By Nicholas Arseniev
We'd also like to show some examples of long-suffering for the defeated enemy, the forbearance inspired by the message of the Gospel ...
Let's think ... how Alexander I behaved in Paris in 1814. He didn't behave as a conqueror but as a liberator and friend of the French people. Moreover, he showed in the eyes of Europe how he meant to avenge the fate of Moscow. (We mean here the previous campaign of Napoleon in Russia).
On 29 March (10 April) 1814, at the Place de la Révolution, in the same place where they beheaded Louis XVI, they celebrated the splendid night Paschal Liturgy of the Orthodox Church, full of joy and with a tone of reconciliation, in accordance with the Resurrection Hymn: "... let us embrace one another, forgiving all in the Resurrection ... Christ is risen from the dead...", as a Liturgy of atonement, restoration and reconciliation in front of Russian troops with festive outfits.
It was (polite) revenge for Moscow, as he said it straight to his close friend Prince Alexander Golitsyn when he returned to Petersburg. Here he drew in the depths of Christian experience where at one time it seized the soul of Russian people all over the classes of the social scale.
This magnanimous behavior of Emperor Alexander I toward the defeated enemy strengthened the admiration felt for him by the numerous circles of Russian society.
From Russian Piety.
