“It was both a strange and a horrible spectacle. Some houses appeared to have been razed; of others, fragments of smoke-blackened walls remained; ruins of all kinds encumbered the streets; everywhere was a horrible smell of burning. Here and there a cottage, a church, a palace, stood erect amidst the general destruction. The churches especially, by their many-coloured domes, by the richness and variety of their construction, recalled the former opulence of Moscow. In them had taken refuge most of the inhabitants, driven by our soldiers from the houses the fire had spared. The unhappy wretches, clothed in rags, and wandering like ghosts amid the ruins, had recourse to the saddest expedients to prolong their miserable existence. They sought and devoured the scanty vegetables remaining in the gardens; they tore the flesh from the animals that lay dead in the streets; some even plunged into the river for corn the Russians had thrown there, and which was now in a state of fermentation.... It was with the greatest difficulty we procured black bread and beer; meat began to be very scarce. We had to send strong detachments to seize oxen in the woods where the peasants had taken refuge, and often the detachments returned empty-handed. Such was the pretended abundance procured us by the pillage of the city. We had liquors, sugar, sweatmeats, and we wanted for meat and bread. We covered ourselves with furs, but were almost without clothes and shoes. With great store of diamonds, jewels, and every possible object of luxury, we were on the eve of dying of hunger. A large number of Russian soldiers wandered in the streets of Moscow. I had fifty of them seized; and a general, to whom I reported the capture, told me I might have had them shot, and that on all future occasions he authorised me to do so. I did not abuse the authorisation. It will be easily understood how many mishaps, how much disorder, characterised our stay in Moscow. Not an officer, not a soldier, but could tell strange anecdotes on this head. One of the most striking is that of a Russian whom a French officer found concealed in the ruins of a house; by signs he assured him of protection, and the Russian accompanied him. Soon, being obliged to carry an order, and seeing another officer pass at the head of a detachment, he transferred the individual to his charge, saying hastily—‘I recommend this gentleman to you.’ The second officer, misunderstanding the intention of the words and the tone in which they were pronounced, took the unfortunate Russian for an incendiary, and had him shot.”