On entering the city, the Emperor was struck by a sight still more extraordinary:  a few houses scattered among the ruins were all that was left of the mighty Moscow.  The smell issuing from this colossus, overthrown, burned, and calcined, was horrible.  Heaps of ashes, and at intervals, fragments of walls or half demolished pillars, were now the only vestiges that marked the site of streets.

The suburbs were sprinkled with Russians of both sexes, covered with garments nearly burned.  They flitted like spectres among the ruins; squatted in the gardens, some of them were scratching up the earth in quest of vegetables, while others were disputing with the crows for the relics of the dead animals which the army had left behind.  Farther on, others again were seen plunging into the Moskwa to bring out some of the corn which had been thrown into it by command of Rostopchin, and which they devoured without preparation, sour and spoiled as it already was.

Meanwhile the sight of the booty, in such of the camps where every thing was yet wanting, inflamed the soldiers whom their duty or stricter officers had kept with their colours.  They murmured.  “Why were they to be kept back?  Why were they to perish by famine and want, when every thing was within their reach!  Was it right to leave the enemy’s fires to destroy what might be saved?  Why was such respect to be paid them?” They added, that “as the inhabitants of Moscow had not only abandoned, but even endeavoured utterly to destroy it, all that they could save would be legitimately acquired; that the remains of that city, like the relics of the arms of the conquered, belonged by right to the victors, as the Muscovites had turned their capital into a vast machine of war, for the purpose of annihilating us.”

The best principled and the best disciplined were those who argued thus, and it was impossible to reply.  Too rigid scruples at first prevented the issuing of orders for pillage; it was now permitted, unrestrained by regulations.  Urged by the most imperious necessities, all hurried to share in the spoil, the soldiers of the elite, and even officers themselves.  Their chiefs were obliged to shut their eyes:  only such guards as were absolutely indispensable were left with the eagles and the fasces.

The Emperor saw his whole army dispersed over the city.  His progress was obstructed by a long file of marauders going in quest of booty, or returning with it; by tumultuous assemblages of soldiers grouped around the entrances of cellars, or the doors of palaces, shops, and churches, which the fire had nearly reached, and into which they were endeavouring to penetrate.

His steps were impeded by the fragments of furniture of every kind which had been thrown out of the windows to save it from the flames, or by rich pillage which had been abandoned from caprice for some other booty; for such is the way with soldiers; they are incessantly beginning their fortune afresh, taking every thing without discrimination, loading themselves beyond measure, as if they could carry all they find; then, after they have gone a few steps, compelled by fatigue to throw away the greatest part of their burden.