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On the evening of the first of September, after his interview
with Kutuzov, Count Rostopchin had returned to Moscow mortified
and offended because he had not been invited to attend the council
of war, and because Kutuzov had paid no attention to his offer
to take part in the defense of the city; amazed also at the novel
outlook revealed to him at the camp, which treated the tranquillity
of the capital and its patriotic fervor as not merely secondary
but quite irrelevant and unimportant matters. Distressed, offended,
and surprised by all this, Rostopchin had returned to Moscow.
After supper he lay down on a sofa without undressing, and was
awakened soon after midnight by a courier bringing him a letter
from Kutuzov. This letter requested the count to send police officers
to guide the troops through the town, as the army was retreating
to the Ryazan road beyond Moscow. This was not news to Rostopchin.
He had known that Moscow would be abandoned not merely since his
interview the previous day with Kutuzov on the Poklonny Hill but
ever since the battle of Borodino, for all the generals who came
to Moscow after that battle had said unanimously that it was impossible
to fight another battle, and since then the government property
had been removed every night, and half the inhabitants had left
the city with Rostopchin's own permission. Yet all the same this
information astonished and irritated the count, coming as it did
in the form of a simple note with an order from Kutuzov, and received
at night, breaking in on his beauty sleep.
When later on in his memoirs Count Rostopchin explained his
actions at this time, he repeatedly says that he was then actuated
by two important considerations: to maintain tranquillity in Moscow
and expedite the departure of the inhabitants. If one accepts
this twofold aim all Rostopchin's actions appear irreproachable.
"Why were the holy relics, the arms, ammunition, gunpowder,
and stores of corn not removed? Why were thousands of inhabitants
deceived into believing that Moscow would not be given up- and
thereby ruined?" "To presence the tranquillity of the
city," explains Count Rostopchin. "Why were bundles
of useless papers from the government offices, and Leppich's balloon
and other articles removed?" "To leave the town empty,"
explains Count Rostopchin. One need only admit that public tranquillity
is in danger and any action finds a justification.
All the horrors of the reign of terror were based only on
solicitude for public tranquillity.
On what, then, was Count Rostopchin's fear for the tranquillity
of Moscow based in 1812? What reason was there for assuming any
probability of an uprising in the city? The inhabitants were leaving
it and the retreating troops were filling it. Why should that
cause the masses to riot?
Neither in Moscow nor anywhere in Russia did anything resembling
an insurrection ever occur when the enemy entered a town. More
than ten thousand people were still in Moscow on the first and
second of September, and except for a mob in the governor's courtyard,
assembled there at his bidding, nothing happened. It is obvious
that there would have been even less reason to expect a disturbance
among the people if after the battle of Borodino, when the surrender
of Moscow became certain or at least probable, Rostopchin instead
of exciting the people by distributing arms and broadsheets had
taken steps to remove all the holy relics, the gunpowder, munitions,
and money, and had told the population plainly that the town would
be abandoned.
Rostopchin, though he had patriotic sentiments, was a sanguine
and impulsive man who had always moved in the highest administrative
circles and had no understanding at all of the people he supposed
himself to be guiding. Ever since the enemy's entry into Smolensk
he had in imagination been playing the role of director of the
popular feeling of "the heart of Russia." Not only did
it seem to him (as to all administrators) that he controlled the
external actions of Moscow's inhabitants, but he also thought
he controlled their mental attitude by means of his broadsheets
and posters, written in a coarse tone which the people despise
in their own class and do not understand from those in authority.
Rostopchin was so pleased with the fine role of leader of popular
feeling, and had grown so used to it, that the necessity of relinquishing
that role and abandoning Moscow without any heroic display took
him unawares and he suddenly felt the ground slip away from under
his feet, so that he positively did not know what to do. Though
he knew it was coming, he did not till the last moment wholeheartedly
believe that Moscow would be abandoned, and did not prepare for
it. The inhabitants left against his wishes. If the government
offices were removed, this was only done on the demand of officials
to whom the count yielded reluctantly. He was absorbed in the
role he had created for himself. As is often the case with those
gifted with an ardent imagination, though he had long known that
Moscow would be abandoned he knew it only with his intellect,
he did not believe it in his heart and did not adapt himself mentally
to this new position of affairs.
All his painstaking and energetic activity (in how far it
was useful and had any effect on the people is another question)
had been simply directed toward arousing in the masses his own
feeling of patriotic hatred of the French.
But when events assumed their true historical character, when
expressing hatred for the French in words proved insufficient,
when it was not even possible to express that hatred by fighting
a battle, when self-confidence was of no avail in relation to
the one question before Moscow, when the whole population streamed
out of Moscow as one man, abandoning their belongings and proving
by that negative action all the depth of their national feeling,
then the role chosen by Rostopchin suddenly appeared senseless.
He unexpectedly felt himself ridiculous, weak, and alone, with
no ground to stand on.
When, awakened from his sleep, he received that cold, peremptory
note from Kutuzov, he felt the more irritated the more he felt
himself to blame. All that he had been specially put in charge
of, the state property which he should have removed, was still
in Moscow and it was no longer possible to take the whole of it
away.
"Who is to blame for it? Who has let things come to such
a pass?" he ruminated. "Not I, of course. I had everything
ready. I had Moscow
firmly in hand. And this is what they have let it come to! Villains!
Traitors!" he thought, without clearly defining who the villains
and traitors were, but feeling it necessary to hate those traitors
whoever they might be who were to blame for the false and ridiculous
position in which he found himself.
All that night Count Rostopchin issued orders, for which people
came to him from all parts of Moscow. Those about him had never
seen the count so morose and irritable.
"Your excellency, the Director of the Registrar's Department
has sent for instructions... From the Consistory, from the Senate,
from the University, from the Foundling Hospital, the Suffragan
has sent... asking for information.... What are your orders about
the Fire Brigade? From the governor of the prison... from the
superintendent of the lunatic asylum..." All night long such
announcements were continually being received by the count.
To all these inquiries he gave brief and angry replies indicating
that orders from him were not now needed, that the whole affair,
carefully prepared by him, had now been ruined by somebody, and
that that somebody would have to bear the whole responsibility
for all that might happen.
"Oh, tell that blockhead," he said in reply to the
question from the Registrar's Department, "that he should
remain to guard his documents. Now why are you asking silly questions
about the Fire Brigade? They have horses, let them be off to Vladimir,
and not leave them to the French."
"Your excellency, the superintendent of the lunatic asylum
has come: what are your commands?"
"My commands? Let them go away, that's all.... And let
the lunatics out into the town. When lunatics command our armies
God evidently means these other madmen to be free."
In reply to an inquiry about the convicts in the prison, Count
Rostopchin shouted angrily at the governor:
"Do you expect me to give you two battalions- which we
have not got- for a convoy? Release them, that's all about it!"
"Your excellency, there are some political prisoners,
Meshkov, Vereshchagin..."
"Vereshchagin! Hasn't he been hanged yet?" shouted
Rostopchin. "Bring him to me!"
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