Two or three hundred thousand? In any case, he certainly knows how to use it.’
Further away, infantrymen were hoisting Fimiento’s groaning body on to a cart pulled by a scrawny horse. When Fanselin eventually returned, he took Margont and Dalero to one side to tell them what he knew. Then he left them on their own. Dalero was absently toying with the tassel of his sword-knot.
‘Colonel Barguelot is popular with the general staff of IV Corps. He’s invited the prince to dinner several times and His Highness has always come back from those evenings in a very good mood.’
‘It’s certainly true that Colonel Barguelot knows how to entertain. I can still remember the delicious meal he invited me to.’
‘We can’t arrest him when we have no evidence. Any tribunal would dismiss the case.’
‘That’s my opinion too. We’ll have to continue spying on him. We know and he knows that we know. We’ll have to see how he’s going to react.’
Dalero glanced at the area of rubble in which his chase had come to a sudden end.
‘If only we’d been able to lay hands on his henchman and force him to testify …’
‘The day we finally have evidence of Colonel Barguelot’s guilt, we’ll force him to denounce his accomplice. I’m very sorry about your sergeants. If Fimiento had been wearing a breastplate like me …’
‘If we’d all had breastplates, your friend the Red Lancer would never have caught up with Colonel Barguelot. So we need to wait. I hate waiting. What if we don’t find any evidence against him?’
‘Then we’ll have to review the situation again.’
Dalero went to the cart in which Fimiento was lying, to try to get him more speedily transported to the nearest hospital. He grabbed the pommel of his sabre in his left hand and drew the blade about an inch out of the sheath before putting it back in. He repeated this gesture a dozen or so times without thinking.
CHAPTER 29
NAPOLEON had organised life in Moscow. He had been forced to authorise looting during the fire to enable his army to obtain food and clothing. Then he had strictly forbidden it. He had succeeded in restoring law and order and had set up a Russian local administration. The theatres had reopened. There were performances of
Napoleon was waiting for negotiations to commence. He had sent Baron de Lauriston to meet Kutuzov to offer him peace. The crafty generalissimo was playing for time. He had dispatched an aide-de-camp to St Petersburg to pass on this message to the Tsar.
But despite the loss of Moscow, Alexander did not want to give in. He kept repeating that he would fight to the bitter end, and if he lost the last of his soldiers he would continue the struggle at the head of his ‘beloved nobility and loyal peasants’. He was careful, however, to conceal his intentions from the French. The result was that while Napoleon was waiting for the peace, the Tsar and Kutuzov were waiting for the winter.
So, life in Moscow was tinged with anxiety for some, but enjoyable for others – those who had a blind faith in the Emperor and who had never heard about Russian winters. Colonel Pirgnon informed Margont that his plan for a Moscow Club would have to be ‘temporarily postponed’. He too was worried about the future and didn’t feel inclined to engage in witty conversation.
Margont explored every corner of Moscow. He walked along the red ramparts and gazed in awe at the cathedrals and churches. He visited the palaces and was always welcomed warmly by those quartered there when he brandished bottles of wine or gin. He also spent hours drawing. He cursed his lack of skill, but his sketches of a facade or a view were sometimes quite competent.
In the evenings he prepared dinner for his friends, partly because he enjoyed cooking, greedy as he was, and partly to keep busy. Lefine was involved in various shady dealings and regularly brought back new ingredients so that they could vary the way in which they cooked the inevitable salted fish.
Once they had eaten their fill, everyone settled down in the palace’s most beautiful drawing room to engage in inexhaustible conversation over vodka, rum, coffee and tea accompanied by chocolates and caramels. Saber never tired of recounting how he had been promoted at the Great Redoubt itself. Piquebois talked of home; Margont about Russian culture; Jean-Quenin about medicine and ethics; and Lefine filled them in on the gossip: a general was having an affair with a Russian princess; some completely inebriated Bavarian gunners had attacked the Kremlin with their cannon, then been doused with water so that they would be presentable in front of the firing squad; the Emperor had ridden around in between reviewing the troops, and one night, instead of sleeping, he had drawn up a decree proposing to unite the actors of the Comedie Francaise into a company …
Fanselin often joined them. His sharp wit made him very agreeable company. He recalled his travels: places he had already been to and those still to visit, including Louisiana and Quebec, which he had even planned to liberate from the English with the help of a few friends, Red Lancers and grenadiers of the Guard. He was so enthusiastic that he made the impossible appear almost reasonable. They talked about the North American Indians who scalped people – though everyone was in agreement that they couldn’t be any worse than the Russians – the Iroquois, who burnt their prisoners alive whilst apologising to them for making them suffer; the mysterious stepped pyramids of Mexico; the vastness of the New World …
They launched into endless arguments. Why had the Emperor still not issued a decree to free the muzhiks, the Russian nobility’s serfs? What was His Majesty’s plan now? Were the Russians at last going to give in? Well, of course they were! Not on your life, you must be joking! Your arguments are false because you’re not taking the Russian mentality into account … Here we go, the librarian’s going to read us another chapter! If you like the Russian mentality so much, go and marry your Countess Valiuska! They quarrelled, they made up and in the end were overcome by tiredness. Everyone then went off to bed, except Piquebois, who stood at the window and studied the stars.
Nevertheless, Margont was well aware that imperceptibly victory was turning into defeat. It was happening in small stages that were impossible to pinpoint, as when day changes to night, but the transformation was just as obvious. So he was preparing himself for every eventuality. Lefine had managed to buy two horses. Two horses between four didn’t seem a lot but so many mounts had perished that in Moscow with two beasts you could form a squadron. Piquebois was stocking up with large amounts of food, exchanging bottles of vodka for wheat – a sort of reversal of the natural process – flour, eggs, a little meat and salted fish. There were also some kilos of sweetmeats that had been discovered in the remains of a shop. Margont had had two pairs of bearskin boots made for everyone. He had also had the jackets, cloaks and greatcoats lined with fur. He had bought ermine hats – at a knockdown price, only a bottle of vodka for a pair – muffs, gloves, hoods, bulky pelisses and trousers. Everything was available in Moscow. The soldiers had in fact dubbed the sale of booty ‘the Moscow fair’. Margont disapproved of looting but not to the point of refusing to acquire clothes that would considerably improve his chances of survival.
On 13 October, a thin layer of snow covered Moscow. It quickly disappeared but it was only a foretaste. However, the month of October remained exceptionally mild and led Napoleon to underestimate the Russian climate. The Emperor continued to linger in Moscow. He wanted the enemy to believe that all was well and that he was intending to spend the winter in the capital. He thought that, between the Tsar and himself, the last to give in would be the winner. He was also aware of having reached the pinnacle of his glory. He was feared by the whole of Europe and everyone had to reckon with his policies. Ordering a retreat would be his first personal defeat. In addition, a retreat without an armistice would be a very perilous undertaking. Napoleon wanted to delay the moment when his star would begin to fade. He even tried to convince himself that the Tsar would negotiate in the end and that Russian winters were no worse than Parisian ones …
On 17 October, the tacit truce agreed between the two armies – a partial truce because the Cossacks and partisans were constantly harrying the French rear – was broken. At Vinkovo the Russians, who significantly outnumbered the French, took two thousand five hundred prisoners and seized thirty-three cannon. Murat, in
