Meanwhile Kutusoff, on leaving Moscow, had drawn Murat towards Kolomna, to the point where the Moskwa intersects the road.  Here, under favour of the night, he suddenly turned to the south, proceeding by way of Podol, to throw himself between Moscow and Kalouga.  This nocturnal march of the Russians around Moscow, the ashes and flames of which were wafted to them by the violence of the wind, was melancholy and religious.  They advanced by the baleful light of the conflagration, which was consuming the centre of their commerce, the sanctuary of their religion, the cradle of their empire!  Filled with horror and indignation, they all kept a sullen silence, which was unbroken save by the dull and monotonous sound of their footsteps, the roaring of the flames, and the howling of the tempest.  The dismal light was frequently interrupted by livid and sudden flashes.  The brows of these warriors might then be seen contracted by a savage grief, and the fire of their sombre and threatening looks answered these flames, which they regarded as our work; it already betrayed that ferocious revenge which was rankling in their hearts, which spread throughout the whole empire, and to which so many Frenchmen fell victims.

At that solemn moment, Kutusoff in a firm and noble tone informed his sovereign of the loss of his capital.  He declared, that, “in order to preserve the fertile provinces of the south, and his communication with Tormasof and Tchitchakof, he had been obliged to abandon Moscow, but emptied of the inhabitants, who were the life of it; that as the people are the soul of every empire, so wherever the Russian people were, there would be Moscow and the whole empire of Russia.”

Here, however, he seemed to bend under the weight of his grief.  He admitted that “this wound was deep and could never be effaced;” but soon recovering himself, he added, that “the loss of Moscow made but one city less in the empire, that it was the sacrifice of a part for the salvation of the whole.  He was throwing himself on the flank of the enemy’s long line of operation, keeping him as it were blockaded by his detachments:  there he should watch his movements, cover the resources of the empire, and again complete his army;” and already (on the 16th of September) he announced, that “Napoleon would be forced to abandon his fatal conquest.”

It is said that on the receipt of this intelligence Alexander was thunderstruck.  Napoleon built hopes on the weakness of his rival, and the Russians at the same time dreaded the effect of that weakness.  The Czar belied both these hopes and these fears.  In his addresses to his subjects he exhibited himself great as his misfortune; “No pusillanimous dejection!” he exclaimed:  “Let us vow redoubled courage and perseverance!  The enemy is in deserted Moscow as in a tomb, without means of domination or even of existence.  He entered Russia with three hundred thousand men of all countries, without union or any national or religious bond;—­he has lost half of them by the sword, famine, and desertion:  he has but the wreck of this army in Moscow; he is in the heart of Russia, and not a single Russian is at his feet.