CHAPTER LIX.

CHAPTER LIX.Napoleon detaches Murat and other Generals in pursuit of the Russians—Bloody, but indecisive Action, at Valoutina—Barclay de Tolly's defensive system relinquished, and Koutousoff appointed to the chief command of the Russian Army—Napoleon advances from Smolensk—Battle of Borodino fought, on 5th September—PrinceBagration slain—Koutousoff retreats upon Mojaisk, and thence upon Moscow—Napoleon continues his advance on the 12th—Count Rostopchin, Governor of Moscow—His Character—The Russians abandon Moscow, which is evacuated by the Inhabitants—The Grand Russian Army marches through Moscow—Last public Court of Justice held there by Rostopchin, after which he follows the march of the Army.Without communicating his purpose of advancing in person from Smolensk, and completing, without any interval of delay, his great undertaking, Napoleon failed not to detach Murat, Ney, Junot, and Davoust, in pursuit of the Russians, as they retired from Smolensk. Either, however, his own mind was not made up, or he did not wish his purpose of going onward to be known. He represented this demonstration as arising merely out of the desire of pressing the Russian retreat, though in fact it was preliminary to his own advance.Barclay de Tolly having performed the stern duty of burning Smolensk, had retired for two or three miles along the road to St. Petersburgh, which route he chose in order to avoid a cannonade from the left side of the Dnieper. Having proceeded a little way in this direction, he turned southward to regain the road to Moscow, which he would have taken at first, but for its exposing him to loss from the enemy's artillery, where it bordered on the river. The French could not for some time determine on which route they were to pursue the Russians. At length, finding the track, they overtook the rear-guard at a place called Valoutina, encumbered as it was with guns and baggage. Here a desperate action took place, the Russians reinforcing their rear-guard as fast as the French brought new bodies to attack them. Both parties fought most obstinately, and the distinguished French general Gudin was mortally wounded. The French blamed Junot,[142]who having been despatched across the Dnieper, showed no alertness in advancing to charge the enemy. There was seen, indeed, in this affair of Valoutina, or Lombino, that the marshals and the great officers who had been accustomed each to command a separate corps d'armée, disdained to receive either orders, or even advice or hints, from a brother of the same rank. Wherever there were two or three of these dignitaries on the field, it was necessary Buonaparte should bewithin reach, to issue the necessary orders; for no voice save that of the Emperor was implicitly obeyed by all.[143]ACTION AT VALOUTINA.In the meantime, the bloody action of Valoutina had an unsatisfactory result. The Russians, whose rear-guard had been attacked, had moved off without losing either guns, prisoners, or baggage. They had lost equal numbers with the French, but the time was fast approaching when they must possess a numerical superiority, and when, of course, an equal loss would tell in favour of the party which was nearest to its resources.[144]The plan of Barclay de Tolly had hitherto been scrupulously adhered to. All general actions had been cautiously avoided; and while no means were left unemployed to weaken the enemy in partial actions, and to draw him on from swamp to swamp, from conflagration to conflagration, from one wild and waste scene to another of equal sterility and disconsolation, the end had been in a great measure attained, of undermining the force and breaking the moral courage of the invading army, who wandered forward like men in a dream, feeling on all hands a sense of oppressive and stifling opposition, yet unable to encounter any thing substantial which the slumberer can struggle with and overcome. Barclay de Tolly, if he had made some faults by extending his line too much at the commencement of the campaign, and afterwards by his false movements upon Rudneia, had more than atoned for these errors by the dexterity with which he had manœuvred before Smolensk, and the advantages which he had gained over the enemy on various other occasions. But they were now approaching Moscow the Grand, the Sanctified—and the military councils of Russia were about to change their character.The spirit of the Russians, especially of the new levies, was more and more exasperated at the retreat, which seemed to have no end; and at the style of defence, which seemed only to consist in inflicting on the country, by the hands of Cossacks or Tartars, the very desolation which was perhaps the worst evil they could experience from the French. The natural zeal of the new levies, their confidence and their desire to be led to fight in the cause for which they were enlisted, eagerly declared against further retreat; and they demanded a halt, and a battle under a Russian general, more interested, as they supposed such must be, in the defence of the country, than a German stranger. The Emperor almost alone continued to adhere to the opinion of Barclayde Tolly. But he could not bid defiance to the united voice of his people and his military council. The political causes which demanded a great battle in defence of Moscow, were strong and numerous, and overcame the military reasons which certainly recommended that a risk so tremendous should not be incurred.In compliance, therefore, with the necessity of the case, the Emperor sacrificed his own opinion. General Koutousoff, an officer high in military esteem among the Russians, was sent for from the corps which had been employed on the Danube against the Turks, to take the chief command of the grand army; and it was to Barclay's great honour, that, thus superseded, he continued to serve with the utmost zeal and good faith in a subordinate situation.The French were not long of learning that their enemy's system of war was to be changed, and that the new Russian general was to give them battle, the object which they had so long panted for. Buonaparte, who had halted six days at Smolensk, moved from thence on the 24th August, and now pressed forward to join the advanced guard of his army at Gjatz. In this place his followers found a Frenchman who had dwelt long in Russia. They learned from this man the promotion of Koutousoff to the chief command of the army opposed to them, and that he was placed there for the express purpose of giving battle to the French army. The news were confirmed by the manner of a Russian officer, who arrived under some pretext with a flag of truce, but probably to espy the state of the invader's army. There was defiance in the look of this man; and when he was asked by a French general what they would find between Wiazma and Moscow, he answered sternly, "Pultowa." There was, therefore, no doubt, that battle was approaching.[145]But the confusion of Buonaparte's troops was still such, that he was obliged to halt two days at Gjatz,[146]in order to collect and repose his army. He arrived at the destined field of battle, an elevated plain, called Borodino, which the Russians had secured with lines and batteries.BATTLE OF BORODINO.The French army were opposed to them on the 5th September, having consumed seventeen days in marching 280 wersts. Their first operation was a successful attack upon a redoubt in the Russian front, but which—a great error in war—was situated too distant from it to be effectually supported. The French gained it and kept it. The armies lay in presence of each other all the next day, preparing for the approaching contest. Upon a position naturally strong, the Russians had raised very formidablefieldworks. Their right flank rested on a wood, which was covered by some detached intrenchments. A brook, occupying in its course a deep ravine, covered the front of the right wing and the centre of the position as far as the river of Borodino; from that village the left extended down to another village, called Semoneskoie, which is more open, yet protected by ravines and thickets in front. This, as the most accessible point, was anxiously secured by redoubts and batteries; and in the centre of the position, upon a gentle elevation, arose a sort of double battery, like a citadel, for the protection of the whole line.In this strong position was stationed the Russian army, equal now in numbers to the French, as each army might be about 120,000 men. They were commanded by a veteran, slow, cautious, tenacious of his purpose, wily, too, as Napoleon afterwards found to his cost, but perhaps not otherwise eminent as a military leader. The army he led were of one nation and language, all conscious that this battle had been granted to their own ardent wishes, and determined to make good the eagerness with which they had called for it.The French army, again, consisted of various nations; but they were theélite, and seasoned soldiers who had survived the distresses of a most calamitous march; they were the veterans of the victors of Europe; they were headed by Napoleon in person, and under his immediate command by those marshals, whose names in arms were only inferior to his own. Besides a consciousness of their superiority in action, of which, from the manner in which they had covered themselves in intrenchments, the enemy seemed aware, the French had before them the prospect of utter destruction, if they should sustain a defeat in a country so difficult that they could hardly advance even as a successful army, and certainly could never hope to retreat as a routed one. Buonaparte's address to his troops[147]had less of the tinsel of oratory than he generally used on such occasions. "Soldiers," he said, "here is the battle you have longed for; it is necessary, for it brings us plenty, good winter-quarters, and a safe return to France. Behave yourselves so that posterity may say of each of you, 'He was in that great battle under the walls of Moscow.'"[148]In the Russian camp was a scene of a different kind, calculated to awaken feelings to which France had long ceased to appeal. The Greek clergy showed themselves to the troops, arrayed in their rich vestments, and displaying for general worship the images of their holiest saints. They told their countrymen of the wrongs which had been offered by the invaders to earth as well as Heaven, and exhorted them to merit a place in paradise by their behaviour in that day's battle. The Russians answered with shouts.Two deeply interesting circumstances occurred to Napoleon the day before the battle. An officer brought him a portrait of his boy, the King of Rome, which he displayed on the outside of the tent, not only to satisfy the officers, but the soldiers, who crowded to look upon the son of their Emperor. The other was the arrival of an officer from Spain with despatches, giving Napoleon news of the loss of the battle of Salamanca. He bore the evil tidings with temper and firmness, and soon turned his thoughts alike from domestic enjoyments and foreign defeats, to forming the necessary plans for the action before him.[149]Davoust proposed a plan for turning the left of the enemy's intrenched line, by following the old road from Smolensk to Moscow, and placing 35,000 men in the flank and rear of that part of the Russian position. This operation was partly to be accomplished by a night march, partly on the morning, while the rest of the army was engaging the enemy's attention in front. The ground to which this road would have conducted Davoust and his troops, forms the highest land in the neighbourhood, as appears from the rivulets taking their source there. Upon this commanding position the attacking corps might have been formed in the rear of the Russian line. Such a movement on that point must have cut off the Russians from their point of retreat on Mojaisk and Moscow, and Davoust might have come down their line, driving every thing before him, advancing from redoubt to redoubt, and dispersing reserve after reserve, till the Russians should no longer have the semblance of an army. Perhaps Napoleon considered this plan as too hazardous, as it implied a great weakening of his front line, which, in that case, might have been attacked and broken before the corps d'armée under Davoust had attained the desired position.[150]The Emperor therefore determined that Poniatowski, with not more than 5000 men, should make a demonstration, that should commence upon their left, in the direction proposed by Davoust, and that then a general attack should commence on the Russianright and centre. Foreseeing an obstinate resistance, he had ordered as much artillery as possible to be brought into line, and the guns on each side are said to have amounted to a thousand.[151]The battle began about seven o'clock, by Ney's attacking the bastioned redoubt on the Russian centre, with the greatest violence, while Prince Eugene made equal efforts to dislodge the enemy from the village of Semoneskoie, and the adjoining fortifications. No action was ever more keenly debated, nor at such a wasteful expenditure of human life. The fury of the French onset at length carried the redoubts, but the Russians rallied under the very line of their enemy's fire, and advanced again to the combat, to recover their intrenchments. Regiments of peasants, who till that day had never seen war, and who still had no other uniform than their grey jackets, formed with the steadiness of veterans, crossed their brows, and having uttered their national exclamation—"Gospodee pomiloui nas!—God have mercy upon us!"—rushed into the thickest of the battle, where the survivors, without feeling fear or astonishment, closed their ranks over their comrades as they fell, while, supported at once by enthusiasm for their cause, and by a religious sense of predestination, life and death seemed alike indifferent to them.The fate of the day seemed more than once so critical, that Napoleon was strongly urged on more than one occasion to bring up the Young Guard, whom he had in reserve, as the last means of deciding the contest. He was censured by some of those around him for not having done so; and it has been imputed to illness, as he had passed a bad night, and seemed unusually languid during the whole of the day. But the secret of his refusal seems to be contained in his reply to Berthier, when he urged him on the subject—"And if there is another battle to-morrow, where is my army?"[152]The fact is, that this body of 10,000 household troops were his last reserve. They had been spared as far as possible in the march, and had, of course, retained their discipline in a proportional degree; and had they sustained any considerable loss, which, from the obstinate resistance and repeated efforts of the Russians, was to be apprehended, Buonaparte, whom even victory must leave in a perilous condition, would in that case have lost the only corps upon whom, in the general disorganisationof his army, he could thoroughly depend. The compromising the last reserve is an expedient reluctantly resorted to by prudent generals; and perhaps, if Napoleon had been as circumspect on that subject at Waterloo as at Borodino, his retreat from that bloody field might have been less calamitous than it proved.The Russians, whose desperate efforts to recover their line of redoubts had exposed them to so much loss, were at length commanded to retreat; and although the victory was certainly with the French, yet their enemies might be said rather to desist from fighting, than to have suffered a defeat. Indeed, it was the French who, after the battle, drew off to their original ground, and left the Russians in possession of the bloody field of battle, where they buried their dead, and carried off their wounded, at their leisure. Their cavalry even alarmed the French camp on the very night of their victory.Both parties sustained a dreadful loss in this sanguinary battle. Among that of the Russians, the death of the gallant Prince Bagration, whose admirable retreat from Poland we have had occasion to commemorate, was generally lamented. General Touczkoff also died of his wounds; and many other Russian generals were wounded. Their loss amounted to the awful sum total of 15,000 men killed, and more than 30,000 wounded. The French were supposed to have at least 10,000 men killed, and double the number wounded. Of these last few recovered, for the great convent of Kolotskoi, which served them as an hospital, was very ill-provided with any thing for their relief; and the medical attendants could not procure a party to scour the neighbouring villages, to obtain lint and other necessaries—for it seems even the necessaries of an hospital could, in this ill-fated army, only be collected by marauding. Eight French generals were slain, of whom Monbrun and Caulaincourt, brother of the grand equerry, were men of distinguished reputation. About thirty other generals were wounded. Neither party could make any boast of military trophies, for the Russians made a thousand prisoners, and the French scarce twice the number; and Koutousoff carried away ten pieces of cannon belonging to the French, leaving in their hands thirteen guns of his own. So slight, except in the numbers of slain, had been the consequences of the battle, that it might have seemed to have been fought, as in the games of chivalry, merely to ascertain which party had the superior strength and courage.[153]MOJAISK.According to the Russian accounts, Koutousoff entertained thoughts of giving battle again the next day; but the reports from various corps having made him acquainted with the very large loss they had sustained, he deemed the army too much exhaustedto incur such a risk. He retreated the next day upon Mojaisk, without leaving behind him a single fragment to indicate that he had the day before sustained such an immense loss. Upon the 9th September, the French arrived at Mojaisk, and came again in sight of the Russian rear-guard, and made dispositions to attack them. But on the 11th, they found that the Russian army had again disappeared, by a retreat so well conducted, and so effectually masked and concealed, as to leave Napoleon altogether uncertain whether they had taken the road to Moscow, or to Kalouga. Owing to this uncertainty, Napoleon was obliged to remain at Mojaisk till the 12th, when he received positive intelligence that the Russian army had retreated upon their capital.It is impossible to avoid observing, how often the Russian army, though large, and consisting of new levies, had, in the course of this campaign, escaped from the front of the French, and left Napoleon at a loss to conjecture whither they had gone. Besides the present occasion, the same circumstance took place at Witepsk, and again before the walls of Moscow. No doubt the Russians were in their own country, and possessed clouds of Cossacks, by means of whom they might cover the retreat of their main body; yet with all these advantages, we are led to admire the natural spirit of obedience, and instinct of discipline, by which they were brought to execute that movement with such steadiness, that not a single straggler remained to betray their secret.On the 12th September, Buonaparte resumed his march, the army having no better guide than the direction of the high road, and the men no better food than horse flesh and bruised wheat. Upon the previous day, Murat and Mortier, who led the vanguard, found the Russians strongly posted near Krymskoie, where the inconsiderate valour of the King of Naples brought on an action, in which the French lost two thousand men. Still Buonaparte pursued the traces of the Russians, because he could not suppose it possible that they would resign their capital without a second struggle. He was the more anxious to meet it, as two divisions of the Italian army, under Laborde and Pino, had joined him from Smolensk, which again carried his numbers, sore thinned after the battle of Borodino, to upwards of one hundred thousand men.A council of war, of the Russian generals, had been called to deliberate on the awful question, whether they should expose the only army which they had in the centre of Russia, to the consequences of a too probable defeat, or whether they should abandon without a struggle, and as a prey to the spoiler, the holy Moscow—the Jerusalem of Russia—the city beloved of God and dear to man, with the name and existence of which so many historical, patriotic, national, and individual feelings were now involved. Reason spoke one language, pride and affection held another.To hazard a second battle, was in a great measure to place the fate of their grand army upon the issue; and this was too perilous an adventure, even for the protection of the capital. The consideration seems to have prevailed, that Napoleon being now in the centre of Russia, with an army daily diminishing, and the hard season coming on, every hour during which a decisive action could be delayed was a loss to France, and an advantage to Russia. This was the rather the case, that Witgenstein, on the northern frontier, being reinforced by Steingel with the army of Finland; and, on the south, that of Moldavia being united to Tormasoff—Lithuania, and Poland, which formed the base of Napoleon's operations, were in hazard of being occupied by the Russians from both flanks, an event which must endanger his supplies, magazines, reserves, and communications of every kind, and put in peril at once his person and his army. Besides, the Russian generals reflected, that by evacuating Moscow, a measure which the inhabitants could more easily accomplish than those of any other city in the civilized world, they would diminish the prize to the victor, and leave him nothing to triumph over save the senseless buildings. It was therefore determined, that the preservation of the army was more essential to Russia than the defence of Moscow, and it was agreed that the ancient capital of the Czars should be abandoned to its fate.Count Rostopchin, the governor of Moscow, was a man of worth and talent, of wit also, as we have been informed, joined to a certain eccentricity. He had, since the commencement of the war, kept up the spirits of the citizens with favourable reports and loyal declarations, qualified to infuse security into the public mind. After the fate of Smolensk, however, and especially after the recommencement of Buonaparte's march eastward, many of the wealthy inhabitants of Moscow removed or concealed their most valuable effects, and left the city themselves. Rostopchin continued, however, his assurances, and took various means to convince the people that there was no danger. Among other contrivances, he engaged a great number of females in the task of constructing a very large balloon, from which he was to shower down fire, as the people believed, upon the French army. Under this pretext, he is stated to have collected a large quantity of fire-work and combustibles, actually destined for a very different purpose.THE RUSSIANS ABANDON MOSCOW.As time passed on, however, the inhabitants became more and more alarmed, and forming a dreadful idea of the French, and of the horrors which would attend their entrance into the city, not only the nobility, gentry, and those of the learned professions, but tradesmen, mechanics, and the lower orders in general, left Moscow by thousands, while the governor, though keeping up the language of defiance, did all he could to superintend and encourage the emigration. The archives and the public treasures were removed; the magazines, particularly those of provisions, wereemptied, as far as time permitted; and the roads, especially to the south, were crowded with files of carriages, and long columns of men, women, and children on foot, singing the hymns of their church, and often turning their eyes back to the magnificent city, which was so soon destined to be a pile of ruins.The grand army of Moscow arrived in the position of Fili, near the capital; not, it was now acknowledged, to defend the sacred city, but to traverse its devoted streets, associating with their march the garrison, and such of the citizens as were fit to bear arms, and so leave the capital to its fate. On the 14th of September, the troops marched with downcast looks, furled banners, and silent drums, through the streets of the metropolis, and went out at the Kolomna gate. Their long columns of retreat were followed by the greater part of the remaining population. Meanwhile Rostopchin, ere departing, held a public court of justice. Two men were brought before him, one a Russian, an enthusiast, who had learned in Germany, and been foolish enough to express at Moscow, some of the old French republican doctrines. The other was a Frenchman, whom the near approach of his countrymen had emboldened to hold some indiscreet political language. The father of the Russian delinquent was present. He was expected to interfere. He did so; but it was to demand his son's death. "I grant you," said the governor, "some moments to take leave and to bless him."—"Shall I bless a rebel?" said this Scythian Brutus. "Be my curse upon him that has betrayed his country!" The criminal was hewed down on the spot. "Stranger," said Rostopchin to the Frenchman, "thou hast been imprudent; yet it is but natural thou shouldst desire the coming of thy countrymen. Be free, then, and go to meet them. Tell them there was one traitor in Russia, and thou hast seen him punished."The governor then caused the jails to be opened, and the criminals to be set at liberty; and, abandoning the desolate city to these banditti, and a few of the lowest rabble, he mounted his horse, and putting himself at the head of his retainers, followed the march of the army.

Napoleon detaches Murat and other Generals in pursuit of the Russians—Bloody, but indecisive Action, at Valoutina—Barclay de Tolly's defensive system relinquished, and Koutousoff appointed to the chief command of the Russian Army—Napoleon advances from Smolensk—Battle of Borodino fought, on 5th September—PrinceBagration slain—Koutousoff retreats upon Mojaisk, and thence upon Moscow—Napoleon continues his advance on the 12th—Count Rostopchin, Governor of Moscow—His Character—The Russians abandon Moscow, which is evacuated by the Inhabitants—The Grand Russian Army marches through Moscow—Last public Court of Justice held there by Rostopchin, after which he follows the march of the Army.

Napoleon detaches Murat and other Generals in pursuit of the Russians—Bloody, but indecisive Action, at Valoutina—Barclay de Tolly's defensive system relinquished, and Koutousoff appointed to the chief command of the Russian Army—Napoleon advances from Smolensk—Battle of Borodino fought, on 5th September—PrinceBagration slain—Koutousoff retreats upon Mojaisk, and thence upon Moscow—Napoleon continues his advance on the 12th—Count Rostopchin, Governor of Moscow—His Character—The Russians abandon Moscow, which is evacuated by the Inhabitants—The Grand Russian Army marches through Moscow—Last public Court of Justice held there by Rostopchin, after which he follows the march of the Army.

Without communicating his purpose of advancing in person from Smolensk, and completing, without any interval of delay, his great undertaking, Napoleon failed not to detach Murat, Ney, Junot, and Davoust, in pursuit of the Russians, as they retired from Smolensk. Either, however, his own mind was not made up, or he did not wish his purpose of going onward to be known. He represented this demonstration as arising merely out of the desire of pressing the Russian retreat, though in fact it was preliminary to his own advance.

Barclay de Tolly having performed the stern duty of burning Smolensk, had retired for two or three miles along the road to St. Petersburgh, which route he chose in order to avoid a cannonade from the left side of the Dnieper. Having proceeded a little way in this direction, he turned southward to regain the road to Moscow, which he would have taken at first, but for its exposing him to loss from the enemy's artillery, where it bordered on the river. The French could not for some time determine on which route they were to pursue the Russians. At length, finding the track, they overtook the rear-guard at a place called Valoutina, encumbered as it was with guns and baggage. Here a desperate action took place, the Russians reinforcing their rear-guard as fast as the French brought new bodies to attack them. Both parties fought most obstinately, and the distinguished French general Gudin was mortally wounded. The French blamed Junot,[142]who having been despatched across the Dnieper, showed no alertness in advancing to charge the enemy. There was seen, indeed, in this affair of Valoutina, or Lombino, that the marshals and the great officers who had been accustomed each to command a separate corps d'armée, disdained to receive either orders, or even advice or hints, from a brother of the same rank. Wherever there were two or three of these dignitaries on the field, it was necessary Buonaparte should bewithin reach, to issue the necessary orders; for no voice save that of the Emperor was implicitly obeyed by all.[143]

ACTION AT VALOUTINA.

In the meantime, the bloody action of Valoutina had an unsatisfactory result. The Russians, whose rear-guard had been attacked, had moved off without losing either guns, prisoners, or baggage. They had lost equal numbers with the French, but the time was fast approaching when they must possess a numerical superiority, and when, of course, an equal loss would tell in favour of the party which was nearest to its resources.[144]

The plan of Barclay de Tolly had hitherto been scrupulously adhered to. All general actions had been cautiously avoided; and while no means were left unemployed to weaken the enemy in partial actions, and to draw him on from swamp to swamp, from conflagration to conflagration, from one wild and waste scene to another of equal sterility and disconsolation, the end had been in a great measure attained, of undermining the force and breaking the moral courage of the invading army, who wandered forward like men in a dream, feeling on all hands a sense of oppressive and stifling opposition, yet unable to encounter any thing substantial which the slumberer can struggle with and overcome. Barclay de Tolly, if he had made some faults by extending his line too much at the commencement of the campaign, and afterwards by his false movements upon Rudneia, had more than atoned for these errors by the dexterity with which he had manœuvred before Smolensk, and the advantages which he had gained over the enemy on various other occasions. But they were now approaching Moscow the Grand, the Sanctified—and the military councils of Russia were about to change their character.

The spirit of the Russians, especially of the new levies, was more and more exasperated at the retreat, which seemed to have no end; and at the style of defence, which seemed only to consist in inflicting on the country, by the hands of Cossacks or Tartars, the very desolation which was perhaps the worst evil they could experience from the French. The natural zeal of the new levies, their confidence and their desire to be led to fight in the cause for which they were enlisted, eagerly declared against further retreat; and they demanded a halt, and a battle under a Russian general, more interested, as they supposed such must be, in the defence of the country, than a German stranger. The Emperor almost alone continued to adhere to the opinion of Barclayde Tolly. But he could not bid defiance to the united voice of his people and his military council. The political causes which demanded a great battle in defence of Moscow, were strong and numerous, and overcame the military reasons which certainly recommended that a risk so tremendous should not be incurred.

In compliance, therefore, with the necessity of the case, the Emperor sacrificed his own opinion. General Koutousoff, an officer high in military esteem among the Russians, was sent for from the corps which had been employed on the Danube against the Turks, to take the chief command of the grand army; and it was to Barclay's great honour, that, thus superseded, he continued to serve with the utmost zeal and good faith in a subordinate situation.

The French were not long of learning that their enemy's system of war was to be changed, and that the new Russian general was to give them battle, the object which they had so long panted for. Buonaparte, who had halted six days at Smolensk, moved from thence on the 24th August, and now pressed forward to join the advanced guard of his army at Gjatz. In this place his followers found a Frenchman who had dwelt long in Russia. They learned from this man the promotion of Koutousoff to the chief command of the army opposed to them, and that he was placed there for the express purpose of giving battle to the French army. The news were confirmed by the manner of a Russian officer, who arrived under some pretext with a flag of truce, but probably to espy the state of the invader's army. There was defiance in the look of this man; and when he was asked by a French general what they would find between Wiazma and Moscow, he answered sternly, "Pultowa." There was, therefore, no doubt, that battle was approaching.[145]

But the confusion of Buonaparte's troops was still such, that he was obliged to halt two days at Gjatz,[146]in order to collect and repose his army. He arrived at the destined field of battle, an elevated plain, called Borodino, which the Russians had secured with lines and batteries.

BATTLE OF BORODINO.

The French army were opposed to them on the 5th September, having consumed seventeen days in marching 280 wersts. Their first operation was a successful attack upon a redoubt in the Russian front, but which—a great error in war—was situated too distant from it to be effectually supported. The French gained it and kept it. The armies lay in presence of each other all the next day, preparing for the approaching contest. Upon a position naturally strong, the Russians had raised very formidablefieldworks. Their right flank rested on a wood, which was covered by some detached intrenchments. A brook, occupying in its course a deep ravine, covered the front of the right wing and the centre of the position as far as the river of Borodino; from that village the left extended down to another village, called Semoneskoie, which is more open, yet protected by ravines and thickets in front. This, as the most accessible point, was anxiously secured by redoubts and batteries; and in the centre of the position, upon a gentle elevation, arose a sort of double battery, like a citadel, for the protection of the whole line.

In this strong position was stationed the Russian army, equal now in numbers to the French, as each army might be about 120,000 men. They were commanded by a veteran, slow, cautious, tenacious of his purpose, wily, too, as Napoleon afterwards found to his cost, but perhaps not otherwise eminent as a military leader. The army he led were of one nation and language, all conscious that this battle had been granted to their own ardent wishes, and determined to make good the eagerness with which they had called for it.

The French army, again, consisted of various nations; but they were theélite, and seasoned soldiers who had survived the distresses of a most calamitous march; they were the veterans of the victors of Europe; they were headed by Napoleon in person, and under his immediate command by those marshals, whose names in arms were only inferior to his own. Besides a consciousness of their superiority in action, of which, from the manner in which they had covered themselves in intrenchments, the enemy seemed aware, the French had before them the prospect of utter destruction, if they should sustain a defeat in a country so difficult that they could hardly advance even as a successful army, and certainly could never hope to retreat as a routed one. Buonaparte's address to his troops[147]had less of the tinsel of oratory than he generally used on such occasions. "Soldiers," he said, "here is the battle you have longed for; it is necessary, for it brings us plenty, good winter-quarters, and a safe return to France. Behave yourselves so that posterity may say of each of you, 'He was in that great battle under the walls of Moscow.'"[148]

In the Russian camp was a scene of a different kind, calculated to awaken feelings to which France had long ceased to appeal. The Greek clergy showed themselves to the troops, arrayed in their rich vestments, and displaying for general worship the images of their holiest saints. They told their countrymen of the wrongs which had been offered by the invaders to earth as well as Heaven, and exhorted them to merit a place in paradise by their behaviour in that day's battle. The Russians answered with shouts.

Two deeply interesting circumstances occurred to Napoleon the day before the battle. An officer brought him a portrait of his boy, the King of Rome, which he displayed on the outside of the tent, not only to satisfy the officers, but the soldiers, who crowded to look upon the son of their Emperor. The other was the arrival of an officer from Spain with despatches, giving Napoleon news of the loss of the battle of Salamanca. He bore the evil tidings with temper and firmness, and soon turned his thoughts alike from domestic enjoyments and foreign defeats, to forming the necessary plans for the action before him.[149]

Davoust proposed a plan for turning the left of the enemy's intrenched line, by following the old road from Smolensk to Moscow, and placing 35,000 men in the flank and rear of that part of the Russian position. This operation was partly to be accomplished by a night march, partly on the morning, while the rest of the army was engaging the enemy's attention in front. The ground to which this road would have conducted Davoust and his troops, forms the highest land in the neighbourhood, as appears from the rivulets taking their source there. Upon this commanding position the attacking corps might have been formed in the rear of the Russian line. Such a movement on that point must have cut off the Russians from their point of retreat on Mojaisk and Moscow, and Davoust might have come down their line, driving every thing before him, advancing from redoubt to redoubt, and dispersing reserve after reserve, till the Russians should no longer have the semblance of an army. Perhaps Napoleon considered this plan as too hazardous, as it implied a great weakening of his front line, which, in that case, might have been attacked and broken before the corps d'armée under Davoust had attained the desired position.[150]

The Emperor therefore determined that Poniatowski, with not more than 5000 men, should make a demonstration, that should commence upon their left, in the direction proposed by Davoust, and that then a general attack should commence on the Russianright and centre. Foreseeing an obstinate resistance, he had ordered as much artillery as possible to be brought into line, and the guns on each side are said to have amounted to a thousand.[151]The battle began about seven o'clock, by Ney's attacking the bastioned redoubt on the Russian centre, with the greatest violence, while Prince Eugene made equal efforts to dislodge the enemy from the village of Semoneskoie, and the adjoining fortifications. No action was ever more keenly debated, nor at such a wasteful expenditure of human life. The fury of the French onset at length carried the redoubts, but the Russians rallied under the very line of their enemy's fire, and advanced again to the combat, to recover their intrenchments. Regiments of peasants, who till that day had never seen war, and who still had no other uniform than their grey jackets, formed with the steadiness of veterans, crossed their brows, and having uttered their national exclamation—"Gospodee pomiloui nas!—God have mercy upon us!"—rushed into the thickest of the battle, where the survivors, without feeling fear or astonishment, closed their ranks over their comrades as they fell, while, supported at once by enthusiasm for their cause, and by a religious sense of predestination, life and death seemed alike indifferent to them.

The fate of the day seemed more than once so critical, that Napoleon was strongly urged on more than one occasion to bring up the Young Guard, whom he had in reserve, as the last means of deciding the contest. He was censured by some of those around him for not having done so; and it has been imputed to illness, as he had passed a bad night, and seemed unusually languid during the whole of the day. But the secret of his refusal seems to be contained in his reply to Berthier, when he urged him on the subject—"And if there is another battle to-morrow, where is my army?"[152]The fact is, that this body of 10,000 household troops were his last reserve. They had been spared as far as possible in the march, and had, of course, retained their discipline in a proportional degree; and had they sustained any considerable loss, which, from the obstinate resistance and repeated efforts of the Russians, was to be apprehended, Buonaparte, whom even victory must leave in a perilous condition, would in that case have lost the only corps upon whom, in the general disorganisationof his army, he could thoroughly depend. The compromising the last reserve is an expedient reluctantly resorted to by prudent generals; and perhaps, if Napoleon had been as circumspect on that subject at Waterloo as at Borodino, his retreat from that bloody field might have been less calamitous than it proved.

The Russians, whose desperate efforts to recover their line of redoubts had exposed them to so much loss, were at length commanded to retreat; and although the victory was certainly with the French, yet their enemies might be said rather to desist from fighting, than to have suffered a defeat. Indeed, it was the French who, after the battle, drew off to their original ground, and left the Russians in possession of the bloody field of battle, where they buried their dead, and carried off their wounded, at their leisure. Their cavalry even alarmed the French camp on the very night of their victory.

Both parties sustained a dreadful loss in this sanguinary battle. Among that of the Russians, the death of the gallant Prince Bagration, whose admirable retreat from Poland we have had occasion to commemorate, was generally lamented. General Touczkoff also died of his wounds; and many other Russian generals were wounded. Their loss amounted to the awful sum total of 15,000 men killed, and more than 30,000 wounded. The French were supposed to have at least 10,000 men killed, and double the number wounded. Of these last few recovered, for the great convent of Kolotskoi, which served them as an hospital, was very ill-provided with any thing for their relief; and the medical attendants could not procure a party to scour the neighbouring villages, to obtain lint and other necessaries—for it seems even the necessaries of an hospital could, in this ill-fated army, only be collected by marauding. Eight French generals were slain, of whom Monbrun and Caulaincourt, brother of the grand equerry, were men of distinguished reputation. About thirty other generals were wounded. Neither party could make any boast of military trophies, for the Russians made a thousand prisoners, and the French scarce twice the number; and Koutousoff carried away ten pieces of cannon belonging to the French, leaving in their hands thirteen guns of his own. So slight, except in the numbers of slain, had been the consequences of the battle, that it might have seemed to have been fought, as in the games of chivalry, merely to ascertain which party had the superior strength and courage.[153]

MOJAISK.

According to the Russian accounts, Koutousoff entertained thoughts of giving battle again the next day; but the reports from various corps having made him acquainted with the very large loss they had sustained, he deemed the army too much exhaustedto incur such a risk. He retreated the next day upon Mojaisk, without leaving behind him a single fragment to indicate that he had the day before sustained such an immense loss. Upon the 9th September, the French arrived at Mojaisk, and came again in sight of the Russian rear-guard, and made dispositions to attack them. But on the 11th, they found that the Russian army had again disappeared, by a retreat so well conducted, and so effectually masked and concealed, as to leave Napoleon altogether uncertain whether they had taken the road to Moscow, or to Kalouga. Owing to this uncertainty, Napoleon was obliged to remain at Mojaisk till the 12th, when he received positive intelligence that the Russian army had retreated upon their capital.

It is impossible to avoid observing, how often the Russian army, though large, and consisting of new levies, had, in the course of this campaign, escaped from the front of the French, and left Napoleon at a loss to conjecture whither they had gone. Besides the present occasion, the same circumstance took place at Witepsk, and again before the walls of Moscow. No doubt the Russians were in their own country, and possessed clouds of Cossacks, by means of whom they might cover the retreat of their main body; yet with all these advantages, we are led to admire the natural spirit of obedience, and instinct of discipline, by which they were brought to execute that movement with such steadiness, that not a single straggler remained to betray their secret.

On the 12th September, Buonaparte resumed his march, the army having no better guide than the direction of the high road, and the men no better food than horse flesh and bruised wheat. Upon the previous day, Murat and Mortier, who led the vanguard, found the Russians strongly posted near Krymskoie, where the inconsiderate valour of the King of Naples brought on an action, in which the French lost two thousand men. Still Buonaparte pursued the traces of the Russians, because he could not suppose it possible that they would resign their capital without a second struggle. He was the more anxious to meet it, as two divisions of the Italian army, under Laborde and Pino, had joined him from Smolensk, which again carried his numbers, sore thinned after the battle of Borodino, to upwards of one hundred thousand men.

A council of war, of the Russian generals, had been called to deliberate on the awful question, whether they should expose the only army which they had in the centre of Russia, to the consequences of a too probable defeat, or whether they should abandon without a struggle, and as a prey to the spoiler, the holy Moscow—the Jerusalem of Russia—the city beloved of God and dear to man, with the name and existence of which so many historical, patriotic, national, and individual feelings were now involved. Reason spoke one language, pride and affection held another.

To hazard a second battle, was in a great measure to place the fate of their grand army upon the issue; and this was too perilous an adventure, even for the protection of the capital. The consideration seems to have prevailed, that Napoleon being now in the centre of Russia, with an army daily diminishing, and the hard season coming on, every hour during which a decisive action could be delayed was a loss to France, and an advantage to Russia. This was the rather the case, that Witgenstein, on the northern frontier, being reinforced by Steingel with the army of Finland; and, on the south, that of Moldavia being united to Tormasoff—Lithuania, and Poland, which formed the base of Napoleon's operations, were in hazard of being occupied by the Russians from both flanks, an event which must endanger his supplies, magazines, reserves, and communications of every kind, and put in peril at once his person and his army. Besides, the Russian generals reflected, that by evacuating Moscow, a measure which the inhabitants could more easily accomplish than those of any other city in the civilized world, they would diminish the prize to the victor, and leave him nothing to triumph over save the senseless buildings. It was therefore determined, that the preservation of the army was more essential to Russia than the defence of Moscow, and it was agreed that the ancient capital of the Czars should be abandoned to its fate.

Count Rostopchin, the governor of Moscow, was a man of worth and talent, of wit also, as we have been informed, joined to a certain eccentricity. He had, since the commencement of the war, kept up the spirits of the citizens with favourable reports and loyal declarations, qualified to infuse security into the public mind. After the fate of Smolensk, however, and especially after the recommencement of Buonaparte's march eastward, many of the wealthy inhabitants of Moscow removed or concealed their most valuable effects, and left the city themselves. Rostopchin continued, however, his assurances, and took various means to convince the people that there was no danger. Among other contrivances, he engaged a great number of females in the task of constructing a very large balloon, from which he was to shower down fire, as the people believed, upon the French army. Under this pretext, he is stated to have collected a large quantity of fire-work and combustibles, actually destined for a very different purpose.

THE RUSSIANS ABANDON MOSCOW.

As time passed on, however, the inhabitants became more and more alarmed, and forming a dreadful idea of the French, and of the horrors which would attend their entrance into the city, not only the nobility, gentry, and those of the learned professions, but tradesmen, mechanics, and the lower orders in general, left Moscow by thousands, while the governor, though keeping up the language of defiance, did all he could to superintend and encourage the emigration. The archives and the public treasures were removed; the magazines, particularly those of provisions, wereemptied, as far as time permitted; and the roads, especially to the south, were crowded with files of carriages, and long columns of men, women, and children on foot, singing the hymns of their church, and often turning their eyes back to the magnificent city, which was so soon destined to be a pile of ruins.

The grand army of Moscow arrived in the position of Fili, near the capital; not, it was now acknowledged, to defend the sacred city, but to traverse its devoted streets, associating with their march the garrison, and such of the citizens as were fit to bear arms, and so leave the capital to its fate. On the 14th of September, the troops marched with downcast looks, furled banners, and silent drums, through the streets of the metropolis, and went out at the Kolomna gate. Their long columns of retreat were followed by the greater part of the remaining population. Meanwhile Rostopchin, ere departing, held a public court of justice. Two men were brought before him, one a Russian, an enthusiast, who had learned in Germany, and been foolish enough to express at Moscow, some of the old French republican doctrines. The other was a Frenchman, whom the near approach of his countrymen had emboldened to hold some indiscreet political language. The father of the Russian delinquent was present. He was expected to interfere. He did so; but it was to demand his son's death. "I grant you," said the governor, "some moments to take leave and to bless him."—"Shall I bless a rebel?" said this Scythian Brutus. "Be my curse upon him that has betrayed his country!" The criminal was hewed down on the spot. "Stranger," said Rostopchin to the Frenchman, "thou hast been imprudent; yet it is but natural thou shouldst desire the coming of thy countrymen. Be free, then, and go to meet them. Tell them there was one traitor in Russia, and thou hast seen him punished."

The governor then caused the jails to be opened, and the criminals to be set at liberty; and, abandoning the desolate city to these banditti, and a few of the lowest rabble, he mounted his horse, and putting himself at the head of his retainers, followed the march of the army.

CHAPTER LX.On 14th September, Napoleon reaches Moscow, which he finds deserted by the Inhabitants—The City is discovered to be on fire—Napoleon takes up his quarters in the Kremlin—The fire is stopt next day, but arises again at night—Believed to be wilful, and several Russians apprehended and shot—On the third night, the Kremlin is discovered to be on Fire—Buonaparte leaves it, and takes his abode at Petrowsky—The Fire rages till the 19th, when four-fifths of the City are burnt down—On the 20th, Buonaparte returns to the Kremlin—Discussion as to the Origin of this greatConflagration—Disorganisation and Indiscipline of the French Army—Difficulty as to the Route on leaving Moscow—Lauriston sent with a Letter to the Emperor Alexander—Retrospect of the March of the Russian Army, after leaving Moscow—Lauriston has an Interview with Koutousoff on 5th October—The Result—Armistice made by Murat—Preparations for Retreat—The Emperor Alexander refuses to treat.On the 14th September, 1812, while the rearguard of the Russians were in the act of evacuating Moscow, Napoleon reached the hill called the Mount of Salvation, because it is there where the natives kneel and cross themselves at first sight of the Holy City.Moscow seemed lordly and striking as ever, with the steeples of its thirty churches, and its copper domes glittering in the sun; its palaces of Eastern architecture mingled with trees, and surrounded with gardens; and its Kremlin, a huge triangular mass of towers, something between a palace and a castle, which rose like a citadel out of the general mass of groves and buildings. But not a chimney sent up smoke, not a man appeared on the battlements, or at the gates. Napoleon gazed every moment, expecting to see a train of bearded boyards arriving to fling themselves at his feet, and place their wealth at his disposal. His first exclamation was, "Behold at last that celebrated city!"—His next, "It was full time." His army, less regardful of the past or the future, fixed their eyes on the goal of their wishes, and a shout of "Moscow!—Moscow!"—passed from rank to rank.[154]Meantime no one interrupted his meditations, until a message came from Murat. He had pushed in among the Cossacks, who covered the rear of the Russians, and readily admitted to a parley the chivalrous champion, whom they at once recognised, having so often seen him blazing in the van of the French cavalry.[155]The message which he sent to Buonaparte intimated, that Miloradovitch threatened to burn the town, if his rear was not allowed time to march through it. This was a tone of defiance. Napoleon, however, granted the armistice, for which no inhabitants were left to be grateful.After waiting two hours, he received from some French inhabitants, who had hidden themselves during the evacuation, the strange intelligence that Moscow was deserted by its population. The tidings that a population of 250,000 persons had left their native city was incredible, and Napoleon still commanded the boyards, the public functionaries, to be brought before him; nor could he be convinced of what had actually happened, till they led to his presence some of that refuse of humanity, the only live creatures they could find in the city, but they were wretches of the lowest rank. When he was at last convinced that the desertion of the capital was universal, he smiled bitterly, and said, "The Russians will soon learn better the value of their capital."[156]The signal was now given for the troops to advance; and the columns, still in a state of wonder at the solitude and silence which received them every where, penetrated through that assemblage of huts, mingled with palaces, where it seemed that Penury, which had scarce means to obtain the ordinary necessaries of life, had for her next door neighbour all the wealth and profuse expenditure of the East. At once the silence was broken by a volley of musketry, which some miserable fanatics poured from the battlements of the Kremlin on the first French troops that approached the palace of the Czars. These wretches were most of them intoxicated; yet the determined obstinacy with which they threw away their lives, was another feature of that rugged patriotism of which the French had seen, and were yet to see, so many instances.ENTRY INTO MOSCOW.When he entered the gates of Moscow, Buonaparte, as if unwilling to encounter the sight of the empty streets, stopt immediately on entering the first suburb.[157]His troops were quartered in the desolate city. During the first few hours after their arrival, an obscure rumour, which could not be traced, but one of those which are sometimes found to get abroad before the approach of some awful certainty, announced that the city would be endangered by fire in the course of the night. The report seemed to arise from those evident circumstances which rendered the event probable, but no one took any notice of it, until at midnight, when the soldiers were startled from their quarters by the report that the town was in flames. The memorable conflagration began amongst the coachmakers' warehouses and workshops in the Bazaar, or general market, which was the most rich district of the city. It was imputed to accident, and the progress of the flames was subdued by the exertions of the French soldiers. Napoleon, who had been roused by the tumult, hurried to the spot, and when the alarm seemed at an end, he retired, not to his formerquarters in the suburbs, but to the Kremlin,[158]the hereditary palace of the only sovereign whom he had ever treated as an equal, and over whom his successful arms had now attained such an apparently immense superiority. Yet he did not suffer himself to be dazzled by the advantage he had obtained, but availed himself of the light of the blazing Bazaar, to write to the Emperor proposals of peace with his own hand. They were despatched by a Russian officer of rank, who had been disabled by indisposition from following the army. But no answer was ever returned.Next day the flames had disappeared, and the French officers luxuriously employed themselves in selecting out of the deserted palaces of Moscow, that which best pleased the fancy of each for his residence. At night the flames again arose in the north and west quarters of the city. As far the greater part of the houses were built of wood, the conflagration spread with the most dreadful rapidity. This was at first imputed to the blazing brands and sparkles which were carried by the wind; but at length it was observed, that, as often as the wind changed, and it changed three times in that terrible night, new flames broke always forth in that direction, where the existing gale was calculated to direct them on the Kremlin. These horrors were increased by the chance of explosion. There was, though as yet unknown to the French, a magazine of powder in the Kremlin; besides that a park of artillery, with its ammunition, was drawn up under the Emperor's window. Morning came, and with it a dreadful scene. During the whole night, the metropolis had glared with an untimely and unnatural light. It was now covered with a thick and suffocating atmosphere, of almost palpable smoke. The flames defied the efforts of the French soldiery, and it is said that the fountains of the city had been rendered inaccessible, the water-pipes cut, and the fire-engines destroyed or carried off.Then came the reports of fire-balls having been found burning in deserted houses; of men and women, that, like demons, had been seen openly spreading the flames, and who were said to be furnished with combustibles for rendering their dreadful work more secure. Several wretches against whom such acts had been charged, were seized upon, and, probably without much inquiry, were shot on the spot.[159]While it was almost impossible to keep the roof of the Kremlin clear of the burning brands which showered down the wind, Napoleon watched from the windowsthe course of the fire which devoured his fair conquest, and the exclamation burst from him, "These are indeed Scythians!"[160]The equinoctial gales rose higher and higher upon the third night, and extended the flames, with which there was no longer any human power of contending. At the dead hour of midnight, the Kremlin itself was found to be on fire. A soldier of the Russian police, charged with being the incendiary, was turned over to the summary vengeance of the Imperial Guard.[161]Buonaparte was then, at length, persuaded, by the entreaties of all around him, to relinquish his quarters in the Kremlin, to which, as the visible mark of his conquest, he had seemed to cling with the tenacity of a lion holding a fragment of his prey. He encountered both difficulty and danger in retiring from the palace, and before he could gain the citygate, he had to traverse with his suite streets arched with fire,[162]and in which the very air they breathed was suffocating. At length, he gained the open country, and took up his abode in a palace of the Czar's called Petrowsky, about a French league from the city. As he looked back on the fire, which, under the influence of the autumnal wind, swelled and surged around the Kremlin, like an infernal ocean around a sable Pandemonium, he could not suppress the ominous expression, "This bodes us great misfortune."[163]The fire continued to triumph unopposed, and consumed in a few days what it had cost centuries to raise. "Palaces and temples," says a Russian author, "monuments of art, and miracles of luxury, the remains of ages which had past away, and those which had been the creation of yesterday; the tombs of ancestors, and the nursery-cradles of the present generation, were indiscriminately destroyed. Nothing was left of Moscow save the remembrance of the city, and the deep resolution to avenge its fall."[164]The fire raged till the 19th with unabated violence, and then began to slacken for want of fuel. It is said, four-fifths of this great city were laid in ruins. On the 20th, Buonaparte returnedto the Kremlin;[165]and, as if in defiance of the terrible scene which he had witnessed, took measures as if he were disposed to make Moscow his residence for some time. He even caused a theatre to be fitted up, and plays to be acted by performers sent from Paris, to show, perhaps, that it was not in the most terrible of elements to overawe his spirit, or interrupt his usual habits of life. In the same style of indifference or affectation, a set of very precise regulations respecting the Théâtre Français was drawn up by the Emperor amid the ruins of Moscow. He was not superior to the affectation of choosing distant places and foreign capitals for the date of domestic and trifling ordinances. It gave the Emperor an air of ubiquity, to issue rules for a Parisian theatre from the Kremlin. It had already been prophesied that he would sacrifice his army to have the pleasure of dating a decree from Moscow.[166]The conflagration of Moscow was so complete in its devastation; so important in its consequences; so critical in the moment of its commencement, that almost all the eye-witnesses have imputed it to a sublime, yet almost horrible exertion of patriotic decision on the part of the Russians, their government, and, in particular, of the governor, Rostopchin. Nor has the positive denial of Count Rostopchin himself diminished the general conviction, that the fire was directed by him. All the French officers continue to this day to ascribe the conflagration to persons whom he had employed.On the other hand, there are many, and those good judges of the probabilities in such an event, who have shown strong reasons for believing, that Moscow shared but the fate of a deserted city, which is almost always burnt as well as pillaged. We shall only observe, that should the scale of evidence incline to the side of accident, History will lose one of the grandest, as well as most terrible incidents which she has on record. Considered as a voluntary Russian act, the burning of their capital is an incident of gigantic character, which we consider with awe and terror; our faculties so confused by the immensity of the object, consideredin its different bearings, that we hardly know whether to term it vice or virtue, patriotism or vengeance.Whether the conflagration of Moscow was, or was not, the work of Russian will, and Russian hands, the effects which it was to produce on the campaign were likely to be of the most important character. Buonaparte's object in pressing on to the capital at every risk, was to grasp a pledge, for the redemption of which he had no doubt Alexander would be glad to make peace on his own terms. But the prize of his victory, however fair to the sight, had, like that fabled fruit, said to grow on the banks of the Dead Sea, proved in the end but soot and ashes. Moscow, indeed, he had seized, but it had perished in his grasp; and far from being able to work upon Alexander's fears for its safety, it was reasonable to think that its total destruction had produced the most vehement resentment on the part of the Russian monarch, since Napoleon received not even the civility of an answer to his conciliatory letter. And thus the acquisition so much desired as the means of procuring peace, had become, by this catastrophe, the cause of the most irreconcilable enmity.Neither was it a trifling consideration, that Napoleon had lost by this dreadful fire a great part of the supplies, which he expected the capture of the metropolis would have contributed for the support of his famished army. Had there existed in Moscow the usual population of a capital, he would have found the usual modes of furnishing its markets in full activity. These, doubtless, are not of the common kind, for provisions are sent to this capital, not, as is usual, from fertile districts around the city, but from distant regions, whence they are brought by water-carriage in the summer, and by sledges, which travel on the ice and frozen snow, in the winter time. To Moscow, with its usual inhabitants, these supplies must have been remitted as usual, lest the numerous population of 250,000 and upwards, should be famished, as well as the enemy's army. But Moscow deserted—Moscow burnt, and reduced to mountains of cinders and ashes—had no occasion for such supplies; nor was it to be supposed that the provinces from which they were usually remitted, would send them to a heap of ruins, where there remained none to be fed, save the soldiers of the invading army. This conviction came with heavy anticipation on the Emperor of France and his principal officers.Meanwhile, the ruins of Moscow, and the remnant which was left standing, afforded the common soldiers an abundance of booty during their short day of rest; and, as is their nature, they enjoyed the present moment without thinking of futurity. The army was dispersed over the city, plundering at pleasure whatever they could find; sometimes discovering quantities of melted gold and silver, sometimes rich merchandize and precious articles, of which they knew not the value; sometimes articles of luxury, which contrasted strangely with their general want of comforts, and even necessaries. It was not uncommon to see the mosttattered, shoeless wretches, sitting among bales of rich merchandize, or displaying costly shawls, precious furs, and vestments rich with barbaric pearl and gold.[167]In another place, there were to be seen soldiers possessed of tea, sugar, coffee, and similar luxuries, while the same individuals could scarce procure carrion to eat, or muddy water to drink. Of sugar, in particular, they had such quantities, that they mixed it with their horse-flesh soup. The whole was a contrast of the wildest and most lavish excess, with the last degree of necessity, disgusting to witness, and most ominous in its presage.Theyesteemed themselves happiest of all, who could procure intoxicating liquors, and escape by some hours of insensibility from the scene of confusion around them.[168]Napoleon and his officers toiled hard to restore some degree of organisation to the army. The plundering, which could not be discontinued, was latterly set about more regularly; and detachments were sent to pillage the ruins of Moscow, as in turn of duty. The rest of the troops were withdrawn from the city, or confined to their quarters in the buildings which remained entire. Everything was done to protect the few peasants, who brought provisions to the camp for sale. Nevertheless, few appeared, and at length not one was to be seen. The utmost exertion, therefore, could not, it was obvious, render Moscow a place of rest for many days; and the difficulty of choosing the route by which to leave it, became now an embarrassing consideration.There were three modes of proceeding on evacuating Moscow, all of which had in their turn Napoleon's anxious consideration. First, he might march on St. Petersburgh, and deal with the modern, as he had with the ancient capital of Russia. This counsel best suited the daring genius of Buonaparte, ever bent upon the game by which all is to be lost, or all won. He even spoke of that measure as a thing resolved; but Berthier and Bessières prevailed in convincing him, that the lateness of the season, the state of the roads, the want of provisions, and the condition of the army, rendered such an attempt totally desperate. The second proposed measure, was to move southwards upon the fertile province of Kalouga, and thence to proceed westward towards Smolensk, which was their first depôt. In this route Napoleon must have fought a general action with Koutousoff, who, as we shall presently see, had taken a position to the south of Moscow. This, indeed, would have been, in many respects, a motive with Napoleon to take the route to Kalouga; but a second battle of Borodino, as obstinately fought, and as doubtful in its termination, would have been a bad commencement for a retreat, theflanks of which would certainly be annoyed, even if the Moldavian army did not intercept the front. The third plan was, to return by the route on which he had advanced, and on which, by a few places hastily fortified, he still preserved a precarious communication with Smolensk, Witepsk, and so on to Wilna. This line, however, lay through the countries which had been totally destroyed and wasted by the advance of the army, and where all the villages and hamlets had been burned and abandoned, either by the French or the Russians themselves. To take this direction was to confront famine.[169]Napoleon's hesitation on this important point, was increased by the eagerness with which he still adhered to his own plan for the conclusion of the war, by a triumphant peace with Alexander, concluded on the ruins of his capital. His mind, which ever clung with tenacity to the opinions he had once formed, revolved the repeated instances in which his voice had in such circumstances commanded peace, and dictated the articles. The idea which he had formed of Alexander's disposition during the interviews of Tilsit and Erfurt, had made him regard the Czar as docile, and disposed to submit to the rebuke of his own predominant genius. But he mistook the character of the sovereign, and of the nation he commanded. The one, although he had hitherto encountered nothing but defeat and disaster, was determined not to submit, while his immense resources furnished the means of resistance. The other, in all probability, would not have permitted the sovereign to act otherwise, for the popular indignation was now at spring-tide; and from the palace of the Czar to the hut of the slave, there was nothing breathed save resistance and revenge.MISSION TO EMPEROR ALEXANDER.It was in vain, therefore, that Napoleon expected that Alexander would open some communication on the subject of, or would answer, the letter which he had sent, during the first night he possessed Moscow, by a Russian officer. He grew impatient at length, and resolved himself to make further advances. But not even to his confidential advisers would he own that he sought peace on his own score; he affected to be anxious only on account of Alexander. "He is my friend," he said; "a prince of excellent qualities; and should he yield to his inclinations, and propose peace, the barbarians in their rage will dethrone and put him to death, and fill the throne with some one less tractable. We will send Caulaincourt to break the way for negotiation, and prevent the odium which Alexander might incur, by being the first to propose a treaty." The Emperor abode by this resolution, excepting in so far as he was persuaded with some difficulty to despatch General Count Lauriston, his aide-de-camp, upon this embassy; lest Caulaincourt's superior rank of Master of the Horse, might indicate that his master sought atreaty, less for Alexander's security than his own, and that of his army. Lauriston, who was well acquainted with the Russian character, urged several doubts against the policy of the mission intrusted to him, as betraying their necessity to the enemy; and recommended that the army should, without losing a day, commence its retreat by Kalouga, and the more southern route. Buonaparte, however, retained his determination, and Lauriston was dismissed with a letter to the Emperor Alexander, and the parting instruction,—"I must have peace, and will sacrifice, to obtain it, all except my honour."[170]Before we give the result of Lauriston's mission, it is proper to trace the movements of the Russian grand army, since their melancholy march through the city of Moscow. They left the city by the route of Kolomna, and marched for two days in that direction; and having thus imposed on the enemy a belief, that they were bent in securing a retreat to the south-east, leaving at once the eastern and southern provinces undefended, Koutousoff executed one of the most dexterous movements of the Russian army during the campaign. The observation of the Petersburgh road was intrusted to Winzengerode, with a small flying army. Koutousoff himself, turning to the southward, performed a circular march, of which Moscow was the centre, so as to transfer the grand army to the route towards Kalouga. They marched in stern dejection; for the wind, great as the distance was, showered among their ranks the ashes of their burning capital, and in the darkness, the flames were seen to rage like a huge ocean of fire. The movement was a bold one also, for, although performed at a respectful distance from the French army, yet the march was for three days a flank march, and consequently of a very delicate character. The Russians manœuvred, however, with such precision, that they performed their movements in perfect safety; and while the French troops, who had been sent in their pursuit, were amusing themselves with pursuing two regiments of horse, which had been left on the Kolomna road, they were astonished to find that the grand Russian army had assumed a position on the south-eastern side of Moscow, from which they could operate upon and harass, nay, intercept at pleasure, Napoleon's line of communication with Smolensk and with Poland, and at the same time cover the town of Kalouga, where great magazines had been assembled, and that of Toula, famed for the fabrication of arms and artillery.[171]The ardent King of Naples, with the advanced guard of his brother-in-law's army, at length moved against their enemies on the Kalouga road; but little took place save skirmishes, by whichthe Russians protected their rear, until they took up a stationary posture in the strong position of Taroutino. They were here admirably placed for the purpose of covering the important town of Kalouga. There are three routes which lead from Moscow to that city; and Taroutino being situated in the middle road, an army placed there can with little trouble, by moving to the right or the left, occupy either of the other two. The front of the Russian position was covered by the river Nara. The camp was amply supplied with provisions from the wealthy and plentiful districts in the rear; and as the spirit of the country more and more developed itself, recruits and new-raised regiments arrived faster than the exertions of the veteran soldiers could train them to arms, although the Russian, from his docility and habits of obedience, receives military discipline with unusual readiness. The Ukraine and Don sent twenty regiments of Cossacks, most of them men who, having already served their stipulated time, were excused from military duty, but who universally assumed the lance and sabre at a crisis of such emergency.Murat at the same time pressed forward to establish himself in front of the Russian camp, for the purpose of watching their motions. In his progress, he passed what had been a splendid domain, belonging to Count Rostopchin, the governor of Moscow. It was in ashes; and a letter from the proprietor informed the French he had destroyed it, lest it should give an invader comfort or shelter.[172]The same spirit possessed the peasantry. They set fire to their hamlets, wherever they could be of use to the invaders; proclaimed the punishment of death to all of their own order, who, from avarice or fear, should be tempted to supply the enemy with provisions; and they inflicted it without mercy on such as incurred the penalty. It is an admitted fact, that when the French, in order to induce their refractory prisoners to labour in their service, branded some of them on the hand with the letter N, as a sign that they were the serfs of Napoleon, one peasant laid his branded hand on a log of wood, and struck it off with the axe which he held in the other, in order to free himself from the supposed thraldom. The French who looked on shuddered, and cursed the hour which brought them into collision with enemies of such a rugged and inexorable disposition. The patriotism of the peasants in general had been turned to still better account by the partisan or guerilla warfare, for which Spain had given an example.GENERAL DAVIDOFF.Lieutenant-Colonel Dennis Davidoff, who became well known to the French by the name ofle Capitaine Noir, had suggested this species of war to Prince Bagration, a little before the battleof Borodino; and had obtained distinguished success at the head of a small party of Cossacks and hussars, by his operations on the route betwixt Gjatz and Wiazma, in cutting off supplies, and defeating small detached parties of the enemy. He was speedily put at the head of a much larger force; and other free corps of the same kind were raised, with brave and active spirits at their head. They scoured the country, infested the French lines of communication, drove in their outposts, and distressed them on every point.The peasants also took arms, and formed themselves into bodies of partisans, rendered formidable by their perfect knowledge of the woods, by-paths, and passes. They have a natural contempt for foreigners, for whom they have no other name than "the deaf and dumb," to denote their ignorance of the Russian language. The events of the campaign, especially the conflagration of Moscow, had converted their scorn into deadly hatred; and whatever soldier of Napoleon fell into their hands, was put to death without scruple or pity.Meantime the cavalry of Murat, which afforded the best means of chastising and repressing these bands, gradually declined under hard work and want of subsistence; and, although little used to droop or distress himself about the future, the King of Naples wrote repeatedly from his advanced post, to press Napoleon no longer to delay a retreat which was become absolutely necessary. It was while matters were in this state that General Lauriston arrived at the Russian outposts, and after a good deal of difficulty, real or affected, was at length admitted to an interview with Koutousoff, at midnight on the 5th October. His reception was such as to make him consider himself a welcome envoy.Lauriston opened his business with a proposal for exchange of prisoners, which was of course declined on the part of Koutousoff, aware, that while soldiers were plenty among the Russians, the ranks of Napoleon must become every day thinner. Lauriston next introduced the subject of the independent bands, and proposed that an end should be put to this species of unusual war, in which so many cruelties were committed. Koutousoff replied, that this kind of partisan war did not depend on his orders, but arose from the native spirit of the country, which led the Russians to regard the French invasion as an incursion of Tartars. General Lauriston then entered on the real business of his mission, by asking whether "this war, which had assumed such an unheard-of character, was to last for ever?" declaring, at the same time, his master the Emperor of France's sincere desire, to terminate hostilities between two great and generous nations.The astucious old Russian saw Buonaparte's evident necessity in his affected wish for peace, and immediately adopted the course most likely to gain time, which must at once increase the difficulties of the French, and his own power of availing himself of them. He affected a sincere desire to promote a pacification, but declaredhe was absolutely prohibited either to receive any proposal to that effect himself, or to transmit such to the Emperor. He therefore declined to grant General Lauriston the desired passport to the presence of Alexander, but he offered to send General Wolkonsky, an aide-de-camp of the Czar, to learn his imperial pleasure.The express charge which Lauriston had received from his master, that peace was to be obtained on any terms not inferring dishonour, did not permit him to object to this arrangement. He was even encouraged to hope it might prove effectual, so much satisfaction was expressed by General Koutousoff and the officers of his military family, all of whom seemed to deplore the continuance of the war, and went so far as to say, that this annunciation of a treaty would be received at Petersburgh with public rejoicings. These accounts being transmitted to Napoleon, lulled him into a false security. He returned to his original opinion, which had been shaken, but not subverted; and announced to his generals, with much satisfaction, that they had but to wait a fortnight for a triumphant pacification. He boasted his own superior knowledge of the Russian character, and declared, that on the arrival of his overture for peace, Petersburgh would be full of bonfires.[173]ARMISTICE MADE BY MURAT.Napoleon, however, was not so confident of peace as to approve a singular sort of armistice which Murat had entered into with the Russians. It was to be broken off, on an intimation of three hours' space, by either party to the other; and, while in existence, it only subsisted along the fronts of the two armies, leaving the Russians at liberty to carry on their partisan war on the flanks as much as ever. The French could not obtain a load of furze, or a cart of provisions, without fighting for it, and often to disadvantage. A large party of the dragoons of the Imperial Guard were surprised and piked by the Cossacks. Two considerable convoys were surprised and cut off on the road to Mojaisk, the only communication which the French army had with its magazines and reinforcements. The French were surprised, and lost a detachment in the town of Vereia, on Murat's left flank. Thus the war continued everywhere except on the front of the armies, where it had the greatest chance to be favourable to the French.This bad policy is not to be imputed to Napoleon, who had refused to authorise the armistice, but to the vanity of Murat, under whose authority it was still observed. It gave him an opportunity of amusing himself, by caracoling on the neutral ground betwixt the camps, displaying his handsome form, gallant horsemanship, and splendid dresses, to the soldiers on both sides; receiving the respectful salutes of the Russian patrols, and the applause of the Cossacks. These last used to crowd around him, partly in real admiration of his chivalrous appearance and character,which was of a kind to captivate these primitive warriors, and partly, doubtless, from their natural shrewdness which saw the utility of maintaining his delusion. They called him their Hettman; and he was so intoxicated with their applause, as to have been said to nourish the wild idea of becoming in earnest King of the Cossacks.[174]Such delusions could not for ever lull Murat's vigilance to sleep. The war was all around him, and his forces were sinking under a succession of petty hostilities; while the continual rolling of drums, and the frequent platoon firing, heard from behind the Russian encampment, intimated how busily they were engaged in drilling numerous bodies of fresh recruits. The Russian officers at the outposts began to hold ominous language, and ask the French if they had made a composition with the Northern Winter, Russia's most fearful ally. "Stay another fortnight," they said, "and your nails will drop off, and your fingers fall from your hands, like boughs from a blighted tree." The numbers of the Cossacks increased so much, as to resemble one of the ancient Scythian emigrations; and wild and fantastic figures, on unbroken horses, whose manes swept the ground, seemed to announce that the inmost recesses of the desert had sent forth their inhabitants. Their grey-bearded chiefs sometimes held expostulations with the French officers, in a tone very different from that which soothed the ears of Murat. "Had you not," they said, "in France, food enough, water enough, air enough, to subsist you while you lived—earth enough to cover you when you died; and why come you to enrich our soil with your remains, which by right belong to the land where you were born?" Such evil bodements affected the van of the army, from whence Murat transmitted them to the Emperor.[175]Immured in the recesses of the Kremlin, Napoleon persisted in awaiting the answer to the letter despatched by Lauriston. It had been sent to Petersburgh on the 6th, and an answer could not be expected before the 26th. To have moved before that period, might be thought prudent in a military point of view; but, politically considered, it would greatly injure his reputation for sagacity, and destroy the impression of his infallibility. Thus sensible, and almost admitting that he was wrong, he determined, nevertheless, to persevere in the course he had chosen, in hopes that Fortune, which never before failed him, might yet stand his friend in extremity.MOSCOW.A bold scheme is said to have been suggested by Daru, to turn Moscow into an intrenched camp, and occupy it as winter-quarters. They might kill the remainder of the horses, he said, and salt them down; foraging must do the rest. Napoleon approved of what he termed a Lion's counsel. But the fear of what might happen in France, from which this plan would have secludedthem for six months, induced him finally to reject it. It might be added, that the obtaining supplies by marauding was likely to become more and more difficult, as winter and the scarcity increased, especially now that the country around Moscow was completely ruined. Besides, if Napoleon fixed himself at Moscow for the winter, not only his line of communications, but Lithuania, and the grand duchy, which formed the base of his operations, ran every risk of being invaded. On the south-west, the dubious faith of Austria was all he had to trust to, for the purpose of resisting the united armies of Tchitchagoff and Tormasoff, which might be augmented to 100,000 men, and make themselves masters of Warsaw and Wilna. On the northern extremity of his general line of operations, Macdonald and St. Cyr might prove unable to resist Witgenstein and Steingel; and he had in his rear Prussia, the population of which Napoleon justly considered as ready to take arms against him at the first favourable opportunity. The scheme, therefore, for occupying winter-quarters at Moscow was rejected as fraught with dangers.[176]Even when appearances of a fall of snow reminded the Emperor of the climate which he was braving, his preparations for retreat were slowly and reluctantly made; and some of them were dictated by his vanity, rather than his judgment. All the pictures, images, and ornaments of the churches, which were left unburnt, were collected, and loaded upon wains, to follow the line of march, already too much encumbered with baggage. A gigantic cross, which stood on the tower of Ivan the Great, the tallest steeple of Moscow, was dismounted with much labour,[177]that it might add to the trophies, which were already sufficiently cumbrous. On the same principle, Napoleon was angry when it was proposed to leave some of his immense train of artillery, which was greatly too numerous for the reduced size of his army. "He would leave no trophy for the Russians to triumph over." That all the artillery and baggage might be transported, he surprised his officers by an order to buy twenty thousand horses, where, perhaps, there were not an hundred to be sold, and when those which they had already were daily dying for want of forage. The latter article, he ordered, should be provided for two months, in depôts on his route. This mandate might make known his wants; but as it certainly could contribute little to supply them, it must only have been issued for the purpose of keeping up appearances. Perhaps the desire to have some excuse to himself and othersfor indulging in his lingering wish to remain a day or two longer, to await the answer from St Petersburgh, might be a secret cause of issuing orders, which must occasion some inquiry ere it could be reported in what extent they could be obeyed.If this were the case, it was the rash indulgence of a groundless hope. The Emperor Alexander refused to hear of any negotiation for peace, and took no other notice of that which had been transmitted to him by Walkonsky, than to pass a censure on the Russian officers concerned, and Prince Koutousoff himself, for having had the least intercourse with the French generals. He reminded the generalissimo how positive his instructions had been on this subject, and that he had enjoined him on no account to enter into negotiations or correspondence with the invaders; and he revived and enforced his injunctions to that effect.The sagacious general was not, it is to be supposed, greatly affected by a rebuke which was only given for form's sake. He made his soldiers acquainted with the Emperor's unalterable resolution to give no terms to the invaders; and spreading through the camp, at the same time, the news of the victory at Salamanca, and the evacuation of Madrid, pointed out to them, that Frenchmen, like others, were liable to defeat; and called on his soldiers to emulate the courage of the British and patriotism of the Spaniards. While the minds of the soldiery were thus excited and encouraged, Koutousoff took measures for anticipating Napoleon, by putting an end to the armistice and assuming an offensive posture.[178]

On 14th September, Napoleon reaches Moscow, which he finds deserted by the Inhabitants—The City is discovered to be on fire—Napoleon takes up his quarters in the Kremlin—The fire is stopt next day, but arises again at night—Believed to be wilful, and several Russians apprehended and shot—On the third night, the Kremlin is discovered to be on Fire—Buonaparte leaves it, and takes his abode at Petrowsky—The Fire rages till the 19th, when four-fifths of the City are burnt down—On the 20th, Buonaparte returns to the Kremlin—Discussion as to the Origin of this greatConflagration—Disorganisation and Indiscipline of the French Army—Difficulty as to the Route on leaving Moscow—Lauriston sent with a Letter to the Emperor Alexander—Retrospect of the March of the Russian Army, after leaving Moscow—Lauriston has an Interview with Koutousoff on 5th October—The Result—Armistice made by Murat—Preparations for Retreat—The Emperor Alexander refuses to treat.

On 14th September, Napoleon reaches Moscow, which he finds deserted by the Inhabitants—The City is discovered to be on fire—Napoleon takes up his quarters in the Kremlin—The fire is stopt next day, but arises again at night—Believed to be wilful, and several Russians apprehended and shot—On the third night, the Kremlin is discovered to be on Fire—Buonaparte leaves it, and takes his abode at Petrowsky—The Fire rages till the 19th, when four-fifths of the City are burnt down—On the 20th, Buonaparte returns to the Kremlin—Discussion as to the Origin of this greatConflagration—Disorganisation and Indiscipline of the French Army—Difficulty as to the Route on leaving Moscow—Lauriston sent with a Letter to the Emperor Alexander—Retrospect of the March of the Russian Army, after leaving Moscow—Lauriston has an Interview with Koutousoff on 5th October—The Result—Armistice made by Murat—Preparations for Retreat—The Emperor Alexander refuses to treat.

On the 14th September, 1812, while the rearguard of the Russians were in the act of evacuating Moscow, Napoleon reached the hill called the Mount of Salvation, because it is there where the natives kneel and cross themselves at first sight of the Holy City.

Moscow seemed lordly and striking as ever, with the steeples of its thirty churches, and its copper domes glittering in the sun; its palaces of Eastern architecture mingled with trees, and surrounded with gardens; and its Kremlin, a huge triangular mass of towers, something between a palace and a castle, which rose like a citadel out of the general mass of groves and buildings. But not a chimney sent up smoke, not a man appeared on the battlements, or at the gates. Napoleon gazed every moment, expecting to see a train of bearded boyards arriving to fling themselves at his feet, and place their wealth at his disposal. His first exclamation was, "Behold at last that celebrated city!"—His next, "It was full time." His army, less regardful of the past or the future, fixed their eyes on the goal of their wishes, and a shout of "Moscow!—Moscow!"—passed from rank to rank.[154]

Meantime no one interrupted his meditations, until a message came from Murat. He had pushed in among the Cossacks, who covered the rear of the Russians, and readily admitted to a parley the chivalrous champion, whom they at once recognised, having so often seen him blazing in the van of the French cavalry.[155]The message which he sent to Buonaparte intimated, that Miloradovitch threatened to burn the town, if his rear was not allowed time to march through it. This was a tone of defiance. Napoleon, however, granted the armistice, for which no inhabitants were left to be grateful.

After waiting two hours, he received from some French inhabitants, who had hidden themselves during the evacuation, the strange intelligence that Moscow was deserted by its population. The tidings that a population of 250,000 persons had left their native city was incredible, and Napoleon still commanded the boyards, the public functionaries, to be brought before him; nor could he be convinced of what had actually happened, till they led to his presence some of that refuse of humanity, the only live creatures they could find in the city, but they were wretches of the lowest rank. When he was at last convinced that the desertion of the capital was universal, he smiled bitterly, and said, "The Russians will soon learn better the value of their capital."[156]

The signal was now given for the troops to advance; and the columns, still in a state of wonder at the solitude and silence which received them every where, penetrated through that assemblage of huts, mingled with palaces, where it seemed that Penury, which had scarce means to obtain the ordinary necessaries of life, had for her next door neighbour all the wealth and profuse expenditure of the East. At once the silence was broken by a volley of musketry, which some miserable fanatics poured from the battlements of the Kremlin on the first French troops that approached the palace of the Czars. These wretches were most of them intoxicated; yet the determined obstinacy with which they threw away their lives, was another feature of that rugged patriotism of which the French had seen, and were yet to see, so many instances.

ENTRY INTO MOSCOW.

When he entered the gates of Moscow, Buonaparte, as if unwilling to encounter the sight of the empty streets, stopt immediately on entering the first suburb.[157]His troops were quartered in the desolate city. During the first few hours after their arrival, an obscure rumour, which could not be traced, but one of those which are sometimes found to get abroad before the approach of some awful certainty, announced that the city would be endangered by fire in the course of the night. The report seemed to arise from those evident circumstances which rendered the event probable, but no one took any notice of it, until at midnight, when the soldiers were startled from their quarters by the report that the town was in flames. The memorable conflagration began amongst the coachmakers' warehouses and workshops in the Bazaar, or general market, which was the most rich district of the city. It was imputed to accident, and the progress of the flames was subdued by the exertions of the French soldiers. Napoleon, who had been roused by the tumult, hurried to the spot, and when the alarm seemed at an end, he retired, not to his formerquarters in the suburbs, but to the Kremlin,[158]the hereditary palace of the only sovereign whom he had ever treated as an equal, and over whom his successful arms had now attained such an apparently immense superiority. Yet he did not suffer himself to be dazzled by the advantage he had obtained, but availed himself of the light of the blazing Bazaar, to write to the Emperor proposals of peace with his own hand. They were despatched by a Russian officer of rank, who had been disabled by indisposition from following the army. But no answer was ever returned.

Next day the flames had disappeared, and the French officers luxuriously employed themselves in selecting out of the deserted palaces of Moscow, that which best pleased the fancy of each for his residence. At night the flames again arose in the north and west quarters of the city. As far the greater part of the houses were built of wood, the conflagration spread with the most dreadful rapidity. This was at first imputed to the blazing brands and sparkles which were carried by the wind; but at length it was observed, that, as often as the wind changed, and it changed three times in that terrible night, new flames broke always forth in that direction, where the existing gale was calculated to direct them on the Kremlin. These horrors were increased by the chance of explosion. There was, though as yet unknown to the French, a magazine of powder in the Kremlin; besides that a park of artillery, with its ammunition, was drawn up under the Emperor's window. Morning came, and with it a dreadful scene. During the whole night, the metropolis had glared with an untimely and unnatural light. It was now covered with a thick and suffocating atmosphere, of almost palpable smoke. The flames defied the efforts of the French soldiery, and it is said that the fountains of the city had been rendered inaccessible, the water-pipes cut, and the fire-engines destroyed or carried off.

Then came the reports of fire-balls having been found burning in deserted houses; of men and women, that, like demons, had been seen openly spreading the flames, and who were said to be furnished with combustibles for rendering their dreadful work more secure. Several wretches against whom such acts had been charged, were seized upon, and, probably without much inquiry, were shot on the spot.[159]While it was almost impossible to keep the roof of the Kremlin clear of the burning brands which showered down the wind, Napoleon watched from the windowsthe course of the fire which devoured his fair conquest, and the exclamation burst from him, "These are indeed Scythians!"[160]

The equinoctial gales rose higher and higher upon the third night, and extended the flames, with which there was no longer any human power of contending. At the dead hour of midnight, the Kremlin itself was found to be on fire. A soldier of the Russian police, charged with being the incendiary, was turned over to the summary vengeance of the Imperial Guard.[161]Buonaparte was then, at length, persuaded, by the entreaties of all around him, to relinquish his quarters in the Kremlin, to which, as the visible mark of his conquest, he had seemed to cling with the tenacity of a lion holding a fragment of his prey. He encountered both difficulty and danger in retiring from the palace, and before he could gain the citygate, he had to traverse with his suite streets arched with fire,[162]and in which the very air they breathed was suffocating. At length, he gained the open country, and took up his abode in a palace of the Czar's called Petrowsky, about a French league from the city. As he looked back on the fire, which, under the influence of the autumnal wind, swelled and surged around the Kremlin, like an infernal ocean around a sable Pandemonium, he could not suppress the ominous expression, "This bodes us great misfortune."[163]

The fire continued to triumph unopposed, and consumed in a few days what it had cost centuries to raise. "Palaces and temples," says a Russian author, "monuments of art, and miracles of luxury, the remains of ages which had past away, and those which had been the creation of yesterday; the tombs of ancestors, and the nursery-cradles of the present generation, were indiscriminately destroyed. Nothing was left of Moscow save the remembrance of the city, and the deep resolution to avenge its fall."[164]

The fire raged till the 19th with unabated violence, and then began to slacken for want of fuel. It is said, four-fifths of this great city were laid in ruins. On the 20th, Buonaparte returnedto the Kremlin;[165]and, as if in defiance of the terrible scene which he had witnessed, took measures as if he were disposed to make Moscow his residence for some time. He even caused a theatre to be fitted up, and plays to be acted by performers sent from Paris, to show, perhaps, that it was not in the most terrible of elements to overawe his spirit, or interrupt his usual habits of life. In the same style of indifference or affectation, a set of very precise regulations respecting the Théâtre Français was drawn up by the Emperor amid the ruins of Moscow. He was not superior to the affectation of choosing distant places and foreign capitals for the date of domestic and trifling ordinances. It gave the Emperor an air of ubiquity, to issue rules for a Parisian theatre from the Kremlin. It had already been prophesied that he would sacrifice his army to have the pleasure of dating a decree from Moscow.[166]

The conflagration of Moscow was so complete in its devastation; so important in its consequences; so critical in the moment of its commencement, that almost all the eye-witnesses have imputed it to a sublime, yet almost horrible exertion of patriotic decision on the part of the Russians, their government, and, in particular, of the governor, Rostopchin. Nor has the positive denial of Count Rostopchin himself diminished the general conviction, that the fire was directed by him. All the French officers continue to this day to ascribe the conflagration to persons whom he had employed.

On the other hand, there are many, and those good judges of the probabilities in such an event, who have shown strong reasons for believing, that Moscow shared but the fate of a deserted city, which is almost always burnt as well as pillaged. We shall only observe, that should the scale of evidence incline to the side of accident, History will lose one of the grandest, as well as most terrible incidents which she has on record. Considered as a voluntary Russian act, the burning of their capital is an incident of gigantic character, which we consider with awe and terror; our faculties so confused by the immensity of the object, consideredin its different bearings, that we hardly know whether to term it vice or virtue, patriotism or vengeance.

Whether the conflagration of Moscow was, or was not, the work of Russian will, and Russian hands, the effects which it was to produce on the campaign were likely to be of the most important character. Buonaparte's object in pressing on to the capital at every risk, was to grasp a pledge, for the redemption of which he had no doubt Alexander would be glad to make peace on his own terms. But the prize of his victory, however fair to the sight, had, like that fabled fruit, said to grow on the banks of the Dead Sea, proved in the end but soot and ashes. Moscow, indeed, he had seized, but it had perished in his grasp; and far from being able to work upon Alexander's fears for its safety, it was reasonable to think that its total destruction had produced the most vehement resentment on the part of the Russian monarch, since Napoleon received not even the civility of an answer to his conciliatory letter. And thus the acquisition so much desired as the means of procuring peace, had become, by this catastrophe, the cause of the most irreconcilable enmity.

Neither was it a trifling consideration, that Napoleon had lost by this dreadful fire a great part of the supplies, which he expected the capture of the metropolis would have contributed for the support of his famished army. Had there existed in Moscow the usual population of a capital, he would have found the usual modes of furnishing its markets in full activity. These, doubtless, are not of the common kind, for provisions are sent to this capital, not, as is usual, from fertile districts around the city, but from distant regions, whence they are brought by water-carriage in the summer, and by sledges, which travel on the ice and frozen snow, in the winter time. To Moscow, with its usual inhabitants, these supplies must have been remitted as usual, lest the numerous population of 250,000 and upwards, should be famished, as well as the enemy's army. But Moscow deserted—Moscow burnt, and reduced to mountains of cinders and ashes—had no occasion for such supplies; nor was it to be supposed that the provinces from which they were usually remitted, would send them to a heap of ruins, where there remained none to be fed, save the soldiers of the invading army. This conviction came with heavy anticipation on the Emperor of France and his principal officers.

Meanwhile, the ruins of Moscow, and the remnant which was left standing, afforded the common soldiers an abundance of booty during their short day of rest; and, as is their nature, they enjoyed the present moment without thinking of futurity. The army was dispersed over the city, plundering at pleasure whatever they could find; sometimes discovering quantities of melted gold and silver, sometimes rich merchandize and precious articles, of which they knew not the value; sometimes articles of luxury, which contrasted strangely with their general want of comforts, and even necessaries. It was not uncommon to see the mosttattered, shoeless wretches, sitting among bales of rich merchandize, or displaying costly shawls, precious furs, and vestments rich with barbaric pearl and gold.[167]In another place, there were to be seen soldiers possessed of tea, sugar, coffee, and similar luxuries, while the same individuals could scarce procure carrion to eat, or muddy water to drink. Of sugar, in particular, they had such quantities, that they mixed it with their horse-flesh soup. The whole was a contrast of the wildest and most lavish excess, with the last degree of necessity, disgusting to witness, and most ominous in its presage.Theyesteemed themselves happiest of all, who could procure intoxicating liquors, and escape by some hours of insensibility from the scene of confusion around them.[168]

Napoleon and his officers toiled hard to restore some degree of organisation to the army. The plundering, which could not be discontinued, was latterly set about more regularly; and detachments were sent to pillage the ruins of Moscow, as in turn of duty. The rest of the troops were withdrawn from the city, or confined to their quarters in the buildings which remained entire. Everything was done to protect the few peasants, who brought provisions to the camp for sale. Nevertheless, few appeared, and at length not one was to be seen. The utmost exertion, therefore, could not, it was obvious, render Moscow a place of rest for many days; and the difficulty of choosing the route by which to leave it, became now an embarrassing consideration.

There were three modes of proceeding on evacuating Moscow, all of which had in their turn Napoleon's anxious consideration. First, he might march on St. Petersburgh, and deal with the modern, as he had with the ancient capital of Russia. This counsel best suited the daring genius of Buonaparte, ever bent upon the game by which all is to be lost, or all won. He even spoke of that measure as a thing resolved; but Berthier and Bessières prevailed in convincing him, that the lateness of the season, the state of the roads, the want of provisions, and the condition of the army, rendered such an attempt totally desperate. The second proposed measure, was to move southwards upon the fertile province of Kalouga, and thence to proceed westward towards Smolensk, which was their first depôt. In this route Napoleon must have fought a general action with Koutousoff, who, as we shall presently see, had taken a position to the south of Moscow. This, indeed, would have been, in many respects, a motive with Napoleon to take the route to Kalouga; but a second battle of Borodino, as obstinately fought, and as doubtful in its termination, would have been a bad commencement for a retreat, theflanks of which would certainly be annoyed, even if the Moldavian army did not intercept the front. The third plan was, to return by the route on which he had advanced, and on which, by a few places hastily fortified, he still preserved a precarious communication with Smolensk, Witepsk, and so on to Wilna. This line, however, lay through the countries which had been totally destroyed and wasted by the advance of the army, and where all the villages and hamlets had been burned and abandoned, either by the French or the Russians themselves. To take this direction was to confront famine.[169]

Napoleon's hesitation on this important point, was increased by the eagerness with which he still adhered to his own plan for the conclusion of the war, by a triumphant peace with Alexander, concluded on the ruins of his capital. His mind, which ever clung with tenacity to the opinions he had once formed, revolved the repeated instances in which his voice had in such circumstances commanded peace, and dictated the articles. The idea which he had formed of Alexander's disposition during the interviews of Tilsit and Erfurt, had made him regard the Czar as docile, and disposed to submit to the rebuke of his own predominant genius. But he mistook the character of the sovereign, and of the nation he commanded. The one, although he had hitherto encountered nothing but defeat and disaster, was determined not to submit, while his immense resources furnished the means of resistance. The other, in all probability, would not have permitted the sovereign to act otherwise, for the popular indignation was now at spring-tide; and from the palace of the Czar to the hut of the slave, there was nothing breathed save resistance and revenge.

MISSION TO EMPEROR ALEXANDER.

It was in vain, therefore, that Napoleon expected that Alexander would open some communication on the subject of, or would answer, the letter which he had sent, during the first night he possessed Moscow, by a Russian officer. He grew impatient at length, and resolved himself to make further advances. But not even to his confidential advisers would he own that he sought peace on his own score; he affected to be anxious only on account of Alexander. "He is my friend," he said; "a prince of excellent qualities; and should he yield to his inclinations, and propose peace, the barbarians in their rage will dethrone and put him to death, and fill the throne with some one less tractable. We will send Caulaincourt to break the way for negotiation, and prevent the odium which Alexander might incur, by being the first to propose a treaty." The Emperor abode by this resolution, excepting in so far as he was persuaded with some difficulty to despatch General Count Lauriston, his aide-de-camp, upon this embassy; lest Caulaincourt's superior rank of Master of the Horse, might indicate that his master sought atreaty, less for Alexander's security than his own, and that of his army. Lauriston, who was well acquainted with the Russian character, urged several doubts against the policy of the mission intrusted to him, as betraying their necessity to the enemy; and recommended that the army should, without losing a day, commence its retreat by Kalouga, and the more southern route. Buonaparte, however, retained his determination, and Lauriston was dismissed with a letter to the Emperor Alexander, and the parting instruction,—"I must have peace, and will sacrifice, to obtain it, all except my honour."[170]

Before we give the result of Lauriston's mission, it is proper to trace the movements of the Russian grand army, since their melancholy march through the city of Moscow. They left the city by the route of Kolomna, and marched for two days in that direction; and having thus imposed on the enemy a belief, that they were bent in securing a retreat to the south-east, leaving at once the eastern and southern provinces undefended, Koutousoff executed one of the most dexterous movements of the Russian army during the campaign. The observation of the Petersburgh road was intrusted to Winzengerode, with a small flying army. Koutousoff himself, turning to the southward, performed a circular march, of which Moscow was the centre, so as to transfer the grand army to the route towards Kalouga. They marched in stern dejection; for the wind, great as the distance was, showered among their ranks the ashes of their burning capital, and in the darkness, the flames were seen to rage like a huge ocean of fire. The movement was a bold one also, for, although performed at a respectful distance from the French army, yet the march was for three days a flank march, and consequently of a very delicate character. The Russians manœuvred, however, with such precision, that they performed their movements in perfect safety; and while the French troops, who had been sent in their pursuit, were amusing themselves with pursuing two regiments of horse, which had been left on the Kolomna road, they were astonished to find that the grand Russian army had assumed a position on the south-eastern side of Moscow, from which they could operate upon and harass, nay, intercept at pleasure, Napoleon's line of communication with Smolensk and with Poland, and at the same time cover the town of Kalouga, where great magazines had been assembled, and that of Toula, famed for the fabrication of arms and artillery.[171]

The ardent King of Naples, with the advanced guard of his brother-in-law's army, at length moved against their enemies on the Kalouga road; but little took place save skirmishes, by whichthe Russians protected their rear, until they took up a stationary posture in the strong position of Taroutino. They were here admirably placed for the purpose of covering the important town of Kalouga. There are three routes which lead from Moscow to that city; and Taroutino being situated in the middle road, an army placed there can with little trouble, by moving to the right or the left, occupy either of the other two. The front of the Russian position was covered by the river Nara. The camp was amply supplied with provisions from the wealthy and plentiful districts in the rear; and as the spirit of the country more and more developed itself, recruits and new-raised regiments arrived faster than the exertions of the veteran soldiers could train them to arms, although the Russian, from his docility and habits of obedience, receives military discipline with unusual readiness. The Ukraine and Don sent twenty regiments of Cossacks, most of them men who, having already served their stipulated time, were excused from military duty, but who universally assumed the lance and sabre at a crisis of such emergency.

Murat at the same time pressed forward to establish himself in front of the Russian camp, for the purpose of watching their motions. In his progress, he passed what had been a splendid domain, belonging to Count Rostopchin, the governor of Moscow. It was in ashes; and a letter from the proprietor informed the French he had destroyed it, lest it should give an invader comfort or shelter.[172]The same spirit possessed the peasantry. They set fire to their hamlets, wherever they could be of use to the invaders; proclaimed the punishment of death to all of their own order, who, from avarice or fear, should be tempted to supply the enemy with provisions; and they inflicted it without mercy on such as incurred the penalty. It is an admitted fact, that when the French, in order to induce their refractory prisoners to labour in their service, branded some of them on the hand with the letter N, as a sign that they were the serfs of Napoleon, one peasant laid his branded hand on a log of wood, and struck it off with the axe which he held in the other, in order to free himself from the supposed thraldom. The French who looked on shuddered, and cursed the hour which brought them into collision with enemies of such a rugged and inexorable disposition. The patriotism of the peasants in general had been turned to still better account by the partisan or guerilla warfare, for which Spain had given an example.

GENERAL DAVIDOFF.

Lieutenant-Colonel Dennis Davidoff, who became well known to the French by the name ofle Capitaine Noir, had suggested this species of war to Prince Bagration, a little before the battleof Borodino; and had obtained distinguished success at the head of a small party of Cossacks and hussars, by his operations on the route betwixt Gjatz and Wiazma, in cutting off supplies, and defeating small detached parties of the enemy. He was speedily put at the head of a much larger force; and other free corps of the same kind were raised, with brave and active spirits at their head. They scoured the country, infested the French lines of communication, drove in their outposts, and distressed them on every point.

The peasants also took arms, and formed themselves into bodies of partisans, rendered formidable by their perfect knowledge of the woods, by-paths, and passes. They have a natural contempt for foreigners, for whom they have no other name than "the deaf and dumb," to denote their ignorance of the Russian language. The events of the campaign, especially the conflagration of Moscow, had converted their scorn into deadly hatred; and whatever soldier of Napoleon fell into their hands, was put to death without scruple or pity.

Meantime the cavalry of Murat, which afforded the best means of chastising and repressing these bands, gradually declined under hard work and want of subsistence; and, although little used to droop or distress himself about the future, the King of Naples wrote repeatedly from his advanced post, to press Napoleon no longer to delay a retreat which was become absolutely necessary. It was while matters were in this state that General Lauriston arrived at the Russian outposts, and after a good deal of difficulty, real or affected, was at length admitted to an interview with Koutousoff, at midnight on the 5th October. His reception was such as to make him consider himself a welcome envoy.

Lauriston opened his business with a proposal for exchange of prisoners, which was of course declined on the part of Koutousoff, aware, that while soldiers were plenty among the Russians, the ranks of Napoleon must become every day thinner. Lauriston next introduced the subject of the independent bands, and proposed that an end should be put to this species of unusual war, in which so many cruelties were committed. Koutousoff replied, that this kind of partisan war did not depend on his orders, but arose from the native spirit of the country, which led the Russians to regard the French invasion as an incursion of Tartars. General Lauriston then entered on the real business of his mission, by asking whether "this war, which had assumed such an unheard-of character, was to last for ever?" declaring, at the same time, his master the Emperor of France's sincere desire, to terminate hostilities between two great and generous nations.

The astucious old Russian saw Buonaparte's evident necessity in his affected wish for peace, and immediately adopted the course most likely to gain time, which must at once increase the difficulties of the French, and his own power of availing himself of them. He affected a sincere desire to promote a pacification, but declaredhe was absolutely prohibited either to receive any proposal to that effect himself, or to transmit such to the Emperor. He therefore declined to grant General Lauriston the desired passport to the presence of Alexander, but he offered to send General Wolkonsky, an aide-de-camp of the Czar, to learn his imperial pleasure.

The express charge which Lauriston had received from his master, that peace was to be obtained on any terms not inferring dishonour, did not permit him to object to this arrangement. He was even encouraged to hope it might prove effectual, so much satisfaction was expressed by General Koutousoff and the officers of his military family, all of whom seemed to deplore the continuance of the war, and went so far as to say, that this annunciation of a treaty would be received at Petersburgh with public rejoicings. These accounts being transmitted to Napoleon, lulled him into a false security. He returned to his original opinion, which had been shaken, but not subverted; and announced to his generals, with much satisfaction, that they had but to wait a fortnight for a triumphant pacification. He boasted his own superior knowledge of the Russian character, and declared, that on the arrival of his overture for peace, Petersburgh would be full of bonfires.[173]

ARMISTICE MADE BY MURAT.

Napoleon, however, was not so confident of peace as to approve a singular sort of armistice which Murat had entered into with the Russians. It was to be broken off, on an intimation of three hours' space, by either party to the other; and, while in existence, it only subsisted along the fronts of the two armies, leaving the Russians at liberty to carry on their partisan war on the flanks as much as ever. The French could not obtain a load of furze, or a cart of provisions, without fighting for it, and often to disadvantage. A large party of the dragoons of the Imperial Guard were surprised and piked by the Cossacks. Two considerable convoys were surprised and cut off on the road to Mojaisk, the only communication which the French army had with its magazines and reinforcements. The French were surprised, and lost a detachment in the town of Vereia, on Murat's left flank. Thus the war continued everywhere except on the front of the armies, where it had the greatest chance to be favourable to the French.

This bad policy is not to be imputed to Napoleon, who had refused to authorise the armistice, but to the vanity of Murat, under whose authority it was still observed. It gave him an opportunity of amusing himself, by caracoling on the neutral ground betwixt the camps, displaying his handsome form, gallant horsemanship, and splendid dresses, to the soldiers on both sides; receiving the respectful salutes of the Russian patrols, and the applause of the Cossacks. These last used to crowd around him, partly in real admiration of his chivalrous appearance and character,which was of a kind to captivate these primitive warriors, and partly, doubtless, from their natural shrewdness which saw the utility of maintaining his delusion. They called him their Hettman; and he was so intoxicated with their applause, as to have been said to nourish the wild idea of becoming in earnest King of the Cossacks.[174]

Such delusions could not for ever lull Murat's vigilance to sleep. The war was all around him, and his forces were sinking under a succession of petty hostilities; while the continual rolling of drums, and the frequent platoon firing, heard from behind the Russian encampment, intimated how busily they were engaged in drilling numerous bodies of fresh recruits. The Russian officers at the outposts began to hold ominous language, and ask the French if they had made a composition with the Northern Winter, Russia's most fearful ally. "Stay another fortnight," they said, "and your nails will drop off, and your fingers fall from your hands, like boughs from a blighted tree." The numbers of the Cossacks increased so much, as to resemble one of the ancient Scythian emigrations; and wild and fantastic figures, on unbroken horses, whose manes swept the ground, seemed to announce that the inmost recesses of the desert had sent forth their inhabitants. Their grey-bearded chiefs sometimes held expostulations with the French officers, in a tone very different from that which soothed the ears of Murat. "Had you not," they said, "in France, food enough, water enough, air enough, to subsist you while you lived—earth enough to cover you when you died; and why come you to enrich our soil with your remains, which by right belong to the land where you were born?" Such evil bodements affected the van of the army, from whence Murat transmitted them to the Emperor.[175]

Immured in the recesses of the Kremlin, Napoleon persisted in awaiting the answer to the letter despatched by Lauriston. It had been sent to Petersburgh on the 6th, and an answer could not be expected before the 26th. To have moved before that period, might be thought prudent in a military point of view; but, politically considered, it would greatly injure his reputation for sagacity, and destroy the impression of his infallibility. Thus sensible, and almost admitting that he was wrong, he determined, nevertheless, to persevere in the course he had chosen, in hopes that Fortune, which never before failed him, might yet stand his friend in extremity.

MOSCOW.

A bold scheme is said to have been suggested by Daru, to turn Moscow into an intrenched camp, and occupy it as winter-quarters. They might kill the remainder of the horses, he said, and salt them down; foraging must do the rest. Napoleon approved of what he termed a Lion's counsel. But the fear of what might happen in France, from which this plan would have secludedthem for six months, induced him finally to reject it. It might be added, that the obtaining supplies by marauding was likely to become more and more difficult, as winter and the scarcity increased, especially now that the country around Moscow was completely ruined. Besides, if Napoleon fixed himself at Moscow for the winter, not only his line of communications, but Lithuania, and the grand duchy, which formed the base of his operations, ran every risk of being invaded. On the south-west, the dubious faith of Austria was all he had to trust to, for the purpose of resisting the united armies of Tchitchagoff and Tormasoff, which might be augmented to 100,000 men, and make themselves masters of Warsaw and Wilna. On the northern extremity of his general line of operations, Macdonald and St. Cyr might prove unable to resist Witgenstein and Steingel; and he had in his rear Prussia, the population of which Napoleon justly considered as ready to take arms against him at the first favourable opportunity. The scheme, therefore, for occupying winter-quarters at Moscow was rejected as fraught with dangers.[176]

Even when appearances of a fall of snow reminded the Emperor of the climate which he was braving, his preparations for retreat were slowly and reluctantly made; and some of them were dictated by his vanity, rather than his judgment. All the pictures, images, and ornaments of the churches, which were left unburnt, were collected, and loaded upon wains, to follow the line of march, already too much encumbered with baggage. A gigantic cross, which stood on the tower of Ivan the Great, the tallest steeple of Moscow, was dismounted with much labour,[177]that it might add to the trophies, which were already sufficiently cumbrous. On the same principle, Napoleon was angry when it was proposed to leave some of his immense train of artillery, which was greatly too numerous for the reduced size of his army. "He would leave no trophy for the Russians to triumph over." That all the artillery and baggage might be transported, he surprised his officers by an order to buy twenty thousand horses, where, perhaps, there were not an hundred to be sold, and when those which they had already were daily dying for want of forage. The latter article, he ordered, should be provided for two months, in depôts on his route. This mandate might make known his wants; but as it certainly could contribute little to supply them, it must only have been issued for the purpose of keeping up appearances. Perhaps the desire to have some excuse to himself and othersfor indulging in his lingering wish to remain a day or two longer, to await the answer from St Petersburgh, might be a secret cause of issuing orders, which must occasion some inquiry ere it could be reported in what extent they could be obeyed.

If this were the case, it was the rash indulgence of a groundless hope. The Emperor Alexander refused to hear of any negotiation for peace, and took no other notice of that which had been transmitted to him by Walkonsky, than to pass a censure on the Russian officers concerned, and Prince Koutousoff himself, for having had the least intercourse with the French generals. He reminded the generalissimo how positive his instructions had been on this subject, and that he had enjoined him on no account to enter into negotiations or correspondence with the invaders; and he revived and enforced his injunctions to that effect.

The sagacious general was not, it is to be supposed, greatly affected by a rebuke which was only given for form's sake. He made his soldiers acquainted with the Emperor's unalterable resolution to give no terms to the invaders; and spreading through the camp, at the same time, the news of the victory at Salamanca, and the evacuation of Madrid, pointed out to them, that Frenchmen, like others, were liable to defeat; and called on his soldiers to emulate the courage of the British and patriotism of the Spaniards. While the minds of the soldiery were thus excited and encouraged, Koutousoff took measures for anticipating Napoleon, by putting an end to the armistice and assuming an offensive posture.[178]

Back to IndexNext