About ten o'clock I saw a General on horseback riding up, looking like General Pernetty.[17] He was leading a young man dressed in a sheepskin cape, fastened by a red woollen belt. The General asked me if I was in charge of the guard, and on my saying 'Yes,' he continued:
'Very good. You will see that this man is put to death with the bayonet. I have just caught him with a torch setting fire to the palace where I am staying.'
I told off four men, therefore, to carry out the General's orders. But French soldiers are not made for this kind of work—in cold blood. Our blows did not pierce through his sheepskin, and we should have spared his life on account of his youth (moreover, he had not the appearance of a criminal), but that the General remained looking on till he saw the poor wretch fall from a shot in the side. We left him lying where he was.
Soon after another man came, an inhabitant of the place, but a Frenchman and Parisian by origin. He said he was proprietor of the baths, and asked me for a safe-conduct, as they were setting fire to his establishment. I gave him four men, who came back almost directly, however, saying that the place was in flames already.
A few hours after our dreadful execution, the men came to tell me that a woman walking through the Place had thrown herself on the unfortunate young man's body. I went to see her, and she tried to make us understand that it was her husband, or at any rate a relation. She was sitting on the ground, holding the dead man's head on her lap, stroking his face, and from time to time kissing him, but without shedding a tear. At last, not able to bear such a heart-rending scene, I brought her into the guard-room and gave her a glass of liqueur, which she eagerly drank, then a second, and a third, in fact, as much as she could drink. She gave us to understand that she would stay for three days where she was, waiting for the dead man to come to life again, believing, like all the Russian peasants, that the dead revive in three days. She fell asleep at last on the sofa.
At five o'clock our company came back, and was again put on picket duty, so I was there for another twenty-four hours. The rest of the regiment was busy trying to extinguish the fire round the Kremlin; they were successful for the time, but the fire broke out again afterwards more fiercely than ever.
After the company had returned, the Captain sent patrols in different directions. One was sent to the baths, but came back directly, telling us that the moment they arrived the whole place fell in with a terrible noise, and that the sparks, carried far by a west wind, had caused fires in many places.
During all that evening and for part of the night, our patrols were bringing in Russian soldiers from all quarters of the town, driven out by the fire from the houses where they were hidden. Amongst them were two officers—one of the regular army, the other of the militia; the first allowed himself to be disarmed of his sword, only asking that he might keep a gold medal hanging at his side; but the other, a young man, having a cartridge-belt besides a sword, objected to my taking them, and, speaking in French, told us he was in the militia. However, after he had given us his reasons, we made ours pretty clear to him.
At midnight the fire broke out again near the Kremlin; there were fresh efforts made to extinguish it. But on the 16th, at three o'clock in the morning, it recommenced more violently than ever; this time it spread.
During the night of the 15th and 16th, I and two of my friends, non-commissioned officers like myself, decided to explore the city and the Kremlin we had heard so much of—so we set out. There was no need of a torch to light us; but, as we intended to pay visits to the houses and cellars of the Muscovite gentlemen, we each took a man with us armed with candles.