How, indeed, was it possible for him to persuade himself, that so many magnificent palaces, so many splendid temples, so many rich mercantile establishments, were forsaken by their owners, like the paltry hamlets through which he had recently passed.  Daru’s mission however was fruitless.  Not a Muscovite was to be seen; not the least smoke rose from a single chimney; not the slightest noise issued from this immense and populous city; its three hundred thousand inhabitants seemed to be struck dumb and motionless by enchantment:  it was the silence of the desert!

But such was the incredulity of Napoleon, that he was not yet convinced, and waited for farther information.  At length, an officer, determined to gratify him, or persuaded that whatever the Emperor willed must necessarily be accomplished, entered the city, seized five or six vagabonds, drove them before his horse to the Emperor, and imagined that he had brought him a deputation.  From the first words they uttered, Napoleon discovered that the persons before him were only indigent labourers.

It was not till then that he ceased to doubt the entire evacuation of Moscow, and lost all the hopes that he had built upon it.  He shrugged his shoulders, and with that contemptuous look with which he met every thing that crossed his wishes, he exclaimed, “Ah! the Russians know not yet the effect which the taking of their capital will produce upon them!”

CHAP.  V.

It was now an hour since Murat, and the long and close column of his cavalry, had entered Moscow; they penetrated into that gigantic body, as yet untouched, but inanimate.  Struck with profound astonishment at the sight of this complete solitude, they replied to the taciturnity of this modern Thebes, by a silence equally solemn.  These warriors listened, with a secret shuddering, to the steps of their horses resounding alone, amid these deserted palaces.  They were astonished to hear nothing but themselves amid such numerous habitations.  No-one thought of stopping or of plundering, either from prudence, or because great civilized nations respect themselves in enemies’ capitals, in the presence of those great centers of civilization.

Meanwhile they were silently observing that mighty city, which would have been truly remarkable had they met with it in a flourishing and populous country, but which was still more astonishing in these deserts.  It was like a rich and brilliant oasis.  They had at first been struck by the sudden view of so many magnificent palaces; but they now perceived that they were intermingled with mean cottages; a circumstance which indicated the want of gradation between the classes, and that luxury was not generated there, as in other countries, by industry, but preceded it; whereas, in the natural order, it ought to be its more or less necessary consequence.

Here more especially prevailed inequality—­that bane of all human society, which produces pride in some, debasement in others, corruption in all.  And yet such a generous abandonment of every thing demonstrated that this excessive luxury, as yet however entirely borrowed, had not rendered these nobles effeminate.