“I think,” said Ivan slowly and with deliberation,—“I think every Russian, from the Czar himself down to the lowest mujik, should swear a solemn oath not to sheathe the sword until we have taken such vengeance upon Napoleon and his Frenchmen as the world has never yet seen.”
“So be it,” said Michael, who came in while he was speaking. “I, a mujik, will be the first to swear.—Barrinka, what is the name of Napoleon’s great city, where he has his palace and all his treasures? Suppose the Czar were to make a blaze of that some day! It may be. God is just!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
TWO IMPORTANT INTERVIEWS.
“Nous verrons ce qui réussira le mieux, de se faire aimer ou de se faire craindre.”
Words of the Emperor Alexander.
When Ivan waited upon Count Rostopchine that morning, he found his excellency in a very bad humour. The destruction of the Kremlin was perhaps enough to account for this; but there may have been in addition an altercation with Marshal Kutusov—not a very rare occurrence, for between the general-in-chief of the army and the governor of Moscow there was no friendship. Ivan found the count surrounded by the members of his suite, to whom he was giving directions in preparation for an immediate return to the city.
“Do you come with us, Ivan Ivanovitch?” he asked abruptly, and of course in Russian, the only language he would tolerate in his presence, although he himself spoke and wrote French with elegance and precision.