Rostopchin was born in the Kosmodemyanskoe village (modern-day
Livensky District,
Oryol Oblast of Russia) into a
Russian noble family, the son of Vasily Fyodorovich Rostopchin (1733–1802), a landlord and former army major, and Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Rostopchina (née Kryukova) who died shortly after giving birth to his younger brother Peter. Rostopchin's date and place of birth, as well as his family roots are still questioned by biographers. While the date 12 March 1763 is written on his tombstone, other sources, including Rostopchin himself, pointed at 1765 as the real year and Moscow as the real place of his birth. He also claimed that his family was very ancient and originated around the 15th century from
Crimean Tatars, direct descendants of
Genghis Khan.) who arrived to Moscow to serve
Vasili III of Russia, while in Part 4 his name changed to Boris Fyodorovich and later official encyclopedias renamed him to Mikhail Davydovich. His descendants supposedly served in Moscow,
Tver,
Klin and
Rzhev at various army and state positions, yet none of them left any trace in Russian history, and some modern historians consider it to be a mystification. He was restored to favor in 1810 as conditions between France and Russia began to deteriorate. At the end of May 1812 he was appointed a
Governor-General of Moscow. He was visited by
Germaine de Stael on her way to St. Petersburg and Stockholm. During the
French invasion of Russia he was responsible for the
defence of the city against
Napoleon's Grande Armée, and he took every means available to rouse the population of the town and district to arm and join the army to defend the city against the invaders. After the
Battle of Borodino it was clear to the Russian generals that their army could not deal with another battle; half of the population left the city, according to
Leo Tolstoy. Rostopchin was invited to the
council at Fili but excluded after a few hours and had the remaining population of the city evacuated, including all the city administrators and officials, leaving behind only a few French tutors, foreign shop keepers. In addition, the prisons and asylums were opened and the inhabitants set free by his order. No one came to meet the Emperor Napoleon with keys when he arrived at the city gates on 14 September in the afternoon. On the first night of French occupation a fire broke out in the bazaar and a number of small fires erupted in other quarters. As the French rode through the streets to the Kremlin they found the streets deserted. That night the city began to burn in earnest. Rostopchin had left a small detachment of police, whom he charged with
burning his house and the city to the ground, given that most buildings were made from wood. The city's fire-engines were disassembled. Fuses were left throughout the city to ignite the fires. He left Moscow on 14 September 1812 and gave up his position as governor. Rostopchin owned two mansions in Moscow and an estate near
Tarutino, Russia.
Robert Wilson was with him, when Rostopchin set fire to his estate. According to
Leo Tolstoy in
War and Peace, Rostopchin was overwhelmed by events, and believed until the last moment that Moscow would not go down without a fight. These two quotations about the fire and the flight from Moscow can also be found in
War and Peace: Tolstoy also attributes the Fire of Moscow to the constitution of the city and not to Rostopchin: In 1814 the Rostopchine family left Russia, going first to the
Duchy of Warsaw, then to the
German Confederation, Vienna, the Italian peninsula and finally in 1817 to France under the
Bourbon Restoration. In Paris, he established a salon; his wife and daughter converted to Roman Catholicism. He claimed innocence against the charge of
arson, and had a
pamphlet printed and distributed in Paris proclaiming so in 1823, but subsequently admitted to his role in ordering the city's destruction. He returned to
Imperial Russia in 1825 and died in Moscow suffering from
asthma and
hemorrhoid complications. He was buried at the
Pyatnitskoye Cemetery. ==Family==