This occurrence decided Napoleon. He hastily descended the northern staircase, famous for the massacre of the Strelitzes,[149] and requested to be conducted out of the city, to the distance of a league on the road to St. Petersburg, towards the imperial palace of Petrowski.
But we were besieged by an ocean of fire, which blocked up all the gates of the citadel, and frustrated our first attempts to escape. After some search, we discovered a postern-gate[150] leading between the rocks to the Moskwa. It was by this narrow pass that Napoleon, his officers and guard, made their way from the Kremlin. But what had they gained by this movement? They had approached nearer to the fire, and could neither retreat nor remain where they were; and how were they to advance? how force a passage through the billows of this sea of flame? Those who had traversed the city, stunned by the tempest and blinded by the ashes, could no longer find their way, since the streets themselves were not distinguishable amid smoke and ruins.
There was no time to be lost. The roaring of the flames around us became every moment more terrific. A single narrow winding street, completely enveloped in fire on either side, appeared rather the entrance than the outlet of this hell. The emperor, however, on foot, and without hesitation, rushed into this frightful passage. He advanced amid the crackling of the flames, the crash of floors, and the fall of burning timbers, and of fragments of red-hot iron roofs which tumbled around him. These ruins impeded his progress. The flames, while with impetuous roar they consumed the edifices between which we were proceeding, spreading beyond the walls, were blown out by the wind, and formed an arch over our heads. We walked on a ground of fire, beneath a fiery canopy and between two walls of fire. The intense heat burned our eyes, which we were nevertheless obliged to keep open and fixed on the danger. A consuming atmosphere parched our throats, and rendered our respiration short and difficult; and we were already almost suffocated by the smoke. Our hands were burned, either in endeavoring to protect our faces from the insupportable heat, or in brushing off the sparks which every moment fell upon our garments. In this inexpressible distress, and when a rapid advance seemed to be our only means of safety, our guide stopped in uncertainty and agitation. Here probably would have terminated our adventurous career, had not some pillagers of the first corps recognized the emperor amid the whirling flames: they ran up and guided him towards the smoking ruins of a quarter which had been reduced to ashes in the morning.
It was there that we met the Prince of Eckmühl. This marshal, who had been wounded at the Moskwa, had desired to be carried back among the flames to rescue Napoleon, or to perish with him. He threw himself into his arms with transport; the emperor received him kindly, but with that composure which in danger he never lost for a moment.
To escape from this vast region of desolation, it was farther necessary to pass a long convoy of powder which was defiling amid the fire. This was not the least of his dangers, but it was the last, and by nightfall he arrived at Petrowski.
The next morning, the 17th of September, Napoleon cast his first look towards Moscow, hoping to see that the conflagration had subsided. But he beheld it again raging with the utmost violence: the city appeared like one vast column of fire, rising in whirling eddies to the sky, which it deeply colored. Absorbed by this melancholy contemplation, he maintained a long and gloomy silence, which he broke only by the exclamation, "This forebodes to us great misfortunes!"
The effort which he had made to reach Moscow had expended all his means of warfare. Moscow had been the limit of his projects, the aim of all his hopes, and Moscow was no more! What was now to be done? Here this decisive genius was forced to hesitate. He who in 1805 had ordered the sudden and total abandonment of the expedition prepared at an immense expense, for the invasion of England; and determined at Boulogne on the surprise and annihilation of the Austrian army, in short, on all the operations of the campaign between Ulm and Munich exactly as they were executed; this same man, who in the following year dictated at Paris with like infallibility all the movements of his army as far as Berlin, the day of his entrance into that capital, and the appointment of the governor whom he destined for it; he it was who, astonished in his turn, was now in perplexity what course to pursue. Never had he communicated his most daring projects to the most confidential of his ministers but in order for their execution; he was now, however, constrained to consult and put to the proof those who were around him.
But, in doing this, he still preserved the same show of confidence and of determination. He declared that he would march for St. Petersburg. This conquest was already marked out on his maps, hitherto so prophetic: orders were even issued to the different corps to hold themselves in readiness. But this was all only a feint: it was but a better face that he strove to assume, or an expedient for diverting his grief at the loss of Moscow; so that Berthier, and more especially Bessières, soon convinced him that he had neither time, provisions, roads, nor a single requisite for so distant an expedition.
At this moment he was apprised that Kutusoff, after having fled towards the east, had suddenly turned to the south, and thrown himself between Moscow and Kaluga. This was an additional circumstance against the expedition to St. Petersburg. There was a threefold reason for marching upon the beaten army, and endeavoring to extinguish it: to secure his right flank and his line of operation; to possess himself of Kaluga and of Tula, the one the granary, the other the arsenal of Russia; and, lastly, to open safe, short, new, and untouched retreat to Smolensk and Lithuania.[151]
Some one proposed to return upon Wittgenstein and Witepsk.[152] Napoleon, however, remained undecided between these different plans. That for the conquest of St. Petersburg alone flattered him: the others appeared but as ways of retreat, as acknowledgments of error; and whether from pride, or policy which would not admit itself to be in the wrong, he rejected them.