110 NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



even the hottest weather, to have the splendid vision re- 

 newed. 



Before leaving this " standpoint," the mystery of the 

 walls within walls around the Kremlin is explained. 

 These hut represent the defences built at different timef 

 as the town extended beyond the "fortress," which occu- 

 pied the summit of the highest point, for hill it can hardly 

 be called, in the original Muscovite settlement of tha 

 fourteenth century. 



Perhaps the reader asks, whether "the great fire" of 

 1812, which roasted the French out of the capital into 

 the frost, has not altered the features of the city ? 



I could see no evidences of the fire, nor were any 

 changes in the town pointed out between what it was and 

 is, which enabled me in the least degree to realise its 

 effects. The Kremlin was saved. But the line of retreat 

 which Napoleon himself was obliged to follow, in order 

 to pass with his staff from the Kremlin to the Palace of 

 Petrovski, in the northern suburbs, and from whence he 

 gazed on the tremendous conflagration, is easily traced, 

 and from its detour, indicates a great area of fire, which 

 barred his progress by the more direct route. Nor has 

 it in reality been ascertained with any certainty how the 

 fire originated. 



Many of the romantic stories told about it have been 

 denied. The Emperor Alexander repeatedly declared 

 that he had never sanctioned it ; and the then Governor 

 of Moscow, Bostopchin, who was thought to have first 

 at hia own palace on fire, published a pamphlet, asserting 



