Citizen Emperor (185 page)

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Authors: Philip Dwyer

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42
.
Lieven,
Russia against Napoleon
, p. 242.
43
.
Maistre,
Oeuvres complètes
, xii. p. 180.
44
.
Edling,
Mémoires
, pp. 79–80.
45
.
It is impossible to know how many prisoners were released, but we know that around 540 were nevertheless transferred to the prison of Nizhni Novgorod (Nordhof,
Die Geschichte der Zerstörung Moskaus
, pp. 154 n. 172, and 157, 159. Bourgogne,
Mémoires
, p. 17; Adams,
Napoleon and Russia
, pp. 360–1.
46
.
According to Muhlstein,
Napoléon à Moscou
, p. 162.
47
.
Boulart,
Mémoires militaires
, p. 261; Denniée,
Itinéraire de l’empereur Napoléon
, pp. 94–5.
48
.
Bellot de Kergorre,
Journal
, p. 54.
49
.
Fantin des Odoards,
Journal
, p. 335.
50
.
Ségur,
Histoire de Napoléon et de la grande-armée pendant l’année 1812
, ii. p. 49. Ancient authors describe the people occupying the region between the north of the Danube and the northern Caucasus, which today would largely incorporate the Ukrainian steppes, as Scythians. In Greek sources, they were archetypal barbarians.
51
.
Feodor Vasilievitch Rostopchin,
La vérité sur l’incendie de Moscou, par le Cte Rostopchine
(Paris, 1823). For a detailed analysis of this ‘controversy’, which is nothing of the kind, see Daria Olivier,
The Burning of Moscow, 1812
, trans. M. Heron (London, 1966), pp. 186–97. Rostopchin was dismissed from office in August 1814. Despite his virulent Francophobia during the war, he spent the years 1815–23 in Paris where he was fêted as the man who had burnt Moscow and defeated Napoleon. He died in Moscow in 1826. Even Rostopchin’s daughter, in an otherwise exculpatory memoir, wrote of her father setting fire to Moscow. See Natalie Narychkin,
Le comte Rostopchine et son temps: 1812
(St Petersburg, 1912), pp. 151, 158.
52
.
Torrance, ‘Some Russian Attitudes to France’, 297.
53
.
Lieven,
Russia against Napoleon
, p. 213.
54
.
François-Joseph d’Ysarn Villefort,
Relation du séjour des Français à Moscou et l’incendie de cette ville en 1812, par un habitant de Moscou
(Brussels, 1871), p. 9.
55
.
On these conflicting views see Torrance, ‘Some Russian Attitudes to France’, 297.
56
.
Joseph de Maistre wrote about how the burning of Moscow ‘fanaticized’ the people and contributed towards the acts of barbarity committed against the invader (Maistre,
Oeuvres complètes
, xii. pp. 295, 307).
57
.
Grand Duc Nicolas Mikhaïlovitch (ed.),
Perepiska imperatora
Aleksandra I so sestroi Velikoi knyaginei Yekaterinoi Pavlovnoi
(St Petersburg, 1910), pp. 83, 84, and 86–93 (3, 6, 7 and 18 September 1812); Daria Olivier,
L’incendie de Moscou
(Paris, 1964), pp. 130–1; Zamoyski,
1812
, pp. 313–14; Rey,
Alexandre Ier
, pp. 325–6.
58
.
Reported in Adams (ed.),
Memoirs of John Quincy Adams
, ii. p. 409 (30 September 1812).
59
.
Maret to Berthier, 21 September 1812, in Arthur Chuquet (ed.),
Lettres de 1812: première série
(Paris, 1911), p. 47.
60
.
Ysarn Villefort,
Relation du séjour des Français à Moscou
, pp. 30–1; (abbé) Adrien Surrugues,
Lettres sur l’incendie de Moscou en 1812
(Paris, 1823), p. 18.
61
.
Berthezène,
Souvenirs militaires
, ii. pp. 73–4; Adélaïde-Louise d’Eckmühl, marquise de Blocqueville,
Le maréchal Davout, prince d’Eckmühl, raconté par les siens et par lui-même
, 4 vols (Paris, 1879–80), iii. p. 177; Ségur,
Histoire et mémoires
, v. p. 92; Villemain,
Souvenirs contemporains
, i. p. 230.
62
.
Lieven,
Russia against Napoleon
, p. 246.
63
.
Labaume,
Relation circonstanciée
, p. 225.
64
.
Bellot de Kergorre,
Journal
, p. 54; Bourgogne,
Mémoires
, p. 17; Duverger,
Mes aventures
, pp. 11–12; Waresquiel (ed.),
Lettres d’un lion
, p. 89 (27 September 1812); Lecointe de Laveau,
Moscou avant et après l’incendie
, pp. 119–20; Bourgeois,
Tableau de la campagne de Moscou
, pp. 65–6; Puybusque,
Lettres sur la guerre de Russie
, pp. 96–7 (24 October 1812); Dedem de Gelder,
Un général hollandais
, pp. 252–3, 256; Soltyk,
Napoléon en 1812
, pp. 221–3; Maret to Berthier, 21 September 1812, in Chuquet (ed.),
Lettres de 1812
, p. 49, wrote that they had enough supplies for six months.
65
.
Bourgogne,
Mémoires
, p. 55. On the looting of Moscow in general see Nordhof,
Die Geschichte der Zerstörung Moskaus
, pp. 185–202. On life in Moscow during the French occupation see Muhlstein,
Napoléon à Moscou
, pp. 197–215.
66
.
Surrugues,
Lettres sur l’incendie de Moscou
, p. 23.
67
.
Labaume,
Relation circonstanciée
, p. 242 ; Bellot de Kergorre,
Journal
, p. 55; Waresquiel (ed.),
Lettres d’un lion
, p. 58 (20 June 1812); Larrey,
Mémoires
, iv. pp. 77–8.
68
.
Ségur,
Histoire et mémoires
, v. p. 83.
69
.
Solignac,
La Bérézina
, p. 161.
70
.
Peyrusse,
Lettres inédites
, p. 100 (22 September 1812). See, too, Labaume,
Relation circonstanciée
, pp. 109–1.
71
.
Castellane,
Journal
, i. p. 162 (28 and 30 September 1812).
72
.
Corr.
xxiv. n. 19213 (20 September 1812); Caulaincourt,
Memoirs
, i. p. 285.
73
.
Caulaincourt,
Memoirs
, i. pp. 302–3; Ségur,
Histoire et mémoires
, v. p. 75; Ségur,
Histoire de Napoléon
, ii. pp. 75–7.
74
.
Corr.
xxiv. n. 19213 (September 1812); Adams,
Napoleon and Russia
, pp. 366–70; Lieven,
Napoleon against Russia
, pp. 251–2.
75
.
Caulaincourt,
Memoirs
, i. p. 305.
76
.
Caulaincourt,
Memoirs
, i. p. 306.
77
.
Puybusque,
Lettres sur la guerre de Russie
, pp. 142–5 (11 December 1812); Lieven,
Russia against Napoleon
, p. 252.

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