Kremlin. The view from thence embraced the north and west of the city.
About midnight they were awakened by an extraordinary light. They looked
out and beheld palaces filled with flames, which at first merely
illuminated, but ere long totally consumed these superb and noble
structures. They observed that the north wind drove these flames
directly towards the Kremlin, and they became alarmed for the safety of
that fortress, in which the flower of their army and its commander
reposed. They were apprehensive also for the surrounding houses, where
our soldiers, attendants, and horses, weary and exhausted, were
doubtless buried in profound sleep. Sparks and burning fragments were
already flying over the roofs of the Kremlin, when the wind, shifting
from north to west, blew them in another direction.
One of these officers, relieved from apprehension respecting his own
corps, then composed himself again to sleep, exclaiming, "Let others
look to it; 'tis no affair of ours"; for such was the unconcern
produced by the multiplicity of events and misfortunes, such the
selfishness arising from excessive suffering and fatigue, that they left
to each only just strength and feeling sufficient for his personal
service and preservation.
But it was not long before fresh and more vivid lights again awoke them.
They beheld other flames rising in the direction which the wind had
again taken towards the Kremlin, and they cursed French imprudence and
want of discipline, to which they imputed this disaster. Three times did
the wind thus change from west to north, and three times did these
hostile fires, as if obstinately bent on the destruction of the imperial
quarters, appear eager to follow its course.
At this sight a strong suspicion seized their minds. Could the
Muscovites, aware of our rash and thoughtless negligence, have conceived
the hope of burning, with Moscow, our soldiers, heavy with wine,
fatigue, and sleep; or, rather, had they dared to imagine that they
should involve Napoleon in this catastrophe, believing that the loss of
such a man would be a full equivalent for that of their capital; that it
was a result of sufficient importance to justify the sacrifice of all
Moscow to obtain it; that Heaven, perhaps, in order to grant them so
signal a triumph, had decreed so great a sacrifice?
Whether this was actually their plan we cannot tell; but nothing less
than the emperor's good fortune was required to prevent its being
realized. In fact, not only did the Kremlin contain, unknown to us, a
magazine of powder, but that very night, the guards, asleep and
carelessly posted, suffered a whole park of artillery to enter and draw
up under the windows of Napoleon.
It was at this moment that the flames were driven from all quarters,
with the greatest violence, towards the Kremlin; for the wind, drawn
towards this vast conflagration, increased every moment in strength. The
flower of the army and the emperor himself would have been destroyed, if
but one of the brands that flew over our heads had alighted on one of
the powder-wagons. Thus upon a single spark out of the multitudes that
were for several hours floating in the air, depended the fate of the
whole army.
At length the day, a dismal day it was, appeared; it came only to add to
the horrors of the scene, and to take from it all its brilliancy. Many
of the officers sought refuge in the halls of the palace. The chiefs,
and Mortier himself, who had been contending for thirty-six hours
against the fire, there dropped down from fatigue, and in despair.
They said nothing, and we accused ourselves. Most of us supposed that
want of discipline on the part of our troops and drunkenness had begun
the disaster, and that the high wind had completed it. We viewed
ourselves with feelings of disgust. The cry of horror which all Europe
would not fail to set up, terrified us. Filled with consternation at so
tremendous a catastrophe, we accosted each other with downcast looks. We
were roused only by our eagerness to obtain intelligence; and every
account now began to accuse the Russians alone of the disaster.
In fact, officers arrived from all quarters, and they all agreed on this
point. The very first night, that of the 14th, a fire-balloon had
settled on the palace of Prince Trubetskoi, and consumed it: this had
been the signal. Fire was now immediately set to the Exchange; and
Russian police soldiers had been seen stirring it up with tarred lances.
In some places, shells, perfidiously placed in the stoves of the
houses, had exploded and wounded the military who crowded around them.
Retiring to other quarters still standing, they sought there for fresh
retreats; but when on the point of entering houses that were closely
shut up and uninhabited, they had heard faint explosions within; these
were succeeded by a light smoke, which immediately became thick and
black, then reddish, lastly fire was seen, and presently the whole
edifice was involved in flames.
All had seen hideous-looking men, covered with rags, and women
resembling furies, wandering among these flames. These wretches,
intoxicated with wine and with the success of their crimes, no longer
took any pains to conceal themselves: they proceeded in triumph through
the blazing streets; they were caught, armed with torches, striving to
spread the conflagration; and it was necessary to strike down their
hands with sabres to oblige them to loose their hold. It was said that
these banditti had been let loose from the prisons by the Russian
generals for the express purpose of burning the city; and that, in fact,
a resolution so extreme could only have been conceived by patriotism,
and executed by guilt.
Orders were immediately issued to shoot all the incendiaries on the
spot. The army was on foot. The Old Guard, which exclusively occupied
one part of the Kremlin, was under arms: the baggage, and the horses
ready loaded, filled the courts; we were struck dumb with astonishment,
surprise, and disappointment at witnessing the destruction of such
admirable quarters. Though masters of Moscow, we were forced to go and
bivouac,[147] without provisions, outside its gates.
While our troops were yet struggling with the conflagration, and
disputing their prey with the flames, Napoleon, whose sleep none had
dared to disturb during the night, was awakened by the twofold light of
day and of the burning city. His first feeling was that of irritation,
and he would have stayed the devouring element by the breath of his
command; but he soon paused, and yielded to impossibility. Surprised
that when he had struck at the heart of an empire he should find there
any other sentiment than that of abject submission, he felt himself
vanquished, and surpassed in heroic determination.
This conquest, for which he had sacrificed everything, was like a
phantom which he had eagerly pursued, and, at the moment when he
imagined he had grasped it, he saw it vanish from him in a mingled mass
of smoke and flame. He was then seized with extreme agitation: he
seemed, as it were, consumed by the fires which were around him. He rose
every moment from his seat, paced to and fro, and again sat abruptly
down. He traversed his apartments with hurried steps: his sudden and
vehement gestures betrayed a painful uneasiness; he quitted, resumed,
and again as suddenly abandoned an urgent occupation, to hasten to the
windows and watch the progress of the flames. Short and incoherent
exclamations burst from his laboring bosom! "What a tremendous
spectacle! It is their own work! So many palaces! What extraordinary
resolution! What men! These are indeed Scythians!"[148]
Between the fire and his quarters there was an extensive vacant space,
then the Moskwa and its two quays; and yet the panes of the windows
against which he leaned felt already burning to the touch, and the
constant exertions of sweepers, placed on the iron roofs of the palace,
were not sufficient to keep them clear of the numerous flakes of fire
which were continually lighting upon them.
At this moment a rumor was spread that the Kremlin had been mined; and
the fact, it was said, was confirmed later by the declarations of the
Russians, and by written documents. Some of his attendants were beside
themselves with fear, while the military awaited unmoved what the orders
of the emperor and fate should decree; but he replied to their alarm
only with a smile of incredulity.
Still, he continued to walk about in the utmost agitation: he stopped at
every window, to gaze on the terrible, the victorious element that was
furiously consuming his brilliant conquest; seizing on all the bridges,
on all the avenues to his fortress, enclosing, and, as it were,
besieging him in it; spreading every moment wider and wider; constantly
reducing him within narrower limits, and confining him at length to the
site of the Kremlin alone.
We breathed already nothing but smoke and ashes: night approached, and
was about to add darkness to our other dangers; while the equinoctial
gales, as if in alliance with the Russians, increased in violence. Then
Murat and Prince Eugene hastened to the emperor's quarters: in company
with the Prince of Neufchatel they made their way to him, and urged him
by their entreaties, and on their knees, to remove from this scene of
desolation. All was in vain.
Master, after so many sacrifices, of the palace of the Czars, he was
bent on not yielding that conquest even to the conflagration, when all
at once the shout of "the Kremlin is on fire!" passed from mouth to
mouth, and roused us from the contemplative stupor into which we had
been plunged. The emperor went out to ascertain the danger. Twice had
the fire communicated to the building in which he was and twice had it
been extinguished; but the tower of the arsenal was still burning. A
soldier of the police had been found in it. He was brought in, and
Napoleon caused him to be interrogated in his presence. This man was the
incendiary; he had executed his commission at the signal given by his
chief. It was now evident that everything was devoted to destruction,
the ancient and sacred Kremlin not excepted.
The gestures of the emperor bespoke disdain and vexation: the wretch was
hurried into the first court, and there the enraged soldiers despatched
him with their bayonets.
Sec. 6. The fire compels Napoleon to leave the city.
This occurrence decided Napoleon. He hastily descended the northern
staircase, famous for the massacre of the Strelitzes,[149] and requested
to be conducted out of the city, to the distance of a league on the road
to St. Petersburg, towards the imperial palace of Petrowski.
But we were besieged by an ocean of fire, which blocked up all the gates
of the citadel, and frustrated our first attempts to escape. After some
search, we discovered a postern-gate[150] leading between the rocks to
the Moskwa. It was by this narrow pass that Napoleon, his officers and
guard, made their way from the Kremlin. But what had they gained by this
movement? They had approached nearer to the fire, and could neither
retreat nor remain where they were; and how were they to advance? how
force a passage through the billows of this sea of flame? Those who had
traversed the city, stunned by the tempest and blinded by the ashes,
could no longer find their way, since the streets themselves were not
distinguishable amid smoke and ruins.
There was no time to be lost. The roaring of the flames around us became
every moment more terrific. A single narrow winding street, completely
enveloped in fire on either side, appeared rather the entrance than the
outlet of this hell. The emperor, however, on foot, and without
hesitation, rushed into this frightful passage. He advanced amid the
crackling of the flames, the crash of floors, and the fall of burning
timbers, and of fragments of red-hot iron roofs which tumbled around
him. These ruins impeded his progress. The flames, while with impetuous
roar they consumed the edifices between which we were proceeding,
spreading beyond the walls, were blown out by the wind, and formed an
arch over our heads. We walked on a ground of fire, beneath a fiery
canopy and between two walls of fire. The intense heat burned our eyes,
which we were nevertheless obliged to keep open and fixed on the danger.
A consuming atmosphere parched our throats, and rendered our respiration
short and difficult; and we were already almost suffocated by the smoke.
Our hands were burned, either in endeavoring to protect our faces from
the insupportable heat, or in brushing off the sparks which every moment
fell upon our garments. In this inexpressible distress, and when a rapid
advance seemed to be our only means of safety, our guide stopped in
uncertainty and agitation. Here probably would have terminated our
adventurous career, had not some pillagers of the first corps recognized
the emperor amid the whirling flames: they ran up and guided him towards
the smoking ruins of a quarter which had been reduced to ashes in the
morning.
It was there that we met the Prince of Eckmuehl. This marshal, who had
been wounded at the Moskwa, had desired to be carried back among the
flames to rescue Napoleon, or to perish with him. He threw himself into
his arms with transport; the emperor received him kindly, but with that
composure which in danger he never lost for a moment.
To escape from this vast region of desolation, it was farther necessary
to pass a long convoy of powder which was defiling amid the fire. This
was not the least of his dangers, but it was the last, and by nightfall
he arrived at Petrowski.
The next morning, the 17th of September, Napoleon cast his first look
towards Moscow, hoping to see that the conflagration had subsided. But
he beheld it again raging with the utmost violence: the city appeared
like one vast column of fire, rising in whirling eddies to the sky,
which it deeply colored. Absorbed by this melancholy contemplation, he
maintained a long and gloomy silence, which he broke only by the
exclamation, "This forebodes to us great misfortunes!"
The effort which he had made to reach Moscow had expended all his means
of warfare. Moscow had been the limit of his projects, the aim of all
his hopes, and Moscow was no more! What was now to be done? Here this
decisive genius was forced to hesitate. He who in 1805 had ordered the
sudden and total abandonment of the expedition prepared at an immense
expense, for the invasion of England; and determined at Boulogne on the
surprise and annihilation of the Austrian army, in short, on all the
operations of the campaign between Ulm and Munich exactly as they were
executed; this same man, who in the following year dictated at Paris
with like infallibility all the movements of his army as far as Berlin,
the day of his entrance into that capital, and the appointment of the
governor whom he destined for it; he it was who, astonished in his turn,
was now in perplexity what course to pursue. Never had he communicated
his most daring projects to the most confidential of his ministers but
in order for their execution; he was now, however, constrained to
consult and put to the proof those who were around him.
But, in doing this, he still preserved the same show of confidence and
of determination. He declared that he would march for St. Petersburg.
This conquest was already marked out on his maps, hitherto so prophetic:
orders were even issued to the different corps to hold themselves in
readiness. But this was all only a feint: it was but a better face that
he strove to assume, or an expedient for diverting his grief at the loss
of Moscow; so that Berthier, and more especially Bessieres, soon
convinced him that he had neither time, provisions, roads, nor a single
requisite for so distant an expedition.
At this moment he was apprised that Kutusoff, after having fled towards
the east, had suddenly turned to the south, and thrown himself between
Moscow and Kaluga. This was an additional circumstance against the
expedition to St. Petersburg. There was a threefold reason for marching
upon the beaten army, and endeavoring to extinguish it: to secure his
right flank and his line of operation; to possess himself of Kaluga and
of Tula, the one the granary, the other the arsenal of Russia; and,
lastly, to open safe, short, new, and untouched retreat to Smolensk and
Lithuania.[151]
Some one proposed to return upon Wittgenstein and Witepsk.[152]
Napoleon, however, remained undecided between these different plans.
That for the conquest of St. Petersburg alone flattered him: the others
appeared but as ways of retreat, as acknowledgments of error; and
whether from pride, or policy which would not admit itself to be in the
wrong, he rejected them.
Besides, where was he to halt in case of a retreat? He had so fully
calculated on concluding a peace at Moscow, that he had no
winter-quarters provided in Lithuania. Kaluga had no temptations for
him. Wherefore lay waste fresh provinces? It would be wiser only to
threaten them, and thus leave the Russians something to lose, in order
to induce them to conclude a peace by which they might be preserved.
Would it be possible to march to another battle, to fresh conquests,
without exposing a line of operation covered with sick, stragglers,
wounded, and convoys of all sorts? Moscow was the general rallying
point: how could it be changed? What other name would have any
attraction?
Lastly, and above all, how could he relinquish a hope to which he had
made so many sacrifices, when he knew that his letter to Alexander had
just passed the Russian advanced posts; when eight days would be
sufficient for receiving an answer, so ardently desired; when he
required that time to rally and reorganize his army, to collect the
relics of Moscow, the conflagration of which had but too strongly
sanctioned pillage, and to draw his soldiers away from that vast
infirmary.
Meanwhile, scarcely a third of that army and of that capital now
existed. But himself and the Kremlin were still standing: his renown was
still entire, and he persuaded himself that those two great names,
Napoleon and Moscow, combined, would be sufficient to accomplish
everything. He determined, therefore, to return to the Kremlin, which a
battalion of his guard had unfortunately preserved.
Sec. 7. Napoleon returns to the Kremlin; plunder of the city.
The camps which he traversed on his way thither presented an
extraordinary sight. In the fields, in the midst of the mud, were large
fires, kept up with mahogany furniture, windows and gilded doors. Around
these fires, on litters of damp straw, imperfectly sheltered by a few
boards, were seen the soldiers and their officers, splashed all over
with mud, and blackened with smoke, seated in arm-chairs or reclining on
silken couches. At their feet were spread, or heaped together, Cashmere
shawls, the rarest furs of Siberia, the gold stuffs of Persia, and
silver dishes, off which they had nothing to eat but black dough baked
in the ashes, and half broiled and bloody horseflesh. Strange
combination of abundance and want, of riches and filth, of luxury and
wretchedness!
Between the camp and the city were met troops of soldiers dragging along
their booty, or driving before them, like beasts of burden, Muscovites
bending under the weight of the pillage of their capital: for the fire
brought to light nearly twenty thousand inhabitants, previously
concealed in that immense city. Some of these, of both sexes, were well
dressed: they were tradespeople. They came with the wreck of their
property, to seek refuge at our fires. They lived pell-mell with our
soldiers, protected by some, and tolerated, or, rather, scarcely
remarked by others.
About ten thousand of the enemy's troops were in the same predicament.
For several days they wandered about among us, free, and some of them
even still armed. Our soldiers met these vanquished Russians without the
slightest animosity, and without thinking of making them prisoners;
either that they considered the war at an end, or from thoughtlessness
or pity, or because, when not in battle, the French delight in having no
enemies. They suffered them to share their fires; nay, more, they
allowed them to pillage in their company. But when some degree of order
was restored, or, rather, when the officers had organized this marauding
as a regular system of forage, the great number of these Russian
stragglers attracted notice, and orders were given to secure them; but
seven or eight thousand had already escaped. It was not long before we
had to fight them.
On entering the city the emperor was struck by a sight still more
extraordinary: a few houses scattered here and there among the ruins
were all that was left of the mighty Moscow. The smell issuing from this
vast city, overthrown, burned, and calcined, was horrible. Heaps of
ashes, and, at intervals, fragments of walls or half-demolished pillars,
were now the only vestiges that marked the sites of streets.
In the suburbs were found a few Russians of both sexes, covered with
garments scorched and blackened by the fire. They flitted like spectres
among the ruins; some of them were scratching up the earth in gardens in
quest of vegetables, while others were disputing with the crows for the
relics of the dead animals which their army had left behind. Farther on,
others again were seen plunging into the Moskwa to bring out some of the
grain which had been thrown into it by command of Rostopchin, and which
they devoured without preparation, soured and spoiled as it was.
Meanwhile the sight of the booty in the camps, where everything was yet
wanting, inflamed the soldiers, whom a sense of duty or stricter
officers had hitherto kept with their colors. They murmured. "Why were
they to be kept back? Why were they to perish by famine and want, when
everything was within their reach? Was it right to allow the enemy's
fires to destroy what might be saved? Why was such respect to be paid to
the conflagration?" They added, that "as the inhabitants of Moscow had
not only abandoned, but even endeavored utterly to destroy it, all that
they could save would be fairly gained; that the remains of that city,
like the arms of the conquered, belonged by right to the victors, as the
Muscovites had turned their capital into a vast machine of war for the
purpose of annihilating us."
The best principled, and the best disciplined were those who argued
thus, and it was impossible to reply satisfactorily to them. Exaggerated
scruples, however, at first preventing the issuing of orders for
pillage, it was permitted, unrestrained by regulations. Then it was,
urged by the most imperious wants, that all hurried to share the spoil,
soldiers of the highest class, and even officers. Their chiefs were
obliged to shut their eyes: only such guards as were absolutely
indispensable remained with the colors and the piled arms.
The emperor saw his whole army dispersed over the city. His progress was
obstructed by long files of marauders going in quest of booty or
returning with it; by tumultuous assemblages of soldiers grouped around
the entrances of cellars, or the doors of palaces, shops, and churches,
which the fire had nearly reached, and which they were endeavoring to
break into.
His steps were impeded by the fragments of furniture of every kind which
had been thrown out of the windows to save them from the flames, or by
rich pillage which had been abandoned from caprice for other booty, for
such is the way with soldiers; they are incessantly beginning their
fortunes afresh, taking everything indiscriminately, loading themselves
beyond measure, as if they could carry all that they find; then, after
they have gone a few steps, compelled by fatigue to throw away
successively the greatest part of their burden.