Soon afterwards we descended the Mont du Salut, and after a quarter of an hour's march we found ourselves at the gate of the town.
The Emperor was there already with his staff. We halted, and I noticed to our left an immense cemetery. After waiting a moment, Marshal Duroc came out of the town, which he had just entered, and, addressing the Emperor, presented to him several of the inhabitants who could speak French. The Emperor questioned them; then the Marshal told His Majesty that in the Kremlin there were a great number of persons under arms, the greater part of whom were criminals released from the prisons; they had been firing at Murat's cavalry, who formed the advance-guard. In spite of several orders, they persisted in keeping their doors closed.
'These wretches,' said the Marshal, 'are all drunk, and cannot listen to reason.'
'Open the doors with cannon,' replied the Emperor, 'and drive out all you find behind them.'
The thing was done already—Murat had undertaken it himself: two cannon-shots, and all the riff-raff was dispersed through the town. Then Murat continued his progress, pressing hard on the Russian rear-guard.
The order 'Garde-à-vous!' was now given, preceded by a rolling of drums from the Guard, the signal for entering the town. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and we made our entrance marching in close columns, the bands playing in front. I was in the advance guard of thirty men, commanded by M. Césarisse, the Lieutenant of our company.
We had hardly entered the outskirts of the town, when we met several of the miserable creatures expelled from the Kremlin; they had all horrible faces, and were armed with muskets, staves, and pitchforks. In passing over the bridge leading from the suburbs to the town itself, a man crept from underneath the bridge, and placed himself in front of the regiment. He was muffled up in a sheepskin cape, long gray hair fell on his shoulders, and a thick white beard came down to his waist. He carried a three-pronged fork, and looked like Neptune rising from the sea. In these accoutrements he walked proudly up to the drum-major, moving as if to strike him, no doubt taking him for the General with his smart uniform and gold lace. He aimed a blow at him with his pitchfork, which luckily the drum-major managed to avoid, and, snatching the miserable creature's weapon from him, he seized him by the shoulders; then, kicking him behind, he launched him over the bridge and into the water he had just left. He did not get out again, however; swept away by the current, we only saw him come up at intervals. Finally he disappeared altogether.
We met several others of the same kind, who fired at us with loaded arms. There were even some of them who had nothing but wooden flint-locks to their muskets; as they wounded no one, we contented ourselves with taking their arms from them and breaking them, and if the creatures returned we got rid of them by blows in the back with the butt-end of our muskets. Some of these weapons had been taken from the arsenal at the Kremlin; the muskets with the wooden flint-locks certainly came from that place.
We knew that these wretches had tried to stab an officer of Murat's staff.
After passing over the bridge, we marched along a large and beautiful street. We were astonished not to see anyone come out—not even a lady—to listen to our band playing 'La victoire est à nous.' We could not understand this total silence, and we imagined that the inhabitants, not daring to show themselves, were peeping at us from behind their shutters. Here and there we saw a few servants in livery, and some Russian soldiers.