could carry. Napoleon remained as long as possible in the Kremlin, hoping that the conflagration might be got under. But the tempest which accompanied, and which it partly occasioned, defeated every project for arresting the fire, and the French Emperor retreated with his guard to the palace of Petrowskoie, outside the city. The conflagration of Moscow was, there is little doubt, the work of its governor Rotopschin, whose project it had been to make the great sacrifice solemnly, and probably with the assent and aid of the inhabitants.* But Kutusoff kept him uncertain as to whether the city might not be defended, and at the last moment Rotopschin was obliged to entrust the work to the liberated inmates of the prisons to set fire to the city, whilst he himself carried off the pumps and implements for extinguishing it. Rotopschin sacrificed his own town and country mansions, but was afterwards, nevertheless, afraid to avow himself the sole author of the catastrophe.

The moral effect was greater than the physical. When the fire had consumed nine-tenths of the city, the French who had evacuated it in flames returned, and found not only sufficient shelter, but a certain quantity of provisions and stores. But the population had irrevocably fled, and the destruction of their ancient city placed between the Russians and the invaders a barrier of hate that precluded all accommodation between them. Napoleon made one or two efforts to address Alexander and open the way to peace, but though Kutusoff was willing to hearken to these, Alexander would not pardon the deep insult he had received, and declined parley or communication with the invader.

What was to be done? The Russian army after making a circuit had taken post towards Kalouga, southwest of Moscow, and menacing the road by which the French had advanced. It was soon to be reinforced by

* Sir Robert Wilson's Narrative.

CHAP.

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CHAP.
XLIII.

the army from Moldavia. Alexander was also exerting himself to strengthen his northern army under Wittgenstein. A more perfect accord with Sweden, following a personal interview between the Czar and Bernadotte at Abo, enabled the former to evacuate Finland and transport the Russian troops from thence to join Wittgenstein. Were the Russian force to concentrate on the Beresina or upon any other spot of the French line of march, they might first cut off their communications, and, what was more important, their retreat.

Of retreat, however, and especially of the semblance of it, Napoleon would not hear. To take up winter quarters in Moscow, to penetrate into the fertile provinces south of it, or proceed north-west, menacing St. Petersburg whilst approaching Wilna, were his ideas. Daru was for wintering in Moscow. Thiers considers the march north-west to have been the wisest, but none would abet it save Napoleon himself. A march southward to Kalouga was universally preferred, as it led to a fertile country, in which the army might either tarry or withdraw from it to Poland by a road less beaten and exhausted than that by which they came.

On the 19th of October the French army, diminished to about 90,000 soldiers, quitted Moscow, dragging after it the mass of waggons and baggage proportioned to 500,000 more. Napoleon was horrified at the sight, but contented himself with observing that a few days' march would leave half of these equipages and their burdens behind. He pretended to his army and to himself that he did not evacuate Moscow definitively. He left Mortier in command of the Kremlin, and of a certain force, but with orders to be prepared to blow it up and evacuate it. This order Napoleon sent back in four-and-twenty hours after he left Moscow. Kutusoff with the main Russian army was at Tarontina on one of the roads to Kalouga. Napoleon hastened to reach this town by another route, which crossed the Lonjea at

XLIII.

Malo-Zaroslavietz. Doctorow (October 24), however, CHAP. came up in time to dispute the passage. A sanguinary action ensued between him and the Prince Eugene, whose Italians fought with desperate valour. The result of the battle was the loss of some 10,000 men on either side, and it was followed by councils of war held simultaneously by Napoleon with his marshals, and by Kutusoff with his generals. French narrators tell the one; Sir Robert Wilson, then at Kutusoff's head quarters, depicts the other. Notwithstanding his loss, and the dreadful duty which it imposed of dragging along thousands of wounded, Napoleon was for persevering, risking another battle and penetrating to Kalouga. His marshals deprecated the attempt, and were all of them for falling back upon the Smolensko road, by which they had advanced. Napoleon was no longer master. Misfortune compelled him to bow to the opinion of his generals. Yet had he persevered, “had the slightest demonstration of an offensive movement been made, Napoleon would have obtained a free passage for his army on the Kalouga or Medynsk roads, through a fertile and rich country, to the Dnieper, since Kutusoff, resolved on falling back behind the Oka, had actually issued the order to retire there in case of the enemy's approach to his new position." *

Kutusoff frankly gave his reasons for not pressing the French too closely, reasons which did not cease to influence him during the whole of the French retreat.† This now may be said to have fully commenced, and not by Medynsk, the shortest way to Smolensko, which

CHAP.
XLIII.

Davoust strongly recommended, but by Mojaisk and
Borodino. The reflections of the French army, repass-
ing that field on the 29th of October, may be imagined.
Kutusoff had not renewed the pursuit, notwithstanding
which the retreating army was obliged to abandon its
sick and wounded and a great portion of the baggage and
artillery for want of the means of transport. At Wiasma
on the 3rd of November took place the first attempt of
the Russians to cut off at least part of their retreating
enemies. But Ney, Davoust and Eugène beat off their
assailants. The next day a more forinidable enemy ap-
peared in a fall of snow, premature for the season, fol-
lowed by cold, which rendered the night bivouacs of the
French fatal resting-places. It was but a fortnight since
they had evacuated Moscow, and already the army was
reduced by half its numbers. On the 9th of November
Prince Eugène lost all his baggage, and left behind all
his camp followers at the passage of the Vop. The
scene was a fit prelude to that of the Beresina, where
Wittgenstein from the north and Tchichagoff from the
south were tending to a junction, and threatening to
intercept the Emperor and his army. At Krasnoi the
Russians repeated the attempt of Wiasma, and succeeded
in cutting the French army in three. Napoleon in front
escaped; Davoust fought his way through. Ney,
Ney, com-
manding the rear, was completely cut off, and no re-
source seemed left him but to surrender. The gallant
soldier would not submit to such an extremity. With
some three thousand of his division he crossed in the
night the half-frozen surface of the Dnieper, and forcing
his way along the further bank, reached Eugène at Orcha.
It was on the 22nd of November at Toloczin that
Napoleon learned the terrible fact of the Russians having
got before him to the Beresina, and burned the only
bridge, that of Borisow, by which he could pass. His
own captivity, with that of the remains of his army, stared
him in the face. But he soon shook off the effects of

the stunning intelligence, and determined to march on to the Beresina, in order to force anyhow a passage. Fortunately General Corbineau had discovered a ford over the Beresina some miles above Borisow. And thither Napoleon directed at once his steps and his preparations. At the ford opposite Studenki, the Beresina being only some feet deep, bridges could be laid on trestles, and so did not demand much labour and time. Two were prepared, one for carriages and artillery, the other for horse and foot. The Russians not discovering the work at first allowed the French two full days to pass the greater part of their army. The enemies who made their appearance on the side of the river to which the army had crossed were easily repelled. But Wittgenstein pressed upon the other ere the passage had been effected, and whilst indeed it was intercepted by frequent accidents and breaches. At one time during the passage of the bridge by the followers of the army, Wittgenstein was able to open fire upon it, smashing the waggons and sweeping away whole files of suttlers and women, whose shrieks rent the air. But the disorder and despair of these stragglers scarcely required the enemy's shot to make it worse. In their distress they frequently blocked the bridge, rushed upon that reserved for the artillery, and were often crushed beneath the wheels, or flung into the river by the advancing troops. The entrance to the bridge was defended most gallantly by Victor and his division, who were sorely pressed. And such was their weakness and diminished numbers, that Napoleon gave orders that they should cross by a certain hour, and burn the bridge behind them. A great portion of the stragglers and women had not passed. They were aroused from their frozen slumbers in the night to do so, before the bridge was destroyed, but the greater part refused to move till daylight, and then it was too late. Fire was at last set

VOL. V.

СНАР.

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