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Updated: June 18, 2025
At two o'clock the six chosen guests assembled for dinner. These guests the famous Count Rostopchin, Prince Lopukhin with his nephew, General Chatrov an old war comrade of the prince's, and of the younger generation Pierre and Boris Drubetskoy awaited the prince in the drawing room.
He made not the least doubt that Moscow was burned by Rostopchin, and said that there was a general rumour before the French entered the town, and while the inhabitants were leaving it, that persons were left to destroy it. I asked him why the magazine of gunpowder had not been set fire to in the first instance.
To be sure, it was no great military exploit to burn down a large city, but still it was a splendid stratagem, and, in a struggle with a hateful and infamous enemy, all ways and means are permitted and justifiable. I do not merely excuse Rostopchin, but I admire his tremendous energy, and believe, if I were a Russian, I would likewise have done something of the sort.
"He has betrayed his Tsar and his country, he has gone over to Bonaparte. He alone of all the Russians has disgraced the Russian name, he has caused Moscow to perish," said Rostopchin in a sharp, even voice, but suddenly he glanced down at Vereshchagin who continued to stand in the same submissive attitude.
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.
"We have been looking for you everywhere," said the adjutant. "The count wants to see you particularly. He asks you to come to him at once on a very important matter." Without going home, Pierre took a cab and drove to see the Moscow commander in chief. Count Rostopchin had only that morning returned to town from his summer villa at Sokolniki.
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!"
"As for thee," said Rostopchin, turning towards him, "being a Frenchman, thou canst not but wish for the arrival of the French army: be free, then, and go and tell thy countrymen that Russia had but one traitor, and that he has been punished."
He recommended them to prevent the pillage of the French soldiers in the churches, and to have the malefactors shot, and enjoined them to use great rigor towards the galley-slaves, whom Rostopchin had pardoned on condition that they would set fire to the city.
Swaying from side to side on his long, thin legs in his fluttering dressing gown, this lunatic was running impetuously, his gaze fixed on Rostopchin, shouting something in a hoarse voice and making signs to him to stop. The lunatic's solemn, gloomy face was thin and yellow, with its beard growing in uneven tufts.
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