In March 1814 Russian troops took Paris

Anton Delvig, Pushkin's schoolfellow, wrote a poem "On the Capture of Paris", printed in June 1814 in the "Vestnik Evropy" [Herald of Europe]. It contains these lines about Alexander I: "And the conqueror of Paris, tender father to the Russians, forgetting the ashes of Moscow, with meekness forgives the Gauls and receives them as his children."

Yet Emperor Alexander, who had resolved to send his troops against Paris and personally took part in the charge upon the enemy's line like a plain squadron commander, might have destroyed the capital of the Gauls, or allowed Napoleon's plan to blow up the powder magazines to come to pass. He did neither. This was despite the rumour that spread through Paris, as the allied armies drew near, that they meant to burn the city as Moscow had been burned. Alexander I, mindful of his own manifesto declaring that the war was waged not against the French but against the outrages and violence of Napoleon, ordered that every opportunity be used to negotiate with the city's authorities for its surrender, so as to avoid bloodshed. And when the French, frightened by the Russian guns on the heights of Montmartre, asked for an armistice in the name of Marshal de Marmont, Alexander set the condition of immediate surrender: "Otherwise by evening you will not recognise the place where your capital once stood!"

Where is the arrogant Sisyphus?
Or is he conquering the Russians?
Are the Russians in heavy chains
Passing a life of tears?
No, the thunder of the Russians' arms
Is heard by the vast city of Paris!
And the conqueror of Paris,
Tender father to the Russians,
Forgetting the ashes of Moscow,
With meekness forgives the Gauls
And receives them as his children.
Glory to the hero who
Conquers all peoples
By tender love, not by force!
Know, goddess! The impartial poet
Must show the vices of the world,
Knowing no fear, he tells the tsar
The truth, not the base flatteries of a courtier!
I do not sing of Olympian heroes;
It is not gold that urges me to praise,
No, only beholding the deeds of Alexander,
I dedicate to him my golden cithara!
For ever on it shall I praise the hero
And raise his name to the heavens!
Meek Russian Zeus!
You have overthrown the gloomy-hearted
Sisyphus, and now,
Crowned with the laurel of victories,
From the bloody field of battle
You have returned to your faithful sons!