Book: History of the Expedition to Russia

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But eleven days had now elapsed; still Alexander was silent, and still
did Napoleon hope to overcome his rival in obstinacy: thus losing the
time which he ought to have gained, and which is always serviceable to
defence against attack.

From this period all his actions indicated to the Russians still more
strongly than at Witepsk, that their mighty foe was resolved to fix
himself in the heart of their empire. Moscow, though in ashes, received
an intendant and municipalities. Orders were issued to provision it for
the winter. A theatre was formed amidst the ruins. The first-rate actors
of Paris were said to have been sent for. An Italian singer strove to
reproduce in the Kremlin the evening entertainments of the Tuileries. By
such means Napoleon expected to dupe a government, which the habit of
reigning over error and ignorance had rendered an adept in all these
deceptions.

He was himself sensible of the inadequacy of these means, and yet
September was past, October had begun. Alexander had not deigned to
reply! it was an affront! he was exasperated. On the 3d of October,
after a night of restlessness and anger, he summoned his marshals. "Come
in," said he, as soon as he perceived them, "hear the new plan which I
have conceived; Prince Eugene, read it." They listened. "We must burn
the remains of Moscow, march by Twer to Petersburg, where we shall be
joined by Macdonald. Murat and Davoust will form the rear-guard."--The
Emperor, all animation, fixed his sparkling eyes on his generals, whose
frigid and silent countenances expressed nothing but astonishment.

Then exalting himself in order to rouse them--"What!" said he, "and are
_you_ not inflamed by this idea? Was there ever so great a military
achievement? Henceforth this conquest is the only one that is worthy of
us! With what glory we shall be covered, and what will the whole world
say, when it learns that in three months we have conquered the two great
capitals of the North!"

But Davoust, as well as Daru, objected to him, "the season, the want of
supplies, a sterile desert and artificial road, that from Twer to
Petersburg, running for a hundred leagues through morasses, and which
three hundred peasants might in one day render impassable. Why keep
proceeding northward? why go to meet winter, to provoke and to defy
it?--it was already too near; and what was to become of the six thousand
wounded still in Moscow? were they then to be left to the mercy of
Kutusoff? That general would not fail to follow close at our heels. We
should have at once to attack and to defend ourselves, and to march, as
though we were fleeing to a conquest."

These officers have declared that they then proposed various plans; a
useless trouble with a prince whose genius outstripped all other
imaginations, and whom their objections would not have stopped, had he
been really determined to march to Petersburg. But that idea was in him
only a sally of anger, an inspiration of despair, on finding himself
obliged in the face of Europe to give way, to relinquish a conquest, and
to retreat.

It was more especially a threat to frighten his officers as well as the
enemy, and to bring about and promote a negotiation which Caulaincourt
was to open. That officer had pleased Alexander; he was the only one of
the grandees of Napoleon's court who had acquired any influence over his
rival; but for some months past, Napoleon had kept him at a distance,
because he had not been able to persuade him to approve his expedition.

It was nevertheless to this very man that he was that day obliged to
have recourse, and to disclose his anxiety. He sent for him; but when
alone with him, he hesitated. Taking him by the arm, he walked to and
fro a long time in great agitation, while his pride prevented him from
breaking so painful a silence: at length it yielded, but in a
threatening manner. He was to beg the enemy to solicit peace, as if he
deigned to grant it.

After a few words, which were scarcely articulate, he said, that "he was
about to march to Petersburg. He knew that the destruction of that city
would no doubt give pain to his grand-equerry. Russia would then rise
against the Emperor Alexander: there would be a conspiracy against that
monarch; he would be assassinated, which would be a most unfortunate
circumstance. He esteemed that prince, and should regret him, both for
his own sake and that of France. His character, he added, was suitable
to our interests; no prince could replace him with such advantage to us.
He thought therefore of sending Caulaincourt to him, to prevent such a
catastrophe."

The Duke of Vicenza, however, more obstinate, than susceptible of
flattery, did not alter his tone. He maintained that "these overtures
would be useless; that so long as the Russian territory was not entirely
evacuated, Alexander would not listen to any proposals; that Russia was
sensible of all her advantage at this season of the year; nay, more,
that this step would be detrimental to himself, inasmuch as it would
demonstrate the need which Napoleon had of peace, and betray all the
embarrassment of our situation."

He added, "that the higher the rank of the negotiator whom he selected,
the more clearly he would show his anxiety; that of course he himself
would be more likely to fail than any other, especially as he should go
with this certainty." The Emperor abruptly terminated the conversation
by these words: "Well, then, I will send Lauriston."

The latter asserts, that he added fresh objections to the preceding, and
that, being urged by the Emperor, he recommended to him to begin his
retreat that very day by way of Kalouga. Napoleon, irritated at this,
acrimoniously replied, that "he liked simple plans, less circuitous
routes, high roads, the road by which he had come, yet he would not
retread it but with peace." Then showing to him, as he had done to the
Duke of Vicenza, the letter which he had written to Alexander, he
ordered him to go and obtain of Kutusoff a safe-conduct to Petersburg.
The last words of the Emperor to Lauriston were: "I want peace, I must
have peace, I absolutely will have peace; only save my honour!"




CHAP. X.


The general set out, and reached the advanced posts on the 5th of
October. Hostilities were instantly suspended, the interview granted;
but Wolkonsky, aide-de-camp to Alexander, and Beningsen were there
without Kutusoff. Wilson asserts, that the Russian generals and
officers, suspecting their commander, and accusing him of weakness, had
raised a cry of treason, and that the latter had not dared to leave his
camp.

Lauriston's instructions purported that he was to address himself to no
one but Kutusoff. He therefore peremptorily rejected any intermediate
communication, and seizing, as he said, this occasion for breaking off a
negotiation which he disapproved, he retired, in spite of all the
solicitations of Wolkonsky, and determined to return to Moscow. In that
case, no doubt, Napoleon, exasperated, would have fallen upon Kutusoff,
overthrown him and destroyed his army, as yet very incomplete, and have
forced him into a peace. In case of less decisive success, he would at
least have been able to retire without loss upon his reinforcements.

Beningsen unfortunately desired an interview with Murat. Lauriston
paused. The chief of the Russian staff, an abler negotiator than
soldier, strove to charm the new king by demonstrations of respect; to
seduce him by praises; to deceive him with smooth words, breathing
nothing but a weariness of war and the hope of peace: and Murat, tired
of battles, anxious respecting their result, and as it is said,
regretting his throne, now that he had no hope of a better, suffered
himself to be charmed, seduced and deceived.

Beningsen was equally successful in persuading his own commander, and
the leader of our vanguard; he sent in great haste for Lauriston, and
had him conducted to the Russian camp, where Kutusoff was waiting for
him at midnight. The interview began ill. Konownitzin and Wolkonsky
wished to be present. This shocked the French general: he insisted that
they should retire, and they complied.

As soon as Lauriston was alone with Kutusoff, he explained his motives
and his object, and applied for a safe-conduct to Petersburg. The
Russian general replied, that a compliance with this demand exceeded his
powers; but he immediately proposed to send Wolkonsky with the letter
from Napoleon to Alexander, and offered an armistice till the return of
that officer. He accompanied these proposals with pacific protestations,
which were repeated by all his generals.

"According to their account," they all deplored the continuance of the
war. And for what reason? Their nations, like their Emperors, ought to
esteem, to love, and to be allies of one another. It was their ardent
wish that a speedy peace might arrive from Petersburg. Wolkonsky could
not make "haste enough." They pressed round Lauriston, drawing him
aside, taking him by the hand, and lavishing upon him those caressing
manners which they have inherited from Asia.

It was soon demonstrated that the chief point in which they were all
agreed was to deceive Murat and his Emperor; and in this they succeeded.
These details transported Napoleon with joy. Credulous from hope,
perhaps from despair, he was for some moments dazzled by these
appearances; eager to escape from the inward feeling which oppressed
him, he seemed desirous to deaden it by resigning himself to an
expansive joy. He summoned all his generals; he triumphantly "announced
to them a very speedy peace. They had but to wait another fortnight.
None but himself was acquainted with the Russian character. On the
receipt of his letter, Petersburg would be full of bonfires."

But the armistice proposed by Kutusoff was unsatisfactory to him, and he
ordered Murat to break it instantly; but notwithstanding, it continued
to be observed, the cause of which is unknown.

This armistice was a singular one. If either party wished to break it,
three hours notice was to be sufficient. It was confined to the fronts
of the two camps, but did not extend to their flanks. Such at least was
the interpretation put upon it by the Russians. We could not bring up a
convoy, or send out a foraging party, without fighting; so that the war
continued everywhere, excepting where it could be favourable to us.

In the first of the succeeding days, Murat took it into his head to show
himself at the enemy's advanced posts. There, he was gratified by the
notice which his fine person, his reputation for bravery, and his rank
procured him. The Russian officers took good care not to displease him;
they were profuse of all the marks of respect calculated to strengthen
his illusion. He could give his orders to their vedettes just as he did
to the French. If he took a fancy to any part of the ground which they
occupied, they cheerfully gave it up to him.

Some Cossack chiefs even went so far as to affect enthusiasm, and to
tell him that they had ceased to acknowledge any other as Emperor but
him who reigned at Moscow. Murat believed for a moment that they would
no longer fight against him. He went even farther. Napoleon was heard to
exclaim, while reading his letters, "Murat, King of the Cossacks! What
folly!" The most extravagant ideas were conceived by men on whom fortune
had lavished all sorts of favours.

As for the Emperor, who could scarcely be deceived, he had but a few
moments of a factitious joy. He soon complained "that an annoying
warfare of partizans hovered around him; that notwithstanding all these
pacific demonstrations, he was sensible that bodies of Cossacks were
prowling on his flanks and in his rear. Had not one hundred and fifty
dragoons of his old guard been surprised and routed, by a number of
these barbarians? And this two days after the armistice, on the road to
Mojaisk, on his line of operation, that by which the army communicated
with its magazines, its reinforcements, its depots, and himself with
Europe!"

In fact two convoys had just fallen into the enemy's hands on that road:
one through the negligence of its commander, who put an end to his life
in despair; and the other through the cowardice of an officer, who was
about to be punished when the retreat commenced. To the destruction of
the army he owed his escape.

Our soldiers, and especially our cavalry, were obliged every morning to
go to a great distance in quest of provisions for the evening and the
next day; and as the environs of Moscow and Vinkowo became gradually
more and more drained, they were daily necessitated to extend their
excursions. Both men and horses returned worn out with fatigue, that is
to say such of them as returned at all; for we had to fight for every
bushel of rye, and for every truss of forage. It was a series of
incessant surprises, skirmishes, and losses. The peasantry took a part
in it. They punished with death such of their number as the prospect of
gain had allured to our camp with provisions. Others set fire to their
own villages, to drive our foragers out of them, and to give them up to
the Cossacks whom they had previously summoned, and who kept us there in
a state of siege.

It was the peasantry also who took Vereia, a town in the neighbourhood
of Moscow. One of their priests is said to have planned and executed
this _coup-de-main_. He armed the inhabitants, obtained some troops from
Kutusoff; then on the 10th of October, before daybreak, he caused the
signal of a false attack to be given in one quarter, while in another he
himself rushed upon our palisades, destroyed them, penetrated into the
town, and put the whole garrison to the sword.

Thus the war was every where; in our front, on our flanks and in our
rear: the army was weakening, and the enemy becoming daily more
enterprising. This conquest was destined to fare like many others, which
are won in the mass, and lost in detail.

Murat himself at length grew uneasy. In these daily skirmishes he saw
half of the remnant of his cavalry melted away. At the advanced posts,
or on meeting with our officers, those of the Russians, either from
weariness, vanity, or military frankness carried to indiscretion,
exaggerated the disasters which threatened us. They showed us those
"wild-looking horses, scarcely at all broken in, whose long manes swept
the dust of the plain. Did not this tell us that a numerous cavalry was
joining them from all quarters, while ours was gradually perishing? Did
not the continual discharges of fire-arms within their line apprise us
that a multitude of recruits were there training under favour of the
armistice?"

And in fact, notwithstanding the long journies which they had to make,
all these recruits joined the army. There was no occasion to defer
calling them together as in other years, till deep snows, obstructing
all the roads excepting the high road, rendered their desertion
impossible. Not one failed to obey the national appeal; all Russia rose:
mothers, it was said, wept for joy on learning that their sons had been
selected for soldiers: they hastened to acquaint them with this glorious
intelligence, and even accompanied them to see them marked with the sign
of the Crusaders, to hear them cry, _'Tis the will of God!_

The Russian officers added, "that they were particularly astonished at
our security on the approach of their mighty winter, which was their
natural and most formidable ally, and which they expected every moment:
they pitied us and urged us to fly. In a fortnight, your nails will drop
off, and your arms will fall from your benumbed and half-dead fingers."

The language of some of the Cossack chiefs was also remarkable. They
asked our officers, "if they had not, in their own country, corn enough,
air enough, graves enough--in short, room enough to live and die? Why
then did they come so far from home to throw away their lives and to
fatten a foreign soil with their blood?" They added, that "this was a
robbery of their native land, which, while living, it is our duty to
cultivate, to defend and to embellish; and to which after our death we
owe our bodies, which we received from it, which it has fed, and which
in their turn ought to feed it."

The Emperor was not ignorant of these warnings, but he would not suffer
his resolution to be shaken by them. The uneasiness which had again
seized him betrayed itself in angry orders. It was then that he caused
the churches of the Kremlin to be stripped of every thing that could
serve for a trophy to the grand army. These objects, devoted to
destruction by the Russians themselves, belonged, he said, to the
conquerors by the two-fold right conferred by victory, and still more by
the conflagration.

It required long efforts to remove the gigantic cross from the steeple
of Ivan the Great, to the possession of which the Russians attached the
salvation of their empire. The Emperor determined that it should adorn
the dome of the invalids, at Paris. During the work it was remarked that
a great number of ravens kept flying round this cross, and that
Napoleon, weary of their hoarse croaking, exclaimed, that "it seemed as
if these flocks of ill-omened birds meant to defend it." We cannot
pretend to tell all that he thought in this critical situation, but it
is well known that he was accessible to every kind of presentiment.

His daily excursions, always illumined by a brilliant sun, in which he
strove himself to perceive and to make others recognize his star, did
not amuse him. To the sullen silence of inanimate Moscow was superadded
that of the surrounding deserts, and the still more menacing silence of
Alexander. It was not the faint sound of the footsteps of our soldiers
wandering in this vast sepulchre, that could rouse our Emperor from his
reverie, and snatch him from his painful recollections and still more
painful anticipations.

His nights in particular became irksome to him. He passed part of them
with Count Daru. It was then only that he admitted the danger of his
situation. "From Wilna to Moscow what submission, what point of support,
rest or retreat, marks his power? It is a vast, bare and desert field of
battle, in which his diminished army is imperceptible, insulated, and as
it were lost in the horrors of an immense void. In this country of
foreign manners and religion, he has not conquered a single individual;
he is in fact master only of the ground on which he stands. That which
he has just quitted and left behind him is no more his than that which
he has not yet reached. Insufficient for these vast deserts, he is lost
as it were in their immense space."

He then reviewed the different resolutions of which he still had the
choice. "People imagined," he said, "that he had nothing to do but
march, without considering that it would take a month to refit his army
and to evacuate his hospitals; that if he relinquished his wounded, the
Cossacks would celebrate daily triumphs over his sick and his
stragglers. He would appear to fly. All Europe would resound with the
report! Europe, which envied him, which was seeking a rival under whom
to rally, and which imagined that it had found such a rival in
Alexander."

Then appreciating all the power which he derived from the notion of his
infallibility, he shuddered at the idea of giving it the first blow.
"What a frightful series of dangerous wars would date from his first
retrograde step! Let not then his inactivity be censured! As if I did
not know," added he, "that in a military point of view Moscow is of no
value! But Moscow is not a military position, it is a political
position. People look upon me as general there, when in fact I am
Emperor!" He then exclaimed that "in politics a person ought never to
recede, never to retrograde, never to admit himself to be wrong, as it
lessened his consideration; that when mistaken, he ought to persevere,
in order to give him the appearance of being in the right."

On this account he adhered to his own opinion with that tenacity which,
on other occasions, was his best quality, but in this case his worst
defect.

His distress meanwhile increased. He knew that he could not rely on the
Prussian army: an intimation from too authentic a source, addressed to
Berthier, extinguished his confidence in the support of the Austrians.
He was sensible that Kutusoff was playing with him, but he had gone so
far, that he could neither advance nor stay where he was, nor retreat,
nor fight with honour and success. Thus alternately impelled and held
back by all that can decide and dissuade, he remained upon those ashes,
ceasing to hope, but continuing to desire.

The letter of which Lauriston was the bearer had been dispatched on the
6th of October; the answer to it could scarcely arrive before the 20th;
and yet in spite of so many threatening demonstrations, the pride, the
policy, and perhaps the health of Napoleon induced him to pursue the
worst of all courses, that of waiting for this answer, and of trusting
to time which was destroying him. Daru, like his other grandees, was
astonished to find in him no longer that prompt decision, variable and
rapid as the circumstances that called it forth; they asserted, that his
genius could no longer accommodate itself to them; they placed it to the
account of his natural obstinacy, which led to his elevation, and was
likely to cause his downfall.

But in this extremely critical warlike position, which by its
complication with a political position, became the most delicate which
ever existed, it was not to be expected that a character like his, which
had hitherto been so great from its unshaken constancy, would make a
speedy renunciation of the object which he had proposed to himself ever
since he left Witepsk.




CHAP. XI.


Napoleon however, was completely aware of his situation. To him every
thing seemed lost if he receded in the face of astonished Europe, and
every thing saved if he could yet overcome Alexander in determination.
He appreciated but too well the means that were left him to shake the
constancy of his rival; he knew that the number of effective troops,
that his situation, the season, in short every thing would become daily
more and more unfavourable to him; but he reckoned upon that force of
illusion which gave him his renown. Till that day he had borrowed from
it a real and never-failing strength; he endeavoured therefore to keep
up by specious arguments the confidence of his people, and perhaps also
the faint hope that was yet left to himself.

Moscow, empty of inhabitants, no longer furnished him with any thing to
lay hold of. "It is no doubt a misfortune," said he, "but this
misfortune is not without its advantage. Had it been otherwise, he would
not have been able to keep order in so large a city, to overawe a
population of three hundred thousand souls, and to sleep in the Kremlin
without having his throat cut. They have left us nothing but ruins, but
at least we are quiet among them. Millions have no doubt slipped through
our hands, but how many millions is Russia losing! Her commerce is
ruined for a century to come. The nation is thrown back fifty years;
this, of itself, is an important result. When the first moment of
enthusiasm is past, this reflexion will fill them with consternation."
The conclusion which he drew was, that so violent a shock would convulse
the throne of Alexander, and force that prince to sue for peace.

If he reviewed his different _corps d'armee_, as their reduced
battalions now presented but a narrow front, which he had traversed in a
moment, this diminution vexed him; and whether he wished to dissemble
for the sake of his enemies or his own people, he declared that the
practice hitherto pursued, of ranging the men three deep, was wrong, and
that two were sufficient; he therefore ordered that in future his
infantry should be drawn up in two ranks only.

Nay, more, he insisted that the inflexibility of the _states of
situation_ should give way to this illusion. He disputed their results.
The obstinacy of Count Lobau could not overcome his: he was desirous no
doubt of making his aide-de-camp understand what he wished others to
believe, and that nothing could shake his resolution.

Murat, nevertheless, transmitted to him tidings of the distress of his
advanced guard. They terrified Berthier; but Napoleon sent for the
officer who brought them, pressed him with his interrogatories, daunted
him with his looks, brow-beat him with his incredulity. The assertions
of Murat's envoy lost much of their assurance. Napoleon took advantage
of his hesitation to keep up the hopes of Berthier, and to persuade him
that matters were not yet so very urgent; and he sent back the officer
to Murat's camp with the opinion which he would no doubt propagate, that
the Emperor was immoveable, that he doubtless had his reasons for thus
persisting, and that they must all redouble their exertions.

Meanwhile the attitude of his army seconded his wishes. Most of the
officers persevered in their confidence. The common soldiers, who,
seeing their whole lives in the present moment and expecting but little
from the future, concerned themselves but little about it, retained
their thoughtlessness, the most valuable of their qualities. The
rewards, however, which the Emperor bestowed profusely upon them in the
daily reviews, were received only with a sedate joy, mingled with some
degree of dejection. The vacant places that were just filled up were yet
dyed with blood. These favours were threatening.

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