Meanwhile the conflagration at Moscow, which commenced in the night of the 14th of September, suspended through our exertions during the day of the 15th, revived in the following night, and raging in its utmost violence on the 16th, 17th, and 18th, abated on the 19th.  It ceased on the 20th.  That very day, Napoleon, whom the flames had driven from the Kremlin, returned to the palace of the czars.  He invited thither the looks of all Europe.  He there awaited his convoys, his reinforcements, and the stragglers of his army; certain that all his men would be rallied by his victory, by the allurements of such vast booty, by the astonishing sight of captive Moscow, and above all, by his own glory, which from the top of this immense pile of ruins, still shone attractive like a beacon upon a rock.

Twice, however, on the 22d and 28th of September, letters from Murat had well nigh drawn Napoleon from this fatal abode.  They announced a battle; but twice the orders for departure, written in consequence, were burned.  It seemed as though the war was finished for our Emperor, and that he was only waiting for an answer from Petersburg.  He nourished his hopes with the recollections of Tilsit and Erfurt.  Was it possible that at Moscow he should have less ascendancy over Alexander?  Then, like men who have long been favourites of fortune, what he ardently wished he confidently expected.

His genius possessed besides that extraordinary faculty, which consisted in throwing aside the most important occupation whenever he pleased, either for the sake of variety or of rest:  for in him the power of volition surpassed that of imagination.  In this respect he reigned over himself as much as he did over others.

Thus Paris diverted his attention from Petersburg.  His affairs were as yet divided, and the couriers, which in the first days succeeded each other without intermission, served to engage him.  But the rapidity with which he transacted business soon left him nothing to do.  His expresses, which at first came from France in a fortnight, ceased to arrive.  A few military posts, placed in four towns reduced to ashes, and in wooden houses rudely palisaded, were not sufficient to guard a road of ninety-three leagues:  for we had not been able to establish more than a few echelons, and those at too great distances, on too long a line of operation, broken at every point where it was touched by the enemy; and for which a few peasants and a handful of Cossacks were quite sufficient.

Still no answer was received from Alexander.  The uneasiness of Napoleon increased, and his means of distraction diminished.  The activity of his genius, accustomed to the government of all Europe, had nothing wherewith to occupy itself but the management of one hundred thousand men; and then, the organization of his army was so perfect, that this was scarcely any occupation.  Here every thing was fixed; he held all the wires in his hand:  he was surrounded