§ 6. The fire compels Napoleon to leave the city.
This occurrence decided Napoleon. He hastily descended the northern staircase, famous for the massacre of the Strelitzes,[149]and requested to be conducted out of the city, to the distance of a league on the road to St. Petersburg, towards the imperial palace of Petrowski.
But we were besieged by an ocean of fire, which blocked up all the gates of the citadel, and frustrated our first attempts to escape. After some search, we discovered a postern-gate[150]leading between the rocks to the Moskwa. It was by this narrow pass that Napoleon, his officers and guard, made their way from the Kremlin. But what had they gained by this movement? They had approachednearer to the fire, and could neither retreat nor remain where they were; and how were they to advance? how force a passage through the billows of this sea of flame? Those who had traversed the city, stunned by the tempest and blinded by the ashes, could no longer find their way, since the streets themselves were not distinguishable amid smoke and ruins.
There was no time to be lost. The roaring of the flames around us became every moment more terrific. A single narrow winding street, completely enveloped in fire on either side, appeared rather the entrance than the outlet of this hell. The emperor, however, on foot, and without hesitation, rushed into this frightful passage. He advanced amid the crackling of the flames, the crash of floors, and the fall of burning timbers, and of fragments of red-hot iron roofs which tumbled around him. These ruins impeded his progress. The flames, while with impetuous roar they consumed the edifices between which we were proceeding, spreading beyond the walls, were blown out by the wind, and formed an arch over our heads. We walked on a ground of fire, beneath a fiery canopy and between two walls of fire. The intense heat burned our eyes, which we were nevertheless obliged to keep open and fixed on the danger. A consuming atmosphere parched our throats, and rendered our respiration short and difficult; and we were already almost suffocated by the smoke. Our hands were burned, either in endeavoring to protect our faces from the insupportable heat, or in brushing off the sparks which every moment fell upon our garments. In this inexpressible distress, and when a rapid advance seemed to be our only means of safety, our guide stopped in uncertainty and agitation. Here probably would haveterminated our adventurous career, had not some pillagers of the first corps recognized the emperor amid the whirling flames: they ran up and guided him towards the smoking ruins of a quarter which had been reduced to ashes in the morning.
It was there that we met the Prince of Eckmühl. This marshal, who had been wounded at the Moskwa, had desired to be carried back among the flames to rescue Napoleon, or to perish with him. He threw himself into his arms with transport; the emperor received him kindly, but with that composure which in danger he never lost for a moment.
To escape from this vast region of desolation, it was farther necessary to pass a long convoy of powder which was defiling amid the fire. This was not the least of his dangers, but it was the last, and by nightfall he arrived at Petrowski.
The next morning, the 17th of September, Napoleon cast his first look towards Moscow, hoping to see that the conflagration had subsided. But he beheld it again raging with the utmost violence: the city appeared like one vast column of fire, rising in whirling eddies to the sky, which it deeply colored. Absorbed by this melancholy contemplation, he maintained a long and gloomy silence, which he broke only by the exclamation, "This forebodes to us great misfortunes!"
The effort which he had made to reach Moscow had expended all his means of warfare. Moscow had been the limit of his projects, the aim of all his hopes, and Moscow was no more! What was now to be done? Here this decisive genius was forced to hesitate. He who in 1805 had ordered the sudden and total abandonment of theexpedition prepared at an immense expense, for the invasion of England; and determined at Boulogne on the surprise and annihilation of the Austrian army, in short, on all the operations of the campaign between Ulm and Munich exactly as they were executed; this same man, who in the following year dictated at Paris with like infallibility all the movements of his army as far as Berlin, the day of his entrance into that capital, and the appointment of the governor whom he destined for it; he it was who, astonished in his turn, was now in perplexity what course to pursue. Never had he communicated his most daring projects to the most confidential of his ministers but in order for their execution; he was now, however, constrained to consult and put to the proof those who were around him.
But, in doing this, he still preserved the same show of confidence and of determination. He declared that he would march for St. Petersburg. This conquest was already marked out on his maps, hitherto so prophetic: orders were even issued to the different corps to hold themselves in readiness. But this was all only a feint: it was but a better face that he strove to assume, or an expedient for diverting his grief at the loss of Moscow; so that Berthier, and more especially Bessières, soon convinced him that he had neither time, provisions, roads, nor a single requisite for so distant an expedition.
At this moment he was apprised that Kutusoff, after having fled towards the east, had suddenly turned to the south, and thrown himself between Moscow and Kaluga. This was an additional circumstance against the expedition to St. Petersburg. There was a threefold reason for marching upon the beaten army, and endeavoring toextinguish it: to secure his right flank and his line of operation; to possess himself of Kaluga and of Tula, the one the granary, the other the arsenal of Russia; and, lastly, to open safe, short, new, and untouched retreat to Smolensk and Lithuania.[151]
Some one proposed to return upon Wittgenstein and Witepsk.[152]Napoleon, however, remained undecided between these different plans. That for the conquest of St. Petersburg alone flattered him: the others appeared but as ways of retreat, as acknowledgments of error; and whether from pride, or policy which would not admit itself to be in the wrong, he rejected them.
Besides, where was he to halt in case of a retreat? He had so fully calculated on concluding a peace at Moscow, that he had no winter-quarters provided in Lithuania. Kaluga had no temptations for him. Wherefore lay waste fresh provinces? It would be wiser only to threaten them, and thus leave the Russians something to lose, in order to induce them to conclude a peace by which they might be preserved. Would it be possible to march to another battle, to fresh conquests, without exposing a line of operation covered with sick, stragglers, wounded, and convoys of all sorts? Moscow was the general rallying point: how could it be changed? What other name would have any attraction?
Lastly, and above all, how could he relinquish a hope to which he had made so many sacrifices, when he knew that his letter to Alexander had just passed the Russianadvanced posts; when eight days would be sufficient for receiving an answer, so ardently desired; when he required that time to rally and reorganize his army, to collect the relics of Moscow, the conflagration of which had but too strongly sanctioned pillage, and to draw his soldiers away from that vast infirmary.
Meanwhile, scarcely a third of that army and of that capital now existed. But himself and the Kremlin were still standing: his renown was still entire, and he persuaded himself that those two great names, Napoleon and Moscow, combined, would be sufficient to accomplish everything. He determined, therefore, to return to the Kremlin, which a battalion of his guard had unfortunately preserved.
§ 7. Napoleon returns to the Kremlin; plunder of the city.
The camps which he traversed on his way thither presented an extraordinary sight. In the fields, in the midst of the mud, were large fires, kept up with mahogany furniture, windows and gilded doors. Around these fires, on litters of damp straw, imperfectly sheltered by a few boards, were seen the soldiers and their officers, splashed all over with mud, and blackened with smoke, seated in arm-chairs or reclining on silken couches. At their feet were spread, or heaped together, Cashmere shawls, the rarest furs of Siberia, the gold stuffs of Persia, and silver dishes, off which they had nothing to eat but black dough baked in the ashes, and half broiled and bloody horseflesh. Strange combination of abundance and want, of riches and filth, of luxury and wretchedness!
Between the camp and the city were met troops of soldiers dragging along their booty, or driving before them,like beasts of burden, Muscovites bending under the weight of the pillage of their capital: for the fire brought to light nearly twenty thousand inhabitants, previously concealed in that immense city. Some of these, of both sexes, were well dressed: they were tradespeople. They came with the wreck of their property, to seek refuge at our fires. They lived pell-mell with our soldiers, protected by some, and tolerated, or, rather, scarcely remarked by others.
About ten thousand of the enemy's troops were in the same predicament. For several days they wandered about among us, free, and some of them even still armed. Our soldiers met these vanquished Russians without the slightest animosity, and without thinking of making them prisoners; either that they considered the war at an end, or from thoughtlessness or pity, or because, when not in battle, the French delight in having no enemies. They suffered them to share their fires; nay, more, they allowed them to pillage in their company. But when some degree of order was restored, or, rather, when the officers had organized this marauding as a regular system of forage, the great number of these Russian stragglers attracted notice, and orders were given to secure them; but seven or eight thousand had already escaped. It was not long before we had to fight them.
On entering the city the emperor was struck by a sight still more extraordinary: a few houses scattered here and there among the ruins were all that was left of the mighty Moscow. The smell issuing from this vast city, overthrown, burned, and calcined, was horrible. Heaps of ashes, and, at intervals, fragments of walls or half-demolished pillars, were now the only vestiges that marked the sites of streets.
In the suburbs were found a few Russians of both sexes, covered with garments scorched and blackened by the fire. They flitted like spectres among the ruins; some of them were scratching up the earth in gardens in quest of vegetables, while others were disputing with the crows for the relics of the dead animals which their army had left behind. Farther on, others again were seen plunging into the Moskwa to bring out some of the grain which had been thrown into it by command of Rostopchin, and which they devoured without preparation, soured and spoiled as it was.
Meanwhile the sight of the booty in the camps, where everything was yet wanting, inflamed the soldiers, whom a sense of duty or stricter officers had hitherto kept with their colors. They murmured. "Why were they to be kept back? Why were they to perish by famine and want, when everything was within their reach? Was it right to allow the enemy's fires to destroy what might be saved? Why was such respect to be paid to the conflagration?" They added, that "as the inhabitants of Moscow had not only abandoned, but even endeavored utterly to destroy it, all that they could save would be fairly gained; that the remains of that city, like the arms of the conquered, belonged by right to the victors, as the Muscovites had turned their capital into a vast machine of war for the purpose of annihilating us."
The best principled, and the best disciplined were those who argued thus, and it was impossible to reply satisfactorily to them. Exaggerated scruples, however, at first preventing the issuing of orders for pillage, it was permitted, unrestrained by regulations. Then it was, urged by the most imperious wants, that all hurried to share the spoil,soldiers of the highest class, and even officers. Their chiefs were obliged to shut their eyes: only such guards as were absolutely indispensable remained with the colors and the piled arms.
The emperor saw his whole army dispersed over the city. His progress was obstructed by long files of marauders going in quest of booty or returning with it; by tumultuous assemblages of soldiers grouped around the entrances of cellars, or the doors of palaces, shops, and churches, which the fire had nearly reached, and which they were endeavoring to break into.
His steps were impeded by the fragments of furniture of every kind which had been thrown out of the windows to save them from the flames, or by rich pillage which had been abandoned from caprice for other booty, for such is the way with soldiers; they are incessantly beginning their fortunes afresh, taking everything indiscriminately, loading themselves beyond measure, as if they could carry all that they find; then, after they have gone a few steps, compelled by fatigue to throw away successively the greatest part of their burden.
The roads were obstructed by these accumulations; and the open places, like the camp, were turned into markets, whither every one repaired to exchange superfluities for necessaries. There the rarest articles, the value of which was not known to their possessors, were sold for the merest pittance; while others of little worth, but more showy appearance, were purchased at the most exorbitant prices. Gold, from being most portable, was bought at an immense loss with silver that the knapsacks were incapable of holding. Everywhere soldiers were seen seated on bales of merchandise, on heaps of sugar and coffee, amidwines and the most exquisite liquors, all of which they were offering in exchange for a morsel of bread. Many, in a state of intoxication aggravated by hunger, had fallen near the flames, which, reaching them, put a miserable end to their lives.
The houses and palaces which had escaped the fire served as quarters for the officers, who respected whatever was found in them. They beheld with pain this vast destruction, and the pillage which was its necessary consequence. Some of our best men were reproached with being too greedy in collecting whatever they could rescue from the flames; but their number was so small that they were all mentioned by name. In these ardent men war was a passion which presupposed the existence of many others. It was not covetousness, for they did not hoard; they spent lavishly what they had thus picked up, taking in order to give, believing that one hand washed the other, and that they paid for everything with the danger they encountered in acquiring it.
It was amid this confusion that Napoleon again entered Moscow. He had allowed the pillage, hoping that his army, scattered over the ruins, would find much that was valuable; but when he learned that the disorder increased; that the Old Guard[153]itself had yielded to the temptation; that the Russian peasants, who were at length allured thither with provisions, for which he caused them to be liberally paid, that they might induce others to come, were robbed of what they brought to us by our famished soldiers; when he was informed that the different corps, destitute of everything, were ready to fight each other for therelics of Moscow; that, finally, all our existing resources were wasted by this lawless freebooting, he then issued severe orders, and forbade his guard to leave their quarters. The churches in which our cavalry had sheltered themselves, were evacuated, and restored to their religious uses.[154]The business of plunder was ordered to be taken in turn by the different corps, like any other duty, and directions were at length given for securing the Russian stragglers.
But it was too late. These soldiers had fled; the affrighted peasants returned no more; and great quantities of provisions were wasted. The French army have sometimes fallen into these faults, but on the present occasion the fire must plead their excuse; no time was to be lost in anticipating the flames. It is, however, a remarkable fact, that at the first command of the emperor perfect order was restored.
Most of our men behaved generously, considering the small number of inhabitants who remained, and the great number of enemies they met with. But if, in the first moments of pillage, some excesses were perpetrated, ought this to appear surprising in an army exasperated by such urgent wants, such severe sufferings, and composed of so many different nations?
Misfortunes having since overwhelmed these warriors, reproaches, as in such circumstances is ever the case, have been raised against them. Who can be ignorant that similar disorders have always been the bad side of great wars,or, so to speak, the inglorious part of glory; that the renown of conquerors casts its shadow like everything else in this world? Does there exist a creature however diminutive, on every side of which the sun can shine at once? It is a law of nature, therefore, that great bodies shall cast great shadows.
§ 8. Rostopchin sets fire to his country-seat; anxiety of Napoleon at not hearing from the Czar.
Meanwhile Kutusoff, on leaving Moscow, had drawn Murat towards Kolomna, the point where the Moskwa intersects the road. Here, under favor of the night, he suddenly turned to the south, proceeding by the way of Podol, to throw himself between Moscow and Kaluga. This night march of the Russians around Moscow, the ashes and flames of which were wafted to them by the violence of the wind, was gloomy in the extreme. They were lighted on their march by the baleful conflagration which was consuming the centre of their commerce, the sanctuary of their religion, the cradle of their empire! Filled with horror and indignation, they kept a sullen silence, which was unbroken save by the dull and monotonous sound of their footsteps, the roaring of the flames, and the howling of the blast. The dismal light was frequently varied by livid and sudden flashes. The brows of these warriors might then be seen contracted by intense and unutterable grief, and the fire of their sombre and threatening looks answered to these flames, which they regarded as our work; they already betrayed the ferocious revenge which was rankling in their hearts, which spread throughout the empire, and of which so many Frenchmen were the victims.
At that solemn moment, Kutusoff, in a firm and impressive tone, addressed his sovereign, and informed him of the loss of his capital. He stated that, "in order to save the fertile provinces of the south, and to keep up his communications with Tormasoff and Tchitchakoff, he had been obliged to abandon Moscow, but emptied of its inhabitants, who were its life; and," said he, "as the people are the soul of every country, so where the Russian people are, there will be Moscow and the empire of Russia."
It is said that on receiving this intelligence Alexander was thunderstruck. Napoleon, it was known, built hopes on the weakness of his rival, and the Russians themselves dreaded the effects of that weakness. But the Czar disappointed as well these hopes as fears. In his addresses to his subjects he exhibited himself no less great than his misfortune: "No pusillanimous dejection!" he exclaimed; "let us vow redoubled courage and perseverance! The enemy is in deserted Moscow as in a tomb, without means of domination or even of existence. He entered Russia with three hundred thousand men of all countries, without union or any national or religious bond: he has already lost half of them by the sword, by famine, and by desertion: he has but the wreck of this army in Moscow: he is in the heart of Russia, and not a single Russian is at his feet.
"Meanwhile our forces are increasing and closing around him. He is in the midst of a mighty population, encompassed by armies which are waiting his movements and keeping him in check. To escape from famine, he will soon be obliged to direct his flight through the ranks of our brave soldiers. Shall we then recede, when all Europe is looking on and encouraging us? Let us, on thecontrary, set it an example, and kiss the hand which has thus led us forth to be the first among the nations to vindicate the cause of independence and virtue." He concluded with an invocation to the Almighty.
This circuitous march of Kutusoff, whether made from indecision or as a stratagem, was much in his favor. Murat lost all traces of him for three days. The Russian general employed all this interval in studying the ground and in intrenching himself. His advanced guard had nearly reached Woronowo, one of the finest domains belonging to Count Rostopchin, when that nobleman proceeded on before it. The Russians supposed that he had gone to take a last look at this splendid mansion, when all at once it was wrapped from their sight by clouds of smoke.
They hurried on to extinguish the fire, but Rostopchin himself repelled their aid. They beheld him, amid the flames which he was encouraging, smiling at the demolition of this magnificent edifice, and then with a firm hand penning these words, which the French, shuddering with astonishment, afterwards read on the iron gate of a church which was left standing: "For eight years I have been embellishing this country-seat, where I have lived happily in the bosom of my family. The inhabitants of this estate, to the number of 1720, leave it on your approach, while I have set fire to my house, that it may not be polluted by your presence. Frenchmen, I have relinquished to you my two houses at Moscow, with their furniture, worth half a million of rubles. Here you will find nothing but ashes!"
It was near this place that Murat came up with Kutusoff. On the 29th of September there was a smart engagement of cavalry and another on the 4th ofOctober. Murat fought till nightfall, and repulsed the Russian force.
Meanwhile, the conflagration at Moscow, which commenced in the night of the 14th of September, suspended through our exertions during the day of the 15th, revived the following night, and, raging with the utmost violence on the 16th, 17th, and 18th, abated on the 19th: it ceased altogether on the 20th, and on that day Napoleon returned to the Kremlin. To this point he attracted the looks of all Europe. There he awaited his convoys, his re-enforcements, and the stragglers of his army; certain that his soldiers would all be rallied by his victory, by the allurements of a rich booty, by the imposing sight of captive Moscow, and, above all, by his own glory, which, from the summit of this immense pile of ruins, still shone attractive like a beacon upon a rock.
Twice, however, on the 22d and 28th of September, letters from Murat had wellnigh drawn him from this fatal abode. They announced a battle; and twice the orders for departure were written, and then burned. It seemed as though the war was finished for the emperor, and that he was only waiting for an answer from St. Petersburg. He nourished his hopes with the recollections of Tilsit and Erfurt.[155]Was it possible that at Moscow he should have less ascendancy over Alexander? Then, as is common with men who have long been the favorites of fortune, what he ardently wished he confidently expected.
His genius possessed, besides, the extraordinary faculty of being able to throw aside the most important occupationwhenever he pleased, either for the sake of variety or for rest; for in him the power of will surpassed that of imagination. In this respect he reigned over himself no less despotically than he did over others.
Thus Paris diverted his attention from Petersburg. His accumulating affairs and the couriers, which in the first days succeeded each other without intermission, served to engage him. But the rapidity with which he transacted business soon left him again with nothing to do. His expresses,[156]which at first came from France in a fortnight, now ceased to arrive. A few military posts, placed in four towns reduced to ashes, and in wooden houses rudely palisaded, were wholly insufficient to guard a road of nearly two hundred and eighty miles; for we had been able to fix only these few steps, and at so great a distance apart, on so long a ladder. This too lengthened line of operation was consequently broken at every point where it was touched by the enemy: a few peasants, or a handful of Cossacks, were quite sufficient for the purpose.
Still no answer was received from Alexander. The uneasiness of Napoleon increased, while his means of diverting his attention from it diminished. The activity of his genius, accustomed to the government of all Europe, had nothing with which to occupy itself but the management of one hundred thousand men; and then, the organization of his army was so perfect, that this was scarcely any occupation to him. Here everything was fixed: he held all the wires in his hand: he was surrounded by ministers who could tell him immediately, at any hour of the day, the position of each man in the morning or at night, whether with his colors, in the hospital, on leave ofabsence, or wherever else he might be, and that, from Moscow to Paris: to such a degree of perfection had the science of a concentrated administration been then brought, so experienced and well chosen were the officers, and so much was required by their commander.
But eleven days had already elapsed: still Alexander was silent, and still did Napoleon hope to overcome his rival by obstinacy: thus losing the time which he ought to have gained, and which might have been made so serviceable against attack.
From this period all his actions indicated to the Russians, still more strongly than at Witepsk, that their mighty foe was resolved to fix himself in the heart of their empire. Moscow, though in ashes, received a governor and municipal officers: orders also were issued to provision it for the winter: and a theatre was formed amid its ruins. The first actors of Paris, it is said, were sent for. An Italian singer strove to reproduce in the Kremlin the evening entertainments of the Tuileries. By such means Napoleon expected to dupe a government which the habit of reigning over ignorance and error had rendered an adept in all these delusions.
He was himself sensible of the inadequacy of these means, and yet September was past, and October had begun. Alexander had not deigned to reply! it was an affront! he was exasperated. On the 3d of October, after a night of restlessness and irritation, he summoned his marshals. "Come in," said he, as soon as he perceived them; "hear the new plan which I have conceived: Prince Eugene, read it." They listened. "We must burn the remains of Moscow, and march by Twer to St. Petersburg, where we shall be joined by Macdonald. Muratand Davoust will form the rear guard." The emperor, all animation, fixed his sparkling eyes on his generals, whose rigid and silent countenances expressed nothing but astonishment.
Then exalting himself in order to rouse them, "What!" said he, "and areyounot inflamed by this idea? Was there ever so great a military achievement? Henceforth this conquest is the only one that is worthy of us! With what glory shall we be covered, and what will the whole world say when it learns that in three months we have conquered the two great capitals of the North!"
But Davoust, as well as Daru, objected to him "the season, the want of supplies, a sterile desert, and artificial road, that from Twer to St. Petersburg runs for a hundred leagues through morasses, and which three hundred peasants might in a single day render impassable. Why keep proceeding north? Why go to meet, to provoke, and to defy the winter? it was already too near; and what was to become of the six thousand wounded still in Moscow? Were they then to be left to the mercy of Kutusoff? That general would not fail to follow close at our heels. We should have at once to attack and to defend, thus marching to a conquest as though we were in flight."
These officers have declared that they themselves then proposed various plans: a useless trouble with a prince whose genius outstripped all other imaginations, and whom their objections would not have stopped, had he been fully determined to march on St. Petersburg. But that idea was in him only a sally of anger, an inspiration of despair, on finding himself obliged in the face of Europe to give way, to relinquish his conquest and to fall back.
It was more especially a threat to frighten his officersas well as the enemy, and to bring about and to promote a negotiation which Caulaincourt was to open. That officer had made himself agreeable to Alexander; he was the only one of the grandees of Napoleon's court who had acquired any influence over his rival; but for some months past Napoleon had kept him at a distance, because he had not been able to induce him to approve of his expedition.
It was nevertheless to this very man that he was now obliged to have recourse, and to disclose his anxiety. He sent for him; but, when alone with him, he hesitated. Taking him by the arm, he walked to and fro for a long time in great agitation, his pride preventing him from breaking so painful a silence: at length he yielded, but in a threatening manner. Caulaincourt, who had formerly been minister to Russia, was to persuade the enemy to solicit peace of him, as if it were by his condescension that it was to be granted.
After a few words, which were scarcely articulate, he said that "he was about to march to St. Petersburg. He knew that the destruction of that city would give pain to General Caulaincourt. Russia would then rise against the Emperor Alexander; there would at once be a conspiracy against that monarch; he would be assassinated, which would be a most unfortunate circumstance. He esteemed that prince, and should regret him, both for his own sake and that of France. His disposition," he added, "was suited to our interests: no prince could replace him with so much advantage to us. He had thought, therefore, of sending General Caulaincourt to him, to prevent such a catastrophe."
General Caulaincourt, however, more obstinate than disposed to flattery, did not alter his tone. He maintainedthat "these overtures would be useless; that, unless the Russian territory was entirely evacuated, Alexander would listen to no proposals; that Russia was sensible of all her advantage at this season of the year; nay, more, that this step would be detrimental to himself, inasmuch as it would demonstrate the need which he had of peace, and betray all the embarrassment of our situation."
He added, "that the more particular he was in the selection of his negotiator, the more clearly would he show his anxiety; that, therefore, he (Caulaincourt) would be more likely to fail than any other, especially as he would go with the certainty of failing." The emperor abruptly terminated the conversation by these words: "Well, then, I will send Lauriston."
The latter asserts that he added fresh objections to the preceding, and that, being urged by the emperor, he recommended to him to begin his retreat that very day, by way of Kaluga. Napoleon, irritated at this, sharply replied, "that he liked simple plans, less circuitous routes, high roads, the road by which he had come, yet he would not retrace it but with peace." Then showing to him, as he had done to General Caulaincourt, the letter which he had written to Alexander, he ordered him to go and obtain of Kutusoff a safe conduct to St. Petersburg. The last words of the emperor to Lauriston were, "I want peace, I must have peace, I absolutely will have peace only save my honor."
The general set out, and reached the advanced posts of the Russians on the 5th of October. Hostilities were instantly suspended, and an interview granted, at which Wolkonsky, aid-de-camp to Alexander, and Beningsen were present, without Kutusoff. Wilson asserts that theRussian generals and officers, suspicious of their commander, and accusing him of weakness, had raised a cry of treason, and that the latter had not dared to leave his camp.
As Lauriston's instructions purported that he was to address himself to no one but Kutusoff, he peremptorily rejected any intermediate communication; and seizing, as he said, this occasion for breaking off a negotiation which he disapproved, he retired, in spite of all the solicitations of Wolkonsky, with the intention of returning to Moscow. Had he carried this into effect, no doubt Napoleon, exasperated, would have fallen upon Kutusoff, overthrown him and destroyed his army, as yet very incomplete, and forced him into a peace. In case of less decisive success, he would at least have been able to retire without loss upon his reinforcements.
Unfortunately, Beningsen desired an interview with Murat. Lauriston waited. The chief of the Russian staff, an abler negotiator than soldier, strove to charm this monarch of yesterday by demonstrations of respect; to seduce him by praises; to deceive him with smooth words, breathing nothing but a weariness of war and the hope of peace; and Murat, tired of battles, anxious respecting their result, and, as it is said, regretting his throne, now that he had no hope of a better, suffered himself to be charmed, seduced, and deceived.
It was soon demonstrated that the chief point in which they were all agreed was to deceive Murat and the emperor; and in this they succeeded. These details transported Napoleon with joy. Credulous from hope, perhaps from despair, he was for some moments dazzled by these appearances: eager to escape from the inward feeling which oppressed him, he seemed desirous to deaden it byresigning himself to an expansive joy. He therefore summoned all his generals, and triumphantly announced to them a speedy peace. "They had but to wait another fortnight. None but himself was acquainted with the Russian character. On the receipt of his letter St. Petersburg would be illuminated." But the armistice[157]proposed by Kutusoff was so unsatisfactory to him, that he ordered Murat to break it instantly; it nevertheless continued to be observed, the cause of which is not known.
This armistice was a very singular one. If either party wished to break it, three hours' notice was to be sufficient. It was confined to the fronts of the two camps, but did not extend to their flanks: such, at least, was the interpretation put upon it by the Russians. Thus, we could not bring up a convoy, or send out a foraging party, without fighting; so that the war continued everywhere excepting where it could be favorable to us.
As for the emperor, who was not so easily deceived, he had but a few moments of factitious joy. He soon complained "that an annoying warfare of partisans[158]hovered around him; that, notwithstanding all these pacific demonstrations, bodies of Cossacks were prowling on his flanks and in his rear. Had not one hundred and fifty dragoons of his Old Guard been surprised and routed by a number of these barbarians? And this two days after the armistice, on the road to Mojaisk, on his line of operation, that by which the army communicated with its magazines, its reinforcements, and he himself with Europe?"
Our soldiers, and especially our cavalry, were obliged every morning to go to a great distance in quest ofprovisions for the evening and for the next day; and as the environs of Moscow and Vinkowo became gradually more and more drained, they were daily compelled to extend their excursions. Both men and horses returned worn out with fatigue, that is to say, such of them as returned at all; for we had to fight for every bushel of rye and for every truss of forage. It was a series of incessant surprises and skirmishes, and of continual losses. The peasantry took part in it. They punished with death such of their number as the prospect of gain had allured to our camp with provisions. Others set fire to their own villages to drive our foragers out of them, and to give them up to the Cossacks, whom they had previously summoned, and who kept us there in a state of siege.
Thus the war was everywhere: in our front, on our flanks, and in our rear. Our army was constantly weakening, and the enemy becoming daily more enterprising. This conquest seemed destined to fare like many others, which are won in the mass, and lost piece-meal.
Murat himself at length grew uneasy. In these daily skirmishes he had seen half the remnant of his cavalry melted away. At the advanced posts, the Russian officers, on meeting with ours, either from weariness, vanity, or military frankness carried to indiscretion, exaggerated the disasters which threatened us. Showing us those wild-looking horses, scarcely at all broken in, whose long manes swept the dust of the plain, they said, "Did not this tell us that a numerous cavalry was joining them from all quarters, while ours was gradually perishing? Did not the continual discharges of firearms within their line apprise us that a multitude of recruits were then training under favor of the armistice?"
And, in fact, notwithstanding the long journeys which they had to make, all these recruits joined the army. There was no occasion to defer calling them together, as in other years, till deep snows, obstructing all the roads excepting the high road, rendered their desertion impossible. Not one failed to obey the national appeal; all Russia rose: mothers, it was said, wept for joy on learning that their sons had been selected for soldiers: they hastened to acquaint them with the glorious intelligence, and even accompanied them to see them marked with the sign of the Crusaders, to hear them cry,'Tis the will of God!
The Russian officers added "that they were particularly astonished at our security on the approach of their frightful winter, which was their natural and most formidable ally, and which they expected every moment: they pitied us and urged us to fly. In a fortnight," said they, "your nails will drop off, and your muskets will fall from your benumbed and half-dead fingers."
The language of some of the Cossack chiefs was also remarkable. They asked our officers "if they had not, in their own country, corn enough, air enough, and graves enough: in short, room enough to live and die? Why, then, did they come so far from home to throw away their lives, and to fatten a foreign soil with their blood?" They added that "this was a robbery of their native land, which while living it is our duty to cultivate, to defend, and to embellish; and to which, after our death, we owe our bodies, which we received from it, which it has fed, and which, in their turn, ought to feed it."
The emperor was not ignorant of these warnings, but he would not suffer his resolution to be shaken by them.The uneasiness which had again seized him betrayed itself in angry orders. It was then that he caused the churches of the Kremlin to be stripped of everything that could serve for a trophy to the Grand Army. These objects, devoted to destruction by the Russians themselves, belonged, he said, to the conquerors, by the double right conferred by victory and by the conflagration.
It required long efforts to remove the gigantic cross from the steeple of Ivan the Great, to the possession of which the Russians attached the salvation of their empire. The emperor determined that it should adorn the dome of the Invalides[159]at Paris. During the work it was remarked that a great number of ravens kept flying round this cross, and that Napoleon, weary of their hoarse croaking, exclaimed that "it seemed as if these flocks of ill-omened birds meant to defend it." We cannot pretend to tell all that he thought in this critical situation, but it is well known that he was accessible to every kind of presentiment.
His nights, in particular, became irksome to him. He passed part of them with Count Daru. It was then only that he admitted the danger of his situation. "From Wilna to Moscow, what submission, what point of support, of rest, or of retreat, marked his power? It was a vast, bare, and desert field of battle, in which his diminished army was imperceptible, insulated, and, as it were, lost in the horrors of an immense void. In this country of foreign manners and religion he had not conquered a single individual: he was, in fact, master only of the ground on which he stood. That which he had just quitted and leftbehind him was no more his than that which he had not reached. Insufficient for these vast deserts, he was lost, as it were, in their immense space."
He then reviewed the different resolutions of which he still had the choice. "People imagined," he said, "that he had nothing to do but march, without considering that it would take a month to refit his army and to evacuate his hospitals; that if he relinquished his wounded, the Cossacks would daily be seen triumphing over his sick and his stragglers. He would appear to fly. All Europe would resound with the report! Europe, which envied him, which was seeking a rival under whom to rally, and would imagine that it had found such a rival in Alexander."
The letter of which Lauriston was the bearer to the Czar had been despatched on the 6th of October, and the answer to it could scarcely arrive before the 20th: still, in spite of so many threatening demonstrations, the pride, the policy, and perhaps the health of Napoleon induced him to pursue the worst of all courses, that of waiting for this answer, and of trusting to time, which was destroying him. Daru, as well as his other officers, was astonished to find in him no longer that prompt decision, variable and rapid as the occurrences which called it forth: they asserted that his genius could no longer accommodate itself to circumstances; and they placed it to the account of his natural persistence, which had led to his elevation, and which seemed destined to cause his downfall.
§ 9. Napoleon determines to leave Moscow.
Napoleon, however, was completely aware of his situation. To him everything seemed lost if he receded in theface of astonished Europe, and everything saved if he could surpass Alexander in determination. He appreciated but too well the means that were left him to shake the constancy of his rival; he knew that the diminishing number of his effective troops, that his situation, the season, in short, everything, would become daily more and more unfavorable to him; but he reckoned upon that magic force which his renown gave him. Hitherto that had lent to him a real and never failing strength: he endeavored, therefore, to keep up, by specious arguments, the confidence of his army, and perhaps, also, the faint hope that was still left to himself.
Moscow, empty of inhabitants, no longer furnished him with anything to lay hold of. "It is no doubt a misfortune," he said, "but this misfortune is not without its advantage. Had it been otherwise, he would not have been able to keep order in so large a city, to overawe a population of three hundred thousand souls, and to sleep in the Kremlin but at the hazard of assassination. They have left us nothing but ruins, but at least we are quiet among them. Millions have no doubt slipped through our hands, but how many thousand millions is Russia losing! Her commerce is ruined for a century to come. The nation is thrown back fifty years, which of itself is an important result; and when the first moment of enthusiasm is passed, this reflection will fill them with consternation." The conclusion which he drew was, "that so violent a shock would convulse the throne of Alexander, and force that prince to sue for peace."
In reviewing his different corps, their reduced battalions now presented so narrow a front that he was but a moment in traversing it, and this palpable diminution of theirnumbers evidently vexed him; either, therefore, to deceive his enemies or his own soldiers, he declared that the practice hitherto pursued of ranging the men three deep was wrong, and that two were sufficient; and he ordered his infantry in future to be drawn up in two ranks only.
Nay, more: he even insisted that the inflexibility of the regimental returns should give way to this illusion. He disputed their results; and the obstinacy of Count Lobau could not overcome his. He was desirous, no doubt, of making his aid-de-camp[160]understand what he wished others to believe, and that nothing could shake his resolution.
Meanwhile the attitude of his army seconded his wishes. Most of the officers persevered in their confidence. The common soldiers, who saw their whole lives in the present, and expected but little from the future, were for the most part unconcerned about it, and still retained their thoughtlessness, the most valuable of their qualities. The rewards, however, which the emperor bestowed profusely upon them in the daily reviews, were received at best with a sedate joy, mingled with some degree of dejection. The vacant places about to be filled up were yet freshly dyed with blood: these favors were menacing.
On the other hand, when leaving Wilna, many of them had thrown away their winter garments, that they might load themselves with provisions. Their shoes were worn out by the length of the march, and the rest of their apparel by the successive actions in which they had been engaged; but, in spite of all, their attitude was still lofty. They carefully concealed their wretched plight from the notice of the emperor, and appeared before him with theirarms bright and in the best order. In this first court of the palace of the Czars, full sixteen hundred miles from their resources, and after so many battles and bivouacs, they were anxious to appear still clean, alert, and prompt, for herein consists the pride of the soldier; and here they piqued themselves upon it the more, on account of the difficulty, in order to astonish, and because man prides himself on whatever requires extraordinary effort.
The emperor complaisantly affected to know no better, catching at everything to keep up his hopes; when all at once the first snows fell. With them fell all the illusions with which he had endeavored to surround himself. From that moment he thought of nothing but retreat, without, however, pronouncing the word, and yet no positive order for it could be obtained from him. He merely said that in twenty days the army must be in winter quarters, and he urged the departure of his wounded. On this as on other occasions, he would not consent to the voluntary relinquishment of anything, however trifling: there was a deficiency of horses for his artillery, now too numerous for an army so reduced; but it did not signify, and he flew into a passion at the proposal to leave part of it behind. "No; the enemy would make a trophy of it;" and he insisted that everything should go along with him.
In this desert country he gave orders for the purchase of 20,000 horses, and he expected forage for two months to be provided on a tract where the most distant and dangerous excursions were not sufficient for the supply of the passing day. Some of his officers were astonished to hear orders which it was so impossible to execute; but we have already seen that he sometimes issued such orders to deceive his enemies, and more frequently to indicate to hisown troops the extent of their necessities, and the exertions they were called on to make in order to supply them.
His distress manifested itself only in paroxysms of ill-humor, and this most frequently in the morning, at his levee. There, amid his assembled chiefs, in whose anxious looks he imagined he could read disapprobation, he seemed desirous to awe them by the severity of his manner, by his sharp tone, and his abrupt language. From the paleness of his face, however, it was evident that Truth, whose best time for obtaining a hearing is in the stillness of night, had annoyed him grievously by her presence, and oppressed him with her unwelcome light. Sometimes, on these occasions, his bursting heart would overflow, and pour forth its sorrows without any restraint. His agitation was manifested at such times by movements of extreme impatience; but, so far from lightening his griefs, he only aggravated them by those acts of injustice for which he reproached himself, and which he was afterwards anxious to repair.
It was only to Count Daru that he unbosomed himself frankly, but without any weakness. He said "he should march upon Kutusoff, crush or drive him back, and then turn suddenly towards Smolensk." Daru, who had before approved this course, replied that "it was now too late; that the Russian army was re-enforced, his own weakened, and his victory forgotten; that, the moment his troops turned their faces towards home, they would slip away from him by degrees; that each soldier, laden with booty, would try to get the start of the army, for the purpose of disposing of it in France." "What, then, is to be done?" exclaimed the emperor. "Remain here," replied Daru; "make one vast intrenched camp of Moscow, and pass the winter in it. He would answer for it that there would beno want of bread and salt: the rest foraging on a large scale would supply. Such of the horses as they could not procure food for might be salted down. As to lodgings, if there were not houses enough, the cellars might make up the deficiency. Here we might stay till the return of spring, when our re-enforcements and all Lithuania in arms would come to relieve, to join us, and to complete the conquest."
After listening to this proposal the emperor was for some time silent and thoughtful: he then replied, "This is a lion's counsel! But what would Paris say? What would they do there? What have they been doing there for the last three weeks that they have not heard from me? Who knows what would be the effect of a suspension of communication for six months? No: France would not accustom itself to my absence, and Prussia and Austria would take advantage of it."
Still Napoleon could not make up his mind either to stay or to depart. Though overcome in this struggle of pertinacity, he deferred from day to day the avowal of his defeat. Amid the threatening storm of men and elements which was gathering around him, his ministers and aids-de-camp saw him pass whole days in discussing the merits of some new verses which he had received, or the regulations for one of the French theatres at Paris, which he took three evenings to finish. As they were acquainted with his deep anxiety, they could not but admire the strength of his genius, and the facility with which he could take off the whole force of his attention from, or fix it on, whatever subject he pleased.
It was merely remarked that he prolonged his meals, which had hitherto been so simple and so short. Heseemed desirous of stifling thought by repletion. He would then pass whole hours half reclined, and as if torpid, awaiting with a novel in his hand the catastrophe of his terrible history. In contemplating this obstinate and inflexible character thus struggling with impossibility, his officers would observe to each other that, having arrived at the summit of his glory, he no doubt foresaw that from his first retrograde step would date its decline; that for this reason he continued immovable, clinging to, and lingering a few moments longer on, his proud elevation.
Kutusoff, meanwhile, was gaining the time which we were losing. His letters to Alexander described "his army as being in the midst of plenty; his recruits arriving from all quarters, and being rapidly trained; his wounded recovering in the bosom of their families; the whole of the peasantry on foot, some in arms, some on the look-out from the tops of steeples or in our camp, while others were stealing into our habitations, and even into the Kremlin. Rostopchin received a daily report of what was passing at Moscow as regularly as before its capture. If they undertook to be our guides, it was for the purpose of delivering us into his hands. His partisans were every day bringing in some hundreds of prisoners. Everything concurred to destroy the enemy's army and to strengthen his own; to serve him and to betray us; in a word, the campaign, which was over for us, was but just about to begin for them."
Kutusoff neglected no advantage. He made his camp ring with the news of the victory of Salamanca. "The French," said he, "are expelled from Madrid. The hand of the Most High presses heavily upon Napoleon. Moscow will be his prison, his grave, and that of the whole of his Grand Army. We shall soon subdue France in Russia!"It was in such language that the Russian general addressed his troops and his emperor; and still he kept up appearances with Murat. At once bold and crafty, he contrived gradually to prepare a sudden and impetuous warfare, and to cover his plans for our destruction with demonstrations of kindness and honeyed words.
But at length, after so many days of illusion, the charm was all at once dispelled. A single Cossack dissolved it. This barbarian fired at Murat, at the moment when that prince came as usual to show himself at the advanced posts. Highly exasperated, the king immediately declared to Miloradovitch that an armistice which had been incessantly violated was now at an end, and that thenceforward each party must look only to itself.
At the same time he apprised the emperor that the woody country on his left might favor the enemy's attempts against his flank and rear; that his first line, being backed against a ravine, might be precipitated into it; that, in short, the position which he then occupied, in advance of a defile, was dangerous, and rendered a retrograde movement absolutely necessary. But Napoleon would not consent to this step, though he had at first pointed out Woronowo as a more secure position. In this war, still in his view rather political than military, he dreaded above all things the appearance of receding. He preferred risking everything rather than acknowledge to his enemies the slightest irresolution.
Amid these preparations, and at the moment when Napoleon was reviewing Ney's divisions in the first court of the Kremlin, a report was all at once circulated that the sound of cannon was heard towards Vinkowo. It was some time before any one dared to apprise him of thecircumstance; some from incredulity or uncertainty, and dreading the first movement of his impatience; others from weakness, hesitating to provoke a terrible explosion or apprehensive of being sent to verify the assertion, and exposed to a fatiguing excursion.
Duroc at length took courage to inform him. The emperor was at first agitated; but, quickly recovering himself, he continued the review. An aid-de-camp, young Béranger, arrived shortly after with intelligence that Murat's first line had been surprised and overthrown, his left turned by favor of the woods, his flank attacked, and his retreat cut off: that twelve pieces of cannon, twenty ammunition wagons, and thirty wagons belonging to the train were taken, two generals killed, three or four thousand men lost, as well as the baggage; and, lastly, that the king himself was wounded. He had not been able to rescue the relics of his advanced guard from the enemy but by repeatedly charging their numerous troops, which already occupied the high road in his rear, his only retreat.
Our honor, however, had been saved. The attack in front, directed by Kutusoff, was feeble; Poniatowski, at some leagues' distance on the right, made a glorious resistance; Murat and his resolute men, by almost superhuman exertions, checked Bagawout, who was ready to penetrate our left flank, and restored the fortunes of the day; while Claparède and Latour-Maubourg cleared the defile of Spaskapli, two leagues in the rear of our line, which was already occupied by Platoff. Two Russian generals were killed, and others wounded: the loss of the enemy was considerable, but the advantage of the attack, our cannon, our position, the victory, in short, was theirs.
As for Murat, he had no longer an advanced guard.The armistice had destroyed half the remnant of his cavalry. This engagement had finished it; the survivors, emaciated with hunger, were so few as scarcely to furnish a charge. Thus had the war in earnest recommenced; and it was now the 18th of October.
At these tidings Napoleon recovered the fire of his youth. A thousand orders, general and particular, all differing, yet all in unison and all necessary, burst at once from his impetuous genius. Night had not yet arrived, and the whole army was already in motion. The emperor himself quitted Moscow before daylight on the 19th of October. "Let us march upon Kaluga," said he, "and woe be to those whom I meet with by the way!"