War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [817]
5. plays a pathetic comedy…while an unseen hand was guiding him: The “pathetic comedy” refers to Napoleon’s memoirs, dictated to his secretary Las Cases on St. Helena (see note 19 to Volume I, Part Two). Tolstoy considered that these memoirs exposed Napoleon more effectively than any other document.
6. Not unto us…of my soul and of God: The quotation, the opening line of Psalm 115, was inscribed on the medal Alexander I had struck to commemorate the victory of 1812. The second sentence expresses the emperor’s new piety and withdrawal from worldly affairs.
7. To him…will be taken: An inexact quotation of Matthew 25:29: “For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.”
8. the Biblical Society…Gossner and the Tatarinov woman: The Biblical Society, dedicated to translating, printing, and distributing the Holy Scriptures in Russia, was founded in 1812 as a subsidiary of the English Biblical Society. Alexander I was a member, as were many church hierarchs. The Bavarian priest Johannes Gossner (1773–1858) left the Catholic Church because of his evangelical tendencies and became a Lutheran minister in Berlin. He was invited to Petersburg by the Biblical Society, was elected a director of the society (1820–24), and had great success as a preacher. In 1817 Elizaveta Filippovna Tatarinova (1783–1856), the daughter of General Buxhöwden, founded an ecstatic sect called the Spiritual Union. She claimed to have the gift of prophecy. Owing to her connections with Petersburg high society, the union continued in existence until 1837.
9. Madame Krüdener…Eckartshausen: Varvara Juliana, Baroness von Krüdener (1764–1824), a Russian mystic and novelist, fell into the pietism of her time, traveled in Europe, met various famous preachers and visionaries, and eventually became one herself. In 1815 she met Alexander I in Heilbronn and preached her gospel to him. He was deeply taken with it and kept her with him when he went to Paris, where she achieved great social power and was the inspiration behind the Holy Alliance (see note 1 above). But the emperor soon separated himself from her influence. For Eckartshausen, see note 44 to Volume I, Part One.
10. settlements: Military colonies were established by Arakcheev in the provinces of White Russia and the Ukraine to assure a permanent military presence on the frontier. They combined the rigors of military and peasant life, were run with harsh discipline, imposed military service on the colonists’ sons, and were very unpopular.
11. the Tugendbund: The “Union of Virtue,” a political society founded in Königsberg in 1808 to free Prussia from the power of Napoleon. It was forbidden by Friedrich-Wilhelm III on Napoleon’s order, but continued its activity illegally until it was dissolved in 1815.
12. Mucius Scaevola burned his hand: The story of Mucius Scaevola (“Lefthanded Mucius”) is told in Plutarch’s Life of Poplicola. The Roman soldier Mucius impressed the hostile Etruscan king Porsenna by holding his right hand in fire without flinching, which led Porsenna to make a truce with the Romans. Reading the Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, by the Greek historian Plutarch (ca. a.d. 46–ca. 126), was an indispensable part of a boy’s education at that time.
Part Two
1. Talleyrand…extended the borders of France: At the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which reestablished order in Europe after Napoleon’s first abdication, Talleyrand, who represented France, managed to have the former French borders restored with the addition of some 150 square miles of neighboring territory.
2. Napoleon III…caught in Boulogne: Charles-Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (1808–73), the emperor’s nephew, made two attempts to overthrow the king, Louis Philippe, and have himself declared