Excerpts from Chapter 1: "FIRE! FIRE!" Colonel Griois goes on a shopping spree - 'we take possession of Moscow as if it had been built for us'- a sinister silence - the Italian Royal Guard lodges itself military fashion - Napoleon enters Moscow -fire fuzes in the Kremlin - 'a lugubrious calm, broken only by horses' whinnying'- not exactly a spectacle to restore our spirits'- 'it signal like a firework' - 'the whole city was going up in flames' For the first time since the Grand Army had crossed the Niemen at midsummer, 83 days ago, Colonel Lubin Griois, commanding 3rd Cavalry Corps' horse artillery, and his aristocratic friend Colonel Jumilhac, the corps' chief-of-staff, have slept in beds. It's the first time they've taken their clothes off since leaving Prussia in June. Last night they'd taken possession of a comfortable villa 'said to belong to a doctor' but abandoned by its owner, it couple of miles north-west of Moscow. Not far away Prince Eugène's mainly Italian IV Corps, to which 3rd Cavalry Corps has recently been attached, has bivouacked around 'the miserable little town of Chorosewo'. Across the plain they can see the city's multicoloured onion spires, gleaming in the autumn sunshine. Since no orders have come, Griois decides to go on a shopping spree. A keen observer of people and places, a lady's man of the most faithless nature but also a lover of Italian opera and paintings and whose dominant passion is gambling, Griois, above all else in this world, loves Italy - i.e., northern Italy. In the South and Calabria he's had most unpleasant experiences, seen all sorts of horrors and been in the action at Maida in 1806 where Reynier's forces had been repulsed by unexpectedly steady British infantry fire. He's also been in the Tyrol, where he'd offered a pinch of snuff to Andreas Hofer and been desperately sad when that captured hero, at Napoleon's express order, had been shot by firing squad at Mantua. Leaving Verona - how he'd loved Verona! - in advance of his guns with his horses and equipment, 'about all I owned', he'd nevertheless been 'enchanted to do this campaign, whose immense preparations had announced its importance. I hadn't been able to leave Verona and the objects so dear to me without a contraction of my heart, augmented by a virtual certainty I'd never again see this town where at various times I'd spent about three years, where I'd lived so happily, and where I'd tasted every pleasure.' Unlike Jumilhac, whose wit makes him delightful company for his fellow officers but whom his friend regards as altogether too hard on the rank-and-file, Griois prides himself on knowing each of his gunners by name and on being so unembarrassed in Napoleon's presence as even to contradict him in technical matters. Taking his orderly with him, he enters the city, hoping the rumour, which has been going the rounds ever since yesterday, of its being abandoned by its population, will prove to be much exaggerated. And in fact Griois finds there are 'still some inhabitants who'd stayed behind. But almost all were foreigners, Italians, Germans and Frenchmen, who seemed to be delighted to receive their compatriots. I saw a lot of them in the streets.' That almost every shop is closed he ascribes to 'the merchants' excusable fear during the first moments of the occupation. The order and calm reigning in all the quarters I went through should soon dispel all fear and re-establish confidence.' An Italian having indicated a 'rather ugly' café, Griois - presumably also the orderly - indulges in the delights of a café crème. But above all he craves wine; and an artillery captain of his acquaintance shows him where he can get some, in a Russian merchant's vast underground cellar. There he relishes a bottle of 'a sort of dry Madeira'. Finishing it off, his orderly is of the same opinion. And after loading him down with half-a-dozen more such bottles 'I left my merchant most content, to get in gold what he usually was paid for in paper roubles. Fully disposed to renew our provisions tomorrow and never more lack for any' Griois gets back to his gunners' bivouac outside the city and generously gives the rest of his bottles to his comrades. Meanwhile, for the third time since entering Russia, Prince Eugène's troops - Italians, Dalmatians, Frenchmen, Spaniards and Croats - have been donning their parade uniforms. To enter Moscow, Europe's second largest and far and away most exotic capital, and march triumphantly down its streets with their bands playing is going to be a journée - a great imperial occasion. And IV Corps, headed by the Royal Guard, quits Chorosewo and sets off for the still distant city. At the head of the Royal Guard marches the Guardia d'Onore - a unit made up of 'sons of the best Italian families, each supported by his family with a Line lieutenant's pay'. Its adjutant-major, as Moscow step by step comes closer, sees that it's indeed an open city. Only an old earthwork, broken down in many places, surrounds it. But here, thinks Césare de Laugier, is an odd thing. And a very worrying one: 'Nowhere do we see a soldier, either Russian or French. At each step our anxiety grows, and rises to a climax when we make out in the distance a dense column of smoke rising from the centre of town.' Almost more worrying - not a wisp is to be seen rising from any chimney. Now the head of the column reaches the Zwenigorod barrier.But instead of passing through it, they're ordered to turn left and follow the city limits. Cross another approach road. And reach the Petersburg barrier. This time the Viceroy, followed by the Royal Guard, turns his horse's head to the right and rides between its two stone pillars topped with globes. Not so IV Corps' other three divisions. To their intense chagrin they have to 'turn their backs on Moscow and go and camp in the plain outside. The 15th Division around the imperial château of Petrovskoï. The l3th at Auksecewskoï. And the l4th at Butyrki, with Ornano's [Bavarian] light Cavalry deployed in front of them.' As they ride in along the Petersburg suburbs' broad well-aligned streets, Eugène's glittering staff find its first houses tawdry and ill-built. But by and by, interspersed with these 'dreary wooden shacks which looked as wretched as the unfortunate people who'd lived in them', come 'others more beautiful ... superb and vast palaces'. Amazingly, not one of them seems to be occupied. And every shop is shut. Obviously the rumour is true. Moscow has been abandoned by its inhabitants! Never has such a thing happened before. Nor is there any sign of any other troops, whether Russian, French or allied. Césare de Laugier scribbles ill his diary (in the present tense): 'Without uttering a word we're marching down the long solitary streets. The drums are resounding in dull echoes against the walls of the deserted houses. In vain we try to make our faces evince a serenity which is far from our hearts. Something altogether extraordinary, it seems to us, is about to happen. Moscow seems to us to be a huge corpse. It's the kingdom of silence, a fairy town, whose buildings and houses have been built by enchantment for us alone.' The 'corpse' reminds him ('though here the impression is even more sepulchral) of the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum'. For his part Captain Eugène Labaume, on the Viceroy's staff, is struck by the extreme length of the streets, 'so long from end to end that the cavalry troopers can't even recognise each other. We saw them advancing slowly towards each other, not knowing whether they were friend or foe, though all were under the same flags.' At last the order comes to halt. And the Royal Guard draws up in battle - that's to say parade - order on 'a beautiful spacious promenade'. ... 1812: Napoleon in Moscow: Table of Content Published by Greenhill Books. © Greenhill Books. All rights reserved. Reproduced on MagWeb with permission of the publisher. Back to List of One-Drous Chapters: Napoleonic Back to List of All One-Drous Chapters Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List Magazine articles and contents are copyrighted property of the respective publication. 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