Napoleon wished to attack Kutusoff, drive him or destroy him, and then fall back on Smolensk. His officers counselled against this.
“Then what am I to do?”
“Stay here,” advised Count Daru. “Turn Moscow into a fortified camp, and so pass the winter. There is plenty of bread and salt. We can forage, we can salt down the horses which we cannot feed. As for quarters, if there are not houses enough here, there are plenty of cellars. We can hold out till spring, when our reënforcements, backed by Lithuania in arms, will come to the rescue and complete our success.”
“Counsel of the lion!” exclaimed the Emperor. “But what will Paris say? what will they do? No; France is not accustomed to my absence. Prussia and Austria will take advantage of it.”
At length a rabbit, fleeing for dear life from a Cossack, put an end to hesitation, and put two great armies in motion.
Tolstoï relates: “On October 14 a Cossack, Shapovalof, while on patrol duty, shot at a rabbit, and, entering the woods in pursuit of the wounded animal, stumbled upon the unguarded left flank of Murat’s army”—Napoleon’s advance guard.
Shapovalof, on his return to camp, told what he had seen, the news reached headquarters, a reconnoissance confirmed the statement, and the Russians, sorely tempted, broke the armistice, fell upon the unwary Murat, and did him immense damage. But for a difference between the Russian generals, it appears that Murat’s entire force might have been captured.
The Emperor was holding a review in the courtyard of the Kremlin when members of his suite began to say to one another that they heard cannon firing in the direction of the advance guard. At first no one dared speak of it to Napoleon. Duroc finally did so, and the Emperor was seen to be seriously disturbed. The review had not been recommenced before an aide-de-camp from Murat came at full speed to report that the truce had been broken, the French taken by surprise, and routed with heavy loss.
This was October 18. At last Napoleon was a soldier again: the news of the battle had roused him to action. His decision was taken, orders flew, and before night the whole army was in motion.