargains of the same sort, and Turkish dread of an English bombardment
of Constantinople, which was threatened, brought about the unlooked-for
treaty which gave Russia an army to throw upon Napoleon’s flank.
In addition to these advantages the Czar had another, and of vast
importance--the war in Spain. Three hundred thousand French troops were
held in the peninsula, and scores of the best officers the Empire could
boast.
To Alexander it must have seemed that it would indeed be a miracle if
Napoleon could sustain two such immense contests so far apart, one at
the extreme south the other in the extreme north. Even Napoleon had
appeared to grow weary of his huge tasks, and had been heard to say,
“The bow is overbent.”
But in getting ready for the contest he certainly accomplished
wonders. So imposing were his armaments that Austria and Prussia both
believed he would succeed, and they cast in their lot with the French.
Each agreed to furnish contingents: the Emperor Francis assured his
son-in-law that he might “fully rely upon Austria for the triumph of
the common cause,” and the King of Prussia pledged his “unswerving
fidelity.” Upon these broken reeds the astute Emperor did not, in all
probability, intend to lean very heavily. Events were soon to prove
that they would bear no weight at all.
Before putting himself at the head of his army, Napoleon held a grand
assemblage of his allies at Dresden (May, 1812). It was the most
imposing, as it was the last, of the Napoleonic pageants, wherein
vassal princes gathered about him and did him homage. Accompanied by
the Empress Maria Louisa, he left St. Cloud May 9, reached Mayence
on the 14th, and from thence made a triumphal progress to the Saxon
capital. Princes of the Confederation of the Rhine hastened to receive
their suzerain; “many even came to wait for them on the road, amongst
others the King of Würtemberg and the Grand Duke of Baden.” The King
and Queen of Saxony came forth from Dresden to meet them; and a
torchlight procession escorted them into the city. On the morrow came
the Emperor and Empress of Austria, and the archdukes; following these
came the King and Crown Prince of Prussia, the Queen of Westphalia,
and scores of princes, noblemen, and dignitaries. “The splendor of the
Court,” says an eye-witness, “gave Napoleon the air of some legendary
Grand Mogul. As at Tilsit, he showered magnificent presents on all
sides. At his levees, reigning princes danced attendance for hours in
the hope of being honored with an audience. Every country sent its
contingent. There were no eyes but for Napoleon. The populace gathered
in crowds outside the palaces, following his every movement, and
dogging his progress through the streets, in hourly expectation of some
great event.”
The Crown Prince of Prussia begged for the privilege of serving on
the Emperor’s staff, and was denied. Napoleon doubtless thought the
campaign before him was risky enough without the presence of a possible
spy in his military family.
Napoleon was no longer the man he had been in his earlier campaigns. He
had grown fat, subject to fits of lassitude, and to a painful disease,
dysuria. His plans were as fine as ever, but the execution was nothing
like what it had been. He no longer gave such personal attention to
detail; irresolution sometimes paralyzed his combinations.
Nor were his generals up to their former standard. He had made them
too rich. They had pampered themselves and grown lazy. They had no
stomach for the Russian war, joined their commands reluctantly, and
worked without zeal. Neither was the army to be compared to those of
Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram. In his host of six hundred thousand,
there were but two hundred thousand Frenchmen, the remainder being
composed of Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine, Prussians,
Austrians, Italians, Poles, Swiss, Dutch, and even Spaniards and
Portuguese. In such a motley array there could be no cohesion, no
strength of common purpose which could stand a serious strain. Even the
French soldiers, splendid as they undoubtedly were, were not animated
by the same spirit as formerly. The causes of the war were beyond their
grasp, even the generals felt that the Continental system was not worth
fighting about. England, on the verge of commercial ruin, might know
better: Napoleon certainly knew better; but to the average Frenchman
the grievances on both sides were too vague and abstract to justify so
huge a conflict.
No declaration of war had been published, neither Czar nor Emperor
had yet fully committed himself, and hopes were entertained that even
yet terms might be arranged. But when the travel-stained carriage of
Count Narbonne rolled into Dresden, and he announced that Alexander had
refused to make any change in his attitude, it became with Napoleon a
question of back down or fight. The Czar was determined not to begin
the war; he was equally determined not to keep the contract made at
Tilsit. Just as England had held Malta after pledging herself to give
it up, Russia was resolved to repudiate and oppose the Continental
system which she had promised to support.
At St. Helena Napoleon said that he and Alexander were like two
bullies, each trying to frighten the other, and neither wishing to
fight. From the manner in which Napoleon continued to hesitate and to
send messengers, after all his preparations were complete, it would
seem that he, at least, had hoped to the last that an accommodation
might be reached. Narbonne’s report put an end to doubt.
Either Alexander’s breach of the Continental system must be borne, to
the ruin of Napoleon’s whole policy, or there must be war. The Emperor
had gone too far to stop. What would the world say if, after having
made such gigantic preparations, he abandoned the enterprise without
having extorted a single concession? The very “nature of things” drove
him on, and, dismissing the Dresden conference, he put his host in
motion for the Niemen.
Says General Marbot: “When the sun rose on June 24 we witnessed a most
imposing spectacle. On the highest point near the left bank were seen
the Emperor’s tents. Around them the slopes of every hill, and the
valleys between, were gay with men and horses flashing with arms.”
Amid strains of music from the military bands, the eagles were borne
forward, and, under the eye of the master, a quarter of a million
soldiers began to tramp over the bridges, shouting, “Live the Emperor!”
Soon Napoleon himself crossed the bridge, and galloped through the
forest at full speed on his Arab, as though it exhilarated him to be
upon Russian soil.
The Russians made no attempt to check the invaders. Deceived as to
Napoleon’s plan of campaign, their armies were scattered, and soon
became involved in the gravest peril. Had it not been for the terrible
blunders of Jerome Bonaparte and Junot, the Russian force under Barclay
de Tolly must have been cut off and destroyed. Had this been done, it
might, like Ulm, have proved decisive. But Napoleon found it impossible
to perfect his combinations: the Russian armies escaped, united, and
the long campaign began.
Crops had failed in this part of Russia the year before, and the
land was scantily supplied with provisions. The troops of the Czar
laid waste the country as they retreated; hence the invaders almost
immediately began to suffer, for their commissariat could not sustain
so tremendous a burden as the feeding of the half million men and one
hundred thousand horses. The summer heat was stifling. Men and horses
sank under it. One writer gives us a picture of Napoleon himself,
stripped to his shirt and lying across a bed, panting and inert with
heat. Torrents of rain followed. The roads were cut up, becoming mere
sinks of mud. Desertions, straggling, mortalities, marauding, became
frightful, so much so that an officer who came up with reserves stated
that the route over which the Grand Army had passed looked like that
of a defeated foe. Ten thousand horses died for want of forage between
the Niemen and Wilna. After the floods came sultry weather again and
the suffocating dust of the roads. The hospitals were crowded with the
sick. Discipline was lax, movements slow and uncertain. There was a
babel of languages, growing confusion, quarrels among officers, and
much vacillation in the Emperor himself.
At Wilna the Polish question faced him again. Once more he temporized.
He had mortally offended the Czar by enlarging the Grand Duchy of
Warsaw, perpetually menacing Russia with a resurrected and vengeful
Poland. He now froze the ardor of the Poles by indefinitely postponing
the day of their deliverance. When he afterward realized how
tremendously effective a united Poland would have been in the death
struggle with the Czar, he must have inwardly cursed the bonds which
tied his hands--the alliances with Prussia and Austria. Very frankly,
very honorably, he told the Polish delegation that his engagements
with these two powers made it impossible for him to reëstablish their
national independence.
While at Wilna Napoleon received an envoy from the Czar, who proposed
that if the French would recross the Niemen, terms of peace might be
agreed on. Such an offer seemed to be altogether one-sided, giving
substantial advantages to Alexander, and assuring nothing to Napoleon.
Therefore it was rejected.
After having lingered at Wilna from June 28 to July 16, a loss of time
which Lord Wolseley thinks “it is impossible to explain away when we
remember how late it was in the year when he opened the campaign,” the
Emperor marched upon Vitebsk. It was here that he learned that Russia
had come to terms with Sweden and Turkey.
It was at this place that, according to Ségur, the Emperor exclaimed,
“Here I am, and here I will stay,” taking off his sword and throwing
it upon the table. He had pursued the Russians some distance beyond
the town, had failed to force them into a pitched battle, and had now
returned to headquarters. “I will stay here for the winter, complete my
army, give it a rest, and organize Poland. The campaign of 1812 is at
an end.” Turning to the King of Naples, he continued: “Murat, the first
Russian campaign is over. We will plant our standards here. We will
intrench and quarter the troops. The year 1813 will see us in Moscow;
1814 in St. Petersburg--the war with Russia is one of three years!”
But he soon became irresolute. The thought of eight months of inaction,
with the Grand Army on the defensive, became unbearable. What would
the world say? “Europe will say, ‘He stayed at Vitebsk because he
_dared_ not advance.’ Am I to give Russia time to arm? How can we go
into winter quarters in July? Let us forestall the winter! Peace is at
Moscow. Why should we remain here eight months, idle and exposed to
treacherous intrigues in the rear, when we can reach our goal in twenty
days?”
He did not convince his marshals; they opposed the advance; but he
angrily swept their objections aside.
To Duroc he said he would go to Smolensk and there winter. Complaining
that his generals were sick of war, that he had made them too rich,
that they could think of nothing but the pleasures of the chase on
their estates, and the display of themselves in fine carriages in
Paris, he ordered the advance upon Smolensk. Once more he failed to
secure his much-desired pitched battle. The Russians fought his advance
guard stubbornly, and inflicted heavy losses, but during the night they
continued their retreat. The French found Smolensk a heap of smoking
ruins; French shells and Russian patriots had fired it.
Much has been said about the alleged plan of Russia to lure Napoleon
into the country and to destroy him by starvation. The fact seems to
be that the Russians retreated because they could not help it. They
fought often and desperately. The Czar himself came to the army for the
express purpose of inspiring it to fight. Outnumbered and beaten, it
fell back, desolating the country as it went; but the plain facts show
that the Russians did all that was in their power to put a stop to the
invasion. The alleged campaign policy of “luring Napoleon to his doom”
is fiction.
At Smolensk, Napoleon was no more willing to stop than he had been at
Vitebsk. Peace was at Moscow; he must press on; he must beat the enemy
in a great pitched battle, and give his friend, the Czar, the excuse
to his people without which he would not dare to come to terms. Again
there were hot words between the Emperor and his marshals. Murat, in
great anger, predicted that if the army was forced on to Moscow, it
would be lost. But the order was imperative: “On to Moscow!”--and the
army marched.
The Czar, or those who controlled him, were dissatisfied with the
manner in which their side of the campaign had been conducted. There
had been too much retreat, and not enough fight. Kutusoff was put in
command with the understanding that he must give battle--a fact which,
of itself, would seem to dispose of the theory that Napoleon was
“lured” into the interior as a matter of policy.
At Borodino the Russians barred the road to “Mother Moscow”: and here
the pitched battle was fought. With a cannonade that was heard for
eighty miles, a quarter of a million men here butchered each other all
day long on September 7, until seventy thousand lay dead or wounded.
Night ended the carnage, and next morning the Russians were again in
retreat.
During this famous battle, Napoleon remained sitting, or slowly
walking up and down at one place, where he received reports and sent
orders. He spoke but little, and seemed ill. In fact, he was a sick
man, suffering with a severe cold and with his bladder complaint. He
showed no activity, and left the battle to his marshals. At three in
the afternoon the Russians had put in their last reserves, and were in
distress everywhere--driven from their intrenchment, and threatened
with ruin should the French reserves now attack. Ney, Murat, Davoust,
all clamored for the Guard, the Emperor’s reserve. He hesitated. They
sent again, and still he wavered. “Sire!” said Bessières, commander
of the Guard, “remember that you are eight hundred leagues from your
capital.” Napoleon refused the Guard. Ney was amazed, furious: “What
does this mean? What is the Emperor doing in the rear? If he is tired
of fighting, let him go back to his d--d Tuileries, and leave us to do
what is necessary!”
Thus the Guard never fired a shot, the battle remained unfinished,
and the Russians retired in good order, when they might have been
destroyed. Military critics say that the Emperor made two capital
blunders at Borodino: first, in vetoing Davoust’s offer to turn the
Russian flank and come upon their rear; and, second, in not using his
reserves.
That night the Emperor tried to dictate orders, but could not. He was
too hoarse to talk. He was obliged to write; and he fell to it, writing
rapidly, and throwing the scraps of paper on the table. Secretaries
deciphered these scrawls slowly, and copied them, as fast as they
could. As the papers accumulated, Napoleon would rap on his table for
the secretaries to remove them. For twelve hours he labored, not a
sound to be heard save the scratching of Napoleon’s pen and the rapping
of his hammer.
The French continued their march onward, and at last neared Moscow.
Napoleon left his carriage, mounted his horse, and rode forward. “In
the distance could be seen the long columns of Russian cavalry retiring
in good order before the French troops.” The French marched on,
and at last Moscow was in sight. It was a proud moment for Napoleon
when he stood on Pilgrim’s Hill, surrounded by a brilliant staff,
and gazed upon the towers, the golden domes of the vast city, while
his lieutenants and his troops shouted, in wild enthusiasm, “Moscow!
Moscow!”
The Emperor was heard to mutter, “It was time.” Apparently his greatest
enterprise had been crowned with success. His long triumphant march
toward Asia would rank with Alexander’s. Russia would now sue for
peace, terms would be easily arranged, Continental unity would follow,
and England would find herself an island once more--not an empire.
But it was soon apparent that Moscow was not like Berlin or Vienna.
Here were no crowds of spectators to gaze upon the victors. The
streets were silent, empty. The houses were deserted. Here was a vast
city without citizens. The French were dumfounded. Napoleon refused
at first to believe: “the thing was preposterous.” The conquerors
marched through the streets, the military bands playing, “To us is the
victory,” but the vast solitude awed them as they marched.
The sight of the Kremlin, however, gave the conqueror a thrill of
exultation. “Here I am at last! Here I am in Moscow, in the ancient
palace of the Czars! in the Kremlin itself!”
Almost immediately, and in spite of all Napoleon could do, commenced
the wholesale pillage of the city. Discipline relaxed, and marauders
stormed the vacant houses on the hunt for loot. In the middle of the
night of the 16th of September, the sleeping Napoleon was roused and
brought running to the window of the Kremlin by the cry of “Fire!”
The flames, feeding on wooden houses and fanned by high winds, defied
control, and struck the conquerors with terror. As described by
Napoleon himself, at St. Helena, “It was the spectacle of a sea and
billows of fire, a sky and clouds of fire, mountains of red, rolling
fire, like immense ocean waves, alternately bursting forth and lifting
themselves to skies of fire, and then sinking into an ocean of fire
below. Oh, it was the grandest, sublimest, most terrible sight the
world ever saw!”
Russians say that the French burnt the city; the French say the
Russians did it. French officers allege most positively that Russian
incendiaries were caught in the act. It is certain that numbers of
persons so taken were shot, as a punishment. On the other hand, so
eminent a Russian as Tolstoï maintains that the carelessness of the
French soldiers was the cause of the fires. The Russians who had burned
Smolensk to deprive the French of its use, who made the line of their
retreat a desert to deprive the French of supplies, were probably the
burners of Moscow. They burnt it as they burnt Smolensk and every
village on their line of march, as a war measure which would injure the
invaders. The fact that Rostopchin, the mayor, had carried away all
appliances for putting out fires, would seem to be a conclusive piece
of circumstantial evidence.
This awful calamity, unexpected, unexampled, upset Napoleon’s
calculations. To destroy a town like Smolensk was one thing, to make
of Moscow, one of the great cities of the world, an ocean of flame, a
desert of ashes, was quite another. It was appalling: it stupefied,
benumbed, bewildered Napoleon as no event in his career had done. He
realized the frightful extent of the disaster, and saw himself hurled
from the pinnacle to the abyss.
Indecision had already made sad havoc in the campaign: indecision now
completed the ruin. Napoleon had loitered at Wilna eighteen days;
had halted sixteen days at Vitebsk. He had hesitated at Borodino,
practically leaving the battle to his marshals, refusing them the
reserves. Now at Moscow, he dawdled for five weeks, when every day
brought nearer the march of two enemies that hitherto had not hindered
him,--the Russian army, from the Danube, and _Winter!_
At the Kremlin was the most wretched man in existence. The Emperor had
reached his Moscow only to find it a prison. Inexorable conditions shut
him in with unpitying grip. He could not rest, could not sleep, would
not talk, lingered long at table, lolled for hours on a sofa,--in his
hand a novel which he did not read. He, the profoundest of calculators,
who had from boyhood calculated everything, had for once miscalculated
in everything. He had misjudged his friends and his foes; had erred
as to the Russian temper; had fatally misconceived the character of
the Czar. He knew Alexander to be weak, vain, vacillating; he did not
allow for the strength which strong advisers like Stein and Sir Robert
Wilson and dozens of others might give to this wavering monarch. He had
calculated upon finding peace at Moscow, and had not found it. He had
felt assured that, at the worst, Moscow would furnish abundant food
and excellent winter quarters. It did neither. At fault in so many
matters of vital concern, the Emperor was a prey to the most gloomy
reflections. He set up a theatre for his troops, but did not attend it.
He rode daily through the streets on his little white Arab, but spoke
to no one. Sometimes in the evening he would play a game of cards with
Duroc. There were a few concerts at the palace; some singing by Italian
artists, some piano music; but the Emperor listened moodily, “with
heavy heart.” He held his reviews, distributed rewards, but looked pale
and stern, saying almost nothing. He duped himself with hopes of peace.
He sent envoys and letters to Alexander--envoys who were not received,
letters which were not answered. With an obstinacy which was fatal,
he refused to see the truth of his situation. A lethargy, a failure
of power to decide, mastered him. Even a light fall of snow was not
warning sufficient to rouse him.
“At the Kremlin,” says Constant, “the days were long and tedious.” The
Emperor was waiting for the Czar’s answer, which never came. His morbid
irritability was stirred by the great flocks of crows and jackdaws that
hovered about the city. “My God,” he cried, “do they mean to follow us
everywhere!”
On October 3 he summoned a council of his marshals and proposed to
march upon St. Petersburg. His officers listened coldly, and opposed
him.
In a sort of desperation he then sent Lauriston to Kutusoff to ask for
an interview with Alexander, saying to his envoy: “I want peace; you
hear me. Get me peace. But save my honor if you can!”
The wily Kutusoff humored Lauriston, and Lauriston, in turn, nursed the
infatuation of the Emperor. Thus precious days slipped away, the French
were still at Moscow, winter was coming, and two other Russian armies,
one from the north and one from the south, were marching steadily on to
strike the French line of communication.
Napoleon wished to attack Kutusoff, drive him or destroy him, and then
fall back on Smolensk. His officers counselled against this.
“Then what am I to do?”
“Stay here,” advised Count Daru. “Turn Moscow into a fortified camp,
and so pass the winter. There is plenty of bread and salt. We can
forage, we can salt down the horses which we cannot feed. As for
quarters, if there are not houses enough here, there are plenty of
cellars. We can hold out till spring, when our reënforcements, backed
by Lithuania in arms, will come to the rescue and complete our success.”
“Counsel of the lion!” exclaimed the Emperor. “But what will Paris say?
what will they do? No; France is not accustomed to my absence. Prussia
and Austria will take advantage of it.”
At length a rabbit, fleeing for dear life from a Cossack, put an end to
hesitation, and put two great armies in motion.
Tolstoï relates: “On October 14 a Cossack, Shapovalof, while on patrol
duty, shot at a rabbit, and, entering the woods in pursuit of the
wounded animal, stumbled upon the unguarded left flank of Murat’s
army”--Napoleon’s advance guard.
Shapovalof, on his return to camp, told what he had seen, the news
reached headquarters, a reconnoissance confirmed the statement, and the
Russians, sorely tempted, broke the armistice, fell upon the unwary
Murat, and did him immense damage. But for a difference between the
Russian generals, it appears that Murat’s entire force might have been
captured.
The Emperor was holding a review in the courtyard of the Kremlin when
members of his suite began to say to one another that they heard
cannon firing in the direction of the advance guard. At first no one
dared speak of it to Napoleon. Duroc finally did so, and the Emperor
was seen to be seriously disturbed. The review had not been recommenced
before an aide-de-camp from Murat came at full speed to report that the
truce had been broken, the French taken by surprise, and routed with
heavy loss.
This was October 18. At last Napoleon was a soldier again: the news of
the battle had roused him to action. His decision was taken, orders
flew, and before night the whole army was in motion.