As the French left Moscow in October 1812, they mined the Kremlin. Here is a Polish engineer's ([Franciszek Koss) account of this final act of the French occupation:

‘Two hours after [Mortier] quit Moscow, the Cossacks were already wandering around the city, pursuing and finishing off any marauders from our army. The commander of the [Portuguese] battalion had been ordered to leave the Kremlin at midnight, and he had placed his men on the embankments ready to resist a possible assault. The city mob, however, kept back, only shooting at us from a distance. I went down to the dungeons where the mines had been laid, there were 47 of them. I set the fuses and waited for the appointed hour. It was quiet in Moscow that evening, but the Cossacks and the peasantry had set fires along the banks of the Moscow River and all around the Kremlin. At half past eleven, the commander ordered passage to one of the gates to be cleared (all of the gates had been barricaded), and I went down into the dungeons and attached tinder to each fuse calculated to burn for an hour. Then I lit the tinder one after the other, and also one I carried with me, wanting to see when the explosion would take place. At midnight, the gate was opened and the battalion marched out in the greatest order and crossed the bridge. When the shout of ‘Frantsuzy!’ [French] rang out, the mob surrounded us from everywhere, but it gave way as we moved. Having left Moscow, the commander stopped us by a birch wood about a quarter of a mile from the city. I had thrown my length of tinder away, but the quietness of the night was not yet interrupted by any explosion. I was angry that we had left the Kremlin in such haste and was convinced that I would lose the trust of my superiors. I remained in this uncertainty for a quarter of an hour until I heard a rumble from the first mine as it detonated. The bells stopped ringing, then there was a deep silence, the Kremlin lay in ruins.’