Russia Against Napoleon_ The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace - Dominic Lieven [148]
But the sting of Alexander’s letter was in the tail, where he wrote that he had been warned that enemy agents would even seek to turn his family against him, with Catherine herself as their first choice. Even the very self-confident grand duchess was shocked by this response and Alexander subsequently relented by adding, ‘If you find me too touchy, begin by putting yourself in the cruel position where I am.’53
At a time when his own blood relations were proving worse than useless, Alexander did get loyal support from his wife, the sensitive and beautiful Empress Elizabeth. She remained calm and confident throughout these weeks, writing to her mother that ‘in truth we are prepared for everything except negotiations. The further Napoleon advances the less he should believe that any peace is possible. That is the unanimous view of the emperor and all classes of the population…each step he advances in this immense Russia brings him closer to the abyss. Let us see how he copes with the winter.’ She added that peace would be the beginning of Russia’s destruction but fortunately it was impossible: ‘The emperor does not even conceive of the idea and even if he did want to do this, he would not be able to.’54
If Alexander drew comfort from his wife and from walking in the groves on Kamennyi Ostrov, his main solace was religion. The emperor had been brought up in Catherine II’s court on a combination of Enlightenment rationalism and aristocratic hedonism. The Orthodox clergy who tutored him in their religion left little mark. But the sensitive and idealistic sides of his personality increasingly inclined him towards seeking answers to life’s problems in Christianity. He had in fact been reading the Bible for some time before Napoleon’s invasion but amidst the tremendous strains of 1812 his religious sense grew much stronger. Alexander would read the Bible every day, underlining in pencil the parts he found most relevant. To his old friend and fellow-convert to Christian belief, Prince Aleksandr Golitsyn, he wrote even in early July 1812 that ‘in moments such as those in which we find ourselves, I believe that even the most hardened person feels a return towards his creator…I surrender myself to this feeling, which is so habitual for me and I do so with a warmth, an abandon, much greater than in the past! I find there my only consolation, my sole support. It is this sentiment alone that sustains me.’55
It was in this mood that Alexander heard the news of Moscow’s loss and the city’s subsequent destruction by fire. By the time Kutuzov’s own messenger, Colonel Alexandre Michaud de Beauretour, came with this news, the emperor was well prepared to meet him and send a firm message back to his army. Amidst much emotion on both sides, Alexander and Michaud reassured themselves on the points that concerned them most. The emperor was promised by Michaud that the abandonment of Moscow had not undermined the army’s morale or its total commitment to victory. Michaud, and through him the army, in return received the pledge they wanted to hear. Far from undermining the emperor’s confidence or will, the loss of Moscow had hardened his determination to achieve total victory. Alexander ended the conversation with the words:
‘I will make use of every last resource of my empire; it possesses even more than my enemies yet think. But even if Divine Providence decrees that my dynasty should cease to reign on the throne of my ancestors, then after having exhausted all the means in my power I will grow my beard down to here’ (he pointed his hand to his chest) ‘and will go off and eat potatoes with the very last of my peasants rather than sign a peace which would shame my fatherland and that dear nation whose sacrifices for me I know how to appreciate