War and Peace
or German sources, and the incomprehensible surrender of whole corps
without fighting and of fortresses without a siege must incline Germans
to recognize his genius as the only explanation of the war carried on
in Germany. But we, thank God, have no need to recognize his genius
in order to hide our shame. We have paid for the right to look at the
matter plainly and simply, and we will not abandon that right.
His activity in Moscow was as amazing and as full of genius as
elsewhere. Order after order and plan after plan were issued by him
from the time he entered Moscow till the time he left it. The absence
of citizens and of a deputation, and even the burning of Moscow, did not
disconcert him. He did not lose sight either of the welfare of his
army or of the doings of the enemy, or of the welfare of the people
of Russia, or of the direction of affairs in Paris, or of diplomatic
considerations concerning the terms of the anticipated peace.
CHAPTER IX
With regard to military matters, Napoleon immediately on his entry into
Moscow gave General Sabastiani strict orders to observe the movements
of the Russian army, sent army corps out along the different roads, and
charged Murat to find Kutúzov. Then he gave careful directions about the
fortification of the Krémlin, and drew up a brilliant plan for a future
campaign over the whole map of Russia.
With regard to diplomatic questions, Napoleon summoned Captain Yákovlev,
who had been robbed and was in rags and did not know how to get out of
Moscow, minutely explained to him his whole policy and his magnanimity,
and having written a letter to the Emperor Alexander in which he
considered it his duty to inform his Friend and Brother that Rostopchín
had managed affairs badly in Moscow, he dispatched Yákovlev to
Petersburg.
Having similarly explained his views and his magnanimity to Tutólmin, he
dispatched that old man also to Petersburg to negotiate.
With regard to legal matters, immediately after the fires he gave orders
to find and execute the incendiaries. And the scoundrel Rostopchín was
punished by an order to burn down his houses.
With regard to administrative matters, Moscow was granted a
constitution. A municipality was established and the following
announcement issued:
INHABITANTS OF MOSCOW!
Your misfortunes are cruel, but His Majesty the Emperor and King
desires to arrest their course. Terrible examples have taught you how he
punishes disobedience and crime. Strict measures have been taken to
put an end to disorder and to re-establish public security. A
paternal administration, chosen from among yourselves, will form your
municipality or city government. It will take care of you, of your
needs, and of your welfare. Its members will be distinguished by a red
ribbon worn across the shoulder, and the mayor of the city will wear
a white belt as well. But when not on duty they will only wear a red
ribbon round the left arm.
The city police is established on its former footing, and better order
already prevails in consequence of its activity. The government has
appointed two commissaries general, or chiefs of police, and twenty
commissaries or captains of wards have been appointed to the different
wards of the city. You will recognize them by the white ribbon they will
wear on the left arm. Several churches of different denominations are
open, and divine service is performed in them unhindered. Your fellow
citizens are returning every day to their homes and orders have been
given that they should find in them the help and protection due to
their misfortunes. These are the measures the government has adopted to
re-establish order and relieve your condition. But to achieve this
aim it is necessary that you should add your efforts and should, if
possible, forget the misfortunes you have suffered, should entertain
the hope of a less cruel fate, should be certain that inevitable and
ignominious death awaits those who make any attempt on your persons or
on what remains of your property, and finally that you should not doubt
that these will be safeguarded, since such is the will of the greatest
and most just of monarchs. Soldiers and citizens, of whatever nation you
may be, re-establish public confidence, the source of the welfare of
a state, live like brothers, render mutual aid and protection one to
another, unite to defeat the intentions of the evil-minded, obey the
military and civil authorities, and your tears will soon cease to flow!
With regard to supplies for the army, Napoleon decreed that all the
troops in turn should enter Moscow à la maraude * to obtain provisions
for themselves, so that the army might have its future provided for.
* As looters.
With regard to religion, Napoleon ordered the priests to be brought back
and services to be again performed in the churches.
With regard to commerce and to provisioning the army, the following was
placarded everywhere:
PROCLAMATION
You, peaceful inhabitants of Moscow, artisans and workmen whom
misfortune has driven from the city, and you scattered tillers of
the soil, still kept out in the fields by groundless fear, listen!
Tranquillity is returning to this capital and order is being restored in
it. Your fellow countrymen are emerging boldly from their hiding places
on finding that they are respected. Any violence to them or to their
property is promptly punished. His Majesty the Emperor and King protects
them, and considers no one among you his enemy except those who disobey
his orders. He desires to end your misfortunes and restore you to your
homes and families. Respond, therefore, to his benevolent intentions
and come to us without fear. Inhabitants, return with confidence to your
abodes! You will soon find means of satisfying your needs. Craftsmen
and industrious artisans, return to your work, your houses, your shops,
where the protection of guards awaits you! You shall receive proper pay
for your work. And lastly you too, peasants, come from the forests where
you are hiding in terror, return to your huts without fear, in full
assurance that you will find protection! Markets are established in the
city where peasants can bring their surplus supplies and the products of
the soil. The government has taken the following steps to ensure freedom
of sale for them: (1) From today, peasants, husbandmen, and those
living in the neighborhood of Moscow may without any danger bring their
supplies of all kinds to two appointed markets, of which one is on
the Mokhováya Street and the other at the Provision Market. (2) Such
supplies will be bought from them at such prices as seller and buyer may
agree on, and if a seller is unable to obtain a fair price he will be
free to take his goods back to his village and no one may hinder him
under any pretense. (3) Sunday and Wednesday of each week are appointed
as the chief market days and to that end a sufficient number of troops
will be stationed along the highroads on Tuesdays and Saturdays at such
distances from the town as to protect the carts. (4) Similar measures
will be taken that peasants with their carts and horses may meet with no
hindrance on their return journey. (5) Steps will immediately be taken
to re-establish ordinary trading.
Inhabitants of the city and villages, and you, workingmen and artisans,
to whatever nation you belong, you are called on to carry out the
paternal intentions of His Majesty the Emperor and King and to
co-operate with him for the public welfare! Lay your respect and
confidence at his feet and do not delay to unite with us!
With the object of raising the spirits of the troops and of the people,
reviews were constantly held and rewards distributed. The Emperor
rode through the streets to comfort the inhabitants, and, despite his
preoccupation with state affairs, himself visited the theaters that were
established by his order.
In regard to philanthropy, the greatest virtue of crowned heads,
Napoleon also did all in his power. He caused the words Maison de ma
Mère to be inscribed on the charitable institutions, thereby combining
tender filial affection with the majestic benevolence of a monarch. He
visited the Foundling Hospital and, allowing the orphans saved by him
to kiss his white hands, graciously conversed with Tutólmin. Then, as
Thiers eloquently recounts, he ordered his soldiers to be paid in forged
Russian money which he had prepared: “Raising the use of these means
by an act worthy of himself and of the French army, he let relief
be distributed to those who had been burned out. But as food was too
precious to be given to foreigners, who were for the most part enemies,
Napoleon preferred to supply them with money with which to purchase food
from outside, and had paper rubles distributed to them.”
With reference to army discipline, orders were continually being issued
to inflict severe punishment for the nonperformance of military duties
and to suppress robbery.
CHAPTER X
But strange to say, all these measures, efforts, and plans—which were
not at all worse than others issued in similar circumstances—did not
affect the essence of the matter but, like the hands of a clock detached
from the mechanism, swung about in an arbitrary and aimless way without
engaging the cogwheels.
With reference to the military side—the plan of campaign—that work of
genius of which Thiers remarks that, “His genius never devised anything
more profound, more skillful, or more admirable,” and enters into a
polemic with M. Fain to prove that this work of genius must be referred
not to the fourth but to the fifteenth of October—that plan never was or
could be executed, for it was quite out of touch with the facts of the
case. The fortifying of the Krémlin, for which la Mosquée (as Napoleon
termed the church of Basil the Beatified) was to have been razed to
the ground, proved quite useless. The mining of the Krémlin only helped
toward fulfilling Napoleon’s wish that it should be blown up when he
left Moscow—as a child wants the floor on which he has hurt himself to
be beaten. The pursuit of the Russian army, about which Napoleon was so
concerned, produced an unheard-of result. The French generals lost touch
with the Russian army of sixty thousand men, and according to Thiers it
was only eventually found, like a lost pin, by the skill—and apparently
the genius—of Murat.
With reference to diplomacy, all Napoleon’s arguments as to his
magnanimity and justice, both to Tutólmin and to Yákovlev (whose chief
concern was to obtain a greatcoat and a conveyance), proved useless;
Alexander did not receive these envoys and did not reply to their
embassage.
With regard to legal matters, after the execution of the supposed
incendiaries the rest of Moscow burned down.
With regard to administrative matters, the establishment of a
municipality did not stop the robberies and was only of use to certain
people who formed part of that municipality and under pretext of
preserving order looted Moscow or saved their own property from being
looted.
With regard to religion, as to which in Egypt matters had so easily been
settled by Napoleon’s visit to a mosque, no results were achieved.
Two or three priests who were found in Moscow did try to carry out
Napoleon’s wish, but one of them was slapped in the face by a French
soldier while conducting service, and a French official reported of
another that: “The priest whom I found and invited to say Mass cleaned
and locked up the church. That night the doors were again broken
open, the padlocks smashed, the books mutilated, and other disorders
perpetrated.”
With reference to commerce, the proclamation to industrious workmen and
to peasants evoked no response. There were no industrious workmen, and