A few days before quitting Moscow, the Emperor had the churches of the Kremlin stripped of their finest ornaments. The ravages of the fire had relaxed the protection that the Emperor had extended to the property of the Russians.
The most magnificent trophy in this collection was the immense cross of the great Ivan. It was necessary to demolish a part of the tower on which it stood in order to take it down, and it required stupendous efforts to break this vast mass of iron. It was the Emperor's intention to place it upon the dome of the Invalides, but it was sunk in the waters of Lake Semlewo.
The evening before the Emperor was to hold a review, the soldiers were busily employed polishing their arms and putting everything in order, to conceal as far as possible the destitute condition to which they were reduced. The most imprudent had exchanged their winter clothing for provisions, many had worn out their shoes on the march, and yet each one made it a point of honor to make a good appearance on review; and when the glancing rays of the sun shone on the barrels of the well-polished guns, the Emperor felt again in witnessing this scene some slight return of the emotions with which his soul was filled on the glorious day of his departure for the campaign.
The Emperor left twelve hundred wounded at Moscow, four hundred of whom were removed by the last corps which quitted the city. Marshal Mortier was the last to go. At Feminskoe, ten leagues from Moscow, we heard the noise of a frightful explosion; it was the Kremlin which had been blown up by the Emperor's orders. A fuse was placed in the vaults of the palace, and everything arranged so that the explosion should not take place within a certain time. Some Cossacks came to pillage the abandoned apartments, in ignorance that a fire was smoldering under their feet, and were thrown to a prodigious height in the air. Thirty thousand guns were abandoned in the fortress. In an instant part of the Kremlin was a mass of ruins. A part was preserved, and a circumstance which contributed no little to enhance the credit of their great St. Nicholas with the Russians was that an image in stone of this saint remained uninjured by the explosion, in a spot where almost everything else was destroyed.
This fact was stated to me by a reliable person, who heard Count Rostopchin himself relate it during his stay in Paris.
On the 28th of October the Emperor retraced his way to Smolensk, and passed near the battle-field of Borodino. About thirty thousand corpses had been left on this vast plain; and on our approach flocks of buzzards, whom an abundant harvest had attracted, flew away with horrible croakings. These corpses of so many brave men presented a sickening spectacle, half consumed, and exhaling an odor which even the excessive cold could not neutralize. The Emperor hastened past, and slept in the chateau of Oupinskoe which was almost in ruins; and the next day he visited a few wounded who had been left in an abbey. These poor fellows seemed to recover their strength at the sight of the Emperor, and forgot their sufferings, which must have been very severe, as wounds are always much more painful when cold weather first begins. All these pale countenances drawn with suffering became more serene. These poor soldiers also rejoiced to see their comrades, and questioned them with anxious curiosity concerning the events which had followed the battle of Borodino. When they learned that we had bivouacked at Moscow, they were filled with joy; and it was very evident that their greatest regret was that they could not have been with the others to see the fine furniture of the rich Muscovites used as fuel at the bivouac fires. Napoleon directed that each carriage of the suite should convey one of these unfortunates; and this was done, everybody complying with the order with a readiness which gratified the Emperor exceedingly; and the poor wounded fellows said in accents of most ardent gratitude, that they were much more comfortable on these soft cushions than in the ambulances, which we could well believe. A lieutenant of the cuirassiers who had just undergone an amputation was placed in the landau of the Emperor, while he traveled on horseback.
This answers every accusation of cruelty so gratuitously made against the memory of a great man who has passed away. I have read somewhere with intense disgust that the Emperor sometimes ordered his carriage to pass over the wounded, whose cries of agony made not the slightest impression on him; all of which is false and very revolting. None of those who served the Emperor could have been ignorant of his solicitude for the unfortunate victims of war, and the care he had taken of them.
Foreigners, enemies, or Frenchmen,--all were recommended to the surgeon's care with equal strictness.