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By Root 3387 0

part in the defense of the capital, and astonished at the new view revealed to him in the camp, in which the question of the tranquillity of the capital and its patriotic spirit appeared not only secondary, but completely unnecessary and insignificant—upset, offended, and astonished at all that, Count Rastopchin returned to Moscow. After supper, without undressing, the count lay down on the couch and was awakened past midnight by a courier who brought him a letter from Kutuzov. The letter said that, as the troops were retreating to the Ryazan road beyond Moscow, would the count be so good as to send police officers to lead the troops through the city. This came as no news to Rastopchin. Not only since the previous day’s meeting with Kutuzov on Poklonnaya Hill, but ever since the battle of Borodino, when all the generals who came to Moscow said with one voice that it was still impossible to offer battle, and when, with the count’s permission, government property was being evacuated every night and half the inhabitants had left, Count Rastopchin had known that Moscow would be abandoned. Nevertheless, this news, conveyed in the form of a simple note with an order from Kutuzov and received during the night, just as he was falling asleep, astonished and vexed the count.

Afterwards, explaining his activity during this time, Count Rastopchin wrote several times in his notes15 that he then had two important goals: De maintenir la tranquillité à Moscou et d’en faire partir les habitants.*550 If we allow for this double goal, every one of Rastopchin’s acts turns out to be irreproachable. Why were the holy objects, the weapons, shot, powder, stores of grain, not evacuated, why were thousands of inhabitants deceived about Moscow not being surrendered, and thereby ruined? In order to maintain tranquillity in the capital, replies Count Rastopchin’s explanation. Why were heaps of useless papers from government offices evacuated, along with Leppich’s balloon and other objects? In order to leave the city empty, replies Count Rastopchin’s explanation. One need only allow that something threatened the tranquillity of the people, and every action becomes justified.

All the horrors of the Reign of Terror16 were based only on concern for public tranquillity.

On what, then, did Count Rastopchin base his fear for public tranquillity in Moscow in the year 1812? What reason was there to suppose there was a tendency to revolt in the city? The inhabitants were leaving, the retreating troops were filling Moscow. Why should the result of that be a popular revolt?

Neither in Moscow nor anywhere in Russia did anything resembling an insurrection occur at the entrance of the enemy. On the first of September, on the second of September, there were more than ten thousand people still in Moscow, and, apart from the crowd that gathered in the commander in chief’s courtyard and was drawn there by the man himself—there was nothing. Obviously, there would have been still less reason to expect a disturbance among the people if, after the battle of Borodino, when the surrender of Moscow became obvious, or at least probable, instead of stirring people up by distributing weapons and posters, Rastopchin had taken measures to evacuate all the holy objects, powder, shot, and money, and had announced directly to the people that the city would be abandoned.

Rastopchin, an ardent, sanguine man who had always gone about in the highest administrative circles, though he did have patriotic feelings, did not have the least notion of the people he thought to govern. At the very beginning of the enemy’s entry into Smolensk, Rastopchin had fashioned in his imagination a role for himself as a guide of popular feelings—the heart of Russia. It seemed to him (as it does to every administrator) that he was not only managing the external activities of the people of Moscow, but was also guiding their mood by means of his appeals and posters, written in that boorish language which the people despise in their own milieu, and which they do not understand when they hear it from above.