Not the gorgeous and variegated palaces and their rich ornaments, nor the parks and gardens, and oriental magnificence that everywhere surrounded him, kept him wakeful, but the ominous foreboding that some dire calamity was hanging over the silent capital. When he entered it, scarcely a living soul met his gaze, as he looked down the long streets; and when he broke open the buildings, he found parlors, and bedrooms, and chambers all furnished and in order, but no occupants. The sudden abandonment of their homes, betokened some secret purpose yet to be fulfilled. The midnight moon was sailing over the city, when the cry of “Fire!” reached the ears of Mortier; and the first light over Napoleon’s falling empire was kindled, and the most wondrous scene of modern time commenced,--the burning of Moscow. Mortier, as governor of the city, immediately issued his orders, and was putting forth every exertion, when, at day-light, Napoleon hastened to him. Affecting to disbelieve the reports that the inhabitants were firing their own city, he put more rigid commands on Mortier to keep the soldiers from their work of destruction. The marshal simply pointed to some iron covered houses that had not yet been opened, from every crevice of which smoke was issuing like steam from the sides of a pent up volcano. Sad and thoughtful, Napoleon turned toward the Kremlin, the ancient palace of the Czars, whose huge structure rose high above the surrounding edifices. In the morning, Mortier, by great exertions, was enabled to subdue the fire. But the next night, at midnight, the sentinels on watch, on the lofty Kremlin, saw below them the flames bursting through the houses and palaces, and the cry of “Fire!” “Fire!” passed through the city. The dread scene had now fairly opened. Fiery balloons were seen dropping from the air, and lighting upon the houses; dull explosions were heard on every side from the shut up dwellings, and the next moment a bright light burst forth, and the flames were raging through the apartments. All was uproar and confusion. The serene air and moonlight of the night before, had given way to the driving clouds, and a wild tempest that swept with the roar of the sea over the city. Flames arose on every side, blazing and crackling in the storm, while clouds of smoke and sparks, in an incessant shower, went driving toward the Kremlin. The clouds themselves seemed turned into fire, rolling in wrath over devoted Moscow. Mortier, crushed with the responsibility thus thrown over his shoulders, moved with his young guard amid this desolation, blowing up the houses, and facing the tempest and the flames, struggling nobly to arrest the conflagration. He hastened from place to place amid the blazing ruins, his face blackened with the smoke, and his hair and eyebrows seared with the fierce heat. At length, the day dawned, a day of tempest and of flame; and Mortier, who had strained every nerve for 36 hours, entered a palace, and dropped down with fatigue.