________________________________________________
_ At that very time, in circumstances even more important than
retreating without a battle, namely the evacuation and burning of
Moscow, Rostopchin, who is usually represented as being the instigator
of that event, acted in an altogether different manner from Kutuzov.
After the battle of Borodino the abandonment and burning of Moscow
was as inevitable as the retreat of the army beyond Moscow without
fighting.
Every Russian might have predicted it, not by reasoning but by the
feeling implanted in each of us and in our fathers.
The same thing that took place in Moscow had happened in all the
towns and villages on Russian soil beginning with Smolensk, without
the participation of Count Rostopchin and his broadsheets. The
people awaited the enemy unconcernedly, did not riot or become excited
or tear anyone to pieces, but faced its fate, feeling within it the
strength to find what it should do at that most difficult moment.
And as soon as the enemy drew near the wealthy classes went away
abandoning their property, while the poorer remained and burned and
destroyed what was left.
The consciousness that this would be so and would always be so was
and is present in the heart of every Russian. And a consciousness of
this, and a foreboding that Moscow would be taken, was present in
Russian Moscow society in 1812. Those who had quitted Moscow already
in July and at the beginning of August showed that they expected this.
Those who went away, taking what they could and abandoning their
houses and half their belongings, did so from the latent patriotism
which expresses itself not by phrases or by giving one's children to
save the fatherland and similar unnatural exploits, but unobtrusively,
simply, organically, and therefore in the way that always produces the
most powerful results.
"It is disgraceful to run away from danger; only cowards are running
away from Moscow," they were told. In his broadsheets Rostopchin
impressed on them that to leave Moscow was shameful. They were ashamed
to be called cowards, ashamed to leave, but still they left, knowing
it had to be done. Why did they go? It is impossible to suppose that
Rostopchin had scared them by his accounts of horrors Napoleon had
committed in conquered countries. The first people to go away were the
rich educated people who knew quite well that Vienna and Berlin had
remained intact and that during Napoleon's occupation the
inhabitants had spent their time pleasantly in the company of the
charming Frenchmen whom the Russians, and especially the Russian
ladies, then liked so much.
They went away because for Russians there could be no question as to
whether things would go well or ill under French rule in Moscow. It
was out of the question to be under French rule, it would be the worst
thing that could happen. They went away even before the battle of
Borodino and still more rapidly after it, despite Rostopchin's calls
to defend Moscow or the announcement of his intention to take the
wonder-working icon of the Iberian Mother of God and go to fight, or
of the balloons that were to destroy the French, and despite all the
nonsense Rostopchin wrote in his broadsheets. They knew that it was
for the army to fight, and that if it could not succeed it would not
do to take young ladies and house serfs to the Three Hills quarter
of Moscow to fight Napoleon, and that they must go away, sorry as they
were to abandon their property to destruction. They went away
without thinking of the tremendous significance of that immense and
wealthy city being given over to destruction, for a great city with
wooden buildings was certain when abandoned by its inhabitants to be
burned. They went away each on his own account, and yet it was only in
consequence of their going away that the momentous event was
accomplished that will always remain the greatest glory of the Russian
people. The lady who, afraid of being stopped by Count Rostopchin's
orders, had already in June moved with her Negroes and her women
jesters from Moscow to her Saratov estate, with a vague
consciousness that she was not Bonaparte's servant, was really,
simply, and truly carrying out the great work which saved Russia.
But Count Rostopchin, who now taunted those who left Moscow and now
had the government offices removed; now distributed quite useless
weapons to the drunken rabble; now had processions displaying the
icons, and now forbade Father Augustin to remove icons or the relics
of saints; now seized all the private carts in Moscow and on one
hundred and thirty-six of them removed the balloon that was being
constructed by Leppich; now hinted that he would burn Moscow and
related how he had set fire to his own house; now wrote a proclamation
to the French solemnly upbraiding them for having destroyed his
Orphanage; now claimed the glory of having hinted that he would burn
Moscow and now repudiated the deed; now ordered the people to catch
all spies and bring them to him, and now reproached them for doing so;
now expelled all the French residents from Moscow, and now allowed
Madame Aubert-Chalme (the center of the whole French colony in Moscow)
to remain, but ordered the venerable old postmaster Klyucharev to be
arrested and exiled for no particular offense; now assembled the
people at the Three Hills to fight the French and now, to get rid of
them, handed over to them a man to be killed and himself drove away by
a back gate; now declared that he would not survive the fall of
Moscow, and now wrote French verses in albums concerning his share
in the affair- this man did not understand the meaning of what was
happening but merely wanted to do something himself that would
astonish people, to perform some patriotically heroic feat; and like a
child he made sport of the momentous, and unavoidable event- the
abandonment and burning of Moscow- and tried with his puny hand now to
speed and now to stay the enormous, popular tide that bore him along
with it. _
Read next: Book Eleven: 1812: Chapter 6
Read previous: Book Eleven: 1812: Chapter 4
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