We probably shall never be satisfied as to the real origin of the conflagration of Moscow. If the voluntary act of the Russian people, it deserves to be classed, with the abandonment of Athens, among the noblest acts of patriotism recorded; but with this difference, that the Athenians trusted their property to the victor’s mercy, the Russians inflicted on themselves the utmost losses of war, rather than allow an invader to profit by the shelter of their homes. That a rugged but deep love of their country did animate even those among them who had least to love, is certain. Palaces and hamlets were alike committed to the flames; the serf and the prince were equally indignant at their national injuries. “It is an admitted fact, that when the French, in order to induce their refractory prisoners to labour in their service, branded some of them in the hand with the letter N. as a sign that they were the serfs of Napoleon, one peasant laid his hand upon a block of wood, and struck it off with the axe which he held in the other, in order to free himself from the supposed thraldom.”[211] Napoleon depended on the possession of Moscow as a sure means of dictating peace to Russia on his own terms. As formerly at Vienna and Berlin, he expected to give laws in the Kremlin to a conquered nation; and his disappointment in finding this vantage–ground crumble under his feet was extreme. It was lost, however, irrecoverably lost, for the Russians had no longer anything to hope or fear for their capital, and Moscow, ruined and deserted, was no place for the invader to pass a five–months’ winter in. Policy therefore prompted an immediate retreat, sufficient time being allowed to refresh and re–organize the army; but Napoleon still clung with obstinacy to his original plan of dictating a peace to Alexander from his capital, and sacrificed a fortnight of precious time to this deceitful hope. It was frustrated; the Russian monarch refused to listen to any overtures of peace, and the French, who on the 12th of September had hailed Moscow as the goal of their labours, quitted it on the 19th of October, to retrace their steps over a ravaged country through a numerous and exasperated enemy.