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Updated: September 6, 2025
Kutusoff, although defeated at Borodino, had sent letters to all quarters announcing that he was victorious. He deceived Moscow, St. Petersburg, and even the commanders of the other Russian armies. Alexander communicated this false intelligence to his allies.
Eugene, leaving his amiable and much-loved wife and little family at Milan, had accompanied Napoleon on his Russian campaign. During his absence Josephine visited Milan, and there, as everywhere else, won the love of all who saw her. Hortense, with her children, was most of the time in Paris. Eugene, immediately after the terrible battle of Borodino, wrote as follows to Josephine.
The French army, one hundred and thirty thousand strong the day before the great battle, had lost about forty thousand men at Borodino, and still consisted of ninety thousand. Some regiments on the march and the divisions of Laborde and Pino had just rejoined it: so that on its arrival before Moscow it still amounted to nearly one hundred thousand men.
This sacred fire has been kept alight for thousands of years by the best of mankind. Your great-grandfather, General Pologniev, fought at Borodino; your grandfather was a poet, an orator, and a marshal of the nobility; your uncle was an educationalist; and I, your father, am an architect! Have all the Polognievs kept the sacred fire alight for you to put it out?"
What tales could they not tell, those wrinkled and feeble old men! What visions of Marengo and Austerlitz and Borodino shift still with a fiery vividness through their fading memories! Some may have left a limb on the Lybian desert; and the sabre of the Cossack may have scarred the brows of others.
The Poles could not contain their joy because the Emperor had a notion of setting up their kingdom again; and ever since Poland and France have always been like brothers. In short, the army shouts, "Russia shall be ours!" We cross the frontiers, all the lot of us. We march and better march, but never a Russian do we see. At last all our watch-dogs are encamped at Borodino.
While the Dantzigers with grave faces discussed the news of Borodino beneath the trees in the Frauengasse, Charles Darragon, white with dust, rose in his stirrups to catch the first sight of the domes and cupolas of Moscow. It was a sunny morning, and the gold on the churches gleamed and glittered in the shimmering heat like fairyland.
The right was covered by the rivulet of Kolocza, which was everywhere fordable, but ran through a deep ravine. Borodino, a village on the banks of this rivulet, formed their centre, and their left was posted upon steeply rising ground, almost at right angles with their right. Borodino itself which lay on the northern side of the Kolocza was not intended to be held in force.
They were still at their post, however, when our oars went in, and the bow of our boat ran up—well up upon the beach. The General was lame by an honourable wound received at Borodino, and could not without some assistance get out of the boat; I, therefore, landed the first.
This fact was stated to me by a reliable person, who heard Count Rostopchin himself relate it during his stay in Paris. On the 28th of October the Emperor retraced his way to Smolensk, and passed near the battle-field of Borodino.
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