She bent her head before Peter, because he was the wild beast whose paw contained the whole future of Russia.
Frowning and pouting out his lips, Napoleon sat outside the gates, waiting for the keys of Moscow; impatiently he pulled at his bridle and twitched his glove. He was not accustomed to be alone when he entered foreign capitals.
“But other thoughts had Moscow mine,” as Púshkin wrote, and she set fire to herself.
The cholera appeared, and once again the people’s capital showed itself full of feeling and power!
§21
In August of 1830 we went to stay at Vasílevskoë, and broke our journey as usual at Perkhushkov, where our house looked like a castle in a novel of Mrs. Radcliffe’s. After taking a meal and feeding the horses, we were preparing to resume our journey, and Bakai, with a towel round his waist, was just calling out to the coachman, “All right!” when a mounted messenger signed to us to stop. This was a groom belonging to my uncle, the Senator. Covered with dust and sweat, he jumped off his horse and delivered a packet to my father. The packet contained the Revolution of July! Two pages of the Journal des Débats, which he brought with him as well as a letter, I read over a hundred times till I knew them by heart; and for the first time I found the country tiresome.
It was a glorious time and events moved quickly. The spare figure of Charles X had hardly disappeared into the fogs of Holyrood, when Belgium burst into flame and the throne of the citizen-king began to totter. The revolutionary spirit began to work in men’s mouths and in literature: novels, plays, and poetry entered the arena and preached the good cause.
We knew nothing then of the theatrical element which is part of all revolutionary movements in France, and we believed sincerely in all we heard.
If anyone wishes to know how powerfully the news of the July revolution worked on the rising generation, let him read what Heine wrote, when he heard in Heligoland that “the great Pan, the pagan god, was dead.” There is no sham enthusiasm there: Heine at thirty was just as much carried away, just as childishly excited, as we were at eighteen.
We followed every word and every incident with close attention—bold questions and sharp replies, General Lafayette and General Lamarque. Not only did we know all about the chief actors—on the radical side, of course—but we were warmly attached to them, and cherished their portraits, from Manuel and Benjamin Constant to Dupont de l’Eure and Armand Carrel.