Barclay, though now in bad health, took executive command of the evacuation. At 2 a.m. on the 14th the army began its passage through the city. The troops, in the deepest dejection, tramped through the streets with furled standards and silent bands, many of them, officers and men, sobbing with rage and despair. The foreign commandant of the Kremlin garrison regiment began the evacuation with band playing, according to the usages of war, and there was a violent outcry among the retreating soldiery. They indignantly shouted that he was rejoicing, and the music had to cease. [Illustration: NAPOLEON’S FIRST VIEW OF MOSCOW The Emperor is standing on the Sparrow Hills, from which an imposing view of the old Russian capital is obtained. From the painting by Verestchagin.] Barclay stationed his staff-officers along the line of retreat to enforce order. Knowing the especial weakness of the Russian soldiers, he issued strict orders that anyone found in a beer-shop or intoxicated was to be summarily punished. He worked himself to death in directing the march, and was on horseback for eighteen hours. He complained bitterly of the inefficiency of the staff, which, as usual, did little or nothing to facilitate the march. There was frequently disorder among the retiring columns. None the less it must be said that the operation was remarkably successful. By 9 o’clock in the evening, after eighteen hours of incessant toil, 90,000 fighting men, more than 600 guns and thousands of vehicles, had been passed through the great city and were on the Kolomna road. Kutuzov himself traversed Moscow in the morning. An eyewitness states that he saw him near the Kolomna gate sitting in his carriage quite alone, resting his head on his hands, silent and sad, while before him troops, guns, and waggons poured in an endless stream. The head of the army halted for the night at Panki, a village about ten miles from the city, where Kutuzov established his head-quarters. Meanwhile, early on the 13th, Napoleon halted his army, fearing that Kutuzov was manoeuvring to attack his right flank. That he could conceive such an eventuality shows how completely, and not for the first time in the campaign, his cavalry had failed to keep touch with the enemy. At 10 a.m., however, he became convinced that the Russian army was still in his front, and resumed his march. At 1 p.m. on the 14th Murat’s vanguard crowned the Sparrow Hills, about a mile and a half west of Moscow, and saw before them in the plain the Russian rear-guard, and beyond it the widespreading city--the goal which they had toiled so strenuously to attain.