As it was, the Grand Army toiled on through heat, dust, and the smoke of burning villages, to gain peace and plenty at Moscow.  But when, on September the 14th, the conqueror entered that city with his vanguard, solitude reigned almost unbroken.  A few fanatics, clinging to the tradition that the Kremlin was impregnable, idly sought to defend it; but troops, officials, nobles, merchants, and the great mass of the people were gone, and the military stores had been burnt or removed.  Rostopchin, the governor, had released the prisoners and broken the fire engines.  Flames speedily burst forth, and Bausset, the Prefect of Napoleon’s Palace, affirms that while looking forth from the Kremlin he saw the flames burst forth in several districts in quick succession; and that a careful examination of cellars often proved them to be stored with combustibles, vitriol in one case being swallowed by a French soldier who took it for brandy!  If all this be true, it proves that the Muscovites were determined to fire their capital.  But their writers have as stoutly affirmed that the fires were caused by French and Polish plunderers.[268] Three days later, the powers of the air and the demons of drink and frenzy raged uncontrolled; and Napoleon himself barely escaped from the whirlwinds of flame that enveloped the Kremlin and nearly scorched to death the last members of his staff.  For several hours the conflagration was fanned by an equinoctial gale, and when, on the 20th, it died down, convicts or plunderers kindled it anew.

Yet the army did not want for shelter, and, as Sergeant Bourgogne remarks, if every house had been gutted there were still the caves and cellars that promised protection from the cold of winter.  The real problem was now, as ever, the food-supply.  The Russians had swept the district wellnigh bare; and though the Grand Army feasted for a fortnight on dainties and drink, yet bread, flour, and meat were soon very scarce.  In vain did the Emperor seek to entice the inhabitants back; they knew the habits of the invaders only too well; and despite several distant raids, which sometimes cost the French dear, the soldiery began to suffer.

October wore on with delusive radiance, but brought no peace.  Soon after the great conflagration at Moscow, Napoleon sent secret and alluring overtures to Alexander, offering to leave Russia a free hand in regard to Turkey, inclusive of Constantinople, which he had hitherto strictly reserved, and hinting that Polish affairs might also be arranged to the Czar’s liking.[269] But Alexander refused tamely to accept the fruits of victory from the man who, he believed, had burnt holy Moscow, and clung to his vow never to treat with his rival as long as a single French soldier stood on Russian soil.  His resolve saved Europe.  Yet it cost him much to defy the great conqueror to the death:  he had so far feared the capture of St. Petersburg as to request that the Cronstadt fleet might be kept in safety in England.[270]