Each day more invitations to balls and dinners in Paris came for Prince Andrei and Natasha. Some soirées lasted until dawn. One evening Prince Andrei found Natasha asleep when she was supposed to be dressing to go out.

“Andrei, I am exhausted from the parties. I cannot remember my music. I cannot concentrate.”

And Natasha began to cry because her singing was very important to her.

Together they resolved to leave Paris and return to Prince Andrei’s estate of Bogucharevo outside of Moscow to make their life there. Boieldieu would not accompany them, but occupied Paris had many musicians who could not find work, so they found another teacher who did not have a famous name and he moved with them to Bogucharevo.

Pestel and Viazemsky also did not make their lives in Paris but returned to the Russia they loved, Pestel to Tulchin in the south and Viazemsky to Moscow. Zinaida Volkonskaya would soon leave Paris too for a stay in her beloved Italy.