Napoleon was waiting for negotiations to commence. He had sent Baron de Lauriston to meet Kutuzov to offer him peace. The crafty generalissimo was playing for time. He had dispatched an aide-de-camp to St Petersburg to pass on this message to the Tsar.
But despite the loss of Moscow, Alexander did not want to give in. He kept repeating that he would fight to the bitter end, and if he lost the last of his soldiers he would continue the struggle at the head of his ‘beloved nobility and loyal peasants’. He was careful, however, to conceal his intentions from the French. The result was that while Napoleon was waiting for the peace, the Tsar and Kutuzov were waiting for the winter.
So, life in Moscow was tinged with anxiety for some, but enjoyable for others – those who had a blind faith in the Emperor and who had never heard about Russian winters. Colonel Pirgnon informed Margont that his plan for a Moscow Club would have to be ‘temporarily postponed’. He too was worried about the future and didn’t feel inclined to engage in witty conversation.
Margont explored every corner of Moscow. He walked along the red ramparts and gazed in awe at the cathedrals and churches. He visited the palaces and was always welcomed warmly by those quartered there when he brandished bottles of wine or gin. He also spent hours drawing. He cursed his lack of skill, but his sketches of a façade or a view were sometimes quite competent.
In the evenings he prepared dinner for his friends, partly because he enjoyed cooking, greedy as he was, and partly to keep busy. Lefine was involved in various shady dealings and regularly brought back new ingredients so that they could vary the way in which they cooked the inevitable salted fish.
Once they had eaten their fill, everyone settled down in the palace’s most beautiful drawing room to engage in inexhaustible conversation over vodka, rum, coffee and tea accompanied by chocolates and caramels. Saber never tired of recounting how he had been promoted at the Great Redoubt itself. Piquebois talked of home; Margont about Russian culture; Jean-Quenin about medicine and ethics; and Lefine filled them in on the gossip: a general was having an affair with a Russian princess; some completely inebriated Bavarian gunners had attacked the Kremlin with their cannon, then been doused with water so that they would be presentable in front of the firing squad; the Emperor had ridden around in between reviewing the troops, and one night, instead of sleeping, he had drawn up a decree proposing to unite the actors of the Comédie Française into a company …
Fanselin often joined them. His sharp wit made him very agreeable company. He recalled his travels: places he had already been to and those still to visit, including Louisiana and Quebec, which he had even planned to liberate from the English with the help of a few friends, Red Lancers and grenadiers of the Guard. He was so enthusiastic that he made the impossible appear almost reasonable. They talked about the North American Indians who scalped people – though everyone was in agreement that they couldn’t be any worse than the Russians – the Iroquois, who burnt their prisoners alive whilst apologising to them for making them suffer; the mysterious stepped pyramids of Mexico; the vastness of the New World …
They launched into endless arguments. Why had the Emperor still not issued a decree to free the muzhiks, the Russian nobility’s serfs? What was His Majesty’s plan now? Were the Russians at last going to give in? Well, of course they were! Not on your life, you must be joking! Your arguments are false because you’re not taking the Russian mentality into account … Here we go, the librarian’s going to read us another chapter! If you like the Russian mentality so much, go and marry your Countess Valiuska! They quarrelled, they made up and in the end were overcome by tiredness. Everyone then went off to bed, except Piquebois, who stood at the window and studied the stars.
Nevertheless, Margont was well aware that imperceptibly victory was turning into defeat. It was happening in small stages that were impossible to pinpoint, as when day changes to night, but the transformation was just as obvious. So he was preparing himself for every eventuality. Lefine had managed to buy two horses. Two horses between four didn’t seem a lot but so many mounts had perished that in Moscow with two beasts you could form a squadron. Piquebois was stocking up with large amounts of food, exchanging bottles of vodka for wheat – a sort of reversal of the natural process – flour, eggs, a little meat and salted fish. There were also some kilos of sweetmeats that had been discovered in the remains of a shop. Margont had had two pairs of bearskin boots made for everyone. He had also had the jackets, cloaks and greatcoats lined with fur. He had bought ermine hats – at a knockdown price, only a bottle of vodka for a pair – muffs, gloves, hoods, bulky pelisses and trousers. Everything was available in Moscow. The soldiers had in fact dubbed the sale of booty ‘the Moscow fair’. Margont disapproved of looting but not to the point of refusing to acquire clothes that would considerably improve his chances of survival.
On 13 October, a thin layer of snow covered Moscow. It quickly disappeared but it was only a foretaste. However, the month of October remained exceptionally mild and led Napoleon to underestimate the Russian climate. The Emperor continued to linger in Moscow. He wanted the enemy to believe that all was well and that he was intending to spend the winter in the capital. He thought that, between the Tsar and himself, the last to give in would be the winner. He was also aware of having reached the pinnacle of his glory. He was feared by the whole of Europe and everyone had to reckon with his policies. Ordering a retreat would be his first personal defeat. In addition, a retreat without an armistice would be a very perilous undertaking. Napoleon wanted to delay the moment when his star would begin to fade. He even tried to convince himself that the Tsar would negotiate in the end and that Russian winters were no worse than Parisian ones …
On 17 October, the tacit truce agreed between the two armies – a partial truce because the Cossacks and partisans were constantly harrying the French rear – was broken. At Vinkovo the Russians, who significantly outnumbered the French, took two thousand five hundred prisoners and seized thirty-three cannon. Murat, in typical fashion, counterattacked with a cavalry charge. The net result was two thousand dead on each side.
Napoleon ordered the departure for 19 October. He knew that the weather would be against him and that Kutuzov would do everything in his power to cut off the retreat so that the winter and resulting privations would destroy his army.
CHAPTER 30
WHEN the Grande Armée began its retreat, the crush was indescribable. The remaining hundred thousand soldiers and those accompanying them – wives, officers’ servants, canteen-keepers and sutler women – had been joined by thousands of Muscovites of foreign extraction who feared reprisals on the part of the Russians. The streets were therefore jammed with barouches, carriages, carts, wagons, caissons, charabancs and every imaginable contraption. Several of these vehicles, weighed down with booty and passengers, had broken wheels and were blocking the way.
Napoleon still possessed a powerful army. Morale was high: they had faith in the Emperor. However, disorder was already undermining the effectiveness of the troops. In a clever manoeuvre, Kutuzov had stopped pulling back towards the east and had positioned his troops to the south of Moscow. Thus he was blocking the way to the rich provinces of the south and was threatening the French retreat towards Smolensk. While Napoleon had been reorganising his army and enjoying his conquest pending the opening of negotiations, Kutuzov had restructured his forces. He had recruited countless peasants who were convinced that the French had set fire to Moscow, were desecrating their churches (it was true that some cavalry squadrons, with a total disregard for religion, had turned churches into stables) and exterminating the people. He was also receiving a steady stream of reinforcements from all the provinces. He now had at his disposal one hundred and twenty thousand soldiers backed up by two hundred thousand militiamen.
Kutuzov, however, feared Napoleon and wanted to avoid direct confrontation. He hoped to use delaying tactics for as long as possible, allowing the winter and hunger to wreak havoc in the enemy ranks in or
der eventually to intercept the French army and destroy it.
As for Napoleon, he had planned to withdraw as far as Smolensk. He was intending to regroup his forces in the city and give them fresh supplies from the stocks of food he had built up there. He began by taking the Kaluga road, to the south of the road to Smolensk. Part of the Russian army, commanded by Lieutenant-General Doktorov, blocked his way. Fighting took place in Maloyaroslavets and the town was lost and retaken several times by Prince Eugène’s troops. Seventeen thousand French and Italians fought against more than fifty thousand Russians. IV Corps lost four thousand men and the Russians twice that number. But Kutuzov had had time to link up with Doktorov. Now it was the whole of the Russian army that was obstructing the road to Kaluga.
Napoleon was faced with a dilemma. Either he continued with his plan to withdraw via the road to Kaluga, to which end he would have to defeat the Russian army despite its numerical superiority. Or he took the road to Smolensk again, which was shorter but, because it had been looted on the outward journey, would offer the army only very scant resources. On the advice of almost his entire entourage, Napoleon chose the road to Smolensk. Several factors led him to prefer this option. In current conditions a battle against the Russians was particularly risky. He also believed that Kutuzov had pulled his army back a few leagues to take up a higher position than that at Maloyaroslavets. In fact, the Russian generalissimo, overcautious as ever, thinking that the French were going to take the road to Smolensk again, wanted to avoid a confrontation.
Another incident also played a part in this decision: Napoleon had almost fallen into Russian hands. While he was on reconnaissance, six hundred Cossacks had sprung out of a wood. The duty squadrons had repelled them but for a few moments the Emperor had been threatened. The enemy would certainly not have withdrawn so swiftly if they had realised that they were dealing with Napoleon himself.
No one knows what would have happened if Napoleon had tried to force his way through to take the road to Kaluga. But what is certain is that the return journey via the devastated road to Smolensk was one of the main factors in turning the retreat into a disaster.
Kutuzov’s army began a long march along the flank, keeping parallel to the French and forcing them to stick to the road to Smolensk. The Cossacks and other light cavalry troops as well as the partisans constantly harried the Grande Armée.
Margont, Lefine, Saber and Piquebois were in the process of preparing their lunchtime soup, rather a grand term for the vile liquid made from coffee and flour. They ate better in the mornings because Margont had advised Colonel Pégot to make the regiment march behind the mounted chasseurs. Thus, as soon as they got up, the soldiers of the 84th rushed to the encampment abandoned by the chasseurs and hurriedly devoured the horses that had died in the night, horses that had already been partly devoured by their riders. It was important not to wait until the carcasses froze because then it became impossible to cut them up, even with an axe.
On 27 October there had been a very heavy snowfall. This, added to the hunger and the anxious realisation that they were taking the road to Smolensk again, had begun to transform the army. The spirit of camaraderie was wearing thin. If you possessed horses or supplies of food, you had to guard them overnight to prevent them from being stolen. As for sharing, it was a concept that was rapidly disappearing. Margont was deep in thought about such matters while gazing at the snow-laden branches of the fir trees, when he heard Lefine laughing.
‘Why do you put your hood on only at night, Captain? You look such a sight! Only your eyes are visible!’
‘That’s right. Have a good laugh. In a few days’ time you won’t be able to hear the nonsense you talk because your ears will have frozen and dropped off.’
‘What? Is it going to get even colder?’
Margont was clutching his bowl of hot soup to warm his gloves.
‘This is only the start,’ he answered.
Every word he spoke produced coils of steam. He was dreaming of fig jam. As a child, he had got through whole jars of it as his mother looked on in horror, like any parent watching the excesses of its offspring. Although he gorged himself on this jam, by one of those contradictions that make human beings such strange creatures, he sobbed his heart out if anyone tried to make him eat figs in the form of fruit. By adulthood he had become more sensible: he now loved both the jam and the fruit.
‘What is there to eat this evening?’ asked Piquebois.
‘A raw egg and some sweets,’ Lefine announced.
‘Do you call that a meal?’
‘In the 8th Light they only have sweets and caviar; in the 1st Croat they have beef that they wouldn’t exchange for all the money in the world but they might exchange some for flour because, like us, they haven’t got much of it. I’d need to exchange coffee and fish with Demay’s gunners for some fodder, which I’d exchange with the 9th Chasseurs for the flour to—’
‘All right, we trust you. Organise it as best you can,’ Margont interrupted.
Morale was declining and yet the four men were among the more fortunate. Piquebois was watching over their bony, worn-out horses. He stroked them to apologise for the misfortunes they were suffering and to be forgiven for finally having taken to eating horsemeat. He swapped part of his meals for fodder and, at night, he tied the two bridles around his wrist. ‘If anyone wants to steal them, they’ll have to deal with Piquebois first!’ he’d announced. And as everyone knew that he could still wield his sabre like a true hussar … One day, one of the mounts had slipped on a patch of ice and had accidentally thrown Lefine into the snow. The sergeant had cursed loudly as he got back on his feet and the two horses had immediately sought refuge with Piquebois.
Saber was munching a snowball to quench his thirst.
‘It’s unbelievable all the same! The army’s in a bad state, I can tell you. It’s been impossible for me to get my captain’s epaulettes! I’m a captain on paper but not in uniform because of the poor organisation. What sort of impression are we going to give if, when the Russians attack, the captains look like lieutenants? This sort of laxity will be our downfall!’
‘You’re really getting up my nose!’ thundered Piquebois. ‘Go and take them from a dead body if it matters so much to you!’
‘Are you mad?’ stuttered Saber in horror.
‘Well, well,’ Margont said gleefully, ‘you tell all and sundry you’re an atheist, you make fun of me when I say a prayer, but it turns out you’re superstitious. You’ve replaced God with black cats, rabbits’ paws and tarot cards.’
Saber walked off in annoyance, trying to retain his dignity. ‘At least I went up a rank.’
‘And don’t we know it,’ retorted Piquebois.
Margont looked longingly at his bowl. Was it empty? Already?
‘Cheer up!’ he exclaimed. ‘In two weeks we’ll be in Smolensk. Talking of which, I suggest we drink a toast to the paradise awaiting us.’ Then, raising a snowball, he said: ‘To Smolensk!’
‘To Smolensk!’ Lefine and Piquebois repeated.
They toasted one another before gulping down the snow. The march resumed. What remained of the 84th, that is, fewer than eight hundred men, was making painful progress. Lefine looked up at regular intervals. A flock of black birds was following the never-ending column of the retreating army.
‘Filthy crows!’ he spat.
‘It looks as if a Napoleonic crow has formed an avian Grande Armée and ordered the birds to mimic us.’
‘I bet each of these pests has already chosen the soldier it plans to devour,’ Lefine grumbled.
Margont pointed with his finger. ‘Look, there’s yours!’
‘Don’t say that! Must never say that, Captain.’
Margont’s legs felt heavy. ‘Let’s keep quiet. We’d be better off saving our breath.’
‘Yes, and in any case the words seem to freeze in our mouths.’
The road was littered with corpses. Soldiers were dropping from exhaustion, never to get up again. Some
were almost naked: they had been stripped of their possessions.
‘It’s good, though, to say something from time to time,’ Lefine added further on. ‘That way you know you’re not completely dead yet.’
‘To take your mind off things, think about what you’ll do when this war’s over.’
‘Go on to the next one, of course. There’s nothing to think about!’
Margont spotted an infantryman cutting across the fields, struggling almost knee-deep in snow and waving at him frantically. Margont went to meet him. Lefine could tell how animated the conversation was by the amount of steam coming from their mouths. Margont came back looking worried and took his friend to one side.
‘I made some calculations but I was mistaken. So I’m changing my strategy.’
‘What does all this gibberish mean?’
‘That we’re going to have a talk with Colonel Barguelot. Now.’
Margont and Lefine caught up with the 9th of the Line. This regiment now made up only a small fragment of the never-ending black column winding its way through the snow, leaving a trail of corpses in its wake. It had almost ceased to exist at the battle of Maloyaroslavets. Margont had discovered from his spy that Colonel Barguelot was still alive. He had in fact been ‘concussed by an explosion’ that had left him unconscious at the rear for the whole duration of the fighting. He had only regained consciousness when it was time to withdraw. Margont approached the colonel who, on recognising him, stared at him in disbelief.
‘How dare you come to see me? I’m going to have you shot on the spot!’
Margont handed him the letter signed by Prince Eugène himself.
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