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Next day, the third of March, soon after one o'clock, two hundred

and fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were

awaiting the guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign,

Prince Bagration, to dinner.

On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz,

Moscow had been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so

used to victories that on receiving news of the defeat some would

simply not believe it, while others sought some extraordinary

explanation of so strange an event. In the English Club, where

all who were distinguished, important, and well informed

foregathered when the news began to arrive in December, nothing

was said about the war and the last battle, as though all were in

a conspiracy of silence. The men who set the tone in

conversation-Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri Dolgorukov, Valuev,

Count Markov, and Prince Vyazemski-did not show themselves at the

club, but met in private houses in intimate circles, and the

Moscovites who took their opinions from others-Ilya Rostov among

them-remained for a while without any definite opinion on the

subject of the war and without leaders.