"Now," added he, "Serge Nicholaevitch, let us speak like two true friends
of our country. In your opinion, what will happen if Moscow is abandoned?"

"Your excellency knows what I have dared to say on the 15/27 July in the
assembly of the nobility; but tell me in all frankness, count, how shall
Moscow be delivered, with blood, or without blood (s kroviou ili bez
krovi)?"

"Bez krovi (without blood)," laconically answered the count.

His word to prince Eugene had been: Burn the capital rather than deliver it
to the enemy; to Ermilof: I do not see why you take so much pains to defend
Moscow at any price; if the enemy occupies the city he will find nothing
that could serve him.

The treasures which belong to the crown and all that is of some value have
already been removed; also, with few exceptions, the treasures of the
churches, the ornaments of gold and silver, the most important archives of
the state, all have been taken to a place of safety. Many of the well-to-do
have already taken away what is precious. There remain in Moscow only 50
thousand persons in the most miserable conditions who have no other asylum.

This was what he said on September 13, and on the same day he wrote to the
emperor that all had been sent away.

But this was not true; there still remained 10 thousand wounded--of whom
the majority would perish in case of a conflagration; there remained an
immense stock of provisions, flour and alcoholic liquor, which would fall
into the hands of the enemy; there was still the arsenal in the Kremlin
containing 150 cannon, 60 thousand rifles, 160 thousand cartridges and a