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 Kremlin, for which la Mosquee (as
Napoleon termed the church of Basil the Beatified) was to have been
razed to the ground, proved quite useless. The mining of the Kremlin
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 Tutolmin and to Yakovlev (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
the peasants caught the commissaries who ventured too far out of town
with the proclamation and killed them.

As to the theaters for the entertainment of the people and the troops,
these did not meet with success either. The theaters set up in the
Kremlin and in Posnyakov's