[Footnote 268:  Bausset, “Cour de Napoleon.”  Tolstoi ("War and Liberty”) asserts that the fires were the work of tipsy pillagers.  So too Arndt, “Mems.,” p. 204.  Dr. Tzenoff, in a scholarly monograph (Berlin, 1900), comes to the same conclusion.  Lejeune and Bourgogne admit both causes.]

[Footnote 269:  Garden, vol. xiii., p. 452; vol. xiv., pp. 17-19.]

[Footnote 270:  Cathcart, p. 41; see too the Czar’s letters in Sir Byam Martin’s “Despatches,” vol. ii., p. 311.  This fact shows the frothiness of the talk indulged in by Russians in 1807 as to “our rapacity and perfidy” in seizing the Danish fleet.]

[Footnote 271:  E.g., the migration of Rostopchin’s serfs en masse from their village, near Moscow, rather than come under French dominion (Wilson, “French Invasion of Russia,” p. 179).]

[Footnote 272:  Letter of October 16th; see too his undated notes ("Corresp.,” No. 19237).  Bausset and many others thought the best plan would be to winter at Moscow.  He also says that the Emperor’s favourite book while at Moscow was Voltaire’s “History of Charles XII.”]

[Footnote 273:  Lejeune, vol. ii., chap. vi.  As it chanced, Kutusoff had resolved on retreat, if Napoleon attacked him.  This is perhaps the only time when Napoleon erred through excess of prudence.  Fezensac noted at Moscow that he would not see or hear the truth.]

[Footnote 274:  It has been constantly stated by Napoleon, and by most French historians of this campaign, that his losses were mainly due to an exceptionally severe and early winter.  The statement will not bear examination.  Sharp cold usually sets in before November 6th in Russia at latitude 55 deg.; the severe weather which he then suffered was succeeded by alternate thaws and slighter frosts until the beginning of December, when intense cold is always expected.  Moreover, the bulk of the losses occurred before the first snowstorm.  The Grand Army which marched on Smolensk and Moscow may be estimated at 400,000 (including reinforcements).  At Viasma, before severe cold set in, it had dwindled to 55,000.  We may note here the curious fact, substantiated by Alison, that the French troops stood the cold better than the Poles and North Germans.  See too N. Senior’s “Conversations,” vol. i., p. 239.]

[Footnote 275:  Bausset, “Cour de Napoleon”; Wilson, pp. 271-277.]

[Footnote 276:  Oudinot, “Memoires.”]

[Footnote 277:  Hereford George, pp. 349-350.]

[Footnote 278:  Bourgogne, ch. viii.]

[Footnote 279:  Pasquier, vol. ii., ad init.]

[Footnote 280:  Colonel Desprez, who accompanied the retreat, thus described to King Joseph its closing scenes:  “The truth is best expressed by saying that the army is dead.  The Young Guard was 8,000 strong when we left Moscow:  at Vilna it scarcely numbered 400....  The corps of Victor and Oudinot numbered 30,000 men when they crossed the Beresina:  two days afterwards they had melted away like the rest of the army.  Sending reinforcements only increased the losses.”