This was true. Amidst a hush of eager expectation, the Governor rose and read aloud the address of the Czar “to our ancient city and metropolis of Moscow.” It contained the same explanations and appeals which at that moment in another place were falling from his own lips; and concluded with an earnest exhortation to prepare for “that defence which must now shield the babe at the mother’s breast, and guard from sacrilege the tombs of our fathers. The very existence of our name in the map of nations is menaced. The enemy denounces ‘Destruction to Russia.’ The security of our holy Church, the safety of the throne of the Czars, the independence of our ancient Muscovite Empire, all call aloud that the object of this appeal may be received by our loyal subjects as a sacred decree. May the filial ardour spread itself from Moscow to the extremities of our dominions; and a force will then assemble around the monarch that may defy the thousand legions of our treacherous invader. The ills which he has prepared for us will then fall upon his own head, and Europe, delivered from slavery, may then celebrate the name of—”
“Alexander!” The words sprang from the lips of Feodor Petrovitch, the youngest there, who spoke aloud the thought that thrilled in every heart, and knew not that he spoke until he caught the reproving looks of some of those around him. In the meantime Count Rostopchine calmly completed the sentence as it had been written—“Europe, delivered from slavery, may then celebrate the name of Russia.”
Scarcely had he concluded, when the Czar himself stood amongst them, and with a few eloquent words wound up to its highest pitch the enthusiasm of the audience. Amidst the tears and acclamations which followed, the venerable chief of the merchants[20] stood up in his place and subscribed his name for the gift of fifty thousand roubles—two-thirds of his fortune. Others gave in similar proportion; and Petrovitch was surpassed by none in self-sacrificing liberality. Feodor, under his directions, wrote his name upon the list of subscribers. When he had done so, he turned to his grandfather—“Dädushka, I think you must give the Czar something more even yet.”
“Even sons and grandsons?” said the old man, with a smile that had in it a little sadness and a great deal of resignation; “well, I shall not refuse.”
“Even me?” said Feodor, nestling close to him and putting his arm caressingly about his neck. But Petrovitch did not answer.
“The people were willing,” even beyond their power, so that three days afterwards the Czar published a ukase, not to ask for gifts, but to limit their amount. “The nobles literally gave him Russia,” wrote the Sardinian ambassador to his sovereign. “They melted into tears; in short, sire, there never was anything like it. The merchants have given him ten million roubles, and lent him fifty or sixty million.”
But the mass of the people—peasants, mujiks, serfs, who tilled the soil—what part had they in this splendid outburst of loyal and patriotic enthusiasm? Napoleon expected that these “oppressed and degraded slaves” would hail him as a deliverer—would rise everywhere in revolt, and massacre their tyrants. Very different was the fact. When the time came for the serfs voted by the nobles to be levied from their estates, and when the vast crown lands had also to contribute their proportion of recruits, there was weeping and wailing in the izbas of every village from the Neva to the steppes of Tartary. But it was not, as in other days, the conscript who mourned his hard lot, and his mother, his sister, his betrothed who made sore lamentation over a separation probably life-long. It was the one not chosen who mingled his tears with those of his friends and parents, because he might not go and shed his blood for the Czar and holy Russia. Glad was the young recruit as he donned his simple uniform—a gray caftan, with loose trousers and a crimson sash; and proudly did he wear on the front of his gray cap the imperial badge, “a brazen cross surmounting a crown over the letter A.” First and highest the cross, symbol of the Christian faith; beneath that, the imperial crown of Russia; again beneath that—Alexander.
But although putting himself, as he was wont to do, in the lowest place, and when possible out of sight altogether, the strong personal love with which Alexander had inspired his subjects counted for more, in that hour of a nation’s conflict and agony, than the traditional religious veneration of the Russian for his country and his Czar. Well was it for Russia, and for Europe also, that the Czar God had given her was Alexander Paulovitch. It was not only that he had been, since the beginning of his reign, “perfectly just as emperor, singularly generous as man;”[21] not only that he was richly endowed with all those brilliant and fascinating qualities which take the eye and win the suffrage of the multitude. The secret of his influence lay deeper. God had given him a gift more precious still. He had touched his heart with “the enthusiasm of humanity.” This autocrat of fifty millions “loved his brother whom he had seen,” even when as yet he knew not the divine Father “whom he had not seen.” The hand that toiled so hard to bring back the perishing mujik from his death-like swoon was well used to deeds of beneficence. Of these a hundred stories might be told: at that time they were told, not only in the salons of St. Petersburg, but beside the stove in the izbas of many a country village. Everywhere the mujiks said, “Our lord the Czar loves us.” And everywhere, as long as the world lasts, love will win love.