Count Mosca

“ Olimpia needed no nudge from the Captain to tell her who this noble rider might be. Guarino Guarini for a florin! And so it was.
"Yes," said Mosca, "that is my most intrepid master. The flaxen lad in silver brocade, who was on the other side, is Teofilo Calcagnini, of whom I know little more than that he is Duke Borso's shadow. You shall hardly see them apart. The other, my charmer, the other is our man. Leave me to deal with him. Come now to the inn. To-morrow you shall have your hired [Pg 278] house, and the next day company for it more to your taste than lean old Mosca." ”

“ Although Moscow does not count more than three hundred thousand inhabitants, it covers two square miles with its houses, gardens, churches, and monasteries. In this flat region one can hardly see beyond the extreme suburbs, and houses and trees extend to the horizon. ”

“ The strength of the French army that entered Moscow may be estimated at about 110,000 men. With the exception of the Guard, the French left the city the next day and encamped in the suburbs; the Spaniards, Portuguese, Swiss, Bavarians, Wurtembergers, and Saxons remaining in the city. The presence in Moscow of the “alien element” probably accounts for the extraordinary cruelties perpetrated in the city. Numerous Russian stragglers roamed about the streets. ”

“ Moscow now learned that although the horde had no longer the power to hold Russia in servitude, yet it might still make itself terrible by its sudden incursions, devastations, and capture of the inhabitants. Shortly thereafter, in 1412, Vasili went to the horde to do homage to the new khan Djelalledin, brought him tribute, and made presents to the Tatar grandees, so that the khan confirmed the grand principality to the prince of Moscow, although he had previously intended to bestow it upon the exiled prince of Nijni-Novgorod. ”

“ He fairly froze Mosca by the coolness of his assumptions.
"I will fight you as soon as you choose, and with your own weapons, after supper," said he, "but it is only fair to warn you that you will be killed." ”

“ But we are now on the border between the East and the West, between Asia and Europe, between barbarism in its best estate and civilization. Take a map of the world and see where Moscow stands! What vast, uncultured, desolate regions lie at the east of it, and still further on, what empires and peoples that make up the bulk of the human race! Out of the barbarism of that eastern portion of the earth’s plane, Russia is emerging, and Moscow is her frontier town ”

“ In the distance, through a cloud of dust, could be seen the long columns of Russian cavalry retiring in good order before the French troops. At last a number of towers came into view, with golden domes glittering in the sun—a vast city lay before the advancing host, and the van of the army, in a transport of enthusiasm, cried, “Moscow! Moscow at last!” The cry was taken up by the whole army; officers and men clambered on to the heights in order to 101gaze at the famous city, destined perhaps to be the new boundary of the French Empire. ”

“ At that time the Tsar held territory in Europe larger than that ruled by any of his contemporaries; the conquests of Yermak in Asia brought as much more under his dominion. Enemies, active, watchful, virulent, were ever ready to harass its rulers. Poles and Swedes expected Moscow sooner or later, to fall to them, and lost no opportunity to effect the overthrow of the Russians. Tartars and others kept up predatory wars and, within the empire, towns and districts, devastated by the wanton cruelties of Ivan, were anxious to get back their independence. There were no men able to rule. ”

“ The Muscovite princes, responsible to the Khan for the public tranquillity and the collection of the tax, being all the while watched and supported by the baskaks, could the more easily annihilate the independence of the towns, the resistance of the second order of princes, the turbulence of the boyards, and the privileges of the free peasants. The Grand Prince of Moscow had no consideration for his subjects because no man had any consideration for him, and because his life was always at stake. ”

“ Slowly but surely the Scandinavian element was{10} absorbed; with Ivan I. (1328-1341) the time of transition practically ended. A new policy of aggrandisement was adopted and the Muscovite was evolved from the Slav race. Round Moscow, subject to the Tartar yoke, the people became patient and resigned; born to endure bad fortune, they could profit by good. The princes of Moscow gained their ends by intrigue, by corruption, by the purchase of consciences, by servility to the Tartar Khans, by perfidy to their equals, by murder and treachery. ”

“ Moscow!” went up from the whole army as they gazed on the gilded cupolas and magnificent buildings of that famous city, brilliantly lit up by the afternoon sun. Twenty miles in circumference, dazzling with the green of its copper domes and its minarets of yellow stone, the towers and walls of the famous Kremlin rising above its palaces and gardens, it seemed like some fabled city of the Arabian Nights. With renewed enthusiasm the troops rushed towards it, while whole regiments of Poles fell on their knees, thanking God for delivering this stronghold of their oppressors into their hands. ”

“ If they have that object, and if they succeed in taking Moscow it will simply add one more to the psychological blunders committed by the German government since the war began. The disorganized Russian army might not pull itself together and fight for Petrograd, but the army and the people would fight to the death for Moscow. It is their holy city, their crown of glory, their dream. Moscow is Russia, and one who has never seen it knows not the Russian people. ”

“ Moscow should have remained the Russian capital. With an admirable climate, at once keen enough to keep the human frame in its vigour, and with the warm summer of the south, to supply all the vegetable products of Europe; its position commanding the finest provinces of Western Asia, Russia would have been mistress of the Black Sea a century earlier, had probably been in possession of Asia Minor, and have fixed a Viceroy in the city of the Sultans. ”

“ Every winter, great numbers of merchants come to Moscow from Germany and Poland, who purchase furs of all kinds, which are indeed exceedingly beautiful. Among these furs, are the skins of foxes, wolves, martins, sables, ermines, and many others, from Scythia and the alpine regions, many days journey to the north of Moscow. Many of these are likewise carried for sale to Novogorod [7] , a city towards the frontiers of Germany, eight days journey west from Moscow. The government of that city is democratic, and only pays a stipulated yearly tribute to the grand duke. ”

“ O, my dear Mosca! [THEY EMBRACE.] Does he not perceive us? MOS: No more than a blind harper. He knows no man, No face of friend, nor name of any servant, Who 'twas that fed him last, or gave him drink: Not those he hath begotten, or brought up, Can he remember. CORV: Has he children? MOS: Bastards, Some dozen, or more, that he begot on beggars, Gipsies, and Jews, and black-moors, when he was drunk. Knew you not that, sir? 'tis the common fable. The dwarf, the fool, the eunuch, are all his ”

“ This mixture of urban magnificence and rural simplicity produces an extraordinary, fantastic effect, which must please the traveller who is in search of something new. The churches are so numerous in this city that a popular saying runs: "Moscow with its forty times forty churches." Moscow is supposed to contain 420,000 inhabitants, and commerce must be on a large scale, because in a single quarter, whose name I have forgotten, there are six thousand shops. In the quarter called the Kremlin there stands the fortress of the same name, the old palace of the czars. ”

“ Towards the end of the thirteenth century, Moscow became a new center of Russian power. From Moscow comes the name Muscovy. "Muscovy was to Russia what France in the older sense was to the whole land which came to bear that name." In the fourteenth century, while Lithuania and Poland were absorbing by conquest the territories of earlier or Western Russia, the Duchy of Moscow was building up a new Russia in the East, out of which grew the Russia of to-day. Ivan I., regarded as the founder of the Russian monarchy, made Moscow his capital in 1328. Most of the other princes were subject to him. ”

“ If we cannot abandon fatalism and indifference in face of deficiencies of our own society, Moscow will profit--Moscow cannot help profiting by them in its foreign policies.
(Four) We must formulate and put forward for other nations a much more positive and constructive picture of sort of world we would like to see than we have put forward in past. It is not enough to urge people to develop political processes similar to our own. Many foreign peoples, in Europe at least, are tired and frightened by experiences of past, and are less interested in abstract freedom than in security. ”

“ Moscow, one of the wealthiest cities in the world, is no more. This is an incalculable misfortune for the Russians, both for their merchants and for their nobility; the loss must amount to milliards. Some hundred incendiaries have been taken and shot. Thirty thousand Russian sick and wounded were burnt alive. The richest commercial houses of Russia are ruined. They were unable to take anything 118away with them; and when they saw that everything had fallen into the hands of the French, they set fire to their own ancient capital, their holy city, the centre of the empire. ”

“ Great violently shook the country into activity, for long before his time glimpses of European civilisation reached Moscow. In the fifteenth century, we have found metropolitan Isidor travelling to the Council of Florence, to cast his vote in favour of a union of the Churches under Rome. In the same century foreigners began to arrive in Moscow to practise medicine or architecture, or to serve in the Russian army; in the time of Iván the Terrible there was already a considerable foreign colony in Moscow, and its influences upon individual Russians were not rare. ”

“ Out of a hundred persons, frequently not more than ten would be left alive. Moscow was almost depopulated. In Smolensk but five individuals escaped, and they were compelled to abandon the city, the houses and the streets being encumbered with the putrefying bodies of the dead. [2] Just before this disaster, Moscow suffered severely from a conflagration. The imperial palace and a large portion of the city were laid in ashes. The prince then resolved to construct a Kremlin of stone, and he laid the foundations of a gorgeous palace in the year 1367. ”

“ And you, ye grave and honored councillors, Most reverend bishops, pillars of the church, Ye palatines and castellans of fame, The moment has arrived, by one high deed, To reconcile two nations long estranged. Yours be the glorious boast, that Poland's power Hath given the Muscovites their Czar, and in The neighbor who oppressed you as a foe Secure an ever-grateful friend. And you, The deputies of the august republic, Saddle your steeds of fire! Leap to your seats! To you expand high fortune's golden gates; I will divide the foeman's spoil with you. Moscow is rich in plunder ”

“ Moscow, empty of inhabitants, no longer furnished him with anything to lay hold of. "It is no doubt a misfortune," he said, "but this misfortune is not without its advantage. Had it been otherwise, he would not have been able to keep order in so large a city, to overawe a population of three hundred thousand souls, and to sleep in the Kremlin but at the hazard of assassination. They have left us nothing but ruins, but at least we are quiet among them. Millions have no doubt slipped through our hands, but how many thousand millions is Russia losing! Her commerce is ruined for a century to come. ”

“ Can the Muscovites, aware of our rash and thoughtless negligence, have conceived the hope of burning with Moscow our soldiers, heavy with wine, fatigue and sleep; or rather, have they dared to imagine that they should involve Napoleon in this catastrophe; that the loss of such a man would be fully equivalent to that of their capital; that it was a result sufficiently important to justify the sacrifice of all Moscow to obtain it; that perhaps Heaven, in order to grant them so signal a victory, had decreed so great a sacrifice ”

“ The population of Moscow had no longer any head men. Those who hid themselves in terror in the houses, or wept in the churches, felt themselves at the mercy of the ruffians whom the governor, by quitting Moscow, had let loose upon them. The door of the Kremlin had to be burst open with cannon-balls before the old palace of the Czars could be rid of the wretches who had shut themselves up in it. ”

“ Perhaps it would not be an error to assert that, excepting the nobility about the court, many of whom are not of Russian descent at all, but derived from foreign parvenus, and some of the upper classes, the nation still regrets the innovation of western civilization, and, if they could have a free choice, they would rather return to the good old times when Moscow was the capital of their country. ”

“ Like Alexander the Great, the Russian autocrat permits a dissolute life among the nobility, in order that the empire may not have to confront the resolutions of more honorable men. Ennui wears upon the gentry. At Moscow and St. Petersburg, the man of the fashionable world dwells in a state of social license that contrasts sharply with his political restrictions. Moscow is filled with men in disgrace, who are here allowed to live in splendid exile. Gaming, racing, intemperance, and libertinism are the most striking features of the Russian realistic novel. ”