MOSCHUS MOSCOW. 



71 



In 1772, Maria Theresa nominated him professor of 

 midwifery-surgery, and placed him at the head of a 

 foundling establishment which she had formed. In 



1796, Moscati espoused the cause of Italian liberty, 

 and became a member of the Cisalpine congress. In 



1797, Bonaparte selected him as- one of the fittest 

 persons to be a director of the Cisalpine republic ; 

 and, when Moscati wished to decline the office, the 

 general replied to him, " If honest men refuse, I 

 must appoint knaves." Moscati therefore accepted 

 it ; but he soon resigned, and resumed his medical 

 pursuits. He was arrested by the Austrians, in 

 1799, and confined in the fortress of Cattaro, where, 

 however, he was liberated to attend on the archduke 

 Charles, who had fallen ill. After the battle of Ma- 

 reugo, lie returned to Italy, and was one of the 

 deputies sent to the consulta at Lyons. Under the 

 government of Napoleon, he was successively made 

 director-general of public instruction, a senator, a 

 dignitary of the iron crown, grand eagle of the legion 

 of honour, and a count. He was also highly re- 

 spected at the vice-regal court, and was the favourite 

 physician of the viceroy and vice-queen. Moscati 

 was sincerely attached to Eugene Beauharnais, and 

 was one of the senators who was the most active, in 

 1814, in endeavouring to raise him to the throne. He 

 was afterwards one of the directors of the Italian 

 institute, and president of the central council of 

 health. He founded, at his own expense, a meteor- 

 ological and astronomical observatory. In private 

 life, he was universally esteemed for his many virtues, 

 and the affability of his manners. He died in 1824. 



MOSCHUS, a Greek pastoral poet, was a native 

 of Syracuse. The time when he flourished is not 

 accurately Known, some making him a pupil of Bion, 

 who is supposed to have lived under Ptolemy Phila- 

 delphus, while others suppose him a contemporary of 

 Ptolemy Philometer (B." C. 160). The tenderness 

 with which he speaks of Bion, in his beautiful elegy 

 on that poet, implying a personal acquaintance, 

 seems to render the former opinion most probable. 

 A few idyls form the whole of the remains of Mos- 

 chus, which exhibit great elegance of style and 

 delicacy of conception. They are generally printed in 

 conjunction with those of Bion (q. v.), and may be 

 found in the Poetce Minores, as also in a separate 

 volume, by Mekercke. 



MOSCOW (Moskwa) ; on the Moskwa and Neg- 

 lina, in a fertile and richly cultivated country ; lat. 

 55 45' 45" N.; Ion. 37 33' 8" E.; the ancient capi- 

 tal of the Russian empire, and still the place of the 

 emperor's coronation. It was also the imperial resi- 

 dence, till Peter the Great selected Petersburg for 

 this purpose. Moscow was founded by the grand- 

 duke Jurge I., in 1147, and enlarged by the grand- 

 duke Daniel, about the year 1300. In 1383 and 

 1571, it was entirely destroyed by the Tartars, but 

 each time soon rebuilt. A third time, 1611, it was 

 burned by the Poles. The plague has also often pro- 

 duced a great mortality there ; the last time, in 

 1771. In 1831, it was severely afflicted by the 

 cholera morbus. Under Catharine II., Moscow was 

 extended and embellished. It comprised, in 1812, 

 in a circuit of about twenty-seven miles, five princi- 

 pal divisions : 1. the Kremlin (q. v.), that is, fortress; 

 2. Kitaigorod ; 3. Beloigorod, with the buildings of 

 the university, founded by the empress Elizabeth, in 

 1755 ; 4. Semlanoigorod, and, 5. thirty Sloboden, or 

 suburbs. The town contained above 10,000 houses, 

 among which were 288 churches. There were also 

 numerous booths, and 350,000 inhabitants (20,000 of 

 the number, soldiers), several imperial colleges, 

 institutions for education and sciences, a large found- 

 ling hospital for 5000 children, and also the principal 

 manufactures of the empire. Moscow has been, and 



still is, the centre of the trade of the interior, and a 

 mart for enormous stores of goods of every descrip- 

 tion. This and the palaces and luxury of the high 

 Russian nobility, who are here less dependent on the 

 court, and principally pass the winter in this place, 

 make it one of the largest and most magnificent cities 

 of the world. The. peculiarities of the national cus- 

 toms and character remained longer here than in the 

 other cities. Recent times have given it great his- 

 torical interest. 



Moscow was the torch which lighted the fire of 

 independence through subject Europe. When 

 Napoleon advanced, in 1812, with the most numerous 

 army which Europe had seen since the great migra- 

 tion of the nations, into the interior of the Russian 

 empire, and her armies had in vain attempted to stay 

 his course at the Moskwa (q. v.), near Borodino, 

 Kutusoff determined, in spite of the opposition of 

 many members of the council of war, to sacrifice the 

 city in order to save the empire. The stores from 

 the arsenal, together with the public treasures, had 

 been already transported from Moscow, and secured. 

 The greater part of the inhabitants followed, with 

 their movable property ; 17,000 wounded were con- 

 veyed in 4000 wagons, leaving only 2000 severely 

 wounded and sick in the hospitals of Moscow. The 

 army retired to Kaluga. (See the article Russian- 

 German f^ar.) The governor of Moscow, in the 

 mean time (count Rostopschin) prepared to pi-event 

 the enemy from maintaining himself in the heart of 

 the empire. He set fire to his beautiful country seat, 

 near Moscow, and others, equally determined not to 

 see their property in the hands of the enemy, did the 

 same ; and many citizens loudly exclaimed, that it 

 would be better to burn Moscow than to give it up 

 to the French. But count Rostopschin could only 

 effect the departure of all the civil and military 

 authorities, together with the officers of the fire-depart- 

 ment, and 2100 firemen, with ninety-six fire-engines. 

 These, as belonging to the military, were despatched 

 from Moscow a day before the entry of the enemy. 

 The prisons were not opened, but cleared, and 8 1 

 prisoners were conveyed to Nishnei-Novogorod, under 

 an escort, two days before the arrival of the French. 

 But half of the inhabitants remaining at Moscow 

 (12 15,000) were a mere mob, many of whom may 

 have profited by the universal disorder, to set fire to 

 several houses that they might the better plunder. 

 The conflagration of Moscow, which, in the course 

 of three days, consumed three-fourths of all the 

 houses, was, according to universal opinion, not acci- 

 dental, but a preconcerted plan, and the order of 

 count Rostopschin. The latter repelled the charge 

 in his work La Vrite sur VIncendie de Moscau, par 

 le Comte Rostopchine (Paris, 1823), and contradicted 

 the reports of the French army, disclaiming the 

 honour of this great act ; but he acknowledged that 

 incendiaries had been taken in the act by the French, 

 who had firebrands and rockets about them. Accord- 

 ing to the printed reports of the examinations, thirty 

 persons were arrested by -the French, thirteen of 

 whom were shot, being convicted of having put fire 

 to different parts of the city, by Rostopschin's com- 

 mand. It is known that the owners of the magazines 

 of wagons, who occupy a whole street in Moscow, 

 when they saw that the French officers, immediately 

 on their arrival, had taken possession of these car- 

 riages, unanimously put fire to them, the following 

 night, rather than see their property in the enemy's 

 hands. Rostopschin also names many merchants who 

 did the same with their houses, some of whom were 

 surprised in the act, and immediately shot. Some of 

 the French may also have been accessary to the con- 

 flagration, from carelessness, or for the sake of plun- 

 dering. In the first night after the arrival of thu 



