as it was easier to make soldiers of them than of their peasants."

The Russian noblemen in their love for liberty sacrificed their slaves.
Rostopchine, together with many aristocrats, was not entirely at ease. It
was something anomalous to call to arms for the sake of liberty a nation of
serfs who vividly felt the injustice of their situation; besides, it had
been heard that some moujiks said, "Bonaparte comes to bring us liberty, we
do not want any more seigneurs."

The Russian people in their generality, however, did not justify the fears
of the aristocrats. Their religious fanaticism, nourished by the priests,
their passionate devotion to the Tzar, made them forget their own, just
complaints.

In Moscow business was at a standstill, the ordinary course of things was
likewise suspended, the population lived in the streets, forming a nervous
crowd, subject to excitement and terror. The question was to keep them in
respectfulness.

Here Rostopchine's inborn talent as tribune and publicist, as comedian and
tragedian, showed itself to perfection. He gave a free rein to his
imagination in his placards, in which he affected the proverbial language
of the moujik, made himself a peasant, more than a peasant, in his
eccentric style, to excite patriotism. He published pamphlets against the
French, and the coarser his language the more effect it had on the masses.

"At this time," he writes, "I understood the necessity of acting on the
mind of the people to arouse them so that they should prepare themselves
for all the sacrifices, for the sake of the country. Every day I
disseminated stories and caricatures, which represented the French as