The Retreat

by Patrick Rambaud

  ‘Are they copper?’

  ‘They’re only worth their weight.’

  ‘You’d rather some false assignats?’

  Large amounts of copper currency having been found in the cellars of the courts of justice, the regiments had drawn their pay. As the first in line, the Imperial Guard had been entitled to these bags of twenty-five roubles. The captain sneezed.

  ‘First I’ll get dry, then we’ll see.’

  He left his troopers to their disappointment and ran up to the first floor. Paulin was sitting on a stool, in the captain’s cell, at the sleeping novice’s bedside.

  ‘Anissia, Aniciushka …’

  ‘She hasn’t got up all day, sir.’

  ‘Sick?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You didn’t call Monsieur Larrey?’

  ‘I don’t have that authority.’

  ‘Idiot!’

  ‘Anyway he’s a surgeon, Monsieur Larrey, what part of her is he going to amputate, poor little thing?’

  Without listening to his servant’s mumblings, d’Herbigny knelt down by Anissia. She looked like a madonna that he had stolen from a Spanish church once, because he found it touching; later he had sold it to treat himself to a blow-out.

  *

  It was still raining the following day. Sent to the Kremlin by his master, to the Guard’s special infirmary, Paulin, on his donkey, was holding a Pekinese parasol that he had picked up in the bazaar as an umbrella. Without a cockade in his hat, the sentries hadn’t let him into the citadel; nothing had swayed them, not even the letter dictated by d’Herbigny and signed with his left hand. Paulin was slowly making his way back; he was going to feel the captain’s anger again, but he was used to it. In a spirit of conscientiousness, he made a detour via a military hospital on the banks of the Moskova; there he found overwhelmed doctors, rushing through high-windowed rooms between rows of fifty beds. They took a dead man out in front of him, wrapped in his sheet, while the dying looked furtively on. Paulin left without having even been able to talk to a medical orderly. Drifting through the ruins, he caught sight of a crowd of Muscovites in Nicolskaya Street, where an impromptu currency market had sprung up. A handful of official buildings were still standing and soldiers were changing their copper coins at trestle tables. For ten kopeks, then fifty, then a silver rouble (the demand for legal currency kept pushing the prices up), the poor people took away a bag of them. There were women, urchins and old men in rags who seemed reinvigorated in that scrum. Sabres in hand, the infantry of the Guard were trying to maintain order; some fired into the air. But the press of the crowd was too great. They trampled and pummelled one another, those Russians, punching and elbowing their way through to the moneychangers’ counters. A tall moujik grabbed a bag which a woman had managed to get hold of; she scratched him, he drove his knee into her stomach, but she clung on to his grimy tunic; he battered her with the bag to make her let go and finally she fell down, shouting abuse, and the people behind walked over her. The soldiers, meanwhile, had retreated inside the building, and were throwing their bags through the open windows, which only inflamed the crowd and made them even more brutal. A boy in a cloak with an oilcloth wrapped round his head had managed to get the wretched woman out of the mêlée. Under the cloak, Paulin recognized the blue-black coat with crimson velvet facings; this lad was part of the medical corps. He called to him. His voice couldn’t carry in that din; he urged his donkey on until he was beside him. ‘Are you a doctor?’

  ‘Yes and no.’

  ‘An orderly?’

  ‘Junior assistant to a medical officer.’

  ‘My captain needs you.’

  ‘If it’s for an officer …’

  ‘It’s to stop him shouting at me.’

  ‘I know a little about powders and ointments, I’ve seen some bleedings …’

  ‘That’s the spirit!’

  The junior assistant seemed a bit simple but willing enough; besides, the colour of his uniform indicated his occupation, so that would probably do for the captain. Which it did. The boy took off his cloak and headgear, bent over the novice, took a small mirror out of his double bag and put it in front of her mouth. D’Herbigny watched him, scowling; he liked quick results.

  ‘I think …’ began the boy.

  ‘I want certainties!’

  ‘I think she’s dead, well, she seems dead, look, her breathing, the mirror’s not misted up.’

  ‘When I’m asleep, I don’t mist up any mirrors! What you’re saying is impossible! What would she have died of, since you’re so knowledgeable?’

  ‘We could take her to the medical officer …’

  ‘Get her back on her feet or I’ll wring your neck.’

  ‘If you wring my neck, that will make two deaths.’

  There was logic to what the simpleton said. He bent over the bed of furs again, studied the whites of her eyes, her complexion: ‘It looks as if she’s been poisoned.’

  ‘Haven’t you been watching her the whole time?’ the captain asked Paulin.

  ‘Yes, apart from when I made her lunch.’

  ‘What did you give her?’

  ‘A piece of the mare’s liver.’

  ‘That’s the last thing you should have done! That meat was half rotten!’

  ‘We didn’t have anything else …’

  ‘Where there’s poison, there’s antidote,’ the simpleton added.

  ‘Administer your potion,’ the captain whispered in a broken voice.

  ‘Ah, you’d need a priest for that. They know those things, secret herbs, healing prayers, icons that work wonders, it was my medical officer who told me so.’

  For a moment d’Herbigny began to believe that the dead could rise again, that magic did have power, that sickness dissolved in incense smoke. The Emperor had authorized the resumption of religious worship to mollify the Russians who had remained in Moscow. Orthodox priests were conducting services again. When the captain went downstairs to order his men to find one of these clergymen officiating in a church not taken over by the army, he learned that all the nuns had died of poisoning. It wasn’t the mare’s liver that had killed Anissia.

  *

  Along the interminable corridors of the Kremlin, sentries guarded every door, although guard is probably an exaggeration. These grenadiers in fur-lined coats had swapped their belts for cashmere shawls and their bearskins for wrinkled Kalmuk caps; the least inebriated of them leant against the wall, the others sat and fished around in crystal vases with long wooden spoons, eating exotic jams which gave them a thirst and taking swig after swig of a robust brandy. Their weapons lay about amongst the jars and empty bottles. Sebastian no longer paid any attention to this everyday sight. As he was making his way towards the staff mess, he met some Russians in civilian clothes with armbands of red and white knotted ribbons; a semblance of organization was being put in place: the Emperor had reestablished a town council, distributing posts among the merchants and townsmen who had refused to flee with Rostopchin.

  Aides de camp, officers, doctors and paymasters now met for meals in an immense room with walls hung with red velvet and a central pillar supporting the arches that divided it in four.

  ‘Monsieur le secrétaire!’

  Henri Beyle, a steaming plate in front of him, waved to Sebastian to join him. ‘I’ve kept you a place next to me.’

  ‘What are you eating?’

  ‘A fricassée.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘It tastes like rabbit …’

  ‘It must be cat.’

  ‘It’s not so bad cooked in spices and with a glass of Malaga.’

  Sebastian helped himself to beans but declined the fricassée. The two men discussed the merits of Letters to my Son by Lord Chesterfield, the book stolen from a library in Moscow, and then turned to Italian painting, of which Beyle admitted to be writing a history. They argued about Canaletto.

  ‘I know why you like Canaletto, Monsieur le secrétaire. His Venetian cityscapes resemb
le stage sets and, I might add, with his father and brother, when he was young, he did paint backdrops, balustrades and breathtaking perspectives. On canvas, I find the result a little stiff.’

  ‘Monsieur Beyle! Stiff? There is a perfection …’

  ‘Yes?’

  Sebastian had fallen silent, his eyes riveted on a group of new arrivals, who were being shown in by Bausset, the prefect of the palace.

  ‘Those civilians appear to captivate you.’

  ‘I know them a little …’

  ‘What are they doing within our walls?’

  ‘They are a troupe of French actors. They were performing in Moscow.’

  ‘The girls, well I do declare! Not bad, mon cher. Hasn’t a theatre lover like you, even to the extent of Canaletto’s pictures – haven’t you tried your luck?’

  ‘Oh, Monsieur Beyle, I leave the floor to you.’

  ‘Thank you, but I’ve spent a good deal of time with that sort, and in a few days I have to leave for Smolensk to set up reserve stores there. Then Danzig. I’m not exactly thrilled by the prospect.’

  ‘Well, I envy you. Why stay in Moscow?’

  ‘My toothaches plague me unexpectedly, especially at night, I sleep badly, I have fevers …’

  ‘But a hearty appetite!’ Sebastian answered laughing, hardly knowing whether this laughter applied to his friend Beyle or to the troupe’s having reappeared safe and sound.

  When they had finished their meal, they got up together. The actors’ table was close to the door, but Sebastian assumed a detached expression and pretended not to see them.

  ‘Monsieur Sebastian!’

  Ornella had called him, he couldn’t slip away now.

  ‘Mystery-maker,’ his friend whispered in his ear. ‘I’ll leave you to bill and coo, but this time I’m the envious one.’

  Sebastian held his breath, turned around, pretended to be surprised, went over, took a chair and sat down, smiling. He had to listen to Mme Aurore recount their misadventures, the looting of their chalet, how they’d escaped death by fire, then by thirst and then how, by a pure stroke of luck, the King of Naples had saved them and put them up at his headquarters in the Razunonski mansion. With a feigned air of distraction, Sebastian observed Mlle Ornella. She had let down her curly black hair, which fell to the shoulders of her satin dress. When it was her turn to talk, he noticed that she lisped slightly, just enough for it to be charming.

  ‘The King of Naples adores the theatre, Monsieur Sebastian. He behaves as if he’s always on stage.’

  ‘He has uniforms slashed with gold,’ continued Catherine, the redhead, ‘diamond earrings, a whole wagon for his perfumes and his pomades, another for his wardrobe …’

  The Great Vialatoux, who was wearing a Neapolitan uniform, couldn’t contain himself anymore; he interrupted his colleagues to give his impersonation of Murat.

  ‘He told us,’ Vialatoux adopted a swagger, ‘"In my palazzo in Naples, I used to have all Talma’s parts performed solely for me and I’d declaim them- El Cid, Tancred …”’

  ‘So why have you come back to the Kremlin?’ Sebastian interrupted.

  The Emperor wanted life in Moscow to return to normal. He was sending for opera singers, famous musicians, and, since he had actors to hand, he was asking them to perform their repertoire to divert the army.

  ‘What are you going to play?’

  ‘The Game of Love and Chance, Monsieur Sebastian.’

  ‘I’ll be there applauding. I can see you as Silvia, and your friend as the maid.’

  ‘And then we will put on The Cid,’ said the juvenile lead, ‘Zaire, The Marriage of Figaro …’

  Prefect Bausset had offered them a genuine auditorium, minus its chandeliers, in the Posniakov mansion. They had only three days to organize costumes, but the military administration had gathered together all sorts of fabric, hangings, velvet and gold braid in the Church of Ivan in the Kremlin, which promised to be enough, draped or sewn. So they had come to the palace to choose. Sebastian had to get back to his office; when he left, Ornella and Catherine laughed as they recited some Marivaux which they thought apposite. ‘I have noticed that a handsome man is often vain,’ Ornella said as Silvia.

  ‘Oh, he is wrong to be vain but right to be handsome,’ Catherine answered as Lisette.

  The Great Vialatoux, his nose buried in a plate emblazoned with the Tsar’s coat of arms, greedily tucked into his cat fricassée; he went back for second helpings three times.

  *

  A detachment of dragoons was escorting a line of tumbrils loaded with the bodies of the nuns, who had been sewn into canvas bags. They almost looked like shadows, the cold fog clogging up the early October morning was so dense. Captain d’Herbigny led the way to the cemetery. He hadn’t wanted to mix Anissia up with the other sisters; he’d wrapped her in Indian silk and was carrying her in front of him, on his horse’s withers. He was as pale as the novice, sadness etching new lines in his weather-beaten face. Where did the poison come from? Who had procured it or used it? And how? These women’s religion forbade suicide, so what then? Cossacks had been sighted in Moscow; they were on the prowl, gathering information, watching, confident of support. But poison wasn’t a weapon they used, this didn’t seem like them, and they wouldn’t have been able to get into the convent either, let alone the former Mother Superior’s cell. D’Herbigny couldn’t make head or tail of it. No ready explanation? Well, it couldn’t be helped. He stuck to the facts. He had so often killed with his own hands, but the brutal death of this Russian girl, who he knew nothing about, had hit him hard. He’d planned to take her to Normandy, since they were bound to leave this filthy city one day or another. He would have taught her French and treated her like a daughter, there, that was it, like a daughter; she would have watched him grow old peacefully.

  They reached the cemetery. Fires glowed red through the now-thinning fog. Large numbers of poor, homeless Muscovites had taken refuge among the graves, cobbling together shelters and lighting puny fires to cook roots, warm themselves and ward off the wolves and stray dogs that were turning vicious with hunger.

  In silence, the riders began digging a large pit in an alley. The captain laid Anissia on a moss-covered gravestone. When the pit was finished, which seemed to take an eternity, they tipped up the tumbrils; then they shovelled back the earth. D’Herbigny had sat down next to Anissia’s body. He uncovered her waxy face, undid the gold cross she was wearing round her neck and clenched it in his fist. After a while, he realized he couldn’t hear the shovels anymore; his troopers had finished filling in the pit and stood waiting, in silence. The captain contemplated the muddy ground for a long time, and then looked up. ‘Bonet, and two others, lift that for me.’

  He pointed to a white marble tombstone.

  ‘It’s already occupied, Captain.’

  ‘You don’t really expect me to chuck Aniushka in that pit, do you? She’ll be better off here. It’s horribly cold in winter in this cursed country, nothing’s as good as a nice vault.’

  Bonet obeyed, thinking his superior officer was cracked in the head. They cleared away the earth, until the iron of their shovels struck coffins.

  ‘That’s enough,’ said the captain.

  He took Anissia in his arms. Bonet helped him lay her gently in the grave. With his boot, d’Herbigny replaced the earth; he told them to put the slab back.

  ‘Anyone remember any prayers? No?’

  He tightened his saddle girth and mounted up.

  *

  In the evenings, an usher lit a pair of candles on the Emperor’s desk. ‘He never stops working!’ the soldiers would exclaim, enraptured, when they looked up at the illuminated window. In fact he spent large parts of his days asleep, or lying on a sofa, browsing through his volumes of Plutarch. He often took up Voltaire’s Charles XII, a little gilt-edged morocco volume, which he would close, sighing, ‘Charles was determined to brave the seasons …’ He shut his eyes, dozed. What did he dream about? The news was unfavourable: a coal
ition of Russians and Swedes had just forced Gouvion-Saint-Cyr to evacuate the city of Polotsk, their wait was growing longer and longer, the Tsar was holding his tongue. Caulaincourt had refused to go to St Petersburg to solicit a peace in which he had never believed. Lauriston, more biddable, had managed to contact Kutuzov and extract a verbal armistice from him. Would he keep his word? The Emperor was wavering, giving impossible orders: ‘Buy twenty thousand horses, have two months of forage brought in!’ Buy the horses from who? Bring in the forage from where? Another time he told Count Daru, the Intendant General, of his plan to attack Kutuzov.

  ‘Too late, sire,’ said the count. ‘He has had time to reform his army.’

  ‘We haven’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Let us retrench ourselves in Moscow for the winter, there’s no other solution.’

  ‘But the horses?’

  ‘Those we can’t feed, I shall have salted.’

  ‘The men?’

  ‘They’ll live in the cellars.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Your reinforcements will arrive as soon as the snow melts.’

  ‘What will Paris think? What will happen in Europe without me?’

  Daru had bowed his head without replying, but the Emperor seemed to take his advice. The investment works were stepped up; labourers demolished mosques to leave the ramparts clear, gunners set up thirty guns on the Kremlin’s towers and drained the ponds to recover a hundred thousand cannonballs dumped there by the Russians; surgeons were sent for from Paris. One morning, at around two o’clock, Napoleon was dictating instructions for Berthier: his mind was clear and he spoke fluently as he strolled back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back, wearing his white flannel dressing gown. He demanded of the major general that the men have three months’ supplies of potatoes, six of sauerkraut and six of brandy. Then, as if he had a very detailed map of the city and his forces in front of him, he said, ‘The depots in which these will be stored are, for I Corps, the convent of the 13th Light Brigade; for IV Corps, the jails on the Petersburg road; for III Corps, the convent near the powder magazines; for the artillery and the cavalry of the Guard, the Kremlin … Three convents have to be selected on the roads out of Moscow to make entrenched posts …’