War And Peace: Book 11 - CHAPTER V

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MEANWHILE, in an event of even greater importance than the retreat of the

army without a battle, in the abandonment and burning of Moscow, Count

Rastoptchin, whom we conceive as taking the lead in that event, was acting in a

very different manner from Kutuzov.

This event—the abandonment and burning of Moscow—was, after the battle of

Borodino, as inevitable as the retreat of the army without fighting.

Every Russian could have foretold what happened, not as a result of any train

of intellectual deductions, but from the feeling that lies at the bottom of our

hearts, and lay at the bottom of our fathers'!

In every town and village on Russian soil, from Smolensk onwards, without the

assistance of Count Rastoptchin and his placards, the same thing took place as

happened in Moscow. The people awaited the coming of the enemy without

disturbance; did not display excitement; tore nobody to pieces, but calmly

awaited their fate, feeling in themselves the power to find what they must do in

the moment of difficulty.

And as soon as the enemy came near, the wealthier elements of the population

went away, leaving their property behind; the poorer remained, and burnt and

destroyed all that was left.

The sense that this would be so, and always would be so, lay, and lies at the

bottom of every Russian's heart. And a sense of this, and more, a foreboding

that Moscow would be taken by the enemy, lay in the Russian society of Moscow in

1812. Those who had begun leaving Moscow in July and the beginning of August had

shown that they expected it. Those who left the city with what they could carry

away, abandoning their houses and half their property, did so in consequence of

that latent patriotism, which finds expression, not in phrases, not in giving

one's children to death for the sake of the fatherland, and such unnatural

exploits, but expresses itself imperceptibly in the most simple, organic way,

and so always produces the most powerful results.

“It's a disgrace to fly from danger; only the cowards are flying from

Moscow,” they were told. Rastoptchin, in his placards, urged upon them that it

was base to leave Moscow. They were ashamed at hearing themselves called

cowards; they were ashamed of going away; but still they went away, knowing that

it must be so. Why did they go away? It cannot be supposed that Rastoptchin had

scared them with tales of the atrocities perpetrated by Napoleon in the

countries he conquered. The first to leave were the wealthy, educated people,

who knew very well that Vienna and Berlin remained uninjured, and that the

inhabitants of those cities, when Napoleon was in occupation of them, had spent

their time gaily with the fascinating Frenchmen, of whom all Russians, and

especially the ladies, had at that period been so fond.

They went away because to Russians the question whether they would be

comfortable or not under the government of the French in Moscow could never

occur. To be under the government of the French was out of the question; it was

worse than anything. They were going away even before Borodino, and still more

rapidly after Borodino; regardless of the calls to defend the city, regardless

of the proclamations of the governor of Moscow; of his intention of going with

the Iversky Virgin into battle, and of the air-balloons which were to demolish

the French, and all the nonsense with which Rastoptchin filled his placards.

They knew that it was for the army to fight, and if the army could not, it would

be of no use to rush out with young ladies and house-serfs to fight Napoleon on

the Three Hills, and so they must make haste and get away, sorry as they were to

leave their possessions to destruction. They drove away without a thought of the

vast consequences of this immense wealthy city being abandoned by its

inhabitants, and being inevitably thereby consigned to the flames. To abstain

from destroying and burning empty houses would never occur to the Russian

peasantry. They drove away, each on his own account, and yet it was only in

consequence of their action that the grand event came to pass that is the

highest glory of the Russian people. The lady who in June set off with her

Negroes and her buffoons from Moscow for her Saratov estates, with a vague

feeling that she was not going to be a servant of Bonaparte's, and a vague dread

that she might be hindered from going by Rastoptchin's orders, was simply and

genuinely doing the great deed that saved Russia.

Count Rastoptchin at one time cried shame on those who were going, then

removed all the public offices, then served out useless weapons to the drunken

rabble, then brought out the holy images, and prevented Father Augustin from

removing the holy relics and images, then got hold of all the private

conveyances that were in Moscow, then in one hundred and thirty-six carts

carried out the air-balloon made by Leppich, at one time hinted that he should

set fire to Moscow, at one time described how he had burnt his own house, and

wrote a proclamation to the French in which he solemnly reproached them for

destroying the home of his childhood. He claimed the credit of having set fire

to Moscow, then disavowed it; he commanded the people to capture all spies, and

bring them to him, then blamed the people for doing so; he sent all the French

residents out of Moscow, and then let Madame Aubert-Chalmey, who formed the

centre of French society in Moscow, remain. For no particular reason he ordered

the respected old postmaster, Klucharov, to be seized and banished. He got the

people together on the Three Hills to fight the French, and then, to get rid of

them, handed a man over to them to murder, and escaped himself by the back door.

He vowed he would never survive the disaster of Moscow, and later on wrote

French verses in albums on his share in the affair.

This man had no inkling of the import of what was happening. All he wanted

was to do something himself, to astonish people, to perform some heroic feat of

patriotism, and, like a child, he frolicked about the grand and inevitable event

of the abandonment and burning of Moscow, trying with his puny hand first to

urge on, and then to hold back, the tide of the vast popular current that was

bearing him along with it.

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1. Ebooks list page : 84
2. War And Peace: Book 4 - CHAPTER V
3. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER III
4. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER II
5. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER I
6. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER IV
7. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIX
8. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XVI
9. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XV
10. War And Peace: Book 3 - CHAPTER XIV
11. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER V
12. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER VI
13. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIX
14. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XVI
15. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XIV
16. War And Peace: Book 2 - CHAPTER XV