Several thousand Cossacks, with four pieces of cannon, were retreating in that direction.  The armistice was at an end.  Murat, tired of this peace of half a day, immediately ordered it to be broken by a discharge of carbines.  But our cavalry considered the war as finished; Moscow appeared to them to be the term of it, and the advanced posts of the two empires were unwilling to renew hostilities.  A fresh order arrived, and the same hesitation prevailed.  At length Murat, irritated at this disobedience, gave his orders in person; and the firing, with which he seemed to threaten Asia, but which was not destined to cease till we reached the banks of the Seine, was renewed.

CHAP.  VI.

Napoleon did not enter Moscow till after dark.  He stopped in one of the first houses of the Dorogomilow suburb.  There he appointed Marshal Mortimer governor of that capital.  “Above all,” said he to him, “no pillage?  For this you shall be answerable to me with your life.  Defend Moscow against all, whether friend or foe.”

That night was a gloomy one:  sinister reports followed one upon the heels of another.  Some Frenchmen, resident in the country, and even a Russian officer of police, came to denounce the conflagration.  He gave all the particulars of the preparations for it.  The Emperor, alarmed by these accounts, strove in vain to take some rest.  He called every moment, and had the fatal tidings repeated to him.  He nevertheless entrenched himself in his incredulity, till about two in the morning, when he was informed that the fire had actually broken out.

It was at the exchange, in the centre of the city, in its richest quarter.  He instantly issued orders upon orders.  As soon as it was light, he himself hastened to the spot, and threatened the young guard and Mortimer.  The Marshal pointed out to him some houses covered with iron; they were closely shut up, still untouched and uninjured without, and yet a black smoke was already issuing from them.  Napoleon pensively entered the Kremlin.

At the sight of this half Gothic and half modern palace of the Ruriks and the Romanofs, of their throne still standing, of the cross of the great Ivan, and of the finest part of the city, which is overlooked by the Kremlin, and which the flames, as yet confined to the bazaar, seemed disposed to spare, his former hopes revived.  His ambition was flattered by this conquest.  “At length then,” he exclaimed, “I am in Moscow, in the ancient palace of the Czars, in the Kremlin!” He examined every part of it with pride, curiosity, and gratification.

He required a statement of the resources afforded by the city; and in this brief moment given to hope, he sent proposals of peace to the Emperor Alexander.  A superior officer of the enemy’s had just been found in the great hospital; he was charged with the delivery of this letter.  It was by the baleful light of the flames of the bazaar that Napoleon finished it, and the Russian departed.  He was to be the bearer of the news of this disaster to his sovereign, whose only answer was this conflagration.