My English Family.—Just Debt of Gratitude to the English on the Part of the Emigrants, &C.—General Joubert.—Petersburg.—Moscow; The Conflagration.—Projects of Napoleon, Had He Returned Victorious

24th.—I went, at two o’clock, to the Emperor, in his apartment. He had sent for my Atlas in the morning. I found him finishing his examination of the map of Russia and of that part of America adjoining the Russian establishments.

He had suffered, and coughed a great deal, during the night. The weather had, however, become milder. While he was dressing to go out, he often dwelt upon the happy idea of the Atlas, the merit of its execution, and the immensity of its contents. He concluded, as usual, with saying; “What a collection! what details! How complete in all its parts!”

The Emperor went to the garden. I told him, that I had written, in the morning, to England, and answered the letter which I had read to him two or three days ago. “Your English family,” he then observed, “seem to be very good kind of people; they are very fond of you, and you appear very much attached to them.” I answered; “Sire, I took care of them in France, during their ten years captivity, and they had taken care of me in England, during my ten years emigration. It is altogether the hospitality of the ancients which we exercise towards each other. I rely upon them, in every respect, and they are at liberty to dispose of all I possess.”—“This,” said he, “is“is a very happy connexion. How did you obtain it? To what are you indebted for it?” I then told him how I became acquainted with this family.

“Never was the plank, by the assistance of which an unfortunate person, after shipwreck, preserved his life, dearer to him than this family is to me. There are, Sire, no favours, no treasures, which can compensate the kindnesses I have received from it, and the happiness it has conferred upon me.

“When the horrible excesses of our revolution compelled us to take refuge in England, our emigration produced the liveliest sensation in that country; the arrival of so many illustrious exiles, their past fortunes, and their then forlorn condition, were impressed on every mind, and filled every heart. They became the subject of consideration in political assemblies, in places of divine worship, in fashionable circles, and in private families. That catastrophe agitated every class, and excited every sympathy. We were surrounded by a generous and feeling multitude. We were the objects of the most delicate attentions, and of the most substantial favours. Such, it must be acknowledged, was the affecting sight held out by a vast portion of English society, even in spite of the difference of opinions. It is a testimony due from our gratitude to the truth of history.

“I was then in London, with a cousin of my name, whose situation at the court of Versailles had enabled her to be of some service to the most distinguished persons in Europe, where she was a lady of honour to the Princess Lamballe, who was herself sub-intendant of the Queen’s household. That turned out a fortunate circumstance for our family. My cousin experienced proofs of the greatest benevolence; a great number of persons were eager to make a tender of their services, and, among others, a certain young couple. The wife was charming, and distinguished for the elegance and dignity of her manners; the husband was of an easy temper, of a mild and honourable character. Their house was almost instantly open to my cousin and to all her relations, who had every reason to find themselves as much at their ease there, as if they had been in their own families.

“This worthy couple took every occasion to oblige and to be of use to our refugees. Their house was frequented by the most distinguished emigrants. A great number of us there contracted a debt of gratitude which, notwithstanding all its extent, I should not despair of paying, were I alone left to discharge it. I shall leave it as a legacy to my children, who, if they resemble me, will look upon it as sacred, and deem themselves happy in redeeming the obligation.

“Elevation of soul, and the emotions of a French heart, characterized the conduct of Lady .... When the Prince of Condé (arrived in London,) was looking for a country residence, she sent me to offer him the superb mansion which she possessed, in the county of Durham. The Prince, after hearing the particulars, having remarked that it would, no doubt, cost him a King’s ransom, was agreeably surprised at learning that it was presented to him by a French woman, who would, she said, consider that she had received an inestimable price, should a Condé condescend to inhabit it. He went, instantly, to express his acknowledgments in person.

“This family visited Paris after the peace of Amiens, and it was in its bosom, and through its protection, that I was enabled, a few days sooner, to breathe the air of my country. I was exempted, through its means, from the tedious and painful formalities required from me by the act of amnesty on the frontier, and I felt it my duty to provide for their accommodation at Paris, with much more facility and less inconvenience than they could have done themselves. I had also the happiness, when the measure for detaining the English residents was carried into effect, and this family was placed among the number, of alleviating their condition in my turn, and becoming their security.

“We were, at length, separated by time and circumstances; but they have lost nothing in my recollection; and the needle is less constant to the pole, and less faithful in its guidance, than are my thoughts and my gratitude, with respect to those good and valuable friends. Such, Sire, is what your Majesty is pleased to call my English family.”

We had, however, during my relation, walked to the stable, and called for the calash. The Emperor ordered it to take us up at the bottom of the wood. We waited for it a long time, because Madame de Montholon was seized with a sudden indisposition. Her husband came to apologize for the delay, and the Emperor made him get in.

The conversation turned, during our ride, upon General Joubert, whose brother-in-law and aid-de-camp M. de Montholon had been.

“Joubert,” said the Emperor, “entertained a high veneration for me; he deplored my absence at every reverse experienced by the Republic, during the expedition to Egypt. He was, at that time, at the head of the army of Italy; he had taken me for his model, aspired to imitate my plans, and attempted to accomplish nothing less than what I afterwards effected in Brumaire: he had, however, the Jacobins to assist him. The measures and intrigues of that party, to place the means of executing that grand enterprise in his power, had raised him to the command in Italy, after the disasters of Scherer; of that Scherer who was an ignorant peculator, and deserving of every censure. But Joubert was killed at Novi, in his first rencounter with Suwarrow; any attempt of his, at Paris, would have failed; he had not yet acquired a sufficient degree of glory, of consistency, and maturity. He was, by nature, calculated for all these acquirements, but, at that moment, he was not adequately formed; he was still too young, and that enterprise was then beyond his ability.”

The Emperor could not take more than one round; he found himself too much fatigued, and was far from being well.

At half past eight o’clock, the Emperor ordered me to be called. He told me that he had been obliged to take a bath, and thought he was a little feverish. He felt that he had suddenly caught cold, but he had ceased to cough since he was in the bath. He continued for a long time in the water. He dined in it, and a small table was laid for me by the side. The Emperor reverted to the history of Russia. “Had Peter the Great,” he asked, “acted with wisdom in founding a capital at Petersburgh at so vast an expense? Would not the results have been greater, had he expended all his money at Moscow? What was his object? Had he accomplished it?” I replied: “If Peter had remained at Moscow, his nation would have continued Muscovite, a people altogether Asiatic; it was necessary that it should be displaced for its reform and alteration. He had, therefore, selected a position on the very frontiers, wrested from the enemy, and in founding his capital, and accumulating all his strength, he rendered it invulnerable; he connected himself with European society; he established his power in the Baltic sea, by which he could with ease prevent his natural enemies, the Poles and the Swedes, from forming alliances, upon occasion, with the nations situated in their rear.”rear.”

The Emperor said that “he was not altogether satisfied with these reasons. Be it as it may,” he observed, “Moscow has disappeared, and who can compute the wealth that has been swallowed up there? Let us contemplate Paris, with the accumulation of buildings and of industry, the work of centuries. Had its capital, for the 1400 years of its existence, increased but a million a year, what a sum! Let us connect with that the warehouses, the furniture, the union of sciences and the arts, the complete establishments of trade and commerce, &c., and this is the picture of Moscow; and all that vanished in an instant! What a catastrophe! Does not the bare idea of it make one shudder?... I do not think that it could be replaced, at the expense of two thousand millions.”

He expatiated at great length on all these events, and let a word escape him which was too characteristic not to be specially noted down by me. The name of Rostopchin having been pronounced, I presumed to remark that the colour at that time given to his patriotic action had very much surprised me, for he had interested me instead of exciting my indignation: nay, I had envied him!... The Emperor replied with singular vivacity, and with a kind of contraction which betrayed vexation: “If many at Paris had been capable of reading and feeling it in that way, believe me, I should have applauded it! But I had no choice left me.” Resuming the subject of Moscow, he said:—“Never, with all the powers of poetry, have the fictions of the burning of Troy equalled the reality of that of Moscow. The city was of wood, the wind was violent; all the pumps had been taken away. It was literally an ocean of fire. Nothing had been saved from it; our march was so rapid, our entrance so sudden. We found even diamonds on the women’s toilets, they had fled so precipitately. They wrote to us a short time afterwards that they had sought to escape from the first excesses of a dangerous soldiery; that they recommended their property to the generosity of the conquerors, and would not fail to re-appear in the course of a few days to solicit their kindness and testify their gratitude.

“The population was far from having plotted that atrocity. Even they themselves delivered up to us three or four hundred criminals, who escaped from prison, and had executed it,”—“But, Sire, may I presume to ask, if Moscow had not been burnt, did not your Majesty intend to establish your quarters there?”—“Certainly,” answered the Emperor, “and I should then have held up the singular spectacle of an army wintering in the midst of a hostile nation, pressing upon it from all points; it would have been the ship beset by the ice. You would have been in France without any intelligence from me for several months; but you would have remained quiet, you would have acted wisely. Cambacèrés would, as usual, have conducted affairs in my name, and all would have been as orderly as if I had been present. The winter, in Russia, would have weighed heavy on every one; the torpor would have been general. The spring also would have returned for all the world. All would have been at once on their legs, and it is well known that the French are as nimble as any others.

“On the first appearance of fine weather, I should have marched against the enemy; I should have beaten them; I should have been master of their empire. Alexander, be assured, would not have suffered me to proceed so far. He would have agreed to all the conditions which I might have dictated, and France would then have begun to enjoy all her advantages. And, truly, my success depended upon a mere trifle. For I had undertaken the expedition to fight against armed men, not against nature in the violence of her wrath. I defeated armies, but I could not conquer the flames, the frost, stupefaction, and death!... I was forced to yield to fate. And, after all, how unfortunate for France!—indeed for all Europe!

“Peace, concluded at Moscow, would have fulfilled and wound up my hostile expeditions. It would have been, with respect to the grand cause, the term of casualties and the commencement of security. A new horizon, new undertakings, would have unfolded themselves, adapted, in every respect, to the well-being and prosperity of all. The foundation of the European system would have been laid, and my only remaining task would have been its organization.

“Satisfied on these grand points, and every where at peace, I should have also had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. These are plans which were filched from me. In that assembly of all the sovereigns, we should have discussed our interest in a family way, and settled our accounts with the people, as a clerk does with his master.

“The cause of the age was victorious, the revolution accomplished; the only point in question was to reconcile it with what it had not destroyed. But that task belonged to me; I had for a long time been making preparations for it, at the expense, perhaps, of my popularity. No matter. I became the ark of the old and the new covenant, the natural mediator between the old and the new order of things. I maintained the principles and possessed the confidence of the one; I had identified myself with the other. I belonged to them both; I should have acted conscientiously in favour of each. My glory would have consisted in my equity.”

“And, after having enumerated what he would have proposed between sovereign and sovereign, and between sovereigns and their people, he continued: “Powerful as we were, all that we might have conceded would have appeared grand. It would have gained us the gratitude of the people. At present, what they may extort will never seem enough for them, and they will be uniformly distrustful and discontented.”

He next took a review of what he would have proposed for the prosperity, the interest, the enjoyment, and the well-being, of the European confederacy. He wished to establish the same principles, the same system, every where—a European code; a European court of appeal, with full powers to redress all wrong decisions, as our’s redresses at home those of our tribunals; money of the same value, but in different coins; the same weights, the same measures, the same laws.

“Thus Europe,” he said, “would soon have formed, in reality, but one and the same people, and every one, who travelled, would have every where found himself in one common country.”

He would have required that all the rivers should be navigable in common; that the seas should be thrown open; that the great standing armies should, in future, be reduced to the mere guards of the sovereign.

In short, a multitude of ideas fell from him, the greater part of which were new; some of the simplest nature, others altogether sublime, relative to the different political, civil, and legislative branches; to religion, to the arts, and commerce: they embraced every subject.

He concluded: “On my return to France, into the bosom of my country, at once great, powerful, magnificent, at peace, and glorious, I would have proclaimed the immutability of boundaries; all future wars, as purely defensive; all new aggrandizement, as anti-national. I would have associated my son with me in the empire; my dictatorship would have terminated, and his constitutional reign commenced.

“Paris would have been the capital of the world, and the French the envy of nations!... MyMy leisure and my old age would have been devoted, in company with the Empress, and, during the royal apprenticeship of my son, to visiting slowly and with our own horses, like a plain country couple, every corner of the empire; to receiving complaints, redressing wrongs, founding monuments, and doing good every where and by every means!... These also, my dear Las Cases, were among my reveries!!!”

The Emperor conversed a great deal about the interior of Russia, of the prosperity of which, he said, we had no idea. He dwelt, at great length, upon Moscow, which had, under every point of view, much surprised him, and might bear a comparison with any of the capitals of Europe, the greater number of which it surpassed. Here unfortunately I can find but bare outlines in my notes, which it is impossible for me to fill up now.

He was particularly struck with the gilded spires of Moscow, and it was that which induced him, on his return, to have the dome of the Invalids regilt; he intended to embellish many other edifices at Paris in the same manner.

As the city of Moscow seems to have been so different from the idea which we have generally entertained of it in our Western world, I am inclined to think that a description of it in this place, supplied by an eye-witness, a distinguished person, attached to the expedition, will not prove disagreeable. It is by Baron Larrey, surgeon-in-chief to the grand army. I take it from a work of that celebrated character (Mémoires de la Chirurgie Militaire), in no great circulation, on account, perhaps, of its peculiarly scientific nature.

The relation begins at the moment when the French army was setting out for Moscow, after the battle of Mozaisk or of the Moskowa.

“We were hardly a few miles off from Mozaisk, when we were all surprised at finding ourselves, notwithstanding the vicinity of the spot to one of the greatest capitals in the world, on a sandy, arid, and completely desert plain. The mournful aspect of that solitude, which discouraged the soldiers, seemed an omen of the entire abandonment of Moscow, and of the misfortunes which awaited us in that city, from the opulence of which we had promised ourselves such advantages.

“The army marched, with difficulty, over that tract.tract. The horses were harassed, and exhausted with hunger and thirst, for water was as rare as forage. The men had also a great deal to suffer. They were, in fact, overwhelmed with fatigue, and in want of all subsistence. The troops had not, for a long time, received any rations, and the small quantity of provisions found at Mozaisk was only sufficient for the young and old guard. A considerable number of the former corps fell victims to their abuse of the spirits of the country. They were observed to quit their comrades a few paces, to totter, whirl round, and afterwards fall on their knees or sit down involuntarily; they remained immoveable in that attitude, and expired shortly afterwards, without uttering a single complaint. These young men were pre-disposed to the pernicious effects of that liquor by languor, privations and excessive fatigue.

“We arrived, however, on the evening of the 14th of September, in one of the suburbs of Moscow; we there learnt that the Russian army had, in its passage through the city, carried off all the citizens and public functionaries, some of the lower classes and servants alone were left; so that, in going through the principal streets of that great city, which we entered the following morning, we scarcely met any one; all the houses were completely abandoned. But what very much surprised us was to see the fire break out in several remote quarters, where none of our troops had yet been, and particularly in the bazar of the Kremlin, an immense building, with porticoes which have some resemblance to those of the Palais Royal at Paris.

“After what we had witnessed on our passage through Little Russia, we were astonished at the vastness of Moscow, at the great number of churches and palaces which it contained, at the beautiful architecture of those edifices, at the commodious disposition of the principal houses, and all the objects of luxury which were found in the greater part of them. The streets in general were spacious, regular, and well laid out. Nothing had the appearance of discordance throughout that city. Every thing announced its wealth, and the immense trade it carried on in the productions of the four quarters of the world.

“The variety displayed in the construction of the palaces, houses, and churches, was an infinite addition to the beauty of the city. There were places which, by the peculiar kind of architecture of the different edifices, indicated the nations that generally inhabited them; thus, the residence of the Franks, Chinese, Indians, and Germans, was easily distinguished. The Kremlin might be considered as the citadel of Moscow; it is in the centre of the town, situated on an eminence sufficiently elevated, surrounded by a wall with bastions, and flanked, at regular distances, by towers, mounted with cannon. The bazaar, which has been already noticed, usually filled with the merchandize of India, and valuable furs, had become the prey of the flames, and the only articles preserved were those which had been deposited in the vaults, where the soldiers penetrated, after the fire that consumed the whole of the exterior of that beautiful edifice. The palace of the Emperors, that of the senate, the archives, the arsenal, and two very ancient churches, occupy the rest of the Kremlin. These different buildings, of a rich style of architecture, form a magnificent appearance about the parade. One might imagine one’s self transported to the public place of ancient Athens, where the Areopagus and the temple of Minerva on one side, and the academy and the arsenal on the other, were the objects of admiration. A cylindrical tower rises between the two churches, in the form of a column, known by the name of Yvan’s tower; it is rather an Egyptian minaret, within which several bells, of different sizes, are hung. At the foot of this tower, is seen a bell of a prodigious magnitude, which has been noticed by all the historians. The whole of the city and its environs are seen from the top of the towers; it looks like a star, with four forked rays. The city has a most picturesque appearance, from the variegated colours of the roofs of the houses, and from the gold and silver which cover the domes and the tops of the steeples, of which there is a considerable number. Nothing can equal the richness of one of the churches of the Kremlin (it was the burial-place of the Emperors); its walls are covered with plates of silver gilt, five or six lines thick, on which the history of the Old and New Testament is represented in relievo; the lustres and candelabra, of massy silver, were particularly remarkable for their extraordinary size.

“The hospitals, to which my attention was peculiarly directed, are worthy of the most civilized nation in the world; I divide them into military and civil. The great military hospital is divided into three parts, forming altogether a parallelogram. The principal part was constructed on the side of a great road, opposite to an immense barrack, which may be compared to the military school at Paris. Two lateral buildings, intersecting the first at right angles, inclose the court, which communicates with a fine and extensive garden appropriated to the use of the sick. A portico, with columns of the composite order, forms the front of this building, which is two stories high. At the entrance is a spacious lobby, with corresponding doors to the wards on the ground-floor, and a large and magnificent staircase leading to the upper stories. The wards occupy the entire length of the building, and the windows on each side reach from the ceiling to the floor; they are made with double sashes, as is customary throughout Russia, and are completely closed in winter; stoves are placed in the inside at suitable distances. The wards contain four rows of beds of the same kind, separated by the requisite space for wholesomeness: each row consists of fifty beds, and the total number may be estimated at more than three thousand; the hospital contains fourteen principal wards of very nearly the same extent. The offices, dispensary, kitchen, and other accessories, are very commodiously situated, in separate places, at a convenient distance from the wards.

“The civil hospitals are equally entitled to notice. The four principal are those of Cheremetow, Galitzin, Alexander, and the foundlings.

“The first, remarkable for its form, its structure, and its internal arrangements, was used to receive the sick and wounded belonging to the guard.

“This hospital, which is three stories high, is built in the form of a crescent; the requisite offices are situated in the rear. A beautiful portico, projecting from the centre of the half-moon, forms the entrance of a chapel which occupies the middle of the edifice; this chapel, surmounted by a dome, is the central point of all the wards, and contains the mausoleum of the Prince who founded the hospital: it is adorned with columns in stucco, statues, and beautiful pictures. The dispensary is one of the finest and best supplied that I know.

“The Foundling Hospital, situated on the banks of the Moscowa, and protected by the cannon of the Kremlin, is indisputably the largest and noblest establishment of the kind in Europe. It consists of two masses of building; the first, where the entrance is placed, is appropriated to the residence of the Governor, who is selected from the old generals of the army, of the board of management, of the medical officers, and of all those employed in the service of the hospital. The second forms a perfect square. In the centre of the court, which is very spacious, is a reservoir, that supplies the whole of the establishmentestablishment with water from the river. Each of the sides consists of four stories, round which runs a regular corridor, not very broad, yet sufficiently spacious for the admission of air, and the accommodation of persons passing through it. The wards occupy the remainder of the breadth, and the whole length of each wing of the building. There are two rows of beds with curtains in each ward, their size corresponds with that of the children: the boys are kept separate from the girls, and the greatest cleanliness and regularity are observed.

“We had scarcely taken possession of the city, and succeeded in extinguishing the fire, kindled by the Russians in the most beautiful quarters, when, in consequence of two principal causes, the flames again broke out in the most violent manner, spread rapidly from one street to another, and involved the whole place in one common ruin. The first of these causes is justly reported to have been the desperate resolution of a certain class of Russians, who were said to have been confined in the prisons, the doors of which were thrown open on the departure of the army; these wretches, whether incited by superior authority, or by their own feelings, with the view, no doubt, of plunder, openly ran from palace to palace, and from house to house, setting fire to every thing that fell in their way. The French patroles, although numerous and on the alert, were unable to prevent them. I saw several of those miscreants taken in the act; lighted matches and combustibles were found in their possession. The pain of death inflicted upon those caught in the actual commission of the atrocity made no impression on the others, and the fire raged three days and three nights without interruption; in vain houses were pulled down by our soldiers, the flames quickly overleaped the vacant space, and the buildings thus insulated, were set on fire in the twinkling of an eye. The second cause must be attributed to the violence of the equinoctial winds, which are always very powerful in those parts, and by means of which the conflagration increased and extended its ravages with extraordinary activity.

“It would be difficult, under any circumstances, to imagine a picture more horrible than that with which our eyes were afflicted. It was more particularly during night, between the 18th and 19th of September, the period when the fire was at the highest pitch, that its effects presented a terrific spectacle: the weather was fine and dry, the wind continuing to blow from East to North, or from North to East. During that night, the dreadful image of which will never be effaced from my memory, the whole of the city was on fire. Large columns of flames of various colours shot up from every quarter, entirely covered the horizon, and diffused a glaring light and a scorching heat to a considerable distance. These masses of fire, driven by the violence of the winds in all directions, were accompanied in their rise and rapid movement, by a dreadful whizzing and by thundering explosions, the result of the combustion of gunpowder, saltpetre, oil, resin, and brandy, with which the greater part of the houses and shops had been filled. The varnished iron plates, with which the buildings were covered, were speedily loosened by the heat, and whirled far away; large pieces of burning beams and rafters of fir were carried to a great distance, and contributed to extend the conflagration to houses which were considered in no danger, on account of their remoteness. Every one was struck with terror and consternation. The guard, with the head-quarters and the staff of the army, left the Kremlin and the city, and formed a camp at Petrowski, a mansion which belonged to Peter the Great, on the road to Petersburg. I remained with a very small number of my comrades, in a house built of stone, which stood alone, and was situated on the top of the quarter of the Franks, close to the Kremlin. I was there enabled to observe all the phenomena of that tremendous conflagration. We had sent our equipage to the camp, and kept ourselves constantly on the look-out, to be prepared for, or to prevent, danger.

“The lower classes, who had remained at Moscow, driven from house to house by the fire, uttered the most lamentable cries; extremely anxious to preserve what was most valuable to them, they loaded themselves with packages, which they could hardly sustain, and which they frequently abandoned to escape from the flames. The women, impelled by a very natural feeling of humanity, carried one or two children on their shoulders, and dragged the others along by the hand; and, in order to avoid the death which threatened them on every side, they ran, with their petticoats tucked up, to take shelter in the corners of the streets and squares; but they were soon compelled, by the intenseness of the heat, to abandon those spots, and to fly with precipitation by any way that was open to them, sometimes without being able to extricate themselves from that kind of labyrinth, where many of them met with a miserable end. I saw old men, whose long beards had been caught by the flames, drawn on small carts by their own children, who endeavoured to rescue them from that real Tartarus.

“As for our soldiers, tormented with hunger and thirst, they exposed themselves to every danger, to obtain, in the burning cellars and shops, eatables, wines, liquors, or any other article more or less useful. They were seen running through the streets, pell-mell with the broken-hearted inhabitants, carrying away every thing they could snatch from the ravages of this dreadful conflagration. At length, in the course of eight or ten days, this immense and superb city was reduced to ashes, with the exception of the Kremlin palace, some large houses, and all the churches: these edifices are built of stone.

“This calamity threw the army into great consternation, and was a presage to us of more serious misfortunes. We all thought that we should no longer find either subsistence, cloth, or any other necessary for equipping the troops, and of which we were in the most urgent want. Could a more dismal idea suggest itself to our imagination? The head quarters were, however, after the fire, again established at the Kremlin, and the guard sent to some houses of the Franks’Franks’ quarter, which had been preserved. Every one resumed the exercise of his duties.

“Magazines of flour, meal, salt-fish, oil, wine and liquors, were discovered by dint of perseverance. Some were served out to the troops, but there was too great a wish to spare or hoard up these articles, and that excess of precaution, which is sometimes a mere pretext, induced us to burn or leave behind us, in the end, provisions of every kind, from which we might have derived the greatest benefit, and which would have even been sufficient for the wants of the army for more than six months, had we remained at Moscow. The same conduct was pursued with regard to the stuffs and furs, which ought to have been immediately worked up for the purpose of supplying our troops with all the clothing capable of preserving them, as much as possible, from the inclemency of the cold that was at hand. The soldiers, who never think of the future, so far from obviating, on their part and for their own advantage, that want of precaution, were solely engaged in searching for wines, liquors, and articles of gold and silver, and despised every other consideration.

“This unexpected abundance, which was owing to the indefatigable researches of the troops, was attended with a bad effect on their discipline and on the health of those who were intemperate. That motive alone ought to have made us hasten our departure for Poland. Moscow became a new Capua to our army. The enemy’s generals flattered ours with the hopes of peace; the preliminaries were to be signed from day to day. Meanwhile clouds of Cossacks covered our cantonments and carried off every day a great number of our foragers. General Kutusoff was collecting the wreck of his army and strengthening himself with the recruits who joined him from all parts. Imperceptibly, and under various pretences of pacification, his advanced posts drew near to ours. Finally, the period of negotiation had arrived, and it was at the moment in which the French ambassador was to obtain a first decision, that Prince Joachim’s corps d’armée was surrounded. It was with difficulty that our general, the ambassador, surmounted the obstacles which were opposed to his return to Moscow. Several parties of our troops and some pieces of cannon had been already carried off. The different corps of this advanced guard, which were at first dispersed, were nevertheless rallied, broke the Russian column that hemmed them in, took up a favourable position, and charged successively the enemy’s numerous cavalry, which they repulsed with vigour, retaking part of the artillery and some of the soldiers made prisoners in the first onset. At length, the arrival of General Lauriston, and of the wounded, was to us, at head quarters, a confirmation that hostilities would be resumed. Orders were immediately given for the sudden departure of the army; the drum beat to arms, and all the corps prepared to execute that precipitate movement. Some provisions were hastily collected and the march commenced on the 19th of October.”