[Illustration: After Moscow: “Advance or Retreat?”
By permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., London, W]
No clang of bells greeted the Conqueror as he made his triumphal entry, no crowds of men and women craned their necks to get a glimpse of the mighty Emperor. Only undesirables welcomed him, the unrepentant prodigal son and the convict, released from prison by the governor before the last inhabitants fled in the wake of the retreating Russian army. There stood the mammoth Kremlin, the Acropolis of the ancient capital, surrounded by its massive walls; the gorgeous Cathedral of the Assumption in which the Czars were crowned; the Great Palace begun but six years before, and churches innumerable. Ikons but no worshippers, palaces but no courtiers! The Emperor took up his quarters in the Kremlin, appointing Mortier governor with strict instructions to prevent the troops from plundering. We shall see how the orders were obeyed later. Suddenly tongues of flame shot up from different quarters of the city, to be extinguished by the troops with great difficulty. Then a large public building was discovered to be alight. The flames began to spread with alarming and all-devouring rapidity. Soon a portion of the Kremlin itself was in imminent danger, and as there was much gunpowder stored in the fortress-palace the Emperor was forced to retire to a château some distance away, to return two days later when the work of destruction had somewhat abated. Labaume witnessed many terrible scenes, which he thus records with his usual vivacity:
“As I advanced towards the fire, the avenues were more obstructed by soldiers and beggars carrying off goods of every kind. The less precious articles were despised, and soon thrown away, and the streets were covered with merchandise of every description. I penetrated at length into the interior of the Exchange; but, alas! it was no more the building so renowned for its magnificence; it was rather a vast furnace, from every side of which the burning rafters were continually falling, and threatening us with instant destruction. I could still, however, proceed with some degree of safety under piazzas lined with warehouses which the soldiers had broken open; every chest was rifled, and the spoil exceeded their most sanguine expectations. No cry, no tumult was heard in this scene of horror; everyone found enough to satisfy his most ardent thirst for plunder. Nothing was heard but the crackling of flames, the noise of doors that were broken open, and occasionally a dreadful crash caused by the falling in of some vault. Cottons, muslins, and all the most costly productions of Europe and of Asia, were a prey to the flames. The cellars were filled with sugar, oil, and vitriol; these burning all at once in the subterraneous warehouses, sent forth torrents of flame through thick iron grates, and presented a dreadful spectacle. It was terrible and affecting; even the most hardened minds acknowledged the conviction that so great a calamity would, on some future day, call forth the vengeance of the Almighty upon the authors of such crimes.”