Various accounts are given respecting the first entry of the troops into Moscow. Some of the inhabitants who remained, having faith in the assurances of Rostopchin, welcomed the invaders believing them to be some of the foreign allies of the Russian army. An official who had not been able to escape states that he saw some serfs carrying arms from the arsenal, one, who was intoxicated had a musket in one hand and in the other a carbine, for remarking upon the folly of such an armament, the man threw first the musket then the carbine at him, and a crowd of rioters rushed from the arsenal all armed, as the advance-guard of the French approached. The captain begged an interpreter to advise the crowd to throw down their arms and not engage in an unequal struggle, but the ignorant people, excited if not intoxicated, fired a few rounds accidentally, or by design, and the French thereupon made use of their artillery, and a wild fight ensued. After some ten or a dozen had been sabred, the others asked for quarter, and received it. Another story is to the effect that some of the armed citizens mistaking a general for Napoleon, fired at him as he approached the Kremlin and were then charged by his guard and put to flight. When later, Napoleon rode up to the Borovitski Gate, a decrepid soldier, a tottering veteran, too stubborn to forsake his post, resolutely blocked the way and was mercilessly struck down by the advance-guard. The fires commenced the same evening that the French entered the town; there were no engines available and the soldiers, hungry and joyful, disregarded the danger and attended to their more immediate needs. Rostopchin had ordered that the contents of the "cellars" should be burned, but there was no lack of liquor, and the conquerors were not to be denied. As the "Warriors" sing in Zhukovski's epic:-- "O, yes!--the ruby stream to drain Is glory's pride and pleasure-- Wine! Conqueror thou of care and pain, Thou art the hero's treasure."