The famous Count Rostopchin, with whose name the emperor’s bulletins have been filled, came to see me, and invited me to dine with him.  He had been minister for foreign affairs to Paul I., his conversation had something original about it, and you could easily perceive that his character would show itself in a very strong manner, if circumstances required it.  The Countess Rostopchin was good enough to give me a book which she had written on the triumphs of religion, the style and morality of which were very pure.  I went to visit her at her country-house, in the interior of Moscow.  I was obliged to cross a lake and a wood in* order to reach it:  it was to this house, one of the most agreeable residences in Russia, that Count Rostopchin himself set-fire, on the approach of the French army.  Certainly an action of this kind was likely to excite a certain kind of admiration, even in enemies.  The emperor Napoleon has, notwithstanding, compared Count Rostopchin to Marat, forgetting that the governor of Moscow sacrificed his own interests, while Marat set fire to the houses of others, which certainly makes a considerable difference.  The only thing which Count Rostopchin could properly be reproached with, was his concealing too long the bad news from the armies, either from flattering himself, or believing it to be necessary to flatter others.  The English, with that admirable rectitude which distinguishes all their actions, publish as faithful an account of their reverses as they do of their victories, and enthusiasm is with them sustained by the truth, whatever that may be.  The Russians cannot yet reach that moral perfection, which is the result of a free constitution.

No civilized nation has so much in common with savages as the Russian people, and when their nobility possess energy, they participate also in the defects and good qualities of that unshackled nature.  The expression of Diderot has been greatly vaunted:  The Russians are rotten before they are ripe.  I know nothing more false; their very vices, with some exceptions, are not those of corruption, but of violence.  The desires of a Russian, said a very superior man, would blow up a city:  fury and artifice take possession of them by turns, when they wish to accomplish any resolution, good or bad.  Their nature is not at all changed by the rapid civilization which was given them by Peter I.; it has as yet only formed their manners:  happily for them, they are always what we call barbarians, in other words, led by an instinct frequently generous, but always involuntary, which only admits of reflection in the choice of the means, and not in the examination of the end; I say happily for them, not that I wish to extol barbarism, but I designate by this name a certain primitive energy which can alone replace in nations the concentrated strength of liberty.