mber.... I am going
to Moscow: one or two battles will settle the business. I will burn
Tula, and Russia will be at my feet. Moscow is the heart of that
Empire. I will wage war with Polish blood." De Pradt's evidence is not
wholly to be trusted; but I am convinced that Napoleon never seriously
thought of taking 200,000 men to the barren tracts of North Russia
late in the summer, while the English, Swedish, and Russian fleets
were ready to worry his flank and stop supplies.]

[Footnote 265: Letter of August 24th to Maret; so too Labaume's
"Narrative," and Garden, vol. xiii., p. 418. Mr. George thinks that
Napoleon decided on August 21st to strike at Moscow on grounds of
general policy.]

[Footnote 266: Labaume, "Narrative"; Lejeune's "Mems.," vol. ii., ch.
vi.]

[Footnote 267: Marbot's "Mems." Bausset, a devoted servant to
Napoleon, refutes the oft-told story that he was ill at Borodino. He
had nothing worse than a bad cold. It is curious that such stories are
told about Napoleon after every battle when his genius did not shine.
In this case, it rests on the frothy narrative of Segur, and is out of
harmony with those of Gourgaud and Pelet. Clausewitz justifies
Napoleon's caution in withholding his Guard.]

[Footnote 268: Bausset, "Cour de Napoleon." Tolstoi ("War and
Liberty") asserts that the fires were the work of tipsy pillagers. So
too Arndt, "Mems.," p. 204. Dr. Tzenoff, in a scholarly monograph
(Berlin, 1900), comes to the same conclusion. Lejeune and Bourgogne
admit both causes.]

[Footnote 269: Garden, vol. xiii., p. 452; vol. xiv., pp. 17-19.]

[Footnote 270: Cathcart, p. 41; see too the Czar's letters in Sir Byam
Martin's "Despatches," vol. ii., p. 311. This fact shows the
frothiness of the talk indulged in by Russians in 1807 as to "our
rapacity and perfidy" in seizing the Danish fleet.]

[Footnote 271: _E.g._, the migration of Rostopchin's serfs _en masse_
from their village, near Moscow, rather than come under French
dominion (Wilson, "French Invasion of Russia," p. 179).]

[Footnote 272: Letter of October 16th; see too his undated notes
("Corresp.," No. 19237). Bausset and many others thought the best plan
would be to winter at Moscow. He also says that the Emperor's
favourite book while at Moscow was Voltaire's "History of Charles
XII."]

[Footnote 273: Lejeune, vol. ii., chap. vi. As it chanced, Kutusoff
had resolved on retreat, if Napoleon attacked him. This is perhaps the
only time when Nap