“How shall I describe the scenes that took place in the city?” says an eye-witness. “Soldiers, sutlers, convicts let loose from prison, and prostitutes, were roaming the streets, breaking into deserted houses and seizing all that attracted their cupidity. Some clothed themselves in silken dresses embroidered with gold, others piled upon their shoulders as many furs as they could carry. Soldiers, and the rabble in general, attired themselves in court dresses. Crowds broke open the doors of the cellars, drank to intoxication, and reeled about the streets laden with plunder. It was not only deserted buildings that were pillaged in this way. The soldiers forcibly entered inhabited houses, and abused every woman they met. When the generals received orders to abandon Moscow, licentiousness reached its culminating point. Unrestrained by the presence of their leaders, the troops gave themselves up to the most monstrous excesses. Nothing was sacred to their unbridled licence.” One eye-witness tells us—“Nothing so inflamed the greed of the plunderers as the Archangel Cathedral in the Kremlin, in the royal tombs of which they hoped to find enormous treasures. In this expectation the Grenadiers descended with torches into the vaults, and without compunction disturbed even the bones of the dead.... “We hoped that night would put a stop to these horrors, but the darkness merely served to render the conflagration more terrible. The flames, spreading from north to south, shot up into the heavens, illuminating the pall of smoke that hung like a thick fog over the city. Our blood chilled as we listened to the babel of cries, growing louder and ever louder in the darkness; the moans of the unfortunate wretches who were being tortured and slain; the screams of maidens vainly seeking refuge in the arms of their mothers; the howling of the dogs which, in the Moscow custom, were chained to the gates of the houses, and were thus slowly burned alive. “Through the thick smoke long files of wagons were to be seen loaded with booty. These were continually stopping, and above the din rose the shouts of the drivers, who, fearful of being burned to death, spurred on their horses and forced a way to an accompaniment of recrimination and abuse.” “We met a Jew,” says Bourgogne, “who was tearing his hair and beard at the sight of a burning synagogue of which he had been the Rabbi. As he was able to speak a little German we learned that, together with other Jews, he had brought to his place of worship all his valuables. “We went with him into the Jewish quarter. There we found that everything was burned to the ground. Our friend, on seeing the ruins of his house, uttered a cry and fainted.