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 order 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.