Fedor Rostoptchin, count, a Russian soldier, born in the government of Orel about 1765, died in Moscow in January or February, 1826. He became a page of Catharine II. and a favorite of Paul I., under whom he was minister of foreign affairs, and received the title of count. Opposed to an alliance with France, and frequently subjected to the caprices of Paul, he was absent from St. Petersburg at the time of his violent death (1801). In 1810 Alexander I. made him grand chamberlain, and in 1812 military governor of Moscow. He displayed much activity in organizing volunteer corps; and when against his opinion the evacuation of Moscow was decided upon after the battle of Borodino, he withdrew with the whole army and the population, leaving for the French a deserted city. He set fire to his own suburban palace, but in his La vérité sur l'incendie de Moscou (Paris, 1823), he denies having burned the city, though he is generally regarded as the author of the conflagration. Despite his great services, he was removed in 1814 from the governorship of Moscow, and resided till 1823 in Paris, where his daughter married the count Eugène de Ségur. An incomplete edition of his works appeared in Paris in 1853. One of his sons published a universal history in French. - See Rostoptchine et Koutousof, ou la Russie en 1812, by Schnitz-ler (Paris, 1863).