This sacrifice was immediately voted without deliberation—­some say with enthusiasm, and that it was executed in like manner, so long as the danger was at hand.  Others have attributed the concurrence of this assembly to so urgent a proposition, to submission alone—­a sentiment indeed, which, in the presence of absolute power, absorbs every other.

They add, that, on the breaking up of the meeting, the principal nobles were heard to murmur among themselves against the extravagance of such a measure.  “Was the danger then so pressing?  Was there not the Russian army, which, as they were told, still numbered four hundred thousand men, to defend them?  Why then deprive them of so many peasants!  The service of these men would be, it was said, only temporary; but who could ever wish for their return?  It was, on the contrary, an event to be dreaded.  Would these serfs, habituated to the irregularities of war, bring back their former submission?  Undoubtedly not:  they would return full of new sentiments and new ideas, with which they would infect the villages; they would there propagate a refractory spirit, which would give infinite trouble to the master by spoiling the slave.”

Be this as it may, the resolution of that meeting was generous, and worthy of so great a nation.  The details are of little consequence.  We well know that it is the same everywhere; that every thing in the world loses by being seen too near; and lastly, that nations ought to be judged by the general mass and by results.

Alexander then addressed the merchants, but more briefly:  he ordered that proclamation to be read to them, in which Napoleon was represented as “a perfidious wretch; a Moloch, who, with treachery in his heart and loyalty on his lips, was striving to sweep Russia from the face of the earth.”

It is said that, at these words, the masculine and highly coloured faces of the auditors, to which long beards imparted a look at once antique, majestic and wild, were inflamed with rage.  Their eyes flashed fire; they were seized with a convulsive fury:  their stiffened arms, their clenched fists, the gnashing of their teeth, and subdued execrations, expressed its vehemence.  The effect was correspondent.  Their chief, whom they elect themselves, proved himself worthy of his station:  he put down his name the first for fifty thousand rubles.  It was two-thirds of his fortune, and he paid it the next day.

These merchants are divided into three classes:  it was proposed to fix the contribution for each; but one of the assembly, who was included in the lowest class, declared that his patriotism would not brook any limit, and he immediately subscribed a sum far surpassing the proposed standard:  the others followed his example more or less closely.  Advantage was taken of their first emotions.  Every thing was at hand that was requisite to bind them irrevocably while they were yet together, excited by one another, and by the words of their sovereign.