Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

MILITARY FETE AT BORODINO.263

through selfish motives, at least from a love of the marvellous.

An Emperor of Russia at Moscow, is a king of Assyria in Babylon.

His presence is at this moment, they say, working miracles at Borodino. An entire city is there created — a city just sprung out of the desert, and destined to endure for a week : even gardens have been planted there round a palace; the trees, destined soon to die, have been brought from a distance at great expense, and are so placed as to represent anticpie shades. The llussians, though they have no past, are, like all enlightened parvenus, who well know what is thought of their sudden fortunes, more particularly fond of imitating the effects of time. In this world of fairy work, all that speaks of duration is imitated by things the most ephemeral. Several theatres are also raised on the plain of Borodino; and the drama serves as an interlude between the warlike pantomimes.

The programme of the fete is the exact repetition of the battle, which we called Moskowa, and which the Russians have christened Borodino. Wishing to approach as nearly as possible to the reality, they have convoked from the most distant parts of the empire, all the surviving veterans of 1812 who were in the action. The reader may imagine the astonishment and distress of these brave men, suddenly torn from their repose, and obliged to repair from the extremities of Siberia, Kamtschatka, Lapland, the Caspian, or the Caucasus, to a theatre which they are told was the theatre of their glory — not their fortune, but their renown, a miserable recompence for a superhuman devotion. Why revive these questions and