The beaten Russian troops only passed through Moscow, and went on to re-form thirty leagues further, towards Kalouga. King Murat followed them with infantry and cavalry, while the guard remained in the city, and Napoleon established himself in the Kremlin, the ancient palace of the Czars. All was apparently quiet, when, on the night of September 15th, the French and German traders who had escaped the governor's search came and warned Napoleon's staff that the town was about to be set on fire. This was soon confirmed by a Russian police-agent, who couldn't make up his mind to execute the orders of his chief. He said that before leaving Moscow Rostopchin had set free the prisoners, and distributed to them torches made by English workmen. The incendiaries were in the palace awaiting the signal. The Emperor at once prescribed the most severe measures. The streets were patrolled, and many brigands caught in the act of arson were killed. But it was too late; the fire burst out at different points, and spread all the more rapidly that Rostopchin had had all the pumps removed; so that in a short time Moscow was one fiery furnace. The Emperor left the Kremlin, and took refuge in the château of Peterskoe; only returned three days later, when the fire was beginning to burn itself out. I shall not enter into any details of the burning of Moscow, as the story has been told by several eye-witnesses, 1but will discuss later on the effects of this enormous catastrophe.

Napoleon, misconceiving Alexander's situation, was always in hope of his coming to terms. At length, tired of waiting, he decided to write to him. Meanwhile the Russian army was being reorganized in the direction of Kalouga, whence its commander sent officers towards Moscow to bring back to their regiments the stragglers, who were estimated at 15,000. These men had retired to the suburbs, and went about freely among our bivouacs, sitting at our soldiers' fires, and eating with them; without its occurring to anyone to make them prisoners. This was a mistake, for they gradually rejoined their army, while ours was growing weaker every day from sickness and the effects of the first cold weather. Our loss in horses, owing to the immense labour which Murat had throughout the campaign imposed on the cavalry, was enormous. Mindful of his brilliant successes against the Prussians in 1806 and 1807, he thought that cavalry could do anything, and march twelve or fifteen leagues a day, the only thing necessary being to bring the heads of his columns in contact with the enemy. But the conditions were much changed by the climate, the difficulty of getting forage, the length of the campaign, and, above all, Russian tenacity. Thus when we arrived at Moscow half the cavalry had no horses, and Murat destroyed the rest in the province of Kalouga. Proud of his stature and his courage, and always bedizened in strange but brilliant costumes, the prince had attracted the notice of the enemy, and liked to parley with them, exchanging presents with the Cossack leaders. Kutusoff took advantage of these meetings to keep up false hopes of peace, which were passed on from Murat to the Emperor. But one day the same enemy who said he was growing weak roused himself, slipped through our cantonments, and walked off with several baggage-trains, a squadron of dragoons of the guard, and a battalion of the line. From that time Napoleon forbade all communication with the Russians except by his authority.

He did not, however, lose all hope of peace. On October 4 he sent General Lauriston to Kutusoff's headquarters. The cunning Russian showed Lauriston a letter from himself to the Emperor Alexander urging him to accept the French proposals, seeing, as he said, that the Russian army was in no state to continue the war. But hardly had the officer bearing this despatch started for St. Petersburg, furnished by Lauriston with a passport to guard him against attack from any of our people who were prowling between the two armies, when Kutusoff sent a second aide-de-camp to his Emperor. Having no French passport he was caught by our patrols, arrested as lawful prize, and his despatches sent to Napoleon. They contained the very opposite of what Kutusoff had shown to Lauriston. In fact, the Russian marshal, after begging his sovereign not to treat with the French, announced that Admiral Tchichagoff's army, having left Wallachia after peace made with the Turks, was advancing on Minsk to cut off Napoleon's retreat. He further informed Alexander of the conversation which he had been so diligently keeping up with Murat, in order to maintain the French in their mischievous security at Moscow at so advanced a season of the year. At sight of this letter Napoleon, perceiving that he had been tricked, burst into a violent rage, and, it is said, formed a plan of marching on St. Petersburg. But the weakness of his army and the rigours of winter were in the way of that expedition; and, moreover, he had important reasons for wishing to be near Germany, and in a better position for keeping an eye on it and on affairs in France. A conspiracy had broken out in Paris, and for one day its leaders had been in possession of the capital. General Malet, an excitable person, had thrown the spark which might have kindled a blaze; and if he had not been met by a man no less clear-headed than energetic, in the person of Laborde, it might have been all up with the Imperial Government. Even so the incident made a great impression, and Napoleon's grief at learning the danger in which his family and his ministers had been may be imagined.

Meanwhile his position at Moscow was growing daily more serious. The cold was already intense, and only those soldiers who were French by birth retained their spirit. But they were not the half of those whom Napoleon had led into Russia. The rest were Germans, Swiss, Croats, Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese. All these foreigners, who remained loyal so long as the army prospered, were beginning to grumble; Russian agents inundated our camps with proclamations in divers languages; and the men began to desert in great numbers under promise that they should be sent home. Besides this, the two wings of the Grand Army, composed solely of Austrians and Prussians, were no longer in line with the centre as when the campaign began, but were in our rear, ready to bar our road at a word from their sovereigns, the ancient and irreconcilable enemies of France. The position was most critical; and, bitter as it was to Napoleon's pride, by withdrawing before he had imposed peace on Alexander, to admit to the whole world that he had missed the aim of his expedition, the word 'retreat' was at last spoken. Not yet, however, had the Emperor or the marshals or anyone any idea of leaving Russia and recrossing the Niemen; it was only a question of taking up winter quarters in some of the least uncomfortable provinces of Poland.

The evacuation of Moscow was thus practically settled; but, before making up his mind to carry it out, Napoleon, with some last hope of an understanding, sent Caulaincourt, the Duke of Vicenza, to Marshal Kutusoff, but got no reply. During this delay our army was melting away daily, while in blind confidence our outposts were left exposed in the province of Kalouga. Suddenly an unexpected event occurred, to open the eyes of the most incredulous, and destroy any hopes which the Emperor might retain on the subject of peace.

General Sébastiani, whom we saw allowing himself to be surprised at Druia, had replaced Montbrun in the command of the 2nd cavalry corps. Close to the enemy as he was, he passed his days in slippers reading Italian poetry and never reconnoitring. Kutusoff took advantage of this, and on October 18 marched on Sébastiani's corps, surrounded it, overwhelmed it by superior numbers, and compelled it to abandon part of its artillery. The three cavalry divisions only succeeded in rejoining Murat's troops by cutting down several battalions of the enemy who tried in vain to oppose their passage. Sébastiani, who was brave enough, displayed much courage in the fight; but as a general he may be noted for mediocrity. When we come to the campaign of 1813 you will have further proof of it.

Simultaneously with this surprise of Sébastiani, Kutusoff attacked Murat all along his line; and the prince himself was slightly wounded. The Emperor heard of the affair the same day; also that 10,000 cavalry from the army of Wallachia had been permitted by our allies the Austrians to reach the enemy's camp. Thereupon he ordered that the retreat should begin next day.

On the morning of October 19 the Emperor left Moscow. He had entered it on September 15. He himself, with the Old Guard and the main body of the army, took the road to Kalouga. Marshal Mortier and two divisions of the Young Guard stayed for twenty-four hours in the city to complete its ruin by blowing up the Kremlin, with orders to bring up the rear. The army was followed by more than 40,000 vehicles, which blocked the defiles. When this was remarked to the Emperor he said that each of them would save two wounded, and would feed several men, while they would gradually be got rid of. This philanthropic system seems to me open to objection; for the need of lightening the march of an army in retreat appears to take precedence of all other considerations.

While the French were at Moscow, King Murat and his cavalry had been occupying part of the province of Kalouga, but had not taken the town of that name, the neighbourhood of which is very fertile. The Emperor, wishing to avoid passing the battlefield of the Moskwa, and taking the Mojaisk road, the resources of which the army had already exhausted, took the line of Kalouga. From this he hoped to reach Smolensk through a fertile and unexhausted district. But, after several days' march, our troops, which since Murat had rejoined them, amounted still to over 100,000 men, found themselves in presence of the Russian army, occupying the little town of Malo-Jaroslavitz. The enemy's position was exceedingly strong, but the Emperor none the less ordered Eugène to attack it with the Italian corps and the divisions of Morand and Gérard. Nothing could stay the dash of our troops, and they took the town after a long and murderous engagement, which cost us 4,000 men killed and wounded. General Delzons, a most deserving officer, was among the killed. Next day, October 24, the Emperor, astounded by the brisk resistance by which he had been met, and knowing that the whole Russian army blocked his road, halted his troops, and spent three days in considering what steps he should take.

During a reconnaissance Napoleon was on the verge of being captured by the enemy. It was a thick fog. Suddenly the shouts of 'Hourra! hourra!' were heard, and a number of Cossacks issued from a wood near the road. They crossed the road twenty paces from the Emperor, overturning and spearing all whom they met as they passed. But General Rapp, dashing forward at the head of two squadrons of chasseurs and mounted grenadiers of the guard, put the enemy to flight. In this fight M. Le Couteulx, my old comrade on Lannes' staff, now Prince Berthier's aide-de-camp, having armed himself with the lance of a Cossack whom he had slain, was imprudent enough to return brandishing the weapon. It was the more imprudent that he had on a furred pelisse and cap, under which the French uniform could not be seen. Accordingly, a grenadier, taking him for a Cossack officer, and seeing him make for the Emperor, pursued him, and ran him through with his gigantic sabre. In spite of this frightful wound Le Couteulx survived both the cold and the fatigues of the retreat, and got back to France, travelling in one of the Emperor's carriages.

Napoleon, having assured himself by reconnaissances that it was impossible to continue his march towards Kalouga, except by fighting a sanguinary battle against Kutusoff's numbers, decided to regain Smolensk by way of Mojaisk. So the army left a fertile region to follow a route which they had devastated and had traversed in September amid blazing villages and heaps of corpses. The nature of the Emperor's movement, which resulted in bringing him, after ten days' hard work, to a point only twelve leagues from Moscow, made the troops very anxious as to the future. The weather became fearful; and after blowing up the Kremlin, Marshal Mortier rejoined the Emperor. Again the army beheld Mojaisk and the battlefield of the Moskwa. The ground was furrowed by cannon-balls and covered with debris of every kind, and 30,000 corpses half-devoured by wolves. The soldiers and the Emperor passed quickly, casting a sad look on this vast charnel-house.

In the first edition of his work on the campaign M. de Ségur says that as they passed the battlefield they saw an unhappy Frenchman, who, having had both his legs smashed in the fight, had packed himself into the body of a dead horse and had lived there for fifty days, using the flesh of the animal both to feed himself and to dress his wounds. It was pointed out to him that the man would have been stifled by the gases of decomposition, and that he would probably have preferred to cover his wounds with fresh earth, or even with glass, than to make them worse by bringing them into contact with putrid flesh. I only make this remark to put the reader on his guard against the exaggerations of a book the success of which was largely owing to its brilliant style.

Beyond Wiazma the march of the army was delayed by snowstorms and an icy wind. Many of the carriages were left behind, and thousands of men and horses perished from cold; the flesh of the horses supplied food to the soldiers, and even to the officers. The rear-guard passed from the command of Davout to that of Eugène, and finally came under Ney, who discharged this laborious duty for the rest of the campaign. Smolensk was reached on November 1. Napoleon had ordered a great quantity of provisions and clothing to be collected in that town; but the commissaries in charge, knowing nothing of the state of disorganization into which the army had fallen, would not distribute them without regular orders and the formalities usual under ordinary circumstances. These delays irritated the soldiers, dying as they were of hunger and cold. They broke into the storehouses and possessed themselves of the contents, so that many men got too much, some not enough, others nothing.

So long as the march of the troops was orderly the mixture of different nations had given rise only to slight inconvenience; but when misery and fatigue had broken up the ranks, discipline was at an end. How could it exist in an immense body of isolated individuals lacking everything, going along on their own account, and not understanding each other? A veritable confusion of tongues reigned in that disorderly mass. Some regiments, notably that of the guard, still held out. The troopers of the line regiments had lost nearly all their horses, and were formed into battalions. The officers who still were mounted composed the sacred squadrons, the command of which was entrusted to Generals Latour-Maubourg, Grouchy, and Sébastiani. They did the duties of mere captains, while major- generals and colonels acted as sergeants and corporals. An organization like this would, of itself, be sufficient to show to what extremities the army was reduced.

The Emperor had reckoned upon a strong division of troops of all arms, which General Baraguey d'Hilliers was to bring to Smolensk; but when they got near the town they learnt that that general had surrendered to a Russian column on the understanding that he alone should not be made prisoner but be allowed to go and join the French army to explain his conduct. The Emperor, however, would not see him, but ordered him to return to France and consider himself under arrest until he could be tried by court-martial. Baraguey d'Hilliers anticipated their judgment by dying of grief at Berlin. He had been one of Napoleon's mistakes. He had taken his fancy in the days of the Boulogne camp by promising to train the dragoons to serve as infantry or cavalry alike; but this system was tried in Austria during the campaign of 1805, and the veteran dragoons, dismounted and commanded by Baraguey d'Hilliers in person, were beaten at Werthingen under the Emperor's eyes. Their horses were given back to them, but they were beaten again, and for several years this arm felt the disorder into which Baraguey had thrown it. Having fallen into disgrace, he hoped to retrieve himself by asking leave to come to Russia, and there ruined himself finally in the Emperor's favour by capitulating without fighting, and violating the decrees which ordered the commander of a surrendered corps to share the fate of his troops and forbade him to ask for conditions favourable to himself alone.

After several days' halt at Smolensk to allow the stragglers to come up, the Emperor went on the 15th to Krasnoe, and thence sent an officer to the 2nd army corps on the Dwina, in which now his only hope of safety resided. The regiments composing this corps had undergone less fatigue and privation than those which had taken part in the march to Moscow; but, on the other hand, they had encountered the enemy much more frequently. Napoleon wished to reward them by appointing them to all the vacant posts, and had all the recommendations for promotion brought to him. There were several in my favour, one of which asked only for the rank of major (lieutenant-colonel) for me. The secretary happened to present this one, and I have it from General Grundier, who, having been ordered to bring these despatches, was at the moment in the Emperor's room, that Napoleon when signing struck out the word major and substituted colonel, remarking, 'I am discharging an old debt.' So at last I became colonel of the 23rd Chasseurs. It was November 15, but I did not hear of it till some time afterwards.

The retreat continued painfully, and the enemy, with ever increasing numbers, separated Prince Eugène's corps from the army, and also those of Davout and Ney. The first two succeeded with much difficulty in cutting their way through and getting back to the Emperor, who was in a state of painful anxiety about Ney's corps, several days having passed without any news of it. On November 19 Napoleon reached Orcha. A month had passed since he had left Moscow, and he was still 120 leagues from the Niemen; the cold was intense.

While the Emperor was agitated by gloomy uncertainty as to the fate of the rear-guard and its intrepid leader, Ney was performing one of the most brilliant feats of arms recorded in military annals. Leaving Smolensk on the 17th after blowing up the ramparts, the marshal had hardly started when he was assailed by myriads of the enemy, who attacked him on both flanks, in front, and in rear. Continually beating them off, Ney marched through their midst for three days; but he found himself checked at length by the dangerous passage of the Krasnoe ravine, beyond which could be seen a strong body of Russian troops, with a formidable artillery, which opened a brisk and well-maintained fire. Undismayed by this unforeseen obstacle, the marshal took the bold resolve of forcing the passage, and ordered the 48th of the line, commanded by Masséna's old aide-de-camp, Colonel Pelet, to charge with the bayonet. At the sound of Ney's voice the French soldiers, worn out as they were with fatigue and want, and numbed with the cold, dashed forward and carried the Russian batteries. The enemy recovered them, and our troops drove them out again, but they had at last to yield to numbers. The 48th was cut to pieces by grape-shot, and in great part destroyed. Out of 650 men who entered the ravine, 100 only came back, Colonel Pelet, severely wounded being of the number. Night came on, and all hope of the rear-guard rejoining the army appeared to be lost. But Ney had confidence in his troops, and above all in himself. By his orders numerous lines of fires were kindled so as to hold the enemy in their camp, in fear of a fresh attack on the morrow. The marshal had resolved to place the Dnieper between him and the Russians, and to entrust his destiny and that of his troops to the frail ice of the river. His only doubt was as to the road which he ought to take in order to reach the Dnieper as soon as possible. Just then a Russian colonel, coming from Krasnoe, presented himself as a flag of truce, and summoned Ney to lay down his arms. At the thought of such humiliation the marshal's anger burst forth, and, as the officer bore no written orders, Ney declared that he did not consider him as a flag of truce, but as a spy, and that he would have him bayoneted if he did not guide them to the nearest point of the Dnieper. The Russian colonel was compelled to obey, and Ney instantly gave orders to leave the camp in silence. Artillery, caissons, baggage, and wounded were abandoned, and, favoured by the darkness, he reached the banks of the Dnieper after four hours' march.

The river was frozen, but not hard enough to be practicable at all points, for there were many cracks and places where the ice was so thin that it gave way when several crossed at once. The marshal therefore made the soldiers cross in single file, and the passage of the river thus accomplished, Marshal Ney's troops deemed themselves in safety. But by the dawning light they perceived a large bivouac of Cossacks. The hetman, Platoff, was in command then, and as, according to his habit, he had been drinking all night, he was at that moment asleep. Now discipline is so strict in the Russian army, that no one dared to awake the chief, nor stand to arms without his order. The fragments of Ney's corps therefore edged along a league from the hetman's camp without being attacked; nor did they see any more of Platoff's Cossacks till the next day. For three days Marshal Ney marched, fighting incessantly, along the winding banks of the Dnieper, to Orcha, and on the 20th came in sight of the town. He hoped to find the Emperor and the army there; but between him and it there still lay a wide plain, occupied by a strong body of the enemy's infantry, which was advancing on him, the Cossacks, meanwhile, preparing to attack his rear. Taking up a defensible position, he sent several officers, one after another, to make sure that the French were still in Orcha; since otherwise further resistance would be of no avail. One of them reached the place, and found the headquarters still there. On learning that Ney had returned the Emperor evinced the greatest joy, and in order to deliver him from his dangerous situation he sent Eugène and Mortier to meet him. They repulsed the enemy, and brought Marshal Ney, with what remained of the brave men under his command, back to Orcha. This retreat did Ney the greatest credit.

That day the Emperor continued his retreat by Kokanoft and Toloczin, to Bobra, where he found Marshal Victor's troops lately arrived from Germany, and came into touch with the 2nd corps, the command of which Saint-Cyr had just handed back to Oudinot.