work of
pillage. The magnificent palaces of the Russian boyards, the bazaars of
the merchants, churches and convents, and public buildings of every
description, swarmed with their numbers.

The meanest soldier clothed himself in silk and furs, and drank at his
pleasure the costliest wines. Napoleon, perplexed at the abandonment of
so great a city, had some difficulty in keeping together 30,000 men
under Murat, who followed Milarodowitch, and watched the walls on that
side.

The Emperor, who had retired to rest in a suburban palace, was awakened
at midnight by the cry of _fire_. The chief market-place was in flames;
and some hours elapsed before they could be extinguished by the
exertions of the soldiery. While the fire still blazed, Napoleon
established his quarters in the Kremlin, and wrote, by that fatal light,
a letter to the Czar, containing proposals for peace. The letter was
committed to a prisoner of rank; no answer ever reached Buonaparte.

Next morning found the fire extinguished, and the French officers were
busied throughout the day in selecting houses for their residence. The
flames, however, burst out again as night set in, and under
circumstances which might well fill the mind of the invaders with
astonishment and with alarm. Various detached parts of the city appeared
to be at once on fire; combustibles and matches were discovered in
different places as laid deliberately; the water-pipes were cut: the
wind changed three times in the course of the night, and the flames
always broke out again with new vigour in the quarter from which the
prevailing breeze blew right on the Kremlin. It was sufficiently plain
that Rostophchin, governor of Moscow, had adopted the same plan of
resistance in which Smolensko had already been sacrificed; and his
agents, whenever they fell into the hands of the French, were massacred
without mercy.

A French adventurer, who had been resident for some time in Moscow, gave
an account of Rostophchin's conduct in quitting the city, which might
have prepared Napoleon for some such catastrophe. This person, on
hearing of the approach of his countrymen, had used some expressions
which entitled him to a place in the prisons of Moscow. The day before
Buonaparte entered it, Rostophchin held a last court of justice. This
Frenchman, and a disaffected Russian, were brought before him. The
latter's guilt having been clearly proved, the governor, understanding
his father was in court, said