Count Feodor Rostopchin - governor of Moscow and historical fool, found himself alone in a world not unlike that in which many politicians find themselves - created for and by themselves. Leo Tolstoy describes the conflicted position Rostopchin has established and was thus abandoned into, as the Russian capitol is emptied in anticipation of Napoleon's anticlimactic entrance. The Count is utterly disconnected from those whom he should be leading. To this, Tolstoy provides the following insight:
"In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark, holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant, useless, feeble man."
War and Peace Part 11, Chapter 25
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