War and Peace: Volume 4, Part 2: Chapters 8–14 Summary & Analysis

When the French occupy Moscow, they’re in a brilliant position. To hold onto this position, all Napoleon must do is make sure his army is adequately provisioned and doesn’t loot. Yet that “genius of geniuses” fails to do this. In fact, he chooses the most destructive path—staying put in Moscow, allowing his troops to loot, and failing to initiate battle with Kutuzov. If Napoleon’s goal had been to destroy his own army, he couldn’t have chosen a better path. Yet his goal was always to do the best for himself and his army, and his actions in Moscow were no less astounding than his actions in Egypt, Austria, or Prussia.

As soon as he arrives in Moscow, Napoleon orders Murat to find Kutuzov, fortifies the Kremlin, and draws up a plan for his Russia campaign. He sends diplomats to Alexander in Petersburg. He orders arsonists punished and burns down Rastopchin’s houses. He also sets up a constitution and city council for Moscow. He issues a statement to Moscow’s citizens telling them that if they obey their new authorities, their misfortunes will be at an end. He issues another proclamation ordering workers and artisans to return to the city and providing free markets for the peasants to sell their wares. He visits almshouses and orphanages and constantly issues orders against looting.

Nothing goes as Napoleon plans. His army loses track of the Russian army. Alexander refuses to receive his diplomats. The administration Napoleon sets up doesn’t stop looting from happening, and only benefits its own members. Peasants catch and kill the commissaries who visit them with Napoleon’s orders. Napoleon’s most ineffective measure is his attempt to stop looting—violent gangs of soldiers continue robbing with impunity. Finally, when the Russians seize supply trains and win the battle of Tarutino, the French in Moscow begin to panic. They finally begin leaving Moscow with long baggage trains of stolen loot. The French army is like a wounded animal hastening toward its own end.

These days Pierre wears tattered peasant’s clothing, is thinner, and sports an overgrown beard. He is calm and composed. On this particular morning, October 6th, he gazes at his dirty, bare feet, which remind him pleasantly of everything he’s survived. It’s a bright autumn morning. A French corporal chats with Pierre in a friendly way about the impending departure from Moscow. Pierre has garnered the approval of this corporal and another captain, because of his French education and his ability to mediate between the prisoners and the French when clashes occur.

A French soldier comes by the prisoners’ shed and pays Platon for a shirt Platon has sewn for him. The soldier asks Platon to give back the leftover fabric, but Platon, pretending not to understand, refuses. Finally Pierre translates, and Platon reluctantly hands over the scraps—he’d hoped to use them to make foot cloths for the prisoners. The French soldier thinks for a moment and, blushing, gives the scraps back for Platon to keep. Platon tells Pierre that people think the French are “heathenish, but they’ve got souls, too.”

It’s been four weeks since Pierre was taken prisoner, and he’s insisted on staying in the soldiers’ shed, though he was offered a transfer to the officers’. Under these privations, Pierre realizes how strong he really is, and he endures them joyfully. In his experiences and in knowing Karataev, he finally discovers the inner harmony and peace with himself that he’d sought in other places all his life. Witnessing the execution seems to have put his old thoughts and feelings into proper perspective. He no longer thinks about politics or the war, much less killing Napoleon. He doesn’t worry about his marriage to Hélène, either.

Now that Pierre has nothing, he imagines that the greatest happiness in life is having one’s basic needs met and choosing one’s occupation. He forgets that the very satisfaction of those needs tends to destroy happiness, and that the freedom granted him by his wealth and social status had made it impossible for him to choose an occupation. He dreams of being free again; yet, for the rest of his life, he speaks of his month in prison as the happiest, freest time in his life. The awkwardness and simplicity that made Pierre ill-suited for society make him a hero to his fellow prisoners.

On the morning of October 7th, the prisoners are dressed to move out. Pierre comforts a sick soldier and approaches the friendly corporal to see what can be done for the man, but the corporal slams the door of the shed. Pierre feels once again the impersonal force that causes soldiers to kill even when they don’t want to; he now knows it’s useless to resist that force. He joins the crowd of prisoners as they’re marched at the front of the army; they all stare in horror at Moscow’s charred remains.

Pierre’s group of prisoners gets stuck for several hours at an intersection, surrounded by the endless tramp and shouting of the traveling army. Pierre struggles to absorb the overwhelming impressions of people, horses, carriages, and wagons weighted down with loot, and the occasional fistfights all around him. Finally his group gets into the convoy on the Kaluga road and marches until sunset. As they all collapse in a field at twilight, they realize that they don’t know where they’re going and that the journey will be difficult.

The French officers now treat the prisoners worse than ever, giving them their dinner ration in horsemeat. They announce that stragglers will be shot. Pierre feels frightened of this impersonal, hostile force, yet he also feels a strong force of life stirring in his soul. That evening he sits down on the ground and thinks over what’s happened. Suddenly he bursts into merry laughter at the mere fact that he, of all people, has been taken prisoner. He looks into the starry sky and thinks, “And all this is mine […] and all this is me!” Yet the French caught all this and boarded it up in prison! With a smile, he returns to his comrades and goes to sleep.