Caulaincourt is certainly also in attendance at the levee. Looking out of the window he sees how the wind is

'fanning the flames to a terrifying extent, carrying enormous sparks so far that they were falling like a fiery deluge hundreds of yards away, setting fire to houses, so that even the most intrepid couldn't stay there. The air was so hot, and the pinewood sparks so numerous, that all the trusses supporting the iron plates forming the roof were catching fire.'

The Arsenal, a fine modern building whose courtyard, Griois will see, is 'ornamented with military trophies, guns and howitzers of colossal dimensions, most taken from the Turks in ancient wars', abuts the Tsars' ancient palace. Already it's being found to contain 18,000 British, Austrian and Russian muskets, 100 cannon with limbers, caissons and harness, as well as 'lances and sabres innumerable' and an immense amount of ammunition useful to the French. And prompt steps are of course taken to prevent the blaze from spreading:

'The roof of its kitchen was only saved by men who'd been stationed there with brooms and buckets to gather up the glowing fragments and rnoisten the trusses.'

Worse, even more perilous, down in the Kremlin's courtyards dozens of the Imperial Guard's artillery wagons, filled with highly explosive ammunition, are crammed together. And as the forenoon wears on and the fire in the city comes ever closer, the situation is swiftly becoming lethal. Watching from the Kremlin windows, Napoleon breaks out into exasperated ejaculations:

"What a monstrous sight! All those palaces! Extraordinary resolution! What men!"

By noon, despite everyone's efforts, the fire has begun to attack the Kremlin stables, containing 'some of the Emperor's horses and the Tsar's coronation coaches. Coachmen and grooms clambered on the roof and knocked off the fallen cinders.' Of the Kremlin's fire engines only two, put in working order during the night at Caulaincourt's behest, are intact. Everywhere the heat is swiftly becoming unbearable. Secretary Fain sees how the Kremlin windows are cracking as the flames attack the tower that links the palace with the Arsenal:

'Sparks were even falling in the Arsenal courtyard onto a heap of tow used in the Russian artillery wagons. The wagons of our own artillery were also standing there. The danger was immense, and the Emperor was informed. He went to the spot.'

Méneval is alarmed to see such sparks, borne on the high wind,

'setting alight bits of oakum lying on the ground. Not that this danger, which we were so fortunate as to baulk, worried Napoleon, whose soul never even knew what it was to be afraid.' As yet he didn't think it necessary to leave the Kremlin. On the contrary, (he danger seemed to be keeping him there.'

Now the Master of the Horse, too, is himself in the thick of it:

'I may say without exaggeration we were working under a vault of fire. Everyone was doing his best, but it was impossible to stay more than a moment in any one spot. We were breathing nothing but smoke, and after a while even the strongest lungs felt the strain.'

Even the bridge over the river has become

'so hot from the sparks failing on it that it kept bursting into flames. But the men of the Guard and especially the Sappers made it a point of honour to preserve it. The fur on these half-roasted men's bearskins wits singed.'

Guillaume Peyrusse is a young paymaster attached to IHQ who has an eye on and is forever scheming to occupy an as yet non-existent post as paymaster to the Emperor on his travels. He sees

'one of our outriders grab a Russian soldier at the moment when he was going to set fire to the bridge, break his jaw and throw him into the river.'

Yet still Napoleon persists in lingering in the Kremlin courtyards, among all those deadly ammunition wagons; and Fain is horrified to see how

'the Guard's gunners and infantrymen, apprehensive at seeing Napoleon expose himself to so great a danger, are only adding to it by their eagerness.'

In the end Lariboisière, whose responsibility all these caissons are, begs him to go away, 'pointing out that his presence is making his gunners lose their heads'. Aided by servants they're also helping Caulaincourt save Prince Galitzin's superb palace, occupied by Rapp and Lariboisière; likewise two other adjoining houses already in flames.

To Major Boulart, the danger to his ammunition wagons, parked in the square not far from the Doroghomilov Gate, seems to be becoming from moment to moment ever more imminent:

'While waiting for daybreak, I'd had all hay and straw cleared away from the neighbourhood of my wagons and had posted gunners to see the flaming sparks didn't fall on them, though with the wagons as firmly closed down as ours were and covered in canvas there'd been little to fear.'

But now the vast conflagration is taking gigantic strides toward him. Time's running out. And no one has sent him any orders. Realizing that he must do something before it's too late, he makes up his mind to go in person to the Kremlin, seek out General Curial, his immediate superior, and get his permission to 'quit this hell'. Some time after noon he gives his orders. 'In the event of the fire reaching the only street we could retreat by, they should leave the town in my absence.' Then he mounts his horse. And accompanied by an orderly sets off, hoping to find his way to the Kremlin. Soon, 'with a loud and sinister sound', palaces and iron roofs are crashing down all around them. The gale whistles in their ears. Holding their arms over their eyes, half-deafened by all this rumbling and roaring, they ride slowly onwards through the hot ash and debris falling on their heads. They've no guide, and the distance seems endless:

'Isolated in this desert, my heart shrinks. But soon I get to the region actually being devoured. To right and left flames are rising above my head. I'm being swathed in dense smoke. Further on, the heat is so great and the flames are coming at me so closely, I have to shut my eyes. Can hardly see my way ahead. Often my horse shudders and refuses to go on.'

But then, suddenly, the two men emerge out of this 'fiery zone' into quite another. Almost calm, it consists only of smouldering ashes. Surely they must have gone astray? No. There, rising in front of them, are the Kremlin's crenellated walls! Now it's about 3 p. m. Entering by the great vaulted gate, Boulart finds everyone

'dejected, in a remarkable state of consternation. Fear and anxiety stood painted on all faces. Without a word said everyone seemed to understand everyone else.'

Up in the state apartments he finds Prince Eugène, Marshals Bessières and Lefèbvre (commanding the Guard cavalry and infantry respectively) Méneval says Mortier too - all vainly imploring Napoleon to leave. But since he seems to be 'afflicted by uncertainty' no one can do anything:

'However, the fire's intensity was growing as it came closer. The windows of the apartment occupied by the Emperor had caught alight and flames were whirling in all directions.'

Also present, certainly, is Berthier, Prince of Neuchâtel, most senior of all the marshals, Napoleon's chief-of-staff, the army's major-general. Now, if ever, he has reason to bite his fingernails to the quick! An orderly officer (Césare de Laugier will afterwards hear that it was Gourgaud)

'having come to tell him the fortress is surrounded by flames on all sides, is ordered to go up with the Prince of Neuchâtel to one of its highest terraces to confirm the fact.'

But so parched and unbreathable is the air up there, they're at once driven down again. And still Napoleon won't budge.

Now it's about 4 p.m. And Caulaincourt sees the Emperor is beginning to wonder whether the burning of the city isn't in some way co-ordinated with the Russians' military operations, 'though frequent reports from the King of Naples had assured His Majesty that they were pushing forward their retreat along the Kazan road'. Gourgaud, too, overhears Berthier point out that "if the enemy attacks the corps outside Moscow, Your Majesty has no means of communicating with them". Only this observation, Méneval sees, makes him decide to leave.

A couple of miles north of the city, not far from where the Army of Italy has its encampment on the plain by the Petersburg road, stands the Petrovskoï summer palace. A large 'Gothick' building, erected toward the end of the last century to celebrate Catherine the Great's victories over the Turks, it's a kind of imperial pied-à-terre for the Tsars to stay in on the eve of their coronations. Now one of Gourgaud's subordinates, Major Mortemart, is told to go and reconnoitre the safest way to get there. But he too, unable to get through the flames, soon comes back:

'It was impossible to get there by the direct road. To reach the outskirts we'd have to cross the western part of town as best we could, through ruins, cinders, flames even.'

So at last a decision is arrived at. IHQ will accompany His Majesty along the river bank. Only the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Foot Chasseurs of the Guard is to stay behind in the Kremlin and try to stave off the fire. Inspector of reviews, P-P Denniée, describes the imperial departure:

'He came slowly down the stairs of the Ivan Tower [from where he'd been watching the fire] followed by the Prince of Neuchâtel and other of his officers. Leaning on the arm of the Duke of Vicenza [Caulaincourt], he crossed a little wooden bridge which led to the Moscova Quay. And there found his horses.'

At the stone bridge over the river Napoleon mounts Tauris, another of his Arab greys, and, followed by his entourage - Gourgaud of course among them (amidst all this heat, grime and ash his sky-blue uniform can hardly any longer be in the best of trims) - sets off,

'a Moscow policeman walking in front of him, serving as guide. For some time they followed the river arid entered the districts where the wooden buildings had been completely destroyed.'

Thereafter 'avoiding streets where the fire was still at its height' the procession passes through 'quarters where the houses were already entirely burnt down. We were walking on hot ash.' Quartermaster-General Anatole Montesquiou and his colleagues are obliged 'to protect checks, hands and eyes with handkerchiefs and headgear and turn up the collars of our uniforms.' Méneval, Fain and the other secretaries ride slowly onwards in the headquarters carriages. Likewise the treasurers, Peyrusse among them:

'We had all the trouble in the world to get clear. The streets were encumbered with debris, with burning beams and trusses. In our carriages we were being grilled alive. The horses couldn't get on. I was extremely worried on account of the treasure,'

twelve strongly guarded wagons filled with perhaps some twenty millions in gold and silver coin.

But Major Boulart, braving the direct route, has got back to his regiment. He's just getting his guns and ammunition wagons under way and

'the head of my column was just about to recross the Moscova when the Emperor, his march retarded by my long column, appeared with his staff and went on ahead of me.'

A most dangerous moment, says General Count Philippe de Ségur the Assistant Prefect of the Palace and responsible for its pack mules. Some men of I Corps, he says, have guided IHQ out of narrow burning streets; and Marshal Davout

'wounded at Borodino, was having himself brought back into the flames to get Napoleon out of their clutches or else perish with him. Transported with joy he threw himself into his arms; the Emperor received him well but with that calm which never abandoned him in peril.'

Did the Iron Marshal really do that? It's hard to imagine Davout transported with joy in any circumstances. (Nor had he been 'wounded', only badly bruised when his horse had fallen on top of him.) Ségur's dramatic prose must always be taken with a largish pinch of salt. On the other hand he's on the spot, and Davout is certainly devoted to Napoleon's interests. What is true is that 'to escape from this vast region of evils, Napoleon still had to overtake a long powder convoy which was passing through it' - i.e., Boulart's. A single unheeded firebrand or flaming roof-shingle settling on one of his powder wagons and quickly burning a hole, first through its the canvas cover then the lid, is enough to blow the entire Imperial and General Staffs - and indeed the whole Napoleonic régime - sky-high. The sober-minded Boulart confesses to having felt 'gentle satisfaction' at his Emperor's providential escape.

After which the whole procession, Guard artillery and all, winds its way in drenching rain - now it's falling in bucketsful - round the north-western suburbs.

At the Petersburg Gate the ever-prescient Pion des Loches, who since 6 a.m. has had his Guard battery limbered up and ready to leave the city, finds the officer in charge of the picket half-seas under:

'Unable to go a-pillaging, he was levying a tax on all soldiers coming out with booty. He thought he was doing himself an honour in showing me his guardhouse filled with bottles of wine and baskets of eggs. All his men were dead drunk and he himself couldn't stand up.'

If the Kremlin has impressed everyone by its oriental splendours, the Petrovskoï summer palace seems merely odd. To Colonel Griois, who yesterday had had an opportunity to look at it before going on his shopping spree, its

'very antique construction, surrounded by high brick walls and its heavy and severe overall appearance made it seem more like a state prison than a sovereign's palace.'

Reminding Roman Soltyk of Hampton Court, to Captain Count V. E.. B. Castellane, another of Napoleon's orderlies, its style seems 'Greek, truly romantic'. Just now it's surrounded by an ocean of mud, through which camp stools and beds have to be fetched from Eugène's headquarters nearby. For if the Kremlin's furniture had been sparse, here there is none at all! Even tables have to be improvised. Nor does the Petrovskoï summer palace have any outbuildings; so in no time the entire Imperial and General Headquarters staffs' and the Administration, altogether some 700 persons, are trying to squeeze inside out of the rain. The entire artillery staff - Lariboisière, his son Henri, his 'man of letters' and his six 'ill-educated' staff captains who run Planat's errands - all have to cram themselves inside one small downstairs room. At its window Planat reads

'two letters to Lariboisière by the light of the distant fire. We were only some six miles from Moscow, and from there we saw the whole town perfectly. From this vantage point we could assess, better than hitherto, the full extent of the conflagration. The fire seemed to be burning everywhere. The town was no more than a single blaze.'

Is it as fascinating as Smolensk? Somewhere out on the plain with the baggage train a certain dragoon captain Henri Beyle, alias the future great novelist Slendhal, thinks not, but is wittily finding it

'the most beautiful fire in the world. Forming an immense pyramid, like the prayers of the faithful it had its base on the ground and its summit in heaven.'

Abbé Surugué, like everyone else, is noticing how the flames' undulations 'whipped up by the wind, are exactly emulating the waves raised by a storm at sea'. After supper Montesquiou and his colleagues at Petrovskoï can't resist going to take another look 'at this fiery spectacle that was doing us so much harm, and to which we nevertheless kept returning'.

But Caulaincourt, who's been on his feet for 21 hours, is too exhausted for any reflections, whether humorous or aesthetic. Just scribbles in his notebook: 'Arrived at 7.30 p.m. To bed.'

Some ten or fifteen miles away to the south-west General Colbert's crack Lancer Brigade, made up of the famous 1st (Polish) and 2nd (Dutch) Lancers of the Imperial Guard, is advancing eastwards. Two thousand men strong, its horses are heavily laden with saddle furniture, including such extras as scythes to cut standing crops and axes to fell trees. The brigade, without news or orders for a week now, has been scouring the countryside in the direction of Borowsk but has found no signs of an enemy. Captain François Dumonceau's 6th troop of the Red Lancers' 2nd squadron has probed particularly far afield; but seen 'only a few rare Cossacks'. Now he's on his way back to brigade headquarters, apprehensive that he'll be reprimanded - not for the first time - by his disciplinarian chief for being away too long. Instead he's surprised to be congratulated.

A somewhat cold-blooded young man, the Belgian captain has a keen eye for facts, events and details which he promptly notes down in his diary. Always it's been his ambition to see the Aurora Borealis. And that evening, seeing an immense glow in the sky as the column advances along the Moscow road, he takes it for granted that his ambition is being fulfilled. But his Polish colleague, Captain Josef Zalusky of the 1st Guard Lancers, places quite a different interpretation on this glow in the night sky; assumes 'the two armies to be in presence again, preparing for another major battle in front of Moscow. We felt bitterly frustrated at not taking part in it.'

That night the brigade reaches the Sparrow Hill, from which the cheering army had first seen the city, two days ago:

'We found it surrounded, occupied and guarded by our comrades the Horse Chasseurs of the Guard. Together with some other officers I galloped over to our friends, asked them at once: "And Moscow?" "There isn't any Moscow any more." "What d'you mean?" "It's burnt down - look!"'

Poles and Dutchmen gaze out through the darkness over an immense smoking mass:

'Only a little fragment, such as the Kremlin, dominating the town from its height, had been saved. Imagine our terror, from the military, political and personal points of view! We were exhausted by marching all the way from Kovno. Our clothes were in rags, we'd no clean linen, and we were counting on the capital's resources! The Chasseurs; interrupted our reflections by offering us Don wine, fizzy like champagne. We drank to the Emperor's health, to the expedition's happy outcome, and, somewhat consoled, resumed our march. We were making for the Kaluga road, to pass the night there. Having immediately supplied ourselves with various things we'd so long desired, above all Turkish tobacco, we spent our first night oblivious of torments. Jucunda sollicitae oblivia vitae.' - Happily oblivious of life's cares.

Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout, Prince d'Eckmühl, an even stricter disciplinarian than Colbert, is disliked and feared by almost everybody. Though only some 15-18,000 of his brilliantly disciplined I Corps, originally 69,500 strong, are still under his command, it's not - as is the case with Murat's cavalry - for any lack of care for them on Davout's part. Now he has set up his headquarters in a convent near the Doroghomilov Gate.

There, 26 Muscovites, arrested as incendiaries, have been brought in. Though most of their identities turn out to be fictitious, it's obvious they're men of many civil occupations - farriers, stonemasons, house painters, policemen, a sexton ... and only one, a lieutenant of the Moscow Regiment, is a military man. The first session of the court-martial, presided over by the commanding officer of the 1st Guard Grenadiers, is rather thorough. Though it orders ten of these unfortunates to be shot, the guilt of the sixteen others is found 'insufficiently proven'. And they're sent to prison. But elsewhere many others aren't even being given the benefit of any doubt. Fezensac takes an obviously innocent civilian under his protection but has to hand him over to another officer, to whom he 'recommends' him. The other, mistaking it for it sinister innuendo, has him shot. No wonder Lieutenant von Kalckreuth, riding across Moscow with the 2nd Prussian Hussars - a regiment reduced by its long marches from four squadrons to only two - finds

'in the streets many dead Russians, to a great extent old people who, caught red-handed setting fire [to buildings] had been shot on the spot.'

...

1812: Napoleon in Moscow: Table of Contents

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