I see here persons who were invited, yet are not able to approach the camp. Permissions are refused to every body, except a few privileged Englishmen and some members of the diplomatic corps. All the rest, young and old, military men and diplomatists, foreigners and Russians, have returned to Moscow, mortified by their unavailing efforts. I have written to a person connected with the emperor's household, regretting my inability to avail myself of the favour his Majesty had accorded in permitting me to witness
* I learnt afterwards, at Petersburg, that orders had been
given to permit my reaching Borodino, where I was expected.
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the manœuvres, and pleading as an excuse the state of my eyes, which are not yet cured.
The dust of the camp is, I am told, insupportable to every body; it might cost me the loss of my sight. The Duke of Leuchtenberg must be endowed with an unusual quantum of indifference to be able coolly to witness the spectacle prepared for him. They assure me that in the representation of the battle, the emperor will command the corps of Prince Eugene, father of the young duke.
I should regret not seeing a spectacle so curious in its moral aspect, if I could be present as a disinterested spectator; but, without having the renown of a father to maintain, I am a son of France, and I feel it is not for me to find any pleasure in witnessing a representation of war, made at great cost, solely with the view of exalting the national pride of the Russians, on the occasion of our disasters. As to the sight itself, I can picture it very easily ; I have seen plenty of straight lines in Russia. Besides, in reviews and moek fights, the eye never gets beyond a great cloud of dust.
The Russians have reason to pride themselves on the issue of the campaign of 1812 ; but the general who laid its plan, he who first advised the gradual retreat of the Russian army towards the centre of the empire, with the view of enticing the exhausted French after it, — the man, in fact, to whose genius Russia owed her deliverance—Prince Witgenstein, is not represented in this grand repetition ; because, unfortunately for him, he is living, half disgraced: he resides on his estates; his name will not be pronounced at Borodino, though an eternal monument is
HISTORICAL TRAVESTY.267
to be raised 'to the glory of General Bagration, who fell on the field of battle.
Under despotic governments, dead warriors are great favourites: here, behold one decreed to be the hero of a campaign in which he bravely fell, but which he never directed.
This absence of historical probity, this abuse of the will of one man, who imposes his views upon all, who dictates to the people Mdiatever they are to think on events of national interest, appears to me the most revolting of all the impieties of arbitrary government. Strike, torture bodies, but do not crush minds : let man judge of things according to the intimations of Providence, according to his conscience and his reason. The people must be called impious who devoutly submit to this continual violation of the respect due to all that is most holy in the sight of God and man, — the sanctity of truth.
I have received an account of the manoeuvres at Borodino, which is not calculated to cahn my wrath.
Every body has read a description of the battle of Moskowa, and history has viewed it as one of those that we have won; for it was hazarded by the Emperor Alexander against the advice of his generals, as a last effort to save his capital, which capital was taken four days later; though a heroic conflagration, combined with a deadly frost, and with the improvidence of our chieftain, blinded on this occasion by an excess of confidence in his lucky star, decided our disaster. Thus favoured by the issue of the campaign, here is N 2
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the Emperor of Russia flattering himself with treating as a victory, a battle lost by his army within four days' journey of his capitaclass="underline" he has distorted a military scene which he professes to reproduce with scrupulous exactitude. The following is the lie which he has given to history in the eyes of all Europe.
AVhen they came to the moment in which the French, who had been dreadfully galled by the Russian artillery, charged and carried the batteries that decimated them with the daring that is so well known, the Emperor Nicholas, instead of suffering, as both his justice and dignity demanded, that the celebrated manoeuvre should be executed, became the flatterer of the lowest of his people, and caused the corps which represented the division of our army to which we owed the defeat of the Russians and the capture of Moscow, to fall back a distance of three leagues, Imagine my gratitude to God for having given me grace to refuse being present at this lying pantomime !
The military comedy is followed by an order of the day, which will be considered outrageous in Europe, if it be published there in the shape that it is here. According to this singular expose of the ideas of an individual — not the events of a campaign — " It was voluntarily that the Russians retired beyond Moscow, which proves that they did not lose the battle of Borodino; (why then did they decline continuing it?) and the bones of their presumptuous enemies," adds the order of the day, "scattered from the holy city to Niemen, attest the triumph of the defenders of the country."
Without waiting for the solemn entry of the em-
TRAVE¾TY.269
peror into Moscow, I shall leave in two days' time for Petersburg.
Here end the chapters that were written by the traveller in the form of letters to his friends: the relation which follows completes his recollections: it was written at various places, commencing at Petersburg, in 1839, afterwards being continued in Germany, and more recently at Paris.
270
ARREST OF M. PERNET.
CHAR XXXVI
RETURN FROM MOSCOW TO PETERSBURG.—HISTORY OF M. PERNET, A FRENCH PRISONER IN RUSSIA. —HIS ARREST. —CONDUCT OF
HIS FELLOW TRAVELLER.THE FRENCH CONSUL AT MOSCOW.
EFFECTS OF IMAGINATION. ADVICE OF A RUSSIANGREAT
NOVGOROD.SOUVENIRS OF IVAN IV. ARRIVAL AT PETERS
BURG.— M. DE BARANTE. — SEQUEL OF THE HISTORY OF M.
PERNET. INTERIOR OF A MOSCOW PRISON. A VISIT TO COL-
PINA. — ORIGIN OF THE LAVAL FAMILY IN RUSSIA. — THF. ACADEMY OF PAINTING. —THE ARTS IN RUSSIA.—M. BRÜLOW. — INFLUENCE OF THE NORTH UPON THE ARTS. —MADEMOISELLE
TAGLIONI AT PETERSBURG. — ABOLITION OF THE UNIATES.
SUPERIORITY OF A REPRESENTATIVE FORM OF GOVERNMENT.
DEPARTURE FROM RUSSIA. THE FEELINGS OF THE AUTHOR.
—A SINCERE LETTER.— REASONS FOR NOT RETURNING THROUGH POLAND.
At the moment I was about to quit Moscow, a singular circumstance attracted all my attention, and obliged me to delay my departure.
I had ordered post-horses at seven o'clock in the morning: to my great surprise my valet-de-chambre awoke me at four, and on my asking the cause of this unnecessary hurry, he answered that he did not like to delay informing me of a fact which he had just learnt, and which appeared to him veiy serious. The following is the sum of what he related.
A Frenchman, whose name is M. Louis Pernet, and who arrived a few days ago in Moscow, where he lodged at a public hotel, has been arrested in the middle of the night — this very night, — and, after being deprived of his papers, has been taken to the