Besides the suicide theory, which is difficult to accept, all events would have been ultimately caused by the action of the French over civilians.
All proofs indicate the civilian were trapped as no human being would stay to die, having the chance to escape.
This is just an episode of several (I think there is no soldier who in writing his memoirs, hasn't mention what he saw around this time) that happened during the 3rd Invasion, mainly villages burnt to the ground, torturing civilians for the wherabouts of food, rapping and enslaving women and, for me, worst of all, the paternalization of an entire country.
There's a lot of smoke not to be fire.
Jorge