"
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
dwarfs in rags, poorly armed, not heavier than a gerbe which one could lift
with a pitchfork."
For curiosity's sake, as an example of his style of fiction by which he
fascinated the Russian peasantry may serve the translation of one of the
stories: "Korniouchka Tchikhirine, an inhabitant of Moscow, a veteran,
having been drinking a little more than usual, hears that Bonaparte
is coming to Moscow, he becomes angry, scolds in coarse terms all
Frenchmen, comes out of the liquor store and under the eagle with
the two heads (the sign that the place is the crown's) he shouts:
What, he will come to us! But you are welcome! For Christmas or
carnival you are invited.
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