THE CAMP-FIRE AT MOSCOW.
The Russians themselves kindled Napoleon’s campfire at Moscow. They lighted his bivouacs with the flames of their ancient capital, and thus gave him an awful proof of their invincible opposition to the invader.
After the battle of Borodino, Napoleon found the road to Moscow open, and advanced rapidly towards the conquest he had so long desired. The city of his hopes has been thus described:
“Moscow was an immense and singular assemblage of two hundred and ninety-five churches, and fifteen hundred splendid habitations, together with their gardens and offices. These palaces, built of brick, with the grounds attached to them, intermingled with handsome wooden houses, and even with cottages, were scattered over several square leagues of unequal surface, and were grouped around a lofty, triangular palace, whose vast and double inclosure, comprising two divisions, and about half a league in circumference, included—one of them—several palaces and churches, and a quantity of uncultivated and stony ground; the other, a vast bazaar—a city of merchants—exhibiting the opulence of the four quarters of the world. These buildings, shops as well as palaces, were all covered with polished and colored plates of iron. The churches, which were each of them surmounted by a terrace, and by several steeples terminating in gilded globes, the crescent, and finally the cross, recalled to mind the history of the people. They represented Asia and her religion, first triumphant, then subdued; and finally the crescent of Mahomet under the dominion of the cross of Christ. A single sunbeam made this superb city glitter with a thousand varied colors; and the enchanted traveller halted in ecstacy at the sight. It recalled to his mind the dazzling prodigies with which oriental poets had amused his infancy.”
Count Rostopchin had been appointed governor of Moscow.
As the French army approached the capital, terror began to prevail among the inhabitants; and, after the taking of Smolensko, many of the wealthy classes removed their most valuable effects, and left the city. The governor secretly encouraged this gradual emigration, though he ostensibly maintained a complete confidence of success in the Russian cause, and kept up the spirits of the people by false reports and loyal declarations. Among other contrivances, he employed a number of females in the construction of an immense balloon, out of which, as he made the people believe, he would pour down a shower of fire upon the French army. Under this pretence, he is said to have collected a quantity of combustibles destined for a purpose widely different from this aeronautic fiction. The panic at Moscow at length became general, and not only the nobility and higher classes in general, but tradesmen, mechanics, and even the poor, left it by thousands. The public archives and treasures were removed; the magazines emptied, as far as time permitted. The roads, especially those to the south, were covered with a long train of carriages of every description, and with successive crowds of fugitives on foot, the priests leading the way laden with the symbols of their religion, and singing mournful hymns of lamentation.
Kutusoff, with his retreating army, now appeared without the walls, and intrenched himself strongly in the position of Fili. He had ninety thousand men under his command, of whom six thousand were Cossacks, large numbers of recruits having been added to his ranks since the great battle; and it appears certain that he still entertained some intention of defending the capital. This purpose, however, was speedily relinquished. On the 14th of September, he broke up his camp, and his army continued its retreat, passing through Moscow, which was to be abandoned to its fate. The troops marched along the deserted streets with furled banners and silent drums; and passed out at the Kalomna gate. Some of the officers were observed to shed tears of rage and shame. With an army of ninety thousand men, in their own country, and with the constant power of retreating upon their resources, it is no wonder that all the braver spirits among the Russians felt this humiliating policy most deeply.
The long columns of retreat were followed by the garrison and all the remaining population, with the exception of one class, left there for a special purpose. Before his own departure, Rostopchin opened the prisons, and let loose their miserable and degraded inmates, to the number of three or four hundred, having given them a secret task to perform. The pumps of the city had all been removed or destroyed, and torches and combustibles in great quantities collected. Rostopchin then left the city.