“The Duc de Trévise will do what he can.” Mortier did in fact provide a room in the Governor’s palace, and ordered that we should be supplied with provisions; and his maître d’hôtel sent us wine as well. After several days Mortier summoned my father at four in the morning, and sent him off to the Kremlin.
By this time the conflagration had spread to a frightful extent; the atmosphere, heated red-hot and darkened by smoke, was intolerable. Napoleon was dressed already and walking about the room, angry and uneasy; he was beginning to realise that his withered laurels would soon be frozen, and that a jest would not serve, as it had in Egypt, to get him out of this embarrassment. His plan of campaign was ill-conceived, and all except Napoleon knew it—Ney, Narbonne, Berthier, and even officers of no mark or position; to all criticisms his reply was the magic word “Moscow”; and, when he reached Moscow, he too discovered the truth.
When my father entered the room, Napoleon took a sealed letter from a table, gave it to him, and said by way of dismissal, “I rely upon your word of honour.” The address on the envelope ran thus: À mon frère l’empereur Alexandre.
The safe-conduct given to my father is preserved to this day; it is signed by the Duc de Trévise and counter-signed below by Lesseps, chief of police at Moscow. Some strangers, hearing of our good fortune, begged my father to take them with him, under the pretext that they were servants or relations; and they joined our party. An open carriage was provided for my mother and nurse, and for my wounded uncle; the rest walked. A party of cavalry escorted us; when the rear of the Russian Army came in sight, they wished us good fortune and galloped back again to Moscow. The strange party of refugees was surrounded a moment later by Cossacks, who took us to head-quarters. The generals in command were Wintzengerode and Ilovaiski.
When the former was told of the letter, he told my father that he would send him at once, with two dragoons, to see the Tsar at Petersburg.
“What is to become of your party?” asked the Cossack general, Ilovaiski; “They can’t possibly stay here, within rifle-shot of the troops; there may be some hot fighting any day.” My father asked that we might be sent, if possible, to his Yaroslavl estate; and he added that he was absolutely penniless at the time.
“That does not matter: we can settle accounts later,” said the General; “and don’t be uneasy: I give you my promise that they shall be sent.”
While my father was sent off to Petersburg on a courier’s cart, Ilovaiski procured an old rattle-trap of a carriage for us, and sent us and a party of French prisoners to the next town, under an escort of Cossacks; he provided us with money for posting as far as Yaroslavl, and, in general, did all that he could for us in a time of war and confusion.
This was my first long journey in Russia; my second was not attended by either French cavalry or Ural Cossacks or prisoners of war; the whole party consisted of myself and a drunk police-officer sitting beside me in the carriage.