North Jonathan - With Napoleons Guard in Russia : the Memoirs of Major Vionnet, 1812

As we approached the capital the villages seemed to be more opulent and there were more of them. The columns of flames destroying them were also more common. At night our camps were lit up by these huge infernos. The soldiers were quickening their pace, despite the heat which good weather had brought back, when, all of a sudden, we reached the summit of a hill and found ourselves looking down on an immense city shining in a thousand colours and topped with resplendent golden domes. It was an incredible mix of woods, lakes, cottages, palaces, churches and belltowers. The soldiers cried out as one Moscow! Moscow! That night the Guard camped in the Dragomelov suburb, close by the bridge of boats over the Moskwa River. The next day, the 15th, we entered Moscow. Complete silence reigned, we were marching into a city of the dead. Huge flocks of black birds, crows and ravens, swarmed around the churches and palaces, lending the whole scene a most sinister aspect.

The army was divided up and sent into different districts of Moscow. Our regiment was sent towards Kaluga where most of the houses were still occupied by their French, Italian, German or Russian inhabitants. These had stayed, rather than following the Russian army as the rest of the populace had done.

How can one have believed that the second city of the empire would follow the fate of all the other towns we had passed through since Smolensk? The French army had hoped to find the shelter it had so long desired but, alas, that peace was to be of a very short duration.

The residents of the district we were billeted in brought us bread and ham but such luck was not to last. The day following the entry of the French, some flames could be seen rising from a large building which had been inhabited by ecclesiastics. We ran over but werent surprised at this development, blaming the soldiers for starting the fire through carelessness. The fire was put out but, no sooner had this been done, than it broke out again in some other buildings. The bazaar, which was not so far from the Kremlin, was on fire. It was perhaps the richest warehouse in the world, full of Indian and Persian textiles. There goods from the colonies, tea, coffee, wine and spirits had been stored. The fire broke out suddenly and, a few moments later, everything had been consumed by the flames, despite crowds of soldiers trying to fight it. It proved impossible to stop the fire and so it was that pillaging began on a vast scale it was a race to save such immense riches from the flames.

In such circumstances I managed to acquire a beautiful shawl from the Indies and a ladys fur pelisse. Plenty of things were broken or quickly swapped for something better.

The fire soon died down for lack of fuel. Carelessness was still blamed. However, during the night of the 16th, the scene changed again a strong autumnal wind got up and swept in from the east like a hurricane. It drove numerous fires westwards, towards the best parts of the city. In just a few hours, most of the houses and palaces were on fire. You could see huge tongues of fire stabbing out of the churches (there were 1,100 of them) and climbing up the belltowers.

It is impossible to conceive what this fire was like. You had to have seen it to understand the consternation that then gripped the army. Soon large numbers of wretches, which the government had left in the city in order to set fire to it, were arrested. They were interrogated and they were threatened. They soon revealed their terrible secret. Now there could be no more doubt. Military tribunals were established to judge the culprits on the spot and to shoot such arsonists or hang them. But the soldiers didnt go to the trouble of having them tried in this fashion, justice was more swift: a musket shot or a stab with the bayonet was an improvement on the slow deliberations of a court martial.