The Russians themselves kindled Napoleon’s campfire at Moscow. They
lighted his bivouacs with the flames of their ancient capital, and thus
gave him an awful proof of their invincible opposition to the invader.
After the battle of Borodino, Napoleon found the road to Moscow open,
and advanced rapidly towards the conquest he had so long desired. The
city of his hopes has been thus described:
“Moscow was an immense and singular assemblage of two hundred and
ninety-five churches, and fifteen hundred splendid habitations, together
with their gardens and offices. These palaces, built of brick, with the
grounds attached to them, intermingled with handsome wooden houses, and
even with cottages, were scattered over several square leagues of
unequal surface, and were grouped around a lofty, triangular palace,
whose vast and double inclosure, comprising two divisions, and about
half a league in circumference, included—one of them—several palaces and
churches, and a quantity of uncultivated and stony ground; the other, a
vast bazaar—a city of merchants—exhibiting the opulence of the four
quarters of the world. These buildings, shops as well as palaces, were
all covered with polished and colored plates of iron. The churches,
which were each of them surmounted by a terrace, and by several steeples
terminating in gilded globes, the crescent, and finally the cross,
recalled to mind the history of the people. They represented Asia and
her religion, first triumphant, then subdued; and finally the crescent
of Mahomet under the dominion of the cross of Christ. A single sunbeam
made this superb city glitter with a thousand varied colors; and the
enchanted traveller halted in ecstacy at the sight. It recalled to his
mind the dazzling prodigies with which oriental poets had amused his
infancy.”
Count Rostopchin had been appointed governor of Moscow.
As the French army approached the capital, terror began to prevail among
the inhabitants; and, after the taking of Smolensko, many of the wealthy
classes removed their most valuable effects, and left the city. The
governor secretly encouraged this gradual emigration, though he
ostensibly maintained a complete confidence of success in the Russian
cause, and kept up the spirits of the people by false reports and loyal
declarations. Among other contrivances, he employed a number of females
in the construction of an immense balloon, out of which, as he made the
people believe, he would pour down a shower of fire upon the French
army. Under this pretence, he is said to have collected a quantity of
combustibles destined for a purpose widely different from this
aeronautic fiction. The panic at Moscow at length became general, and
not only the nobility and higher classes in general, but tradesmen,
mechanics, and even the poor, left it by thousands. The public archives
and treasures were removed; the magazines emptied, as far as time
permitted. The roads, especially those to the south, were covered with a
long train of carriages of every description, and with successive crowds
of fugitives on foot, the priests leading the way laden with the symbols
of their religion, and singing mournful hymns of lamentation.
Kutusoff, with his retreating army, now appeared without the walls, and
intrenched himself strongly in the position of Fili. He had ninety
thousand men under his command, of whom six thousand were Cossacks,
large numbers of recruits having been added to his ranks since the great
battle; and it appears certain that he still entertained some intention
of defending the capital. This purpose, however, was speedily
relinquished. On the 14th of September, he broke up his camp, and his
army continued its retreat, passing through Moscow, which was to be
abandoned to its fate. The troops marched along the deserted streets
with furled banners and silent drums; and passed out at the Kalomna
gate. Some of the officers were observed to shed tears of rage and
shame. With an army of ninety thousand men, in their own country, and
with the constant power of retreating upon their resources, it is no
wonder that all the braver spirits among the Russians felt this
humiliating policy most deeply.
The long columns of retreat were followed by the garrison and all the
remaining population, with the exception of one class, left there for a
special purpose. Before his own departure, Rostopchin opened the
prisons, and let loose their miserable and degraded inmates, to the
number of three or four hundred, having given them a secret task to
perform. The pumps of the city had all been removed or destroyed, and
torches and combustibles in great quantities collected. Rostopchin then
left the city.
Napoleon subsequently made the calculation that a hundred thousand of
the inhabitants, thus abandoned and forced to fly from Moscow, perished
in the woods of the neighborhood for want of food and shelter. In the
midst of their despair at the very last, the multitude had been roused
to an excitement of hope and confidence by the sight of a vulture caught
in the chains which supported the cross of the principal church. This,
they hailed as an omen that God was about to deliver Napoleon into their
hands. “What,” says Hazlitt, “can subdue a nation who can be thus easily
deluded by the grossest appearances; and whose whole physical strength,
to inflict or to endure, can be wielded mechanically, and in mass, in
proportion to their want of understanding? Certainly, ignorance is
power.”
On the same day that the Russian army retreated through Moscow, and even
before their rear-guard had cleared the city, Murat penetrated the
suburbs, and Eugene and Poniatowski opened an attack at the gates.
Napoleon himself with his guard gained the summit of the “Mount of
Salvation,” the last height which hid his long desired conquest from his
view, about two o’clock in the afternoon, and saw the immense city
glittering with a thousand colors in the sun,—a strange and magnificent
sight in the midst of the desert. The troops halted involuntarily,
struck with admiration, and loudly exclaimed,—“Moscow! Moscow!” in a
transport of joy. The marshals crowded with congratulations around the
Emperor. He, also, had suddenly paused, in evident exultation. His first
exclamation was,—“There at last, then, is that famous city!”—presently
adding,—“It was high time!”
A flag of truce from Miloradowitch, who commanded the Russian
rear-guard, met the Emperor at this point. He came to announce that his
guard would set fire to Moscow if he were not allowed time to evacuate
it. An armistice of two hours were granted him immediately. Napoleon’s
eager eye was fixed on the city, as on a vision he was just about to
realise. He expected every moment to see a deputation issue from the
gates to lay its wealth, its population, its senate, and its nobility at
his feet. The troops of the two nations were intermingled for a few
minutes. Murat was soon surrounded by a crowd of Cossacks, extolling his
personal prowess by signs and gesticulations, and intoxicating him with
their admiration. He distributed the watches of his officers among these
barbarian warriors, one of whom denominated him his “Hetman.” It began
to look like an almost immediate peace; and Napoleon indulged in dreams
of success and glory for two hours. In the mean time, the day was
drawing to a close, and Moscow remained sad, silent, and death-like.
Napoleon became anxious; the soldiers almost uncontrollably impatient. A
few officers penetrated into the city, and a rumor began to spread that
“Moscow was deserted!” Napoleon repelled the intelligence with
irritation; he, however, descended the hill, and advanced towards the
Dorogomilow gate. Here he again halted, but in vain; all remained
motionless as before. Murat urged him to penetrate into the city; he
refused for some time, shrinking perhaps from having the truth forced
upon his conviction. At last he gave the order, “Enter then, since they
will have it so!”—recommending, at the same time, the strictest
discipline. Calling Daru to his side, he said aloud, “Moscow deserted! a
most unlikely event! We must enter it, and ascertain the fact. Go and
bring the _boyars_ (landed proprietors) before me.” Daru went, and
returned. Not a single Muscovite was to be found:—“No smoke,” says
Segur, “was seen ascending from the meanest hearth; nor was the
slightest noise to be heard throughout that populous and extensive city,
its three hundred thousand inhabitants seeming all dumb and motionless
as by enchantment. There was the silence of the desert.”
After Daru, another officer, earnest to accomplish whatever the Emperor
desired, appeared, driving before him five or six of those miserable
beings who had been freed from prison, and left in Moscow for an
important purpose. Then it was that Napoleon ceased to doubt the truth.
Murat, with his long and close column of cavalry, had entered Moscow
upwards of an hour since. They found it as yet uninjured, but without
signs of life. Awed by the silence of this immense solitude, the troops
passed onwards without uttering a word, listening to the hollow sound of
their horses’ feet re-echoed from the walls of these deserted palaces.
They never appeared even to think of plundering. Suddenly the report of
small arms was heard. The column halted. The discharge had been made
from the walls of the Kremlin, the gates of which were closed. It was
defended by a squalid rout of men and women of most disgusting and
villanous aspect, who were in a state of bestial drunkenness, uttering
savage yells and the most horrible imprecations. As they would listen to
no terms, the gates were forced, and these ferocious miscreants were
immediately driven away. Five hundred recruits, who had been forgotten,
were left behind in the Kremlin, but they offered no resistance, and
dispersed at the first summons. Several thousand stragglers and
deserters also surrendered themselves voluntarily to the advanced guard.
Murat scarcely bestowed a minute’s delay on the Kremlin. After marching
over so many leagues, and fighting so many battles to reach Moscow, he
passed through that magnificent city without once halting to notice it;
and, ardent in his pursuit of the Russians, dashed forwards into the
road to Voladimir and Asia. Several thousand Cossacks were retreating in
that direction; and upon these Murat ordered a discharge of carbines.
Napoleon did not enter Moscow before night. He appointed Mortier
governor of the city. “Above all,” said he, “no pillage.” During the
night, many reports were brought him of the intended burning of the
capital, but he would not credit the statements. He was, however, unable
to sleep, and continually called his attendants to repeat to him what
they had heard. About two o’clock in the morning he was apprised that
the flames had broken out at the merchants’ palace, or exchange, which
was in the centre of the city. He gave orders, and dispatched messages
with the greatest rapidity. At daylight, he hurried to Mortier, who
showed him houses covered with iron roofs, and closely shut up, from
which a black smoke was already issuing. They had not been broken into,
but were evidently fired from the inside. Napoleon entered the Kremlin
thoughtful and melancholy; yet when beholding this stupendous palace of
the ancestral sovereigns of Russia, his ambition was gratified by the
conquest, and he murmured after a pause—“I am at length then in
Moscow!—in the ancient City of the Czars!—in the Kremlin!” In this brief
moment of satisfaction, he wrote a pacific overture to the Emperor
Alexander, and dispatched it by a Russian officer who had been
discovered in the great hospital.
The flames had been checked by the exertions of the Duke of Treviso.
Meantime, the incendiaries kept themselves so well concealed that their
existence was much doubted. Regulations were now issued; order
established; and officers and men proceeded to take possession of some
convenient house, or sumptuous palace, wherein to rest and recruit
themselves after so many hardships, dangers, and privations. Two
officers, however, having taken up their quarters in one of the
buildings of the Kremlin, were awoke about midnight by an overpowering
glare of light in the room. Starting up, they looked out and saw palaces
in flames. The wind was driving the flames directly towards the Kremlin.
Presently the wind changed, and the devouring element was carried in an
opposite direction. Observing this, the officers, rendered selfish by
long fatigue and privation, fell asleep again. But they were once more
aroused by a new burst of still fiercer light. They observed flames
rising in a totally different quarter, which the changed wind was now
urging directly towards the Kremlin. Three times the wind changed, and
three times did new flames burst out from different quarters of the
city, and blaze onwards towards the Kremlin.
The Kremlin contained a magazine of powder, of which the French were not
aware, and the guards, overpowered by wine and fatigue, had left a whole
park of artillery under the Emperor’s windows. Soon the flames licked
the palace from all sides, and the air was filled with flakes of fire.
Mortier and his brother officers, exhausted by their efforts to subdue
the conflagration, returned to the Kremlin, and fell down in despair.
The real cause of the fire was soon placed beyond all doubt. The reports
agreed that a globe of fire had been lowered upon the palace of one of
the Russian princes, which had consumed it, on the first night of their
entrance, and that this was a signal to the incendiaries.
Men of atrocious look and tattered garments, and frantic women, had been
seen roaming amidst the flames, and thus completing a hideous
resemblance of the infernal world. They were the malefactors whom
Rostopchin had let loose from the prisons, and commissioned to execute
this tremendous deed as the price of their liberation and pardon. Most
thoroughly did they fulfil their trust: and, becoming delirious with
intoxication, with excitement, and entire success, they no longer
concealed themselves, but ran to and fro with diabolical yells, like
furies, waving lighted brands round their heads. The French could not
make them drop their torches, except by slashing at their naked arms
with sabres. Orders were instantly given to shoot every incendiary on
the spot. The army was drawn out. The old guard, which had been
quartered in the Kremlin, took arms, and their horses and baggage
quickly filled the courts. Masters of Moscow, they were obliged to seek
their bivouac outside its gates.
Napoleon was awoke by the blaze and uproar of the conflagration. It was
impossible for him any longer to fortify himself with incredulity and
scorn. On perceiving that the city was really on fire, in almost every
quarter, he gave way to his first feelings of rage, and a passionate
resolve to master the devouring element; but he presently recovered
himself, and silently yielded to what he saw was inevitable. His inward
agitation, however, was excessive. He seemed parched by the flames as he
gazed at their fury. He continually sat down, and then abruptly started
up, and traversed his apartments with rapidity. Again he seated himself,
and began to transact most urgent business; yet every now and then he
started up, and ran to the windows, uttering short and broken
exclamations as he traced the progress of the flames: “What a frightful
spectacle! To have done it themselves! Such a number of palaces! What
extraordinary resolution!” There is something extremely fine in this
power of standing apart from the scene, even while in the midst of such
an excitement and danger, and admiring the forces brought into action,
even though to his own utter destruction.
A report was now circulated that the Kremlin was undermined. Several
Russian prisoners had affirmed this; certain writings attested it. Some
of the attendants lost their senses with terror; the military awaited
with firmness whatever Napoleon and their destiny should decide; but he
noticed the alarm only by a smile of incredulity. Meantime, the
conflagration raged with increasing violence, and they all began to
inhale the smoke and ashes. Still Napoleon would not depart. He walked
to and fro with convulsive energy.
Night was again approaching. The glare of the flames became more
brilliant as the shades closed round, and he saw the devouring element
seizing upon all the bridges, and all the accesses to the fortress which
inclosed him, while the wind blew with redoubled violence. At this
crisis, Prince Eugene and Murat arrived in breathless haste, most
earnestly, and even on their knees, beseeching Napoleon to leave the
palace. All their efforts, however, were in vain. Suddenly, a cry was
heard,—“The Kremlin is on fire!” The words were echoed from every part
of the building. The Emperor left his apartment that he might himself
judge of the danger. A Russian soldier of police had been detected in
the act. He had received a signal, and given the watchword. The
exasperated grenadiers put an end to him with their bayonets. It was
evident that there had been an organized plan to burn even the Kremlin.
This incident decided Napoleon, and he rapidly descended the northern
staircase.
A guide had been called to conduct Napoleon and his attendants through
the Kremlin and out of the city. Segur has given a terrific description
of the dangers which they had to encounter on their way. According to
him, they were besieged in the midst of an ocean of flames, which
enveloped all the gates of the citadel.
But the description is simply a piece of imagination. Napoleon proceeded
slowly and calmly to the outer circuit of the city, and took up his
quarters in the imperial castle of Petrowsky, situated about a league on
the road to St. Petersburg. Count Dumas, who remained on duty within the
walls until nightfall, says that he and Daru “left Moscow under a real
rain of fire;” but he mentions nothing of such perils with regard to the
Emperor.
On the following morning, September 17th, the Emperor directed his first
glances towards Moscow, hoping to find the fire subdued. It continued
with all the violence of the previous night. The whole city now seemed
to him “one vast fire-spout, ascending in awful whirls towards the sky.”
He was long absorbed in the contemplation of this scene of horror and
ruin. Moscow had been the very centre of all his projects—the object of
all his hopes in Russia. At length, he broke his melancholy silence
merely by observing, “This forbodes us no common calamities.”
The fire raged throughout the 18th and 19th of September, when it
slackened for want of fuel. The greater part of the Kremlin, a few
palaces, and all the churches built of stone, remained standing. All
else was laid in ruins. The destruction of property was enormous. The
flight of the nobility had been so sudden, that the French officers on
their entrance found even the jewels of the ladies left behind. But
there are other consequences of the burning of Moscow which are too
horrible to dwell upon. Dumas states, that he found six thousand wounded
Russians in the hospitals, which he examined by order of Napoleon, when
the French army entered. Their fate cannot be doubtful. Napoleon
returned to the Kremlin on the 20th. He passed towards the city through
the camps of his army, which exhibited a very singular appearance. “They
were situated,” says Segur, “in the midst of fields, in a thick and cold
mire; and contained immense camp-fires, fed by rich mahogany furniture,
and gilded sashes and doors. Around these fires, with a litter of damp
straw, sheltered only by a few miserable planks fastened together, his
soldiers, with their officers, were to be seen, splashed with dirt, and
stained with smoke, seated upon superb arm-chairs, or reclining on sofas
covered with silk. At their feet, carelessly opened or thrown in heaps,
lay Cashmere shawls, the finest furs of Siberia, the gold stuffs of
Persia, and plates of solid silver, from which they had nothing to eat
but a black dough baked in ashes, and half-broiled and bloody steaks of
horse-flesh.” The ground between the camps and the city was covered with
marauders laden with booty. On his way through the ruined streets,
Napoleon had passed heaps of furniture piled up for removal, and stalls
where soldiers were exchanging showy and valuable commodities for common
necessaries; and the richest wines, liquors, and bales of costly
merchandise, for a loaf of bread. He had permitted this license at
first; but hearing that the excesses increased, and that the peasantry
who had formerly brought provisions were now prevented by fear, he
issued severe orders, and commanded his guard to keep close to their
quarters. He was obeyed at the first word. The plundering continued, but
was conducted regularly, and every effort made to protect the peasants;
nevertheless few appeared, and at length not one was to be seen.
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