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_ It would be difficult to explain why and whither ants whose heap has
been destroyed are hurrying: some from the heap dragging bits of
rubbish, larvae, and corpses, others back to the heap, or why they
jostle, overtake one another, and fight, and it would be equally
difficult to explain what caused the Russians after the departure of
the French to throng to the place that had formerly been Moscow. But
when we watch the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity,
energy, and immense number of the delving insects prove that despite
the destruction of the heap, something indestructible, which though
intangible is the real strength of the colony, still exists; and
similarly, though in Moscow in the month of October there was no
government no churches, shrines, riches, or houses- it was still the
Moscow it had been in August. All was destroyed, except something
intangible yet powerful and indestructible.
The motives of those who thronged from all sides to Moscow after
it had been cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal, and
at first for the most part savage and brutal. One motive only they all
had in common: a desire to get to the place that had been called
Moscow, to apply their activities there.
Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in
a fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on. By the autumn of 1813 the
number, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in
1812.
The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks of
Wintzingerode's detachment, peasants from the adjacent villages, and
residents who had fled from Moscow and had been hiding in its
vicinity. The Russians who entered Moscow, finding it plundered,
plundered it in their turn. They continued what the French had
begun. Trains of peasant carts came to Moscow to carry off to the
villages what had been abandoned in the ruined houses and the streets.
The Cossacks carried off what they could to their camps, and the
householders seized all they could find in other houses and moved it
to their own, pretending that it was their property.
But the first plunderers were followed by a second and a third
contingent, and with increasing numbers plundering became more and
more difficult and assumed more definite forms.
The French found Moscow abandoned but with all the organizations
of regular life, with diverse branches of commerce and
craftsmanship, with luxury, and governmental and religious
institutions. These forms were lifeless but still existed. There
were bazaars, shops, warehouses, market stalls, granaries- for the
most part still stocked with goods- and there were factories and
workshops, palaces and wealthy houses filled with luxuries, hospitals,
prisons, government offices, churches, and cathedrals. The longer
the French remained the more these forms of town life perished,
until finally all was merged into one confused, lifeless scene of
plunder.
The more the plundering by the French continued, the more both the
wealth of Moscow and the strength of its plunderers was destroyed. But
plundering by the Russians, with which the reoccupation of the city
began, had an opposite effect: the longer it continued and the greater
the number of people taking part in it the more rapidly was the wealth
of the city and its regular life restored.
Besides the plunderers, very various people, some drawn by
curiosity, some by official duties, some by self-interest- house
owners, clergy, officials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and
peasants- streamed into Moscow as blood flows to the heart.
Within a week the peasants who came with empty carts to carry off
plunder were stopped by the authorities and made to cart the corpses
out of the town. Other peasants, having heard of their comrades'
discomfiture, came to town bringing rye, oats, and hay, and beat
down one another's prices to below what they had been in former
days. Gangs of carpenters hoping for high pay arrived in Moscow
every day, and on all sides logs were being hewn, new houses built,
and old, charred ones repaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths.
Cookshops and taverns were opened in partially burned houses. The
clergy resumed the services in many churches that had not been burned.
Donors contributed Church property that had been stolen. Government
clerks set up their baize-covered tables and their pigeonholes of
documents in small rooms. The higher authorities and the police
organized the distribution of goods left behind by the French. The
owners of houses in which much property had been left, brought there
from other houses, complained of the injustice of taking everything to
the Faceted Palace in the Kremlin; others insisted that as the
French had gathered things from different houses into this or that
house, it would be unfair to allow its owner to keep all that was
found there. They abused the police and bribed them, made out
estimates at ten times their value for government stores that had
perished in the fire, and demanded relief. And Count Rostopchin
wrote proclamations. _
Read next: Book Fifteen: 1812-13: Chapter 15
Read previous: Book Fifteen: 1812-13: Chapter 13
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