The Empty Victory — War and Peace

Kutuzov ordered the army to retreat through Moscow to the Ryazan road on the night of the first of September. The first columns moved slowly and without hurry. At daybreak the soldiers who reached the Dorogomilov bridge saw a jam of men crowding the crossing, more troops pressing from behind, and an unreasoning alarm took them. They rushed the bridge, the fords, and the boats. Kutuzov himself had gone round by side streets to the far side of the city. By ten in the morning of the second of September only the rear guard still occupied the Dorogomilov suburb. The main army was already across Moscow or beyond it.

At that same hour Napoleon stood among his troops on Poklonny Hill. Magical autumn weather had held since Borodino: low sun, clear air, warm nights, and falling stars. Moscow lay spread with river, gardens, and churches, her cupolas glittering as if the city were still living its ordinary life. The strange architecture filled him with uneasy curiosity. He felt the town as a living feminine body, a capital at his feet, and thought of a captured city as a maid who has lost her honour. He summoned a plan and an interpreter, then sent for the boyars. In his mind he already had the speech: he did not desire war, he would give just laws from the Kremlin, he would spare the city, and Alexander would feel the sting of that clemency. He pictured assemblies, a popular governor, and inscriptions on charities dedicated to his mother.

Two hours passed. He lunched and waited in the same place, smiling at the road. Behind him generals whispered that Moscow was empty, that only drunken mobs remained, and that the real danger was how to tell him without making him look ridiculous. Some wanted a fake deputation scraped together. The Emperor, tired of a sublime moment stretched too long, raised his hand. A signalling gun sounded. Troops poured in through the Tver, Kaluga, and Dorogomilov gates, racing in dust and shouting. Napoleon rode with them as far as the Dorogomilov gate, then dismounted and paced for a long time by the Kammer-Kollezski rampart, still awaiting the deputation that did not come.