When, with due circumspectness, Napoleon was informed that Moscow was deserted, he looked wrathfully at his informant, and turning his back on him, went on pacing up and down in silence.

“My carriage,” he said. He sat down in his carriage beside the adjutant on duty, and drove into the suburbs.

“Moscow deserted! What an incredible event!” he said to himself.

He did not drive right into the town, but put up for the night at an inn in the Dorogomilov suburb. The dramatic scene had not come off.