I promised that any one who would do this might be sure of being
taken in hand and sent on a long journey before he would have finished his
harangue.
"To give more weight to my words I had stationed, not far from the palace,
two telegues (two-wheeled carts) hitched up with mail horses and two police
officers in road uniform promenading before them. If some curious person
should ask them for whom these telegues were ready, they had orders to
answer, 'for those who will be sent to Siberia.'
"These answers and the news of the telegues soon spread among the assembly;
the bawlers understood and behaved."
The nobility of Riazen had sent a deputation to the emperor to offer him 60
thousand men, armed and equipped. Balachef, the minister of police,
received this deputation scornfully and ordered them to leave Moscow at
once.
There were other offers which were not surprising at that period when the
mass of the people consisted of serfs, but which appear strange to us.
"Many of my acquaintances," writes Kamarovski, "said that they would give
their musicians, others the actors of their theaters, others their hunters,
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.
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