Andalusia gave the French a superiority
in the centre of Spain which forced Wellington to retire to Ciudad
Rodrigo. He lost the fruits of his victory, save that Andalusia was
freed: but he saved his army for the triumphant campaign of 1813. Had
Napoleon shown the like prudence by beating a timely retreat from
Moscow, who can say that the next hard-fought fights in Silesia and
Saxony would not have once more crowned his veterans with decisive
triumph?

As it was, the Grand Army toiled on through heat, dust, and the smoke
of burning villages, to gain peace and plenty at Moscow. But when, on
September the 14th, the conqueror entered that city with his vanguard,
solitude reigned almost unbroken. A few fanatics, clinging to the
tradition that the Kremlin was impregnable, idly sought to defend it;
but troops, officials, nobles, merchants, and the great mass of the
people were gone, and the military stores had been burnt or removed.
Rostopchin, the governor, had released the prisoners and broken the
fire engines. Flames speedily burst forth, and Bausset, the Prefect of
Napoleon's Palace, affirms that while looking forth from the Kremlin
he saw the flames burst forth in several districts in quick
succession; and that a careful examination of cellars often proved
them to be stored with combustibles, vitriol in one case being
swallowed by a French soldier who took it for brandy! If all this be
true, it proves that the Muscovites were determined to fire their
capital. But their writers have as stoutly affirmed that the fires
were caused by French and Polish plunderers.[268] Three days later,
the powers of the air and the demons of drink and frenzy raged
uncontrolled; and Napoleon himself barely escaped from the whirlwinds
of flame that enveloped the Kremlin and nearly scorched to death the
last members of his staff. For several hours the conflagration was
fanned by an equinoctial gale, and when, on the 20th, it died down,
convicts or plunderers kindled it anew.

Yet the army did not want for shelter, and, as Sergeant Bourgogne
remarks, if every house had been gutted there were still the caves and
cellars that promised protection from the cold of winter. The real
problem was now, as ever, the food-supply. The Russians had swept the
district wellnigh bare; and though the Grand Army feasted for a
fortnight on dainties and drink, yet bread, flour, and meat were soon
very scarce. In vain did the Emperor seek to entice the inhabitant