Napoleon and Kutuzov even slept on the same bed in the manor of Bolshiye Vyazyomy just one night apart, as the French chased the Russians down.

The French, who had intended to pilfer the city for supplies, were now deep in enemy territory without adequate food as winter was approaching.

Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov's Russian army suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Borodino on 7 September 1812.

[8] On 10 September, the main quarter of the Russian army was situated in Bolshiye Vyazyomy,[9][obsolete source] in whose manor house Kutuzov stayed the night—sleeping on a sofa in the library.

Russian sources suggest Kutuzov wrote a number of orders and letters to Fyodor Rostopchin about saving the city or the army.

On 12 September Bonaparte, who suffered from a cold and lost his voice, slept in the main manor house of Bolshiye Vyazyomy—on the same sofa in the library that Kutuzov had just the night before.

After a long discussion Kutuzov followed the advice of Karl Tol to retreat to the south, leading to the Battle of Maloyaroslavets with a reinforced Russian army.

[14] General Mikhail Miloradovich, commander of the Russian rearguard, was concerned by the disposition of the army; it was stretched across Moscow, burdened with a large number of wounded and numerous convoys.

Miloradovich sent Captain Fyodor Akinfov, of the Hussar Regiment's Life Guards, to open negotiations with Marshal Joachim Murat, commander of the French vanguard.

[18] They were received by Colonel Clément Louis Elyon de Villeneuve, of the 1st Horse-Jaeger Regiment, who sent Akinfov to General Horace François Bastien Sébastiani, commander of the II Cavalry Corps.

However, Murat quickly changed his mind and recalled the delegation, saying that he was willing to accept Miloradovich's terms to save Moscow by advancing "as quietly" as the Russians, on the condition that the French were allowed to take the city on the same day.

Murat also asked Akinfov, a native of Moscow, to persuade the city's residents to remain calm to avoid reprisals.

[21] The Grande Armée began entering Moscow on the afternoon of 14 September, a Monday, on the heels of retreating Russian army.

Napoleon waited for half an hour; when there was no Russian response he ordered a cannon fired to signal the advance on the city.

[citation needed] Napoleon stopped at the city walls, the Kamer-Kollezhsky rampart, about 15 minutes away from the Dorogomilovskaya gate, to wait for a delegation from Moscow.

[23] According to contemporary accounts, Napoleon ordered food to be delivered to the Kremlin by Russians—regardless of sex, age, or infirmity—instead of by horse; this was in response to the indifference that the Russians had treated his arrival.

[citation needed] The fire worsened Napoleon's mood, though he was deeply impressed and disturbed by the Russian scorched earth policies and expressed shock and fear at them.

The suffocating air, the hot ashes and the flame of the spiral escaping from everywhere, our breath, short, dry, constrained and suppressed by smoke.

[38]Historian Yevgeny Tarle writes that Napoleon and his entourage travelled along the burning Arbat and then the relatively safe shores of the Moscow River.

[citation needed] The fire[c] raged until 18 September and destroyed most of Moscow; the flames were reportedly visible over 215 km, or 133 miles, away.

[36] Louise Fusil, a French actress, who was living in Russia for six years, witnessed the fire and offers details in her memoires.

Napoleon returned to the Kremlin on 18 September where he announced his intention to remain in Moscow for the winter; he believed the city still offered better facilities and provisions.

Some Soviet historians (for example, Tarle) believed that Napoleon considered abolishing serfdom to pressure Alexander I and the Russian nobility.

[40] After the occupation, the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin was closed to the public to hide the damage: I was overwhelmed with horror, finding this revered temple, which spared even the flame, now put upside down the godlessness of the unbridled soldier, and made sure that the state in which it was needed to be hidden from the eyes of the people.

[42] According to Shakhovskoy, the only case of desecration deliberately meant to insult was a dead horse being left in place of the throne on the altar of the Kazan Cathedral.

[42] It was impossible to adequately provision the Grande Armée in a burnt city, with guerrilla warfare by the Cossacks against French supplies and a total war by the peasants against foraging.

Napoleon intended to attack and defeat the Russian army, and then break out into unforaged country for provisions; however, short on supplies and seeing the fall of the first snows on Moscow, the French abandoned the city voluntarily that same night.

[4][45] Also that night, he made camp in the village of Troitsky on the Desna River and ordered Mortier to destroy Moscow and then rejoin the main army.

The Ivan the Great Bell Tower, the city's tallest structure, survived demolition nearly unharmed, although the nearby Church of the Resurrection was destroyed.

Entering the city with hussars and life-Cossacks, I considered it a duty to immediately take command over the police units of the unfortunate capital: people killed each other on the streets, set fire to houses.