This affair produced but little effect in Paris, for the enterprise and its result were make known simultaneously.  But it was thought droll enough that the Minister and Prefect of Police should be imprisoned by the men who only the day before were their prisoners.  Next day I went to see Savary, who had not yet recovered from the stupefaction caused by his extraordinary adventure.  He was aware that his imprisonment; though it lasted only half an hour, was a subject of merriment to the Parisians.  The Emperor, as I have already mentioned, left Moscow on the day when Mallet made his bold attempt, that is to say, the 19th of October.  He was at Smolensko when he heard the news.  Rapp, who had been wounded before the entrance into Moscow, but who was sufficiently recovered to return home, was with Napoleon when the latter received the despatches containing an account of what had happened in Paris.  He informed me that Napoleon was much agitated on perusing them, and that he launched into abuse of the inefficiency of the police.  Rapp added that he did not confine himself to complaints against the agents of his authority.  “Is, then, my power so insecure,” said he, “that it may be put in peril by a single individual, and a prisoner?  It would appear that my crown is not fixed very firmly on my head if in my own capital the bold stroke of three adventurers can shake it.  Rapp, misfortune never comes alone; this is the complement of what is passing here.  I cannot be everywhere; but I must go back to Paris; my presence there is indispensable to reanimate public opinion.  I must have men and money.  Great successes and great victories will repair all.  I must set off.”  Such were the motives which induced the Emperor to leave his army.  It is not without indignation that I have heard his precipitate departure attributed to personal cowardice.  He was a stranger to such feelings, and was never more happy than on the field of battle.  I can readily conceive that he was much alarmed on hearing of Mallet’s enterprise.  The remarks which he made to Rapp were those which he knew would be made by the public, and he well knew that the affair was calculated to banish those illusions of power and stability with which he endeavoured to surround his government.

On leaving Moscow Napoleon consigned the wrecks of his army to the care of his most distinguished generals to Murat who had so ably commanded the cavalry, but who abandoned the army to return to Naples; and to Ney, the hero, rather than the Prince of the Moskowa, whose name will be immortal in the annals of glory, as his death will be eternal in the annals of party revenge.  Amidst the general disorder Eugene, more than any other chief, maintained a sort of discipline among the Italians; and it was remarked that the troops of the south engaged in the fatal campaign of Moscow had endured the rigour of the cold better than those troops who were natives of less genial climates.