Kutuzof, having enticed him into Moscow, turned aside, and, without leaving any trace behind, succeeded in completely hoodwinking his enemy. While Napoleon was announcing to Europe that the Russians were fleeing in disorder along the Kazan road, Kutuzof suddenly turned off this road on to the Kaluga road, and placed himself in position to protect the fertile provinces that had not yet been touched by the invaders. Whose idea this was is not known, but it was a very happy one, full of results advantageous to the Russians and ruinous to the French. Meantime complete confusion reigned in Moscow. Of the well-to-do only those remained in the city who, relying upon Rostopchin’s proclamations, had not removed their wealth. In addition to these and others who remained, perhaps to fish in troubled waters, there was the vast army of beggars and criminals. The Postmaster-General, Kluchareff, suspected of being a freethinker, was banished; young Verestchagin, as we have seen, was murdered, and an ex-student, Uroosoff, who tried to show that Napoleon’s invasion was a good thing, was first imprisoned and then banished. When the order directing the broaching of wine and spirit casks was issued, the people fell to work at once, and soon became intoxicated. Wine and spirits literally flowed in the streets, and the mob, lying on the pavement yelling and fighting, lapped up the liquor from the gutters. “My father was an obstinate man,” says the wife of a citizen. “‘I will not leave the city,’ he said, ‘no, on no account; there is no reason to be afraid of the French.’ “Arms were distributed in the Kremlin, and he received a gun, but it was without a hammer. “‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘although it is out of order, it may prove handy to frighten a Frenchman with....’ “When we reached the stone bridge there was a crowd of about a hundred men, and a regiment of the enemy was marching across. Father took it into his head to threaten them with his gun, but one of the soldiers snatched it out of his hands, and with the butt-end hit my father a blow on the back of his head that caused blood to flow.” “I was sitting at a window knitting a stocking,” says the wife of a priest, “when suddenly the deacon’s wife came running up. ‘Mother,’ said she, ‘they say that “Bonaparte has passed through the gates of Dorogomilovsk and Kaluga.’” I dropped the stocking and called aloud—‘Dmitry Vlasich, do you hear?’ My husband was sitting in another room writing. ‘What is the matter?’ he asked. ‘The matter is that the deacon’s wife tells me that Bonaparte has come,’ I answered. He laughed. ‘What a foolish woman you are to believe the deacon’s wife rather than the Governor-General. There is the Count’s proclamation, have I not read it to you? You had better go and order the tea.’