§3
Eighteen months before this time we had made the acquaintance of this man, who was a kind of a celebrity in Moscow. Educated in Paris, he was rich, intelligent, well-informed, witty, and independent in his ideas. For complicity in the Decembrist plot he had been imprisoned in a fortress till he and some others were released; and though he had not been exiled, he wore a halo. He was in the public service and had great influence with Prince Dmitri Golitsyn, the Governor of Moscow, who liked people with independent views, especially if they could express them in good French; for the Governor was not strong in Russian.
V.—as I shall call him—was ten years our senior and surprised us by his sensible comments on current events, his knowledge of political affairs, his eloquent French, and the ardour of his liberalism. He knew so much and so thoroughly; he was so pleasant and easy in conversation; his views were so clearly defined; he had a reply to every question and a solution of every problem. He read everything—new novels, pamphlets, newspapers, poetry, and was working seriously at zoology as well; he drew up reports for the Governor and was organising a series of school-books.
His liberalism was of the purest tricolour hue, the liberalism of the Left, midway between Mauguin and General Lamarque.[[61]]
[61]. French politicians prominent about 1830.
The walls of his study in Moscow were covered with portraits of famous revolutionaries, from John Hampden and Bailly to Fieschi and Armand Carrel,[[62]] and a whole library of prohibited books was ranged beneath these patron saints. A skeleton, with a few stuffed birds and scientific preparations, gave an air of study and concentration to the room and toned down its revolutionary appearance.
[62]. Bailly, Mayor of Paris, was guillotined in 1793. Fieschi was executed in 1836 for an attempt on the life of Louis Philippe. Armand Carrel was a French publicist and journalist who fell in a duel in 1836.
We envied his experience and knowledge of the world; his subtle irony in argument impressed us greatly. We thought of him as a practical reformer and rising statesman.