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If the Russians should even momentarily be deceived into believing that the French had resumed the offensive, a line from Kaluga direct to Smolensk would still be open for retreat while the enemy was preparing for action. The report was spread in Moscow that Napoleon was going out to overwhelm Kutusoff and then return.
Anyone who has chanced to pass from the Bolhovsky district into the Zhizdrinsky district, must have been impressed by the striking difference between the race of people in the province of Orel and the population of the province of Kaluga.
Thus Napoleon himself put hands to that burning of Moscow with which he had recently blamed the Russians, and the originator of which he did not forget to punish even then! The march upon Kaluga was already begun, and one of Prince Eugene's divisions, being in advance, had already occupied Malo-Jaroslawetz, on the Lougea.
Many of those who, although suffering from typhus, had retained strength enough to have themselves transported on the wagons, recovered on the way, later to become victims of the cold. Weakened in body and mind, the army left Moscow on October 18th. and 19th. The weather was clear, the nights were cold, when they proceeded in forced marches on the road to Kaluga.
Some Cossacks of Dokhturov's detachment reported having sighted the French Guards marching along the road to Borovsk. From all these reports it was evident that where they had expected to meet a single division there was now the whole French army marching from Moscow in an unexpected direction along the Kaluga road.
I do love making a fool of him before Kitty, and I'll do it." "Konstantin Dmitrievitch," she said to him, "do explain to me, please, what's the meaning of it. You know all about such things. At home in our village of Kaluga all the peasants and all the women have drunk up all they possessed, and now they can't pay us any rent. What's the meaning of that? You always praise the peasants so."
A single report of a signaling gun followed, and the troops, who were already spread out on different sides of Moscow, moved into the city through Tver, Kaluga, and Dorogomilov gates. Faster and faster, vying with one another, they moved at the double or at a trot, vanishing amid the clouds of dust they raised and making the air ring with a deafening roar of mingling shouts.
Upon the continent, the kaluga is worn still larger; and the female who can cover her whole face with her under-lip passes for the most perfect beauty. Men and women pierce the gristle of the nose, and stick quills, iron rings, and all kinds of ornaments, through it. In their ears, which are also pierced in many places, they wear strings of bones, muscle-shells, and beads.
This may also be said of the coal-fields in the governments of Tula and Kaluga, and of those important coal-bearing strata near the river Donetz, stretching to the northern corner of the Sea of Azov. In the last-named, the seams are spread over an area of 11,000 square miles, in which there are forty-four workable seams containing 114 feet of coal.
Davout's troops, in whose charge were the prisoners, were crossing the Crimean bridge and some were already debouching into the Kaluga road. But the baggage trains stretched out so that the last of Beauharnais' train had not yet got out of Moscow and reached the Kaluga road when the vanguard of Ney's army was already emerging from the Great Ordynka Street.
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