Pierre was moved with thirteen of the others to a coach-house belonging to a merchant’s house on the Crimean Ford. As he passed through the street, Pierre could hardly breathe for the smoke, which seemed hanging over the whole city. Fires could be seen in various directions. Pierre did not at that time grasp what was implied by the burning of Moscow, and he gazed with horror at the fires.

In a coach-house behind a house in the Crimean Ford, Pierre spent another four days, and in the course of those four days he learned, from the conversation of the French soldiers, that all the prisoners in detention here were every day awaiting the decision of their fate by a marshal. Of what marshal, Pierre could not ascertain from the soldiers. For the soldiers, this marshal was evidently the highest and somewhat mysterious symbol of power.

These first days, up to the 8th of September, when the prisoners were brought up for a second examination, were the most painful for Pierre.