The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I

by Unknown

Murat received the injunction to march quickly, to avoid all disorder. General Durosnel was sent forward to hold communication with the authorities, and lead them to the conqueror's feet, who desired to receive their homage and calm their fears. M. Denniée was charged to go and prepare food and lodging for the army, Murat, galloping at the head of the light cavalry, arrived, at length, across the faubourg of Drogomilow, at the bridge of the Moskowa. There he found a Russian rear-guard, who were retreating, and inquired if there was no officer there who knew French. A young Russian, who spoke our language correctly, presented himself immediately before this king, whom hostile nations knew so well, and asked what he wanted. Murat having exprest a wish to know which was the commander of this rear-guard, the young Russian pointed out an officer with white hair, clothed in a bivouac cloak of long fur. Murat, with his accustomed grace, held out his hand to the old officer, who took it eagerly. Thus national hatred was silenced before valor.

Murat asked the commander of the enemy's rear-guard if they knew him. "Yes," replied the latter, "we have seen enough of you under fire to know you." Murat seeming struck with, the long fur mantle, which looked as if it would be very comfortable for a bivouac, the old officer unfastened it from his shoulders to make him a present of it. Murat, receiving it with as much courtesy as it was offered, took a beautiful watch and presented it to the enemy's officer, who received this present in the same way as his had been accepted. After these acts of courtesy, the Russian rear-guard filed off rapidly to give ground to our vanguard. The King of Naples, followed by his staff and a detachment of cavalry, went down into the streets of Moscow, traversed alternately the poorest and the richest quarters, rows of wooden houses crowded together, and a succession of splendid palaces rising from amidst vast gardens: he found everywhere the most profound silence. It seemed as if they were penetrating into a dead city, whose inhabitants had suddenly disappeared.

The first sight of it, surprizing as it was, did not remind us of our entry into Berlin or Vienna, Nevertheless, the first feeling of terror experienced by the inhabitants might explain this solitude. Suddenly some distracted individuals appeared; they were some French people, belonging to the foreign families settled at Moscow, and asked us in the name of heaven to save them from the robbers who had become masters of the town. They were well received, but we tried in vain to remove their fears. We were conducted to the Kremlin,[53] and had hardly arrived in sight of these old walls than we were exposed to a discharge of shot. It came from bandits let loose on Moscow by the ferocious patriotism of the Count of Rostopchin. These wretched beings had invaded the sacred citadel, had seized the guns in the arsenal, and were firing on the French who came to disturb them after their few hours' reign of anarchy. Several were sabered, and the Kremlin was relieved of their presence. But on making inquiry we learned that the whole population had fled, except a small number of strangers, or of Russians acquainted with the ways of the French and not fearing their presence. This news vexed the leaders of our vanguard, who were flattering themselves that they would see a whole population coming before them, whom they would take pleasure in comforting and filling with surprize and gratitude. They made haste to restore some order to the different quarters of the town, and to pursue the thieves, who thought they should much longer enjoy the prey that the Count of Rostopchin had given up to them.

The next morning, September 15, Napoleon made his entry into Moscow, at the head of his invincible legions, but he crossed a deserted town, and for the first time his soldiers, on entering a capital, found none but themselves to be witnesses of their glory. The impression that they experienced was sad. Napoleon, arrived at the Kremlin, hastened to mount the high tower of the great Ivan, and to contemplate from that height his magnificent conquest, across which the Moskowa was slowly pursuing its winding course. Thousands of blackbirds, ravens and crows, as numerous here as the pigeons at Venice, flying around the tops of the palaces and churches, gave a singular aspect to this great city, which contrasted strangely with the brightness of its brilliant colors. A mournful silence, disturbed only by the tramp of cavalry, had taken the place of life in this city, which till the evening before had been one of the most busy in the world. In spite of the sadness of this solitude, Napoleon, on finding Moscow abandoned like the other Russian towns, thought himself happy nevertheless in not finding it burned up, and did not despair of softening little by little the hatred which the presence of his flags had inspired since Vitebsk.

The army hoped, then, to enjoy Moscow, to find peace there, and, in any case, good winter cantonments if the war was prolonged. However, on the morrow after the day on which the entry had been made, columns of flame arose from a very large building which contained the spirits that the government sold on its own account to the people of the capital. People ran there, without astonishment or terror, for they attributed the cause of this partial fire to the nature of the materials contained in this building, or to some imprudence committed by our soldiers. In fact, the fire was mastered, and we had time to reassure ourselves.

But all at once the fire burst out at almost the same instant with extreme violence in a collection of buildings that was called the Bazaar. This bazaar, situated to the northeast of the Kremlin comprized the richest shops, those in which were sold the beautiful stuffs of India and Persia, the rarities of Europe, the colonial commodities, sugar, coffee, tea, and, lastly, precious wines. In a few minutes the fire had spread through the bazaar, and the soldiers of the guard ran in crowds and made the greatest efforts to arrest its progress. Unhappily, they could not succeed, and soon the immense riches of this establishment fell a prey to the flames. Eager to dispute with the fire the possession of these riches, belonging to no one at this time, and to secure them for themselves, our soldiers, not having been able to save them, tried to drag out some fragments.

They might be seen coming out of the bazaar, carrying furs, silks, wines of great value, without any one dreaming of reproaching them for so doing, for they wronged no one but the fire, the sole master of these treasures. One might regret it on the score of discipline, but could not cast a reproach on their honor on that account. Besides, those who remained of the people set them an example, and took their large share of these spoils of the commerce of Moscow. Yet it was only one large building—an extremely rich one, it is true—that was attacked by the fire, and there was no fear for the town itself. These first disasters, of little consequence so far, were attributed to a very natural and very ordinary accident, which might be more easily explained still, in the bustle of evacuating the town.

During the night of the 15th of September the scene suddenly changed. As if every misfortune was to fall at once on the old Muscovite capital, the equinoctial wind arose all at once with the double violence natural to the season and to level countries where nothing stops the storm. This wind, blowing at first from the east, carried the fire westward, along the streets situated between the roads from Tver and Smolensk, and which are known as the richest and most beautiful in Moscow, those of Tverskaia, Nikitskaia, and Povorskaia. In a few hours the fire, having spread fiercely among the wooden buildings, communicated itself from one to another with frightful rapidity. Shooting forth in long tongues of flame, it was seen invading other quarters situated to the west.

Rockets were noticed in the air, and soon wretches were seized carrying combustibles at the end of long poles. They were taken up; they were questioned with threats of death, and they revealed the frightful secret, the order given by the Count of Rostopchin to set fire to the city of Moscow, as if it had been the smallest village on the road from Smolensk. This news spread consternation through the army in an instant. To doubt was no longer possible, after the arrests made, and the depositions collected from different parts of the town. Napoleon ordered that in each quarter the corps fixt there should form military commissions to try, shoot, and hang on gibbets the incendiaries taken in the act. He ordered likewise that they should employ all the troops there were in the town to extinguish the fire. They ran to the pumps, but there were none to be found. This last circumstance would have left no doubt, if there had remained any, of the frightful design that delivered Moscow to the flames....

Napoleon, followed by some of his lieutenants, went out of that Kremlin which the Russian army had not been able to prevent him from entering, but from which the fire expelled him after four-and-twenty hours of possession, descended to the quay of Moskowa, found his horses ready there, and had much difficulty in crossing the town, which toward the northwest, whither he directed his course, was already in flames. The wind, which constantly increased in violence, sometimes caused columns of fire to bend to the ground, and drove before it torrents of sparks, smoke, and stifling cinders. The horrible appearance of the sky answered to the no less horrible spectacle of the earth. The terrified army went out of Moscow. The divisions of Prince Eugene and Marshal Ney, which had entered the evening before, turned back again on the roads of Zwenigorod and Saint Petersburg; those of Marshal Davoust returned by the road of Smolensk, and, except the guard left around the Kremlin to dispute its possession with the flames, our troops retired in haste, struck with horror, before this fire, which, after darting up toward the sky, seemed to bend down again over them as if it wished to devour them. A small number of the inhabitants who had remained in Moscow, and had hidden at first in their houses without daring to come out, now escaped from them, carrying away what was most dear to them—women their children, men their infirm parents.