The Retreat Read online

  ‘Are we going to fight the English in Moscow?’

  ‘I’ve told you a hundred thousand times!’

  The captain launched into his habitual lesson. ‘The Russians have been trading with the English for a century, and the English want our downfall.’ Then, more heatedly, he continued, ‘The Russians are hoping to get money from London to improve their ships and dominate the Baltic and the Black Sea. And the English are having a whale of a time, naturally! They’re turning the Tsar against Napoleon. They want an end to the cursed blockade that’s stopping them flooding the Continent with their goods and so driving them to ruin. As for the Tsar, he takes a dim view of Napoleon extending his conquests. The Empire is pressing on his borders; the English point out the danger in that; he’s swayed by their arguments, seeks some incident, provokes us and the next thing you know, here we are, outside Moscow.’

  Will all this ever end? Paulin thought about his shop and the London cloth he’d like to cut.

  A squadron of Polish lancers charged past, roaring orders which they had no need to translate; flourishing their lances adorned with multicoloured pennons, they moved the inquisitive crowd back to clear a sort of terreplein. Recognizing the white greatcoats and the funnel-shaped black-felt shakos of the Imperial escort, the regiments covering the hillside raised their hats on the points of their bayonets, saluting His Majesty’s arrival with wild cheers; d’Herbigny shouted himself hoarse in unison. Napoleon rode by at a fast trot, his left arm hanging slackly at his side, a beaver-fur bicorne pulled down over his forehead, followed by his general staff in full uniform – plumes, gold lace, broad fringed belts, spotless boots – riding well-fed chestnuts.

  The cheers redoubled when the group halted on the brow of the hill to study Moscow. The Emperor’s blue eyes lit up fleetingly. He summed up the situation in four words: ‘It was high time.’

  ‘Ah yes, sire,’ murmured the grand equerry, Caulain-court, jumping down from his horse to help the Emperor dismount. Napoleon’s mount, Tauris, a silver-grey Persian Arab that was shaking its white mane, had been a present from the Tsar, when the two sovereigns held each other in high regard, intermingled with curiosity on the part of the Russian, and pride on that of the Corsican. In the first rank behind the lancers, d’Herbigny stared at his hero: with his hands behind his back, grey and puffy-faced, the Emperor seemed as broad as he was tall because of the very full sleeves of his grey overcoat which allowed him to put it on over his colonel’s uniform without first taking off the epaulettes. Napoleon sneezed, sniffed, wiped his nose and then took from his pocket the pair of theatre glasses that never left his side now his sight was beginning to deteriorate. Several of the generals and his Mamelukes had dismounted and were standing around him. Outspread map in hand, Caulaincourt was describing Moscow; he indicated the triangle of the Kremlin’s citadel on a rise, its winding walls flanked by towers following the line of the river; he pointed out the walls that bounded the five districts, named the churches, listed the warehouses.

  The army grew impatient.

  Apart from the officers’ conference, it was unnervingly silent. Everyone held their breath. Nothing, they heard nothing, barely even the wind: no birds, no dogs barking, no echo of voices or footsteps, no clop of hooves, no creak of cartwheels on Moscow’s cobblestones, none of the usual hum of a substantial city. Major General Berthier, his telescope to his eye, scrutinized the walls, the mouths of the deserted streets, the banks of the Moskova, where a number of barges were moored.

  ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘it’s as if there’s no one …’

  ‘Your good friends have flown, have they?’ the Emperor snarled at Caulaincourt, to whom he had been unfailingly unpleasant since his return from the embassy to St Petersburg: this scion of an old aristocratic family had made the mistake of liking the Tsar.

  ‘Kutuzov’s troops have carried on past it,’ the grand equerry replied glumly, his hat under his arm.

  ‘That superstitious oaf Kutuzov refuses to engage, does he? We gave him a good hiding at Borodino, then!’

  The officers of the general staff exchanged impassive glances. At Borodino they had lost far too many men in terrible hand-to-hand combat, and forty-eight generals, one of whom was Caulaincourt’s brother. The latter sank his chin in the folds of his cravat; he was smooth-skinned, with a straight nose, close-cropped brown hair and mutton-chop whiskers. Created the Duke of Vicenza, he may have had the manner of a maître d’hôtel, but he did not have the matching servility; unlike most of the dukes and marshals, he had never hidden his disapproval of this invasion. From the start, when they had crossed the Niemen, he had been telling the Emperor in vain that Tsar Alexander would never give in to threats. Events had proved him right. The cities had gone up in flames; all they took possession of was ruins. The Russians slipped away, laying their country waste. Sometimes a party of Cossacks attacked; they swirled about, fell on a marauding squadron and then vanished. Often in the evening they’d see Russians bivouacked; they’d prepare themselves, post men on watch, but by dawn the enemy would be gone. There were brief, bloody bouts of fighting, but no Austerlitz or Friedland or Wagram. At Smolensk the Russians had resisted long enough to kill twenty thousand men and set the city on fire; most recently, a few days earlier, near Borodino, ninety thousand from both sides had been left dead or wounded on a field riddled with shell holes. The Russians had been able to withdraw towards Moscow, although they didn’t seem to be there now, or at least not any longer. After half an hour without moving, Napoleon turned to Berthier. ‘Give the order.’

  *

  The sky-blue gunners of the Old Guard were waiting for the signal to light the match; they fired the shot that triggered a great rush amongst the scattered men. Troopers mounted, squadrons re-formed, infantrymen fell in in their battalions and the drummers played. Reinvigorated by being so close to his Emperor, d’Herbigny had no intention of lagging behind with the baggage. ‘I’m going on,’ he said to his servant. ‘Find me at the Guard’s camp tonight.’ A look of panic crossed Paulin’s face; to reassure him, the captain added, terrifying him still more, ‘I can still run these Mongol pigs through with my left hand!’ He touched the flanks of his kind-of pony with his whip and disappeared into the tide of troops.

  Barely had he caught up with his brigade, General Saint-Sulpice’s, than all over the hillside officers, half turned towards their men, raised their bare sabres. Yelling, the troopers broke into a gallop, the cannon and caissons followed at full tilt, sending up showers of sand, and the voltigeurs and grenadiers set off towards the city at a run. Everyone bawled at the tops of their voices; the axle-trees creaked; a hundred thousand men tore downhill and in moments none of them could see a thing; a storm of dust blotted out the sun. Blinded, this throng came to a halt at the gates of the suburbs. Youngsters fell to their knees from so much running, gasping, coated from head to gaiters in yellow sand. Captain d’Herbigny spat out a mouthful of grit, like everybody else, while his horse shook the dust from its long mane.

  Exhilarated by ten minutes’ headlong stampede, the soldiers’ anxiety gradually began to return. The Russians still weren’t showing themselves. The captain dismounted and stretched expansively, cutting a swagger; with his good hand he took off his coat, folded it loosely and strapped it behind his saddle. To one side he saw troops taking up position on the plain for as far as the eye could see, to the other he saw the last of Murat’s uhlans passing between the two forty-foot-high obelisks that flanked the gates of Moscow. In the suburb the dragoons had reached, low, mud-walled cottages pressed up against pine isbas. The street leading to the river and the bridge was as wide as the Smolensk road, which it continued, a dusty thoroughfare unrelieved by vegetation except for a few grey bushes dotted here and there. The captain checked his pistol and, just in case, tucked it through his belt like a corsair. He had fallen in again with the troopers of the 4th Squadron, who he knew by name and whose horses he envied – skeletally thin perhaps, but at least they were a decent size. As he was gaz
ing covetously at Trooper Guyonnet’s worn-out old Rosinante, its rider suddenly stared wide-eyed, ‘What is that? King Carnival?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The other side of the bridge, sir …’

  D’Herbigny looked around. Over on the right bank of the Moskova, a frenzied figure was shaking a three-pronged pitchfork. It was an old man sporting a sheepskin; he had long, greasy hair and a white beard that spilled over his chest and down to his belt. With Guyonnet following, the captain set off towards him. The old moujik gesticulated, threatening to run through anyone who dared to enter the city. D’Herbigny drew closer; the tramp grasped his fork with both hands and dashed at him; he stepped aside. Carried along by the momentum of his charge, the old man went flying. The captain helped him on his way with a kick, toppling him into the water; the strong current caught him and dragged him under.

  ‘You see, Guyonnet,’ the captain said, ‘one can fight with one hand and a judicious kick in the backside.’

  As he turned back towards the dragoons, d’Herbigny saw the Emperor; thin-lipped, hunched forward in his saddle, he hadn’t missed a thing; a turbaned Mameluke was holding his Arab by the bridle.

  *

  As he was already on the threshold of the city, d’Herbigny was detailed to reconnoitre it to bring back some Muscovites, or at least some information. He took command of thirty cavalry of the Imperial Guard, choosing them from amongst those riding small, wild horses, so he wouldn’t feel inferior on his diminutive model. Of consequence again, the captain entered Moscow at the head of his column, by the stone bridge spanning the Moskova, a river he’d imagined as broader and deeper, less of a rushing torrent. The patrol found itself again in city streets, narrow but cobbled with stones from the riverbed – touchstones, madrepores, ammonites of different sizes – in which the horses caught their hooves. They passed fountains, glasshouses and wooden houses painted green, yellow and pink with carved verandas and facades as intricately wrought as ironwork. Then the streets broadened out and the scenery changed. They rode alongside white stone edifices, palaces of brick and thickly wooded gardens overrun with wild flowers, with winding avenues, extravagant rockeries, gazebos and brooklets. The tread of the horses was the only sound to be heard in this rich, dead city that so unnerved the dragoons. They were jumpy, wondering where the nasty surprise was going to come from – the sniper’s bullet, the Russian howitzers trained on them as they turned the corner of an avenue. Of course Murat’s cavalry had been through before them in force, but still misgivings remained, the vague sense of a trap. The captain thought he glimpsed the silhouette of a man at the bottom of a palace’s steps; it was just a bronze statue holding up a candelabra containing twenty unlit candles. Now they were skirting a lake lined with large houses; each had a landing stage with small, brightly coloured boats made fast to its piers. Further on, on the square of a colossal church topped with a slate dome, screeching and the sound of flapping wings made them look up: a bird of prey had flown into the gilt chains strung between the church’s little towers; the more it struggled, the more entangled it became.

  ‘That looks just like the brigade eagle,’ a dragoon commented.

  ‘Only way you can free that is kill it,’ said another, raising his musket.

  ‘Silence!’ the captain cut in angrily. ‘And you, you bloody imbecile, lower your weapon!’

  ‘Listen …’

  Straining their ears, they made out a vague tramp of feet; some people must be marching in a band; every sound reverberated through those lifeless streets. The captain had his troopers dismount and take cover under the trees in a garden, ready to take aim. A procession came out onto the crossroads.

  ‘Civvies …’

  ‘They’re not armed.’

  ‘Who speaks Russian?’ asked the captain. ‘No one?

  Come on, look sharp, let’s go!’

  They emerged as one from the thickets, muskets levelled at the townsfolk, of whom there were about twenty, apparently harmless; they were waving at the soldiers and quickening their pace. A portly, bald fellow with greying side whiskers called out in a reedy voice, ‘Don’t shoot! We’re not Russians! Don’t shoot!’

  The two parties met in the middle of the square.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘These gentlemen are French like me,’ said the rotund individual. ‘Those are German and he is Italian.’

  He indicated his companions in dark frockcoats and laced shoes, with watch chains looped across their waistcoats like garlands.

  ‘We work in Moscow, sir. My name is Sautet, Monsieur Riss is my associate.’

  The associate doffed his otter-skin hat in greeting. His skull was as smooth as his colleague’s, whose portliness, florid complexion and choice of apparel he also shared. Sautet continued ceremoniously, ‘We run the most extensive French booksellers in the entire Empire, sir. And this is Monsieur Mouton, a printer, Monsieur Schnitzler, renowned in the fur trade …’

  D’Herbigny interrupted the introductions to question the speaker. Where in the devil’s name were the inhabitants? Were there any boyars he could take back to the Emperor? And what of Kutuzov’s army?

  The army had crossed Moscow without stopping; officers had been seen weeping with rage. That morning, before dawn, the governor, Rostopchin, had organized the exodus of the population; an almighty throng of civilians with icons at their head, chanting hymns and lamenting and kissing crosses. There had been terrible scenes that Sautet hinted at but dared not relate: ‘Monsieur Mouton will tell you what he has endured.’

  ‘It’s a miracle I am alive,’ the man in question spoke up, trembling. ‘On the pretext that I had made insulting remarks about the Tsar, policemen dragged me before Count Rostopchin. I wasn’t the only one. There was also a young Muscovite whose father was an acquaintance of mine, a merchant. Well, he was accused of having translated one of the Emperor Napoleon’s proclamations; actually, I know this for a fact, he had only translated extracts from the Hamburg Correspondent and these included, among other things, the famous proclamation – I read it myself, I’m a printer after all …’

  ‘We know …’

  ‘Well, he was the son of nobility, this young man, even if he did belong to a sect of German Illuminati whose name I have forgotten …’

  ‘Come to the point,’ d’Herbigny said impatiently.

  ‘The young man was handed over to the crowd, they were madmen, sir, the thought of it still makes me shudder, look … and he was torn to pieces, flayed alive like a rabbit, and then fanatics tied a rope round his corpse to parade it through the town, and all they found in the end was a hand with three fingers.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I was terrified … I thought they were going to tear me apart in their frenzy, but no, not a bit of it, I simply had to put up with a lecture from Count Rostopchin. He wanted me to tell you what I just have, the treatment traitors and miscreants can expect from patriots in Russia.’

  ‘Well, that’s that, then,’ concluded the captain, who had stopped being affected by stories of atrocities long before and preferred to enquire about the city’s resources and inhabitants. ‘Where are the dignitaries?’

  ‘Gone.’

  ‘Governor Rostopchin?’

  ‘Gone with them.’

  ‘Kutuzov’s army?’

  ‘Long gone, we’ve told you that.’

  ‘How many foreigners have stayed?’

  The men didn’t know. Most had been evacuated by boat to Nizhni Novgorod, but before leaving himself, Rostopchin had opened the lunatic asylums and prisons; the city was probably overrun with convicts waiting to slit the throats of the French as soon as they were garrisoned there; any remaining inhabitants were locked away in their cellars.

  ‘The granaries?’

  ‘Removed or exhausted.’

  ‘What? No standby supplies?’

  ‘Up until winter Moscow is supplied by river but this year, because of the war, the trade has been interrupted. You may be able to f
ind some groats or oatmeal, perhaps.’

  ‘Flour?’

  ‘The Russians have been busy making bread and biscuits,’ said Sautet. ‘Hundreds of wagons have been taking them to resupply the army for the last two weeks, at least.’

  ‘The grain on the barges has been tipped into the Moskova,’ went on his associate, ‘I saw it with my own eyes, sir.’

  Between the church’s fluted towers, the bird of prey strangled by the chains was swinging back and forth like a hanged man.

  *

  When he learned that Moscow had been evacuated, that by forsaking it in this fashion Rostopchin had robbed him of his customary triumph, Napoleon was devastated; he paled, his gestures grew feverish, incoherent, he shuffled his handkerchief from pocket to pocket, and kept on putting on his gloves and then pulling them off, constantly tugging at the fingers. He erupted in nervous tics: he scratched his cheek, paced up and down, kicked stones. With a jerk of his hand he called for his horse, a Mameluke helped him mount and guided his feet into the stirrups; he crossed the bridge and caracoled alone on the other bank in front of the Dorogomilov gate without riding through it. The troops must invest this confounded Moscow first and secure it for his safety. The Emperor abruptly returned to the left bank of the Moskova, suddenly revitalized and furious. ‘Berthier!’

  ‘I am in front of you, sire,’ replied the major general in a slow voice.

  ‘Deploy the regiments around the city. Prince Eugène to the north, Prince Poniatowski in the southern suburbs, Davout in the Viceroy’s rear. Mortier will be governor of the province, Durosnel will command the town, Lefebvre will police it from the Kremlin.’

  Dispatch riders left immediately in all directions to deliver these orders, just as the baggage train reached the suburbs and Captain d’Herbigny met up with his batman again.

  ‘We’re sleeping under the Tsar’s roof tonight, Paulin!’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The Old Guard was preparing itself. The band and bearskinned grenadiers were already marching towards the city walls with Marshal Lefebvre, Duke of Danzig. The chasseurs à pied were forming up. The Emperor’s household’s convoy in turn was arriving by the new Smolensk road, a long line of caissons drawn by teams of eight, of barouches, herds of pack animals, Piedmontese donkeys each carrying two casks of Chambertin, and field kitchens preceded by the major-domos and cooks on mules.