The roads were obstructed; the open places, like the camps, were turned into markets, whither every one repaired to exchange superfluities for necessaries.  There, the rarest articles, the value of which was not known to their possessors, were sold at a low price; others, of deceitful appearance, were purchased at a price far beyond their worth.  Gold, as being more portable, was bought at an immense loss with silver, which the knapsacks were incapable of holding.  Everywhere soldiers were seen seated on bales of merchandize, on heaps of sugar and coffee, amidst wines and the most exquisite liqueurs, which they were offering in exchange for a morsel of bread.  Many, in an intoxication aggravated by inanition, had fallen near the flames, which reached them, and put an end to their lives.

Most of the houses and palaces which had escaped the fire served nevertheless for quarters for the officers, and all that they contained was respected.  All of them beheld with pain this vast destruction, and the pillage which was its necessary consequence.  Some of our men belonging to the elite were charged with taking too much pleasure in collecting what they were able to save from the flames; but their number was so few that they were mentioned by name.  In these ardent men, war was a passion which presupposed the existence of others.  It was not covetousness, for they did not hoard; they spent lavishly what they picked up, taking in order to give, believing that one hand washed the other, and that they had paid for every thing with the danger.

Besides, on such an occasion, there is scarcely any distinction to be made, unless in the motive:  some took with regret, others with pleasure, and all from necessity.  Amidst wealth which had ceased to belong to any individual, ready to be consumed, or to be buried in ashes, they were placed in a quite novel situation, where right and wrong were confounded, and for which no rule was laid down.  The most delicate, either from principle, or because they were richer than others, bought of the soldiers the provision and apparel which they required:  some sent agents to plunder for them; and the most necessitous were forced to help themselves with their own hands.

As to the soldiers, many of them being embarrassed with the fruits of their pillage, became less active, less thoughtless:  in danger they began to calculate, and in order to save their booty, they did what they would have disdained to do to save themselves.

It was amidst this confusion that Napoleon again entered Moscow.  He had allowed this pillage, hoping that his army, scattered over the ruins, would not ransack them in vain.  But when he learned that the disorder increased; that the old guard itself was seduced; that the Russian peasants, who were at length allured thither with provisions, for which he caused them to be liberally paid for the purpose of drawing others, were robbed of the provisions which they brought us, by our famished