The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 25

The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 25

He had travelled with the speed and almost in the style of a courier.

When he alighted from his unpretending vehicle at the castle gate, he

saw that the place had a deserted look; and only a single Cossack, who

happened to be on duty as sentinel, perceived his approach. Although

the Emperor was still here, even his very guards had been despatched

to the seat of war. Michaud briefly gave his name, and asked for an

audience.

 

He was introduced at once into the cabinet of the Czar. Alexander

looked worn and anxious; young as he was, a few threads of silver

showed themselves already in his chestnut hair. He saluted Michaud

courteously; but asked immediately, with a keen and searching look, “Do

you not bring me sad tidings, colonel?”

 

“Very sad, sire;--the evacuation of Moscow.”

 

“Have they given up my ancient capital without a struggle?”

 

“Sire, the environs of Moscow offer no position in which we could

hazard a battle with our inferior forces. The marshal[30] thought

he did well in preserving your army, whose loss without saving

Moscow would have been of the greatest consequence; and which, by

the reinforcements your Majesty has just procured, and which I met

everywhere along my road, will soon resume the offensive, and make the

French repent of invading Russia.”

 

“Has the enemy actually entered the city?”

 

“Yes, sire. At this moment Moscow is in ashes. I left it in flames.”

Here Michaud stopped abruptly, for the agony depicted on the Emperor’s

face, “the __EXPRESSION__ of his eyes,” completely unmanned him,--he could

say no more.

 

It was Alexander who, after a few bitter moments, and maintaining his

self-control with a strong effort, resumed the conversation.

 

“I see that God requires from us great sacrifices. I am ready to submit

to his will. But, Michaud, tell me frankly, what of the army? What do

my soldiers say upon seeing my ancient capital abandoned without a

struggle? Must not this have exercised a most disastrous influence upon

the spirit of the troops?”

 

“Sire, may I speak to you quite frankly, and as a loyal soldier?”

 

“Colonel, I have always required this frankness; now I entreat of

you to use it. Hide nothing from me: I desire absolutely to know the

truth.”

 

“Sire, I left all the army, from the generals to the meanest soldier,

possessed with one overpowering and terrible fear--”

 

“How? Whence these fears? Are my Russians overcome by the first

misfortune?” the Czar interrupted with emotion which even he could not

restrain, and which, as Michaud says, “altered for a moment the noble

calm of his fine features.”

 

“Never, sire!” resumed the colonel. “Their one fear is that your

Majesty, out of kindness of heart, may be persuaded to make peace.

They are burning to fight for you, and to prove their devotion by the

sacrifice of their lives.”

 

At these heroic words the light flashed once more across the clouded

face of Alexander. “You reassure me, colonel,” he said. “Well then,

return to the army. Say to our brave men, say to all my subjects

wherever you meet them, that if I had not a soldier left, I should put

myself at the head of my dear nobles, of my faithful peasants, and

expend to the uttermost the resources of my empire. They are greater

than my enemies think. But if it be the will of God that my dynasty

shall cease to reign upon the throne of my ancestors, then--after

having done all else that man can do--I will let my beard grow to

this,” said Alexander, placing his hand upon his breast, “and I will

eat potatoes like the lowest of my mujiks, rather than sign the

humiliation of my country and of my dear people, whose sacrifices for

my sake I appreciate.” Here his voice failed: it was easier to speak

of his own ruin than of the love of his subjects. Greatly moved, he

turned away from Michaud, and walked to the other end of the cabinet.

But he came back almost immediately with long and rapid strides,

and a face that had quickly changed from a deadly pallor to a fiery

flush. Pressing his hand on the arm of the officer, he said, “Colonel

Michaud, do not forget my words; perhaps one day we shall remember them

with pleasure. Napoleon or I--I or Napoleon--we can no longer reign

together. I know him now; he shall never deceive me again.”

 

“Sire,” cried the colonel joyfully, “your Majesty signs in this moment

the glory of the nation and the deliverance of Europe.”

 

His words were true--with this qualification, that the glory of Russia

and the deliverance of Europe were not the work of a moment, but of

long months of patient, heroic resolution. Alexander had not wished for

war--perhaps, indeed, he had striven too long to avert it. Personally,

in his earlier years, he admired Napoleon: the fact is undeniable,

though it has been the subject of much exaggeration. From the dawn of

manhood his favourite dream had been of a universal and durable peace,

and he imagined he saw in the victories of Napoleon so many steps to

its attainment. What are now called “Les idées Napoléoniques,” seem to

have captivated for a season this young, ardent, somewhat visionary

mind. But the veil once torn from his eyes by the insatiable ambition

and the repeated perfidies of the French usurper, thenceforward it was

between them war to the death.

 

When Napoleon suddenly poured his enormous hosts across the Niemen,

Alexander at once and emphatically announced his resolution, “I will

not sheathe the sword while a single foreigner remains in arms upon the

soil of Russia.” At that moment the eyes of all Europe were upon him,

and neither friend nor foe believed it possible that he could make good

his word.

 

“Napoleon,” said an astute observer, “thought he could terrify the

Emperor of Russia by his menaces without drawing a sword; he thought

he could make him lose his head by beginning the war suddenly in the

midst of negotiations; he thought he could end that war by a single

battle. But nothing happened that he thought.”[31] In a letter written

by him about this time, which was intercepted and brought to his rival,

were these words: “Alexander is a child. I will make him weep tears of

blood.” Alexander upon reading it remarked: “He said to me himself that

in war determination always carries the day. We shall see who has the

most determination, he or I.”

 

But the determination of the strongest heart might well have quailed

before the perils that beset the Czar in this solemn crisis of his own

and his people’s history. Six hundred and fifty thousand fighting men

had crossed his border under a leader hitherto invincible, whose name

was the terror of the civilized world. No man felt more keenly than

Alexander his own inferiority to Napoleon as a general. The bitter

memory of Austerlitz, his “unfortunate day,” never left him. Nor had

he any commander whose surpassing merit might inspire the army with

confidence. The excellent Barclay de Tolly had unfortunately become so

unpopular both with the army and the nation, that Alexander, though

with much regret, was obliged to remove him. Of his successor, the aged

Kutusov, he had no very high opinion; but when everything depended

upon the cordial support of his people, he was in a manner obliged to

consult their wishes.

 

Meanwhile the French were marching onwards into the very heart

of the country. The retreat of the Russians before them was no

doubt a master-stroke of policy, but to the sovereign of Russia

it was unutterably painful. From the thought of the sufferings of

his people,--the murders, the plundering, the desolation,--his

sensitive heart recoiled in horror. Nearer and nearer came the fiery

deluge, leaving a track of ruin behind it. Consternation seized his

counsellors, his court, his very family. The foreign envoys at St.

Petersburg packed up their effects in readiness for an immediate

flight. Even the Grand Duke Constantine made the hard task of the

brother he idolized harder still by assuring every one that the French

would inevitably conquer,--it was hopeless to resist them. He called

for peace, it was said, “as men call for water in a conflagration.”

 

To aggravate and crown all this misery, dejection, and terror, came the

overwhelming tidings of the destruction of Moscow. In some ways it was

a calamity more bitter, more crushing than that of St. Petersburg would

have been. While the one was the official capital, the other was the

real heart of the old Muscovite empire. Here the Czars were baptized,

were crowned, were buried; here were heaped all the treasures, were

concentrated all the glories of their past. It was their holy city,

their Jerusalem. No one knew as yet that its destruction had been a

signal act of patriotism and self-sacrifice; almost all the world,

including the Czar himself, believed that the French had consummated

their atrocities by setting fire to the city. Nor could he or others

foresee the future, or discern at once amidst the dust and smoke of

the conflict that the victory, in truth, was won. The final hour of

Napoleon’s triumph had struck, but the toll of fate was audible neither

to friend nor foe; and to Alexander and to Russia the day that saw the

fall of Moscow seemed the darkest that had ever dawned upon them.

 

In the heart of Alexander it left “a profound and bitter sorrow,” which

neither time, nor victory, nor glory could ever wholly obliterate.

Long afterwards, when conquered France offered the conqueror pecuniary

compensation, he answered with proud sadness, “Gold can never give

me Moscow back again.” Yet not for one moment did his courage fail

or his determination falter. His wife implored him with tears to

make peace, or to allow her to leave the empire. His mother, less

submissive, actually prepared to go. He gently dissuaded her from a

course so injurious to the interests of the country, and at last,

when she refused to listen, he said firmly, “I have entreated you

as a son; I now command you as your sovereign. You shall not go.”

Amidst the universal panic he alone stood firm. Naturally susceptible,

tender-hearted, perhaps even irresolute, the hour of trial found him

undaunted as the fiercest of his barbarian ancestors. Like the delicate

mainspring of some complicated machine which sustains a pressure that

would shatter a bar of iron, so this fine sensitive nature assumed the

best attributes of strength, and bore up triumphantly against a world

in arms.

 

Amongst the first words which he addressed to his people after the

fall of Moscow were these:--“An oppressed world looks to us for

encouragement, and can we shrink from the honourable mission? Let us

kiss the hand that selected us to act as the leader of nations in the

struggle for independence, and contend with courage and constancy to

obtain a durable peace, not only for ourselves, but for those unhappy