“I have already done the same,” answered the count, and tears were in his eyes.
“Now,” added he, “Serge Nicholaevitch, let us speak like two true friends of our country. In your opinion, what will happen if Moscow is abandoned?”
“Your excellency knows what I have dared to say on the 15/27 July in the assembly of the nobility; but tell me in all frankness, count, how shall Moscow be delivered, with blood, or without blood (s kroviou ili bez krovi)?”
“Bez krovi (without blood),” laconically answered the count.
His word to prince Eugene had been: Burn the capital rather than deliver it to the enemy; to Ermilof: I do not see why you take so much pains to defend Moscow at any price; if the enemy occupies the city he will find nothing that could serve him.
The treasures which belong to the crown and all that is of some value have already been removed; also, with few exceptions, the treasures of the churches, the ornaments of gold and silver, the most important archives of the state, all have been taken to a place of safety. Many of the well-to-do have already taken away what is precious. There remain in Moscow only 50 thousand persons in the most miserable conditions who have no other asylum.
This was what he said on September 13, and on the same day he wrote to the emperor that all had been sent away.
But this was not true; there still remained 10 thousand wounded—of whom the majority would perish in case of a conflagration; there remained an immense stock of provisions, flour and alcoholic liquor, which would fall into the hands of the enemy; there was still the arsenal in the Kremlin containing 150 cannon, 60 thousand rifles, 160 thousand cartridges and a great deal of sulphur and saltpeter.
During the night from the 14th. to the 15th. Rostopchine developed a great activity, though he could save only some miraculous images left in the churches, and destroy some magazines.
The inhabitants suddenly aroused from their security went to the barriers of the city and obstructed the streets with vehicles; to remove what still remained in Moscow the means of transportation and the time allowed for this purpose were insufficient.