“After the battle of Borodino,” said he in his memoirs, “I ceased to have recourse to little means to distract the people and occupy their attention. It required an extraordinary effort of the imagination to invent something that would excite the people. The most ingenious attempts do not always succeed, while the clumsy ones take a surprising effect. Among those of the latter kind there was a story after my fashion of which 5 thousand copies at one kopek a copy were sold in one day.”
The population of Moscow was in a peculiar moral condition. They were most superstitious, believed the most improbable reports and saw signs from heaven of the downfall of Napoleon.
“In the city,” writes Rostopchine, “rumors were current of visions, of voices which had been heard in the graveyards. Passages from the Apocalypsis were quoted referring to Napoleon’s fall.”
But Rostopchine himself, was he free from credulity? A German by the name of Leppich constructed, secretly, in one of the gardens of Moscow, a balloon by means of which the French army should be covered with fire, and some historians say that Rostopchine was one of the most enthusiastic admirers of Leppich.
As it may be interesting to learn how he was ahead of his time in regard to ideas about military balloons let us give the full statement of Popof on this matter.
In 1812 in Moscow it was exactly as in 1870 in Paris; everybody built hopes on the military airship, and expected that by means of a Greek fire from a balloon the whole army of the enemy would be annihilated. Rostopchine, in a letter dated May 7/19, 1812, gave an account to Emperor Alexander of the precautions he had taken that the wonderful secret of the construction of the airship by Leppich should not be revealed. He took the precaution not to employ any workmen from Moscow. He had already given Leppich 120 thousand rubles to buy material.
“To-morrow,” he writes, “under the pretext of dining with some one living in his vicinity I shall go to Leppich and shall remain with him for a long time; it will be a feast to me to become more closely connected with a man whose invention will render military art superfluous, free mankind of its internal destroyer, make of you the arbiter of kings and empires and the benefactor of mankind.”
In another letter to the emperor, dated June 11/23, 1812, he writes, “I have seen Leppich; he is a very able man and an excellent mechanician. He has removed all my doubts in regard to the contrivances which set the wings of his machine in motion (indeed an infernal construction) and which consequently might do still more harm to humanity than Napoleon himself. I am in doubt about one point which I submit to the judgment of your majesty: when the machine will be ready Leppich proposes to embark on it to fly as far as Wilna. Can we trust him so completely as not to think of treason on his part?” Three weeks later he wrote to the emperor “I am fully convinced of success. I have taken quite a liking to Leppich who is also very much attached to me; his machine I love like my own child. Leppich suggests that I should make an air voyage with him, but I cannot decide about this without the authorization of your majesty.”
On September 11th., four days before the evacuation, the fate of Moscow was decided. On that day at 10 o’clock in the forenoon the following conversation took place in the house of Rostopchine between him and Glinka.
“Your excellency,” said Glinka, “I have sent my family away.”