eld it from a distance, the most opulent of
the nobles, deceived like their peasants, charged us with it: and, in
short, those by whom it was ordered threw the odium of it upon us,
having engaged in the work of destruction in order to render us objects
of detestation, and caring but little about the maledictions of so many
unfortunate creatures, provided they could throw upon us the weight of
them.

The silence of Alexander leaves room to doubt whether he approved this
dreadful determination or not. What part he took in the catastrophe is
still a mystery to the Russians: either they are ignorant on the
subject, or they make a secret of the matter: the effect of despotism,
which enjoins ignorance or silence.

Some think that no individual in the empire, excepting the sovereign,
would have dared to take on himself so heavy a responsibility. His
subsequent conduct disavowed without disproving it. Others are of
opinion that this was one of the causes of his absence from the army,
and that, not wishing to appear either to order or to forbid it, he
would not stay to be a witness of the catastrophe.

As to the general abandonment of the houses all the way from Smolensk,
it was compulsory, the Russian army defending them till they were
carried sword in hand, and describing us everywhere as destructive
monsters. The country suffered but little from this emigration. The
peasants residing near the high-road escaped through byways to other
villages belonging to their lords, where they found accommodation.

The forsaking of their huts, made of trunks of trees laid one upon
another, which a hatchet suffices for building, and of which a bench, a
table, and an image constitute the whole furniture, was scarcely any
sacrifice for serfs who had nothing of their own, whose persons did not
even belong to themselves, and whose masters were obliged to provide for
them, since they were their property and the source of all their income.

These peasants, moreover, in removing their carts, their implements, and
their cattle, carried everything with them, most of them being able with
their own hands to supply themselves with habitation, clothing, and all
other necessaries: for these people are still in but the first stage of
civilization, and far from that division of labor which denotes the
extension and high improvement of commerce and of society.

But in the towns, and especially in the great capital, how could they be
expected to quit so