A HISTORICAL NOVEL BY COUNT LÉON TOLSTOÏ TRANSLATED INTO FRENCH BY A RUSSIAN LADY AND FROM THE FRENCH BY CLARA BELL BORODINO, THE FRENCH AT MOSCOW - EPILOGUE- 1812-1820 TWO VOLUMES-VOL. I. REVISED AND CORRECTED IN THE UNITED STATES NEW YORK WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, PUBLISHER 1886 110.152 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886 BY WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington THIS TRANSLATION WAS MADE EXPRESSLY FOR THE PUBLISHER Press of William S Gottsberger New York TRANSLATOR'S POSTSCRIPT. In translating this novel from the French version, I have adhered to the spelling of Russian words adopted by the "Russian Lady." And on the whole, with a single exception, I find that the system is that followed by many good authorities. The exception is the use of w, borrowed from the German, at the end of words where the English letter should-or mightbe f. Still, the spelling Gortchakow and Romanow may be met with, and is accepted. The transliteration of Russian into English presents many difficulties; the alternative lies between a ponderous array of letters and the adoption of a code of foreign sounds, for the vowels more especially. Mr. Schuyler, in his work on Turkistan (London, 1876), gives the letter u the value of the English oo (as in German and Italian); he writes pud, at the risk of its being made to rhyme with mud, instead of with mood; and it is this risk which has led many good authorities to modify the u into ou, with the sound the diphthong has in could. In French it is written ou, as the letter u has a sound unlike any that can be written in English. The Russian alphabet is rich in consonants; the sounds written in Western languages, as tz, sh, shtch, |