to restore some order to
the different quarters of the town, and to pursue the thieves, who
thought they should much longer enjoy the prey that the Count of
Rostopchin had given up to them.

[Footnote 53: The Kremlin is a fortified enclosure within the city and
containing the imperial palace, three cathedrals, a monastery, convent
and arsenal. It is surrounded by battlemented walls that date from
1492. Within the palace are rooms of great size, one of them being 68
by 200 feet, with a height of more than 60 feet. Many historic events
in the times of Ivan the Terrible, and Peter the Great, are associated
with the Kremlin. Among its treasures are the Great Bell, coronation
robes and the thrones of the old Persian Shah and toe last emperor of
Constantinople.]

The next morning, September 15, Napoleon made his entry into Moscow,
at the head of his invincible legions, but he crossed a deserted town,
and for the first time his soldiers, on entering a capital, found none
but themselves to be witnesses of their glory. The impression that
they experienced was sad. Napoleon, arrived at the Kremlin, hastened
to mount the high tower of the great Ivan, and to contemplate from
that height his magnificent conquest, across which the Moskowa was
slowly pursuing its winding course. Thousands of blackbirds, ravens
and crows, as numerous here as the pigeons at Venice, flying around
the tops of the palaces and churches, gave a singular aspect to this
great city, which contrasted strangely with the brightness of its
brilliant colors. A mournful silence, disturbed only by the tramp of
cavalry, had taken the place of life in this city, which till the
evening before had been one of the most busy in the world. In spite of
the sadness of this solitude, Napoleon, on finding Moscow abandoned
like the other Russian towns, thought himself happy nevertheless in
not finding it burned up, and did not despair of softening little by
little the hatred which the presence of his flags had inspired since
Vitebsk.

The army hoped, then, to enjoy Moscow, to find peace there, and, in
any case, good winter cantonments if the war was prolonged. However,
on the morrow after the day on which the entry had been made, columns
of flame arose from a very large building which contained the spirits
that the government sold on its own account to the people of the
capital. People ran there, without astonishment or terror, for they
attributed the cause of this partial fi