ted not to retire on our approach: for with them
to remain would seem to be the same as to betray. But here, tradesmen,
artisans, day-labourers, all thought it their duty to flee like the most
powerful of the grandees. There was no occasion to command: these people
have not yet ideas sufficient to judge for themselves, to distinguish
and to discover differences; the example of the nobles was sufficient.
The few foreigners who remained at Moscow might have enlightened them;
some of these were exiled, and terror drove away the rest.

It was, besides, an easy task to excite apprehensions of profanation,
pillage, and devastation in the minds of people so cut off from other
nations, and in the inhabitants of a city which had been so often
plundered and burnt by the Tartars. With these examples before their
eyes, they could not await an impious and ferocious enemy but for the
purpose of fighting him: the rest must necessarily shun his approach
with horror, if they would save themselves in this life and in the next:
obedience, honour, religion, fear, every thing in short enjoined them to
flee, with all that they could carry off.

A fortnight before our arrival, the departure of the archives, the
public chests and treasure, and that of the nobles and the principal
merchants, together with their most valuable effects, indicated to the
rest of the inhabitants what course to pursue. The governor, already
impatient to see the city evacuated, appointed superintendants to
expedite the emigration.

On the 3d of September, a Frenchwoman, at the risk of being torn in
pieces by the furious Muscovites, ventured to leave her hiding-place.
She wandered a long time through extensive quarters, the solitude of
which astonished her, when a distant and doleful sound thrilled her with
terror. It was like the funeral dirge of this vast city; fixed in
motionless suspense, she beheld an immense multitude of persons of both
sexes in deep affliction, carrying their effects and their sacred
images, and leading their children along with them. Their priests, laden
with the sacred symbols of religion, headed the procession. They were
invoking heaven in hymns of lamentation, in which all of them joined
with tears.

On reaching the gates of the city, this crowd of unfortunate creatures
passed through them with painful hesitation: turned their eyes once more
towards Moscow, they seemed to be bidding a last farewell to their holy
city: but by degrees thei