Briggs: The French enter Moscow. Much looting. The fire begins.
Maude: The French enter Moscow. Shots from the Kremlin gate. The Fire of Moscow discussed
Pevear and Volokhonsky: The French enter Moscow. Moral collapse. Reflections on the burning of Moscow.
Translation:
XXVI.
At the 4th hour of the afternoon, the troops of Murat marched into Moscow. Ahead rode the detachment of Virtemberg hussars, behind, with a large suite, rode on horseback the Neapolitan king himself.
About the middle of the Arbat, near Nikolay the Yavltnno (Apparent), Murat stopped, expecting news from the advancing detachment about in which position was found the urban fortress "le Kremlin."
Around Murat gathered a small bunch of people from the remaining in Moscow inhabitants. All with timid disbelief looked at the strange, ornamented in feathers and gold, long-haired chief.
— What, but whether this is their tsar himself? Nothing, — was heard a quiet voice.
The translator drove to a handful of the people.
— Take off that... that hat, — began the talking in the crowd, turning to each other. The translator turned to one of the old janitors and asked whether it was long away to the Kremlin. The janitor, listening with disbelief to the alien to him Polish accent and not recognizing the noises of the speech of the translator for Russian speech, did not understand what was said to him and hid behind the others.
Murat moved to the translator and told to ask where were the Russian troops. One of the Russians people got what was asked him, and a few voices suddenly began to respond to the translator. A French officer from the advanced detachment drove to Murat and reported that the gate in the fortress was patched up and that probably there was an ambush.
— Okay, — said Murat, and, turning to one of the gentlemen of his suite, ordered the advancing of four light guns and to fire on the gate.
The artillery in a trot left from behind the columns, marching behind Murat, and went by the Arbat. Going down to the end of the Vzdvizhenka, the artillery stopped and lined up at the square. A few French officers ordered the guns, arranged them, and looked at the Kremlin in a visual pipe.
In the Kremlin was heard the toll to vespers, and this ringing confused the French. They supposed that this was an appeal to arms. A few infantry personnel soldiers ran to the Kutafevsky gate. At the gate lied logs and test shields. Two gunshots were heard from under the gate, as only the officer with command of the forces began to run up to him. The general, standing at the guns, shouted to the officer commanding words, and the officer with the soldiers ran backwards.
Was heard still three shots from the gate.
One shot hit the leg of a French soldier, and the strange shouts of a few voices were heard from behind the shields. On the faces of the French, the general, officers and soldiers at the same time, as by command, the former expression of fun and calmness was replaced by the stubborn, focused expression of readiness to battle and misery. For them all, beginning from the marshal and to the last soldier, this place was not the Vzdvizhenka, Mohovaya, Kutafevsky and Trinity gate, but this was the new terrain, the new field, probably of a bloody battle. And all were prepared for this battle. The shouting from the gate calmed down. The guns were put forward. The artillerists blew away burned sticks. The officer ordered: fire!794, and two whistling sounds of cans were heard one behind another. The grapeshot bullets tore apart the stone gate, logs and shields; and two clouds of smoke hesitated in the square.
A few moments after this as calming down the cracks of shots by the stone Kremlin, a strange sound was heard above the heads of the French. A huge flock of jackdaws went up above the walls and the croaking and noisy thousands of wings spun in the air. Together with this sound rang out a lone human shout at the gate, and from behind the smoke appeared a human figure without hat and in caftans. Holding a gun, he aimed at the French. Feu (Fire)! repeated the artillery officer, and at one and that same time was heard one rifle and two gunshots. Smoke again covered the gate.
Behind the shields nothing more stirred, and the infantry French soldiers with the officers went to the gate. At the gate lied three wounded and four slain men. The two men in caftans ran away to the bottom along the walls to Znasha.
— Take this away,795 — said the officer, pointing at the logs and corpses, and the French, finishing off the wounded, transported the corpses downwards behind the fence. Who were these people, no one knew. "Enlevez-moi ça" (Take this away), was only said about them, and they were thrown out and cleaned up so they would not stink. Only Thier devoted to their memory a few eloquent lines: These miserables filled the sacred fortress, controlled the guns of the arsenal and fired at the French. Some of them were chopped up and cleared the Kremlin from their presence.796
To Murat it was reported that the way was cleared. The French entered at the gate and began the placement of camp in the Senate square. The soldiers threw out chairs from the windows of the Senate in the area and laid out lights.
Another detachment passed through the Kremlin and were housed by the Moroseyka, Lubyanka, and Pokrovka. A third were still housed by the Vzdvizhenka, Znasha, Nikolskaya, and Tverskoy. Everywhere, not finding hosts, the French housed not as in a city in apartments, but as in a camp, which was situated in the city.
Although ragged, hungry, plagued and reduced to 1/3rd parts of their previous number, the French soldiers marched in Moscow still in an okay harmony. This was a tormented, emaciated, but still a combative and formidable army. Yet this was an army only to those minutes, while these soldiers and troops were not dispersed by apartments. Only as the people of the regiments became dispersed by empty and wealthy houses, so forever was destroyed the army, and formed not residents and not soldiers, but something average, called marauders. When, in five weeks, those very same people came out of Moscow, they now did not form troops anymore. This was a crowd of marauders, from which everyone drove or carried with themselves a lot of things which to him seemed valuable and needed. The objective of each of these people in the output from Moscow did not consist as before, so that to conquer, but only so to hold the acquired. Like that monkey, which, running its arm in the narrow throat of a jug and seizing a handful of nuts, does not unclench its fist, so that to not lose the captured and by this ruins itself, the French, in the output from Moscow obviously must have died owing to how they dragged from themselves the robbed, but to throw this robbed by them was so the same impossible, as it is impossible for the monkey to unclench the handful of nuts. In nine minutes after the entry of each French regiment in some quarter of Moscow, did not stay one soldier and officer. In the windows of the houses were visible people in greatcoats and boots, laughingly strolling by rooms; in cellars, in basements such the same as people hosted with provisions; in courtyards such the same people unlocked and beat off gates of sheds and stables; in kitchens laid out lights, with rolled up hands baking, kneading and cooking, scaring, amusing and caressing women and children. And these people everywhere, and by the shops and by houses, were many; but troops now were not.
On that same day order behind order was given back to the French chiefs about so that to forbid the troops from dispersing by the city, strictly forbidding violence against the inhabitants and marauding, about so that now on the same night to do an overall roll call; but, despite what steps, the people, before forming an army, were blurred by the rich, abundant amenities and stocks of the empty city. As a hungry flock is going as a bunch by a naked weed, but immediately the same uncontrollably disassembles, only as they attack rich pastures, so the same uncontrollably disassembled the army by the rich city.
The inhabitants were not in Moscow, and the soldiers, as water in sand, sucked it in and irrepressible stars blurred in all parties from the Kremlin, at which they entered only before. The cavalry soldiers, entering in the abandoned with all good merchant’s houses and finding stalls not only for their horses, but extra, all the same went nearby to occupy another house, which to them seemed better. Many occupied a few of the houses, inscribing in chalk by whom it was busy, and argued and even fought with other commands. Still not having time to fit, the soldiers ran in the street to examine the city and by hearing about how all was thrown, strove there, where it could be to pick up for nothing valuable things. The chiefs went to stop the soldiers and themselves were involved unwittingly in those same actions. At Karetny were a number of staying shops with crews, and the generals crowded there, choosing carriages and carts. The remaining residents invited to themselves the chiefs, hoping by that to provide oneself from robbery. Wealth was to go missing, and the end of it was not seen; everywhere, around these places, which were occupied by the French, were more unexplored, unemployed places, in which, as it seemed to the French, was still more wealth. And Moscow all farther and farther sucked them in itself. Exactly so, as owing to how poured water is on dry land, disappears the water and dry land; exactly so the same owing to how the hungry army entered in an abundant, empty city, was destroyed the army, and was destroyed the abundant city; and making mud, was made fires and marauding.
—————
The French attributed the fire of Moscow to the wild patriotism of Rastopchin;797 the Russians — the fanaticism of the French. In the same entities the reasons of the fire of Moscow in the sense for to carry off this fire to the liability of one or several persons, these reasons were not and could not be. Moscow burned owing to that it was delivered in such conditions, in which any wooden city should burn, whether from having or not having in the city 130 bad firefighting pipes. Moscow was to burn owing to that from it left the residents and so the same inevitably, as should burn a lot of shavings, in which in the continuation of several days will crumble sparks of fire. A wooden city, in which, at residents and owners of houses and at the police, had in the summer fires almost every day, may not not burn, when in it is no inhabitants, but live troops, smokers of pipes, unfolding fires in Senate square from Senate chairs and brewers themselves of food two times a day. Standing in peaceful time the troops settle in apartments by the village on famous terrain, and the number of fires on this terrain immediately will increase. In what same extent should increase the probability of fire in an empty, wooden city, in which will settle down another army? Le patriotisme féroce de Rastopchine (The wild patriotism of Rastopchin) and the fanaticism of the French here or there is not to blame. Moscow burned from pipes, from kitchens, from bonfires, from the sloppiness of the enemy soldier, and the inhabitants — not hosts of the houses. Should there have been arson (that is quite doubtful, because of how to set fire anything had neither causes, but in every case was troublesome and dangerous), then arson cannot be to accept for the cause, so as without arson would have been that very same.
How flattering was it for the French to accuse the brutality of Rastopchin, and the Russians to accuse the villain Bonaparte, or then to drop the heroic torch in the hand of their people, it cannot be seen how such direct causes of the fire could be because of how Moscow should have burned, as should burn each village, factory, and any house from which come the hosts, and in which will let host and cook for themselves porridge strange people. Moscow was burned by the inhabitants, this really is; but not those inhabitants that stayed in it, but those that left from it. Moscow, busy with the enemy, was not left intact, as Berlin, Vienna and other cities only owing to that its residents did not bring the bread and salt and keys to the French, but left from it.
794 feu! (fire!)
795 Enlevez-moi ça (Remove that)
796 "Ces misérables avaient envahi la citadelle sacrée, s’étaient emparés des fusils de l'arsenal, et tiraient (ces misérables) sur les Français. On en sabra quelques-uns et on purgea le Kremlin de leur présence". (These miserables had invaded the sacred citadel, had seized the rifles in the arsenal, and shot (these miserables) on the French. We sabred some of them and purged the Kremlin of their presence."
797 au patriotisme féroce de Rastopchine; (to the ferocious patriotism of Rastopchine;)
Mentioned: a few minutes after, five weeks later, ten minutes after
Locations: Moscow, Arbat, Kremlin, Vzdvizhenka, Kutafev gate (Kutafyev...in Maude, Mandelker, and Briggs. Kutafyevsky gates in Pevear and Volokhonsky. Kutafya...in Dunnigan.), Senate Square (also Senate House. Senatskaya Square in Dole.)
Mentioned: Naples, Church of St. Nicholas the Manifested (St. Nicholas's Church in Briggs. St. Nicholas the Revealed in Pevear and Volokhonsky. Church of the Miraculous Icon of St Nicholas in Maude and Mandelker. Nikola Yavlenny in Garnett. church of Nikola Yavlennui in Dole with St. Nicholas of the Miraculous Apparition in the footnote. church of Nikola the Miracle Worker in Dunnigan. cut in Bell.), Polish, Russian, French (also Francais in the French), Mokhovaya (Mohova in Garnett. cut in Bell and Briggs.), Trinity Gates (Troitsa Gate in Maude and Mandelker. Troitsky Gate in Dunnigan, Garnett, and Pevear and Volokhonsky. Troitskiya Gates in Dole. cut in Bell and Briggs.), Znamenka, Moroseyka, Pokrovka (cut in Bell.), Nikolskaya (cut in Bell.), Carriage Row, Berlin, Vienna
Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: Murat rides into Moscow and people mistake him for a tsar. The French assume they are about to be ambushed and believe the church bells are a call to arms. A small battle happens, but "Who these men were, no one knew". Thiers is referenced as reporting the episode. The French then begin to settle into the city, seeing how abandoned it is. "Though ragged, famished, exhausted, and reduced to a third of their former number, the French soldiers still entered Moscow in an orderly manner....As soon as the men of the regiments began to disperse among the empty and wealthy houses, the army was annihilated forever...they no longer constituted an army. They were a mob of looters."
The analogies of monkeys and a hungry herd show why the orders of the French army are pointless. The final analogy before the line break at "there were fires and looting" is one of water and dry ground absorbing each other and disappearing.
Tolstoy now sets forth why he believes that the burning of Moscow was not Rastopchin but "because it was put into conditions in which any wooden town would have to burn down". The chapter ends with "Moscow did not remain intact like Berlin, Vienna, and other cities, only because its inhabitants did not bring out bread and salt and the keys to the city for the French, but left it."
Characters (characters who do not appear, but are mentioned are placed in italics. First appearances are in Bold. First mentions are underlined. Final appearance denoted by *):
Murat (also "King of Naples", "nachalnik", and "tsar".)
Thiers
Rostopchin ("Rostopchine" in the French.)
Napoleon ("Bonaparte")
Abridged Versions: Line break after "conflagrations and marauding follow" in Dole. Line break at the same place in Wiener, Dunnigan, Briggs, Edmonds, Mandelker, and Garnett.
Start of chapter 19 in Bell with no break at the end.
Gibian: Chapter 13: line break after "and the wealthy city."
Fuller: The entirety of the small skirmish as Murat's troops enter the city is removed, cutting straight to Tolstoy's explanation of the dissolving of the French army. Line break after "marauding bands sprang up where they had been." Rest of chapter is preserved and followed by another line break.
Komroff: The Thiers reference is removed, but the chapter is pretty well preserved up to the line break after "absorbed further and further into herself", in which the chapter cuts off, which removes the discussion of the burning of Moscow and Rostopchin's role in it.
Kropotkin: Chapter 11: The strange entrance of Murat is reduced by removing the people that greeted him and starting with the bells and the small skirmish. The Thiers reference is removed. The discussion of the French army is shortened. Line break at end of chapter after discussion of the Moscow fires and Rostopchin's role in them.
Bromfield: No apparent corresponding chapter.
Simmons: Chapter 13: the entirety of the Murat episode is removed, leaving only the philosophical generalizing portions of the chapter. Line break after "and the wealthy city."
Additional Notes: Maude notes that the French forces were actually about 1/5th of their previous size. From the Norton Edition: "Tolstoy likes to indicate the superficial and inaccurate knowledge the French had of Russia. Here, for instance, he mentions Murat as regarding the Kremlin, the brick walls of which were built in 1367, as a "citadel." It might really have served as a fortress in the Middle Ages, but was quite unsuited to resist artillery. Later on, in Book Thirteen, Chapter 2, the mention of Napoleon giving "careful directions about the fortification of the Kremlin" is again ironic. In 1812 the Kremlin walls served merely as an enclosure for the palaces, churches, law courts, and state buildings, of which the Kremlin is constituted."
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