you his enemy except those who disobey his orders. He
desires to end your misfortunes and restore you to your
homes and families. Respond, therefore, to his benevolent
intentions and come to us without fear. Inhabitants, return
with confidence to your abodes! You will soon find means
of satisfying your needs. Craftsmen and industrious artisans, return to your work, your houses, your shops, where
the protection of guards awaits you! You shall receive proper pay for your work. And lastly you too, peasants, come
from the forests where you are hiding in terror, return to
your huts without fear, in full assurance that you will find
protection! Markets are established in the city where peasants can bring their surplus supplies and the products of
the soil. The government has taken the following steps
to ensure freedom of sale for them: (1) From today, peasants, husbandmen, and those living in the neighborhood
of Moscow may without any danger bring their supplies of
all kinds to two appointed markets, of which one is on the
Mokhovaya Street and the other at the Provision Market.
(2) Such supplies will be bought from them at such prices
as seller and buyer may agree on, and if a seller is unable to
obtain a fair price he will be free to take his goods back to
his village and no one may hinder him under any pretense.
(3) Sunday and Wednesday of each week are appointed as
the chief market days and to that end a sufficient number
of troops will be stationed along the highroads on Tuesdays
and Saturdays at such distances from the town as to protect
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the carts. (4) Similar measures will be taken that peasants
with their carts and horses may meet with no hindrance on
their return journey. (5) Steps will immediately be taken to
re-establish ordinary trading.
Inhabitants of the city and villages, and you, workingmen and artisans, to whatever nation you belong, you are
called on to carry out the paternal intentions of His Majesty
the Emperor and King and to co-operate with him for the
public welfare! Lay your respect and confidence at his feet
and do not delay to unite with us!
With the object of raising the spirits of the troops and of
the people, reviews were constantly held and rewards distributed. The Emperor rode through the streets to comfort
the inhabitants, and, despite his preoccupation with state
affairs, himself visited the theaters that were established by
his order.
In regard to philanthropy, the greatest virtue of crowned
heads, Napoleon also did all in his power. He caused the
words Maison de ma Mere to be inscribed on the charitable institutions, thereby combining tender filial affection
with the majestic benevolence of a monarch. He visited the
Foundling Hospital and, allowing the orphans saved by
him to kiss his white hands, graciously conversed with Tutolmin. Then, as Thiers eloquently recounts, he ordered his
soldiers to be paid in forged Russian money which he had
prepared: ‘Raising the use of these means by an act worthy
of himself and of the French army, he let relief be distributed
to those who had been burned out. But as food was too precious to be given to foreigners, who were for the most part
1887
enemies, Napoleon preferred to supply them with money
with which to purchase food from outside, and had paper
rubles distributed to them.’
With reference to army discipline, orders were continually being issued to inflict severe punishment for the
nonperformance of military duties and to suppress robbery.
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Chapter X
But strange to say, all these measures, efforts, and planswhich were not at all worse than others issued in similar
circumstancesdid not affect the essence of the matter but,
like the hands of a clock detached from the mechanism,
swung about in an arbitrary and aimless way without engaging the cogwheels.
With reference to the military sidethe plan of campaignthat work of genius of which Thiers remarks that, ‘His
genius never devised anything more profound, more skillful, or more admirable,’ and enters into a polemic with M.
Fain to prove that this work of genius must be referred not
to the fourth but to the fifteenth of Octoberthat plan never was or could be executed, for it was quite out of touch
with the facts of the case. The fortifying of the Kremlin, for
which la Mosquee (as Napoleon termed the church of Basil
the Beatified) was to have been razed to the ground, proved
quite useless. The mining of the Kremlin only helped toward fulfilling Napoleon’s wish that it should be blown up
when he left Moscowas a child wants the floor on which he
has hurt himself to be beaten. The pursuit of the Russian
army, about which Napoleon was so concerned, produced
an unheard-of result. The French generals lost touch with
the Russian army of sixty thousand men, and according to
Thiers it was only eventually found, like a lost pin, by the
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skilland apparently the geniusof Murat.
With reference to diplomacy, all Napoleon’s arguments
as to his magnanimity and justice, both to Tutolmin and
to Yakovlev (whose chief concern was to obtain a greatcoat
and a conveyance), proved useless; Alexander did not receive these envoys and did not reply to their embassage.
With regard to legal matters, after the execution of the
supposed incendiaries the rest of Moscow burned down.
With regard to administrative matters, the establishment
of a municipality did not stop the robberies and was only of
use to certain people who formed part of that municipality and under pretext of preserving order looted Moscow or
saved their own property from being looted.
With regard to religion, as to which in Egypt matters had
so easily been settled by Napoleon’s visit to a mosque, no
results were achieved. Two or three priests who were found
in Moscow did try to carry out Napoleon’s wish, but one
of them was slapped in the face by a French soldier while
conducting service, and a French official reported of another that: ‘The priest whom I found and invited to say Mass
cleaned and locked up the church. That night the doors
were again broken open, the padlocks smashed, the books
mutilated, and other disorders perpetrated.’
With reference to commerce, the proclamation to industrious workmen and to peasants evoked no response. There
were no industrious workmen, and the peasants caught the
commissaries who ventured too far out of town with the
proclamation and killed them.
As to the theaters for the entertainment of the people
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and the troops, these did not meet with success either. The
theaters set up in the Kremlin and in Posnyakov’s house
were closed again at once because the actors and actresses
were robbed.
Even philanthropy did not have the desired effect. The
genuine as well as the false paper money which flooded
Moscow lost its value. The French, collecting booty, cared
only for gold. Not only was the paper money valueless which
Napoleon so graciously distributed to the unfortunate, but
even silver lost its value in relation to gold.
But the most amazing example of the ineffectiveness
of the orders given by the authorities at that time was
Napoleon’s attempt to stop the looting and re-establish discipline.
This is what the army authorities were reporting:
‘Looting continues in the city despite the decrees against
it. Order is not yet restored and not a single merchant is carrying on trade in a lawful manner. The sutlers alone venture
to trade, and they sell stolen goods.’
‘The neighborhood of my ward continues to be pillaged
by soldiers of the 3rd Corps who, not satisfied with taking
from the unfortunate inhabitants hiding in the cellars the
little they have left, even have the ferocity to wound them
with their sabers, as I have repeatedly witnessed.’
‘Nothing new, except that the soldiers are robbing and
pillagingOctober 9.’
‘Robbery and pillaging continue. There is a band of
thieves in our district who ought to be arrested by a strong
forceOctober 11.’
1891
‘The Emperor is extremely displeased that despite the
strict orders to stop pillage, parties of marauding Guards
are continually seen returning to the Kremlin. Among the
Old Guard disorder and pillage were renewed more violently than ever yesterday evening, last night, and today. The
Emperor sees with regret that the picked soldiers appointed
to guard his person, who should set an example of discipline, carry disobedience to such a point that they break
into the cellars and stores containing army supplies. Others
have disgraced themselves to the extent of disobeying sentinels and officers, and have abused and beaten them.’
‘The Grand Marshal of the palace,’ wrote the governor,
‘complains bitterly that in spite of repeated orders, the soldiers continue to commit nuisances in all the courtyards
and even under the very windows of the Emperor.’
That army, like a herd of cattle run wild and trampling
underfoot the provender which might have saved it from
starvation, disintegrated and perished with each additional
day it remained in Moscow. But it did not go away.
It began to run away only when suddenly seized by a panic caused by the capture of transport trains on the Smolensk
road, and by the battle of Tarutino. The news of that battle
of Tarutino, unexpectedly received by Napoleon at a review,
evoked in him a desire to punish the Russians (Thiers says),
and he issued the order for departure which the whole army
was demanding.
Fleeing from Moscow the soldiers took with them everything they had stolen. Napoleon, too, carried away his
own personal tresor, but on seeing the baggage trains that
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impeded the army, he was (Thiers says) horror-struck. And
yet with his experience of war he did not order all the superfluous vehicles to be burned, as he had done with those
of a certain marshal when approaching Moscow. He gazed
at the caleches and carriages in which soldiers were riding
and remarked that it was a very good thing, as those vehicles could be used to carry provisions, the sick, and the
wounded.
The plight of the whole army resembled that of a wounded animal which feels it is perishing and does not know
what it is doing. To study the skillful tactics and aims of
Napoleon and his army from the time it entered Moscow till
it was destroyed is like studying the dying leaps and shudders of a mortally wounded animal. Very often a wounded
animal, hearing a
