On the evening that the French entered Moscow, a few fires started. No-one was surprised at that, as the troops had lost no time in starting to loot the city and many of them were already drunk; so such accidents were to be expected.
After their many weeks of privation, Moscow was a bonanza. Not only were there big stores of flour and grain, but all the palaces and four-fifths of the houses had been abandoned by their owners. The cellars of many of them were well stocked with wine and brandy, there were frozen meat, fish and game in the ice pits, cakes, sweets and preserved fruit in the larders. There was hardly a soldier in Moscow that night not glutted with food, and drunk.
Next day there were many more fires and, tinder the pretext of saving things from the flames, the troops got down to looting on a grand scale. They ransacked every building, carrying off fine clothes, weapons, jeweled icons, brocade curtains, furniture and even chandeliers. To show their contempt for religion, they stalled their horses in the churches, chopped up for firewood the beautifully carved panels and stalls and used the altars as dinner tables. The sacred vessels of gold and silver were melted down and the relics of saints thrown out into the street.
But the fires soon became a serious menace, and it was realised that few of them were the result of accident. Among the people left in the city there was a considerable number of shaggy, bearded men dressed in a sort of uniform that consisted of a dirty, belted sheepskin kaftan. It transpired that they were convicts, who had been released from prison by Count Rostopchin before he left the city. Whether he had given them their freedom on condition that they became incendiaries, or whether they were inspired by a fanatical patriotism, was never satisfactorily determined. But they were setting fire to houses all over the place, and not even bothering to conceal what they were doing from the French.
Mortier, whom the Emperor had made Governor of the city, set about rounding them up. But by then it was too late. By the night of the 15th, three-quarters of Moscow was blazing, and the lurid glare of the flames was such that, three miles outside the city, one could read a book by their light.
Next day fire threatened the Kremlin. Berthier went up one of the towers to assess the danger of the situation, and nearly fell off the battlements which, had he done so, would have caused many of his compatriots to rejoice. His report was so alarming that Napoleon was persuaded to leave and move to the Petrovsky Palace outside the walk. It was too small to accommodate all his staff in comfort, so they suffered much inconvenience. On the fourth day they were able to return to the Kremlin. It had been saved and, by then, most of the fires had been put out; but the greater part of Moscow was a smoking ruin.
The looting and carousing continued. Some fifteen thousand of the poorer people had remained in the city, so there was a considerable number of girls and not too elderly women who, willing or unwilling, were available to the troops, who then settled down to enjoy themselves. But the Emperor's staff were far from enjoying themselves in the Kremlin, for daily he became more ill-tempered and difficult to please.
No plenipotentiary had arrived from the Czar to beg him to state the terms on which he would go home. Greatly worried, he decided to write to Alexander and point out to him that he was very wrong to inflict such misery on his people when all he had to do was to enter into a mutually satisfactory arrangement, and their sufferings would cease. Two letters were dispatched by Russian officers who had been taken prisoner. Whether either of them reached his destination he never knew, but he received no answer.
His next move was to send one of his own officers, General Lauriston, to Kutuzov who by then had moved his main force down to Tula, with the object of attempting to cut the Grand Army's communications. Lauriston returned to report that all Kutuzov would say was that his master had declared that he 'would sooner grow a beard and live off potatoes than make peace as long as a single French soldier remained on Russian soil'.
It now seemed that there was no alternative for the Grand Army but to winter in Moscow, call up all the reinforcements possible and launch a new campaign in the spring to take St. Petersburg. Berthier was ordered to produce his 'Bible', as the staff called the roster of the strength of every unit in the Army that he kept with such meticulous care. Together they went into the figures. It emerged that if the Emperor called up Macdonald's corps and the Prussians from the Baltic coast, that of St. Cyr, which had been left in the neighborhood of Vitebsk, and Victor's from Smolensk, both employed in guarding the army's line of communications, Schwarzenberg's thirty thousand Austrians who had so far fired hardly a shot, and drew on the garrisons of the fortresses in Poland, Prussia and Germany, he could again have at his disposal an army of half a million troops. But how was he to feed them?
Murat's cavalry had already been dispatched far and wide to seize every head of cattle, bag of flour and bale of hay they could lay their hands on, but it seemed to the French, who were used to the highly populated areas of western and southern Europe that Moscow had been set down in a vast, almost uninhabited plain. Still worse, Murat reported that the Cossacks were becoming more daring. Only a few days before they had encountered one of his regiments, killed its Colonel and cut a great part of it to pieces. They appeared to be closing in on every side.
So, all through September and into October the scene darkened for Napoleon.
It was on the morning of the 7th that Roger, as A.D.C. on first duty, reported to him and, after an abrupt nod, the Emperor snapped:
'Breuc, you are a friend of the Czar?'
Roger hesitated only a moment. He could not guess what was coming, but knew the Emperor's fabulous memory too well to lie about such a matter. He could only pray that it had not somehow come to Napoleon's ears that he had spent a good part of the spring in St. Petersburg. Bowing, he replied:
'I have the honour to be acquainted with His Imperial Majesty, Sire.' Then he held his breath.
Napoleon regarded him glumly. 'Yes, I recall that after you were taken prisoner at Eylau he arranged for you to be exchanged; and one day at Erfurt I noticed in my police report that you had had a private audience with him.'
'That is so, Sire.'
'Then you must go to him for me. Either he fails to receive my letters or he ignores them. I am convinced the former is the case. He is eccentric and at times has idiotic dreams of bringing in dangerous reforms which would hamstring his own authority; but he is by no means a fool. He must be made to realise that things cannot continue like this. Our people have already cut a great swathe a hundred miles wide, from Kovno to Moscow, through his country, and brought ruin to Vilna, Vitebsk and Smolensk, not to mention scores of smaller places. And Moscow! Just think what has befallen this once splendid city! Does he want me to winter here, then march on St. Petersburg in the spring and cause it also to be destroyed? Surely not!
'Tell him that I will not be unreasonable. I will withdraw my support from the Poles, so that he can do what he likes in Poland. He can have eastern Prussia too, as compensation for the damage done to Russia. You can even promise that he can have Constantinople when, together, we have defeated the Turk. Later I can think again about that. But peace we must make, and soon. He cannot know it, but our situation here is becoming desperate. Get us out of it and that will be as great a service to me as winning a major battle. I cannot give you a Marshal's baton, but I will make you a Duke. You will, of course, go under a flag of truce. Take any escort you require. Go now, Breuc, and for God's sake persuade him to see reason.'