FROM 1751, TO THE END OF 1758.
AT the beginning of the year 1751 the Grand Duke, who, like myself, felt great esteem and affection for the Count de Bernis, Ambassador from the Court of Vienna, determined to consult him relative to the state of his affairs in Holstein, to the debts which burdened that country, and the negotiations opened by Denmark, to which he had consented to listen. He desired me also to mention the subject to the Count. I said I would not fail to do so, since it was his wish. On the occasion of the next masquerade ball, therefore, I approached Count de Bernis, who was standing near the balustrade, within which the dance was going on, and told him that the Grand Duke had ordered me to speak to him respecting the affairs of Holstein. The Count listened to me with great interest and attention. I told him frankly that being young and without advisers, having probably also but inaccurate notions of business affairs, and no experience to advance in my favour, my ideas, such as they were, were my own; that I might be very deficient in information, but that it appeared to me, in the first place, that the affairs of Holstein were not so desperate as some sought to represent them; that, besides, as to the exchange itself, I could very well understand that it might be more advantageous to Russia than to the Grand Duke personally; that assuredly, as heir to the throne, the interests of the empire ought to be dear to him; that if for these interests it was necessary to abandon Holstein in order to put an end to interminable discussions with Denmark, then the only question would be to choose, before giving it up, a favourable moment for the surrender; that to me the present time did not appear to be such, either as regarded the interest or personal credit of the Grand Duke; that, however, a time might come when circumstances would render this act more important and more creditable to him, and, perhaps, also more advantageous for the empire of Russia itself; but that at present the whole affair had a manifest air of intrigue, which, if it proved successful, would give an impression of feebleness on the part of the Grand Duke, from which he might suffer all his life in the estimation of the public; that it was but a few days, so to speak, since he had undertaken the management of that country; that he was extremely fond of the country, and yet, notwithstanding all this, he had been persuaded to exchange it, without very well knowing why, for the territory of Oldenburg, with which he was not at all acquainted, and which was still farther off from Russia; and that, besides, the port of Kiel, if in the hands of the Grand Duke, might be important for Russian navigation. The Count de Bernis entered into all my reasonings, and said, in conclusion, “As Ambassador, I have no instructions on this matter, but as Count Bernis, I think you are right.” The Grand Duke told me afterwards that the Ambassador said to him, “All I can say to you in this matter is, that I think your wife is right, and that you will do well to listen to her.” The Grand Duke consequently cooled very much upon the subject, and this, probably, was noticed, for it began to be mentioned to him more rarely.
After Easter we went, as usual, for some time to the Summer Palace at Peterhoff, where, year by year, our stay became abridged. This year an occurrence took place which furnished the courtiers with matter for gossip: it was caused by the intrigues of the Messieurs Schouvaloff. Colonel Beketoff, of whom I have spoken above, not knowing what to do with himself during the favour which he enjoyed, although it increased to such a point that, from day to day, people were waiting to see which of the two would yield his place to the other, that is to say, Beketoff to John Schouvaloff, or the latter to Beketoff—not knowing, as I have said, how to amuse himself, it occurred to him to have the Empress’ choir of singing boys perform at his own residence. In several of them he took a special interest, on account of the beauty of their voices; and as both himself and his friend Yelagine were versifiers, they composed songs which the children sung. To this an odious interpretation was given; for it was well known that nothing was more detested by the Empress than vice of such a nature. Beketoff, in the innocence of his heart, would walk in the garden with these children; this was imputed to him as a crime. The Empress went away to Zarskoe-Selo for a couple of days, and then returned to Peterhoff, where M. Beketoff received orders to remain, under the plea of indisposition. He did, in fact, remain there with Yelagine, caught there a violent fever, which threatened his life, and in the ravings of his delirium, did nothing but talk about the Empress, with whom he was thoroughly taken up. He recovered; but he remained in disgrace, and retired, after which he was placed in the army, where he was not successful. He was too effeminate for the profession of arms.
In the meanwhile we proceeded to Oranienbaum, where we went hunting every day. Towards autumn, in the month of September, we returned to the city. The Empress placed at our court M. Leon Narichkine as gentleman of the bedchamber. He immediately hastened from Moscow with his mother, his brother, his brother’s wife, and his three sisters. He was one of the most singular persons I have ever known, and no one has ever made me laugh so much as he has done. He was a born harlequin, and had he not been by birth what he was, he might have gained a subsistence, and a handsome one too, by his extraordinary talent for humour. He was not at all wanting in understanding. He had heard of everything, and everything arranged itself in his head after a fashion of his own. He could give a dissertation on any art or science he chose. He would employ all the technical terms belonging to his subject, and would talk to you for a quarter of an hour or more without stopping; and at the end, neither himself nor any one else would understand anything of the string of words which had flowed so readily from his lips, and the whole, of course, would finish with a general burst of laughter. Among other things he said of history, that he did not like history in which there were histories,[11] and that in order that a history should be good it must be devoid of history, that otherwise history became mere rant.
But it was on politics that he was inimitable. When he began on this subject, it was impossible for any one, however serious, to resist him. He used to say, too, that of well-written plays the greater part were very wearisome.
Scarcely had he been appointed to the court when the Empress sent orders to his eldest sister to marry a M. Seniavine, who, for that purpose, was placed in our court as gentleman of the bedchamber. This was a thunderbolt for the young lady, who consented to this marriage with the greatest repugnance. It was very ill received by the public also, and all the blame of it was cast on M. Schouvaloff, the favourite of the Empress, who, before his rise to favour, had been very partial to this young lady, for whom they made up this bad match in order that he might lose sight of her. This was a species of persecution truly tyrannical. At last she married, became consumptive, and died.
By the end of September, we returned to the Winter Palace. The court was at this time so badly off for furniture that the same mirrors, beds, chairs, tables, and drawers which served us at the Winter Palace, passed with us to the Summer Palace, and thence to Peterhoff, following us even to Moscow. A good number were broken and cracked in these different journeys, and, in this state of dilapidation, they were supplied to us; so that it was difficult to make use of them, while to get others an express order from the Empress was required. As she was almost always very difficult of access, if not inaccessible, I resolved to buy, by degrees, with my own money, chests of drawers and the other more necessary articles of furniture, as well for the Winter as the Summer Palace; so that when I passed from the one house to the other, I found everything I wanted without difficulty and without the inconveniences of transport. The Grand Duke was pleased with this arrangement, and he made a similar one in his own apartments. As for Oranienbaum, which belonged to the Grand Duke, we had, at my cost, everything we needed in my private apartments. I procured all this at my own expense in order to avoid all dispute and difficulty; for his Imperial Highness, although very lavish where his own fancies were concerned, was not at all so in anything that regarded me; and generally he was anything but liberal. But as all I did in my own apartments and with my own purse served to embellish his house, he was quite content with it.
During this summer Madame Tchoglokoff conceived such a special and real affection for me, that on our return to the capital she could not do without me, and was quite ennuyée when I was not with her. The cause of this affection arose from my not responding to the advances which it had pleased her husband to make to me—a circumstance which gave me a peculiar merit in the eyes of his wife. When we returned to the Winter Palace, Madame Tchoglokoff invited me almost every evening to her rooms. There were not many people there, but always more than in my room, where I sat quite alone reading, except when the Grand Duke came in to walk up and down at a rapid pace, talking about things which interested himself, but which had no value in my eyes. These promenades would last one or two hours, and were repeated several times a-day. I was obliged to walk with him till my strength was quite exhausted, to listen with attention, and to answer him, though, for the most part, what he said had neither head nor tail; for he often gave the reins to his imagination. I remember that, during one whole winter, he was taken up with a project of building, near to Oranienbaum, a pleasure-house in the form of a convent of Capuchins, where he and I and all his suite should be dressed as Capuchins. This dress he thought charming and convenient. Every one was to have a donkey, and, in his turn, take this donkey and fetch water and bring provisions to the so-called convent. He used to laugh till he was ready to drop at the idea of the admirable and amusing effects which this invention was to produce. He made me draw a pencil-sketch of the plan of this precious work, and every day I had to add or remove something. However determined I was to comply with his humours, and bear everything with patience, I frankly avow that I was very often worn out with the annoyance of these visits, promenades, and conversations, which were insipid beyond anything I have ever seen. When he was gone, the most tiresome book appeared a delightful amusement.
Towards the end of autumn, the balls for the court and the public recommenced, as did also the rage for splendour and refinement in masquerade dresses. Count Zachar Czernicheff returned to St. Petersburg. As, on the ground of old acquaintance, I always treated him very well, it rested only with myself to give what interpretation I pleased to his attentions this time. He began by telling me that I had grown much handsomer. It was the first time in my life that anything of the kind had been said to me. I did not take it ill. Nay, more; I was credulous enough to believe that he spoke the truth. At every ball there was some fresh remark of this kind. One day, the Princess Gagarine brought me a device from him, and, on breaking it, I perceived that it had been opened and gummed together again. The motto, as usual, was printed, but it consisted of a couple of verses, very tender and full of sentiment. After dinner, I had some devices brought to me. I looked for a motto which might serve as an answer, without compromising myself. I found one, put it into a device representing an orange, and gave it to the Princess Gagarine, who delivered it to Count Czernicheff. Next morning she brought me another from him; but this time I found a motto of some lines, in his own hand. I answered it, and there we were in regular and quite sentimental correspondence. At the next masquerade, while dancing with him, he said he had a thousand things to tell me which he could not trust to paper, nor put in a device, which the Princess Gagarine might break in her pocket or lose on the way; and he entreated me to grant him a moment’s audience either in my chamber, or wherever I might deem suitable. I told him that that was an utter impossibility, that my rooms were inaccessible, and that it was also impossible for me to leave them. He told me that he would, if necessary, disguise himself as a servant; but I refused point-blank, and so the matter went no farther than this secret correspondence by means of devices. At last the Princess Gagarine began to suspect its character, scolded me for making use of her, and would not receive any more of these missives.
1752.
Amid these occurrences the year 1751 came to a close, and 1752 began. At the end of the Carnival, Count Czernicheff left to join his regiment. A few days before his departure I required to be bled; it was on a Saturday. The following Wednesday, M. Tchoglokoff invited me to his island, at the mouth of the Neva. He had a house there, consisting of a saloon in the centre and some chambers on the sides. Near this house he had some slides prepared. On arriving, I found there the Count Roman Voronzoff, who, on seeing me, said, “I have just the thing for you; I have had an excellent little sledge made for the slides.” As he had often taken me before, I accepted his offer, and the sledge was at once brought. In it was a kind of small fauteuil, on which I seated myself. He placed himself behind me, and we began to descend; but about half-way down the incline, the Count was no longer master of the sledge, and it overturned. I fell, and the Count, who was heavy and clumsy, fell on me, or rather on my left arm, in which I had been bled some four or five days before. We got up, and walked towards one of the court sledges, which was in waiting for those who descended to convey them back to the point from which they had started, so that any who wished might recommence the descent. While sitting in this sledge with the Princess Gagarine, who, with Prince Ivan Czernicheff, had followed me, the latter, together with Voronzoff, standing behind the sleigh, I felt a sensation of warmth spreading over my left arm, the cause of which I could not make out. I passed my right hand into the sleeve of my pelisse to see what was the matter, and having withdrawn it, I found it covered with blood. I told the Counts and the Princess that I thought my vein had reopened. They made the sleigh move faster, and instead of going again to the slides, we went to the house. There we found no one but a butler. I took off my pelisse, the butler gave me some vinegar, and Count Czernicheff performed the office of surgeon. We all agreed not to say a word about this adventure. As soon as my arm was set to rights, we returned to the slides. I danced the rest of the evening, then supped, and we returned home very late, without any one having the least idea of what had happened to me. However, the skin did not join smoothly for nearly a month; but it got all right by degrees.
During Lent I had a violent altercation with Madame Tchoglokoff, the cause of which was as follows: My mother had been for some time in Paris. The eldest son of General Ivan Fedorovitch Gleboff, upon his return from that capital, brought me, from her, two pieces of very rich and very beautiful stuff. While looking at them in my dressing-room, in the presence of Skourine, who unfolded them, I chanced to say that they were so beautiful that I felt tempted to present them to the Empress; and I really was watching an opportunity of speaking of them to her Majesty, whom I saw but very rarely, and then, too, mostly in public. I said nothing about them to Madame Tchoglokoff. It was a present I reserved for myself to make. I forbade Skourine to mention to any one what had fallen from my lips in his hearing. Skourine, however, went instantly to Madame Tchoglokoff, and told her what I had said. A few days afterwards, Madame Tchoglokoff came into my room and told me that the Empress sent me her thanks for my stuffs; that she had kept one of them and returned the other. I was thunderstruck on hearing this. I said to her, “How is this, Madame Tchoglokoff?” Upon this she stated that she had carried the stuffs to the Empress, having heard that I intended them for her Majesty. For the moment I felt vexed beyond measure, more so indeed than I ever remember to have been before. I stammered; I could scarcely speak. However, I said that I had proposed to myself a treat in presenting these things to the Empress myself, and that she had deprived me of this pleasure by carrying them off without my knowledge, and presenting them in that fashion to her Imperial Majesty; I reminded her that she could not know my intentions, as I had never spoken of them to her, or that if she was aware of them, it was only from the mouth of a treacherous servant, who had betrayed his mistress, who daily loaded him with kindness. Madame Tchoglokoff, who always had reasons of her own, replied, and maintained that I ought never speak to the Empress myself about anything; that she had signified to me the order of her Imperial Majesty to this effect, and that my servants were in duty bound to report to her all that I said; that, consequently, Skourine had only done his duty, and she hers, in carrying, without my knowledge, to her Majesty the stuffs I had destined for her, and that the whole matter was quite in rule. I let her speak on, for rage stopped my utterance. At last she went away. I then entered a small ante-chamber, where Skourine generally remained in the morning, and where my clothes were kept, and seeing him there, I gave him, with all my force, a well-aimed and heavy box on the ear. I told him he was a traitor, and the most ungrateful of men, for having dared to repeat to Madame Tchoglokoff what I had forbidden him to speak about; that I had loaded him with kindnesses, while he betrayed me even in such innocent words; that from that day forward I would never give him anything more, but would get him dismissed and well beaten. I asked him what he expected to gain by such conduct, telling him that I should always remain what I was, while the Tchoglokoffs, hated and detested by every one, would, in the end, get themselves dismissed by the Empress herself, who most assuredly would sooner or later discover their intense stupidity, and utter unfitness for the position in which the intrigues of a wicked man had placed them; that, if he chose, he might go and repeat to them all I had said; that he could not injure me by so doing, while he would soon see what would become of himself. The man fell at my feet crying bitterly, and begged my pardon with a repentance which appeared to me sincere. I was touched by it, and told him that his future conduct would show me what course I must take with him, and that by his behaviour I would regulate my own. He was an intelligent fellow, by no means deficient in character, and one who never broke his word to me. On the contrary, I have had the best proofs of his zeal and fidelity in the most difficult times. I complained to every one I could of the trick Madame Tchoglokoff had played me, in order that the matter might reach the Empress’ ears. The Empress, when she saw me, thanked me for my present, and I learned from a third party, that she disapproved of the way in which Madame Tchoglokoff had acted. And thus the matter ended.
After Easter we went to the Summer Palace. I had observed for some time that the Chamberlain, Serge Soltikoff, was more assiduous than usual in his attendance at court. He always came there in company with Leon Narichkine, who amused every one by his originality, of which I have already reported several traits. Serge Soltikoff was the aversion of the Princess Gagarine, of whom I was very fond, and in whom I even reposed confidence. Leon Narichkine was looked upon as a person of no sort of consequence, but very original. Soltikoff insinuated himself as much as possible into the good graces of the Tchoglokoffs. As these people were neither amiable, nor clever, nor amusing, he must have had some secret object in these attentions. Madame Tchoglokoff was at this time pregnant, and frequently indisposed. As she pretended that I amused her during the summer quite as much as in the winter, she often requested me to visit her. Soltikoff, Leon Narichkine, the Princess Gagarine, and some others, were generally at her apartments, whenever there was not a concert at the Grand Duke’s, or theatricals at court. The concerts were very wearisome to M. Tchoglokoff, who always assisted at them; but Soltikoff discovered a singular mode of keeping him occupied. I cannot conceive how he contrived to excite in a man so dull, and so utterly devoid of talent and imagination, a passion for versifying and composing songs which had not even common sense. But having made this discovery, whenever anyone wished to get rid of M. Tchoglokoff, it was only necessary to ask him to make a new song. Then, with much empressement, he would go and sit down in a corner of the room, generally near the stove, and set to work upon his song—a business which took up the evening. The song would be pronounced charming, and thus he was continually encouraged to make new ones. Leon Narichkine used to set them to music, and sing them with him; and while all this was going on, we conversed without restraint. I once had a large book of these songs, but I know not what has become of it.
During one of these concerts, Serge Soltikoff gave me to understand what was the object of his assiduous attentions. I did not reply to him at first. When he again returned to the subject, I asked him what it was he wanted of me? Hereupon he drew a charming and passionate picture of the happiness which he promised himself. I said to him, “But your wife, whom you married for love only two years ago, and of whom you were supposed to be passionately fond—and she, too, of you—what will she say to this?” He replied that all was not gold that glitters, and that he was paying dearly for a moment of infatuation. I did all I could to make him change his mind—I really expected to succeed in this—I pitied him. Unfortunately, I listened also. He was very handsome, and certainly had not his equal at the Imperial court, still less at ours. He was not wanting in mind, nor in that finish of accomplishments, manner, and style which the great world gives, and especially a court. He was twenty-six years old. Take him all in all, he was by birth, and by many other qualities, a distinguished gentleman. As for his faults, he managed to hide them. The greatest of all was a love of intrigue and a want of principle. These were not unfolded to my eyes. I held out all the spring, and a part of the autumn. I saw him almost every day, and made no change in my conduct towards him. I was the same to him as I was to all others, and never saw him but in the presence of the court, or of a part of it. One day, to get rid of him, I made up my mind to tell him that he was misdirecting his attentions. I added, “How do you know that my heart is not engaged elsewhere?” This, however, instead of discouraging him, only made his pursuit all the more ardent. In all this there was no thought of the dear husband, for it was a known and admitted fact, that he was not at all amiable, even to the objects with whom he was in love; and he was always in love; in fact, he might be said to pay court to every woman, except the one who bore the name of his wife; she alone was excluded from all share of his attentions.
In the midst of all this, Tchoglokoff invited us to a hunting party on his island, whither we went in a skiff, our horses being sent on before. Immediately on our arrival I mounted my horse, and we went to find the dogs. Soltikoff seized the moment when the rest were in pursuit of the hares to approach me and speak of his favourite subject. I listened more attentively than usual. He described to me the plan which he had arranged for enshrouding, as he said, in profound mystery, the happiness which might be enjoyed in such a case. I did not say a word. He took advantage of my silence to persuade me that he loved me passionately, and he begged that I would allow him to hope, at least, that he was not wholly indifferent to me. I told him he might amuse himself with hoping what he pleased, as I could not prevent his thoughts. Finally he drew comparisons between himself and others at the court, and made me confess that he was preferable to them. From that he concluded that he was preferred. I laughed at all this, but I admitted that he was agreeable to me. At the end of an hour and a-half’s conversation, I desired him to leave me, since so long a conversation might give rise to suspicion. He said he would not go unless I told him that I consented. I answered, “Yes, yes; but go away.” He said, “Then it is settled,” and put spurs to his horse. I cried after him, “No, no;” but he repeated, “Yes, yes.” And thus we separated. On our return to the house, which was on the island, we had supper, during which there sprung up such a heavy gale from the sea, that the waves rose so high that they even reached the steps of the house. In fact, the whole island was under water to the depth of several feet. We were obliged to remain until the storm had abated, and the waters retreated, which was not until between two and three in the morning. During this time, Soltikoff told me that heaven itself had favoured him that day, by enabling him to enjoy my presence for a longer time, with many other things to the same effect. He thought himself already quite happy. As for me, I was not at all so. A thousand apprehensions troubled me, and I was unusually dull, and very much out of conceit with myself. I had persuaded myself that I could easily govern both his passions and my own, and I found that both tasks were difficult, if not impossible.
Two days after this, Soltikoff informed me that one of the Grand Duke’s valets de chambre, Bressan, a Frenchman, had told him that his Imperial Highness had said in his room, “Sergius Soltikoff and my wife deceive Tchoglokoff, make him believe whatever they like, and then laugh at him.” To tell the truth, there was something of this kind, and the Grand Duke had perceived it. I answered, by advising him to be more circumspect for the future. Some days afterwards I caught a very bad sore throat, which lasted more than three weeks, with a violent fever, during which the Empress sent to me the Princess Kourakine, who was about to be married to Prince Lobanoff. I was to dress her hair. For this purpose she had to sit on my bed, in her court-dress and hooped petticoats. I did my best; but Madame Tchoglokoff, seeing that it was impossible for me to manage it, made her get off my bed, and finished dressing her herself. I have never seen the lady since then.
The Grand Duke was at this period making love to Mademoiselle Martha Isaevna Schafiroff, whom the Empress had recently placed with me, as also her elder sister, Anna Isaevna. Serge Soltikoff, who was a devil for intrigue, insinuated himself into the favour of these girls, in order to learn anything the Grand Duke might say to them relative to him. These young ladies were poor, rather silly, and very selfish, and, in fact, they became wonderfully confidential in a very short time.
In the midst of all this we went to Oranienbaum, where again I was every day on horseback, and wore no other than a man’s dress, except on Sundays. Tchoglokoff and his wife had become as gentle as lambs. In the eyes of Madame Tchoglokoff I possessed a new merit; I fondled and caressed a great deal one of her children, who was with her. I made clothes for him, and gave him all sorts of playthings and dresses. Now the mother was dotingly fond of this child, who subsequently became such a scapegrace that, for his pranks, he was sentenced to confinement in a fortress for fifteen years. Soltikoff had become the friend, the confidant and the counsellor of M. and Madame Tchoglokoff. Assuredly no person in his senses could ever have submitted to so hard a task as that of listening to two proud, arrogant, and conceited fools, talking nonsense all day long, without having some great object in view. Many, therefore, were the guesses, many the suppositions, as to what this object could be. These reached Peterhoff and the ears of the Empress. Now at this period it often happened that when her Majesty wished to scold any one, she did not scold for what she might well complain of, but seized some pretext for finding fault about something which no one would ever have thought she could object to. This is the remark of a courtier; I have it from the lips of its author, Zachar Czernicheff. At Oranienbaum, every one of our suite had agreed, men as well as women, to have, for this summer, dresses of the same colour; the body gray, the rest blue, with a collar of black velvet, and no trimmings. This uniformity was convenient in more respects than one. It was on this style of dress that she fixed, and more especially on the circumstance that I always wore a riding habit, and rode like a man at Peterhoff. One court day the Empress said to Madame Tchoglokoff that this fashion of riding prevented my having children, and that my dress was not at all becoming; that when she rode on horseback she changed her dress. Madame Tchoglokoff replied, that as to having children, this had nothing to do with the matter; that children could not come without a cause; and that, although their Imperial Highnesses had been married ever since 1745, the cause nevertheless did not exist. Thereupon her Imperial Majesty scolded Madame Tchoglokoff, and told her she blamed her for this, because she neglected to lecture, on this matter, the parties concerned; and on the whole, she showed much ill-humour, and said that her husband was a mere night-cap, who allowed himself to be worn by a set of dirty-nosed brats (des morveux). All this, in four-and-twenty hours, had reached their confidants. At this term of morveux, the morveux wiped their noses; and, in a very special council held on the matter by them, it was resolved and decreed that, in order to follow out strictly the wishes of her Imperial Majesty, Sergius Soltikoff and Leon Narichkine should incur a pretended disgrace at the hands of M. Tchoglokoff, of which perhaps he himself would not be at all aware; that under pretext of the illness of their relatives, they should retire to their homes for three weeks or a month, in order to allow the rumours which were current to die away. This was carried out to the letter, and the next day they departed, to confine themselves to their own houses for a month. As for me, I immediately changed my style of dress; besides, the other had now become useless. The first idea of this uniformity of attire had been suggested to us by the dress worn on court-days at Peterhoff. The body was white, the rest green, and the whole trimmed all over with silver lace. Soltikoff, who was of a dark complexion, used to say that he looked like a fly in milk, in this dress of white and silver. I continued to frequent the society of the Tchoglokoffs as before, although it was now dreadfully wearisome. The husband and wife were full of regrets for the absence of the chief attractions of their society, in which most assuredly I did not contradict them. The illness of Soltikoff prolonged his absence, and during it the Empress sent us orders to come from Oranienbaum and join her at Cronstadt, whither she was about to proceed, in order to admit the waters into the canal of Peter I. That Emperor had commenced the work, and just then it was completed. She arrived at Cronstadt before us. The night following was very stormy, and, as immediately on her arrival, she had sent us orders to join her, she supposed we must have been caught in the storm, and was in great anxiety all night. She fancied that a ship, which could be seen from her window, labouring in the sea, might be the yacht in which we were to make the voyage. She had recourse to the relics which she always kept by her bedside; carried them to the window, and kept moving them in a direction opposite to the ship which was tossing in the storm. She exclaimed repeatedly that we should certainly be lost, and that it would be all her fault, because a short time previously she had sent us a reprimand for not showing her more prompt obedience, and she now supposed we must have set out immediately on the arrival of the yacht. But, in fact, the yacht did not reach Oranienbaum until after the storm, so that we did not go on board until the afternoon of the next day. We remained three days at Cronstadt, during which the blessing of the canal took place with very great solemnity, and the waters were, for the first time, let into it. After dinner there was a grand ball. The Empress wished to remain at Cronstadt to see the waters let out again, but she left on the third day without this having been effected. The canal was never dried from that time, until, in my reign, I caused the steam-mill to be constructed which empties it. Otherwise, the thing would have been impossible, the bottom of the canal being lower than the sea; but this was not perceived at that time.
From Cronstadt every one returned to his own quarters; the Empress went to Peterhoff, and we to Oranienbaum. M. Tchoglokoff asked and obtained leave to go for a month to one of his estates. During his absence Madame Tchoglokoff gave herself a great deal of trouble to execute the Empress’ orders to the letter. At first she had many conferences with Bressan, the Grand Duke’s valet de chambre. Bressan found at Oranienbaum a pretty woman named Madame Groot, the widow of a painter. It took several days to persuade her, to promise her I know not what, and then to instruct her in what they wanted of her, and to what she was to lend herself. At last Bressan was charged with the duty of making this young and pretty widow known to the Grand Duke. I clearly saw that Madame Tchoglokoff was deep in some intrigue, but I knew not what. At last, Serge Soltikoff returned from his voluntary exile, and told me pretty nearly how matters stood. Finally, after much trouble, Madame Tchoglokoff gained her end, and when she felt sure of this she informed the Empress that everything was going on as she wished. She expected a great reward for her trouble; but in this she was much mistaken, for nothing was given her; however, she maintained that the Empire was in her debt. Immediately after this we returned to the city.
It was at this time that I persuaded the Grand Duke to break off the negotiations with Denmark. I reminded him of the advice of the Count de Bernis, who had already departed for Vienna. He listened to me, and ordered the negotiations to be closed without anything being concluded: and this was done. After a short stay at the Summer Palace, we returned to the Winter Palace.
It seemed to me that Serge Soltikoff was beginning to be relax in his attentions; that he became absent, sometimes absurd, arrogant, and dissipated. I was vexed at this, and spoke to him on the subject. He gave me but poor excuses, and pretended that I did not understand the extreme cleverness of his conduct. He was right, for I did think it strange enough. We were told to get ready for the journey to Moscow, which we did. We left St. Petersburg on the 14th of December, 1752. Soltikoff remained behind, and did not follow us for several weeks after. I left the city with some slight indications of pregnancy. We travelled very rapidly day and night. At the last stage before reaching Moscow, these signs disappeared with violent spasms. On our arrival, and seeing the turn things were taking, I felt satisfied that I had had a miscarriage. Madame Tchoglokoff also remained behind at St. Petersburg, as she had just been delivered of her last child, which was a girl. This was the seventh. On her recovery she joined us at Moscow.
1753.
Here we lodged in a wing built of wood, constructed only this autumn, and in such a way that the water ran down the wainscoting, and all the apartments were exceedingly damp. This wing consisted of two ranges of apartments, each having five or six large rooms, of which those looking to the street were for me, and those on the other side for the Grand Duke. In the one intended for my toilet, my maids and ladies of the bedchamber were lodged, together with their servants; so that there were seventeen girls and women lodged in one room, which had, it is true, three large windows, but no other outlet than my bed-room, through which, for every kind of purpose, they were obliged to pass, a thing neither pleasant for them nor for me. We were obliged to put up with this inconvenience, of which I have never seen the like. Besides, the room in which they took their meals was one of my ante-chambers. I was ill when I arrived. To remedy this inconvenience, I had some very large screens placed in my bed-room, by means of which I divided it into three; but this was scarcely of any use, for the doors were opening and shutting continually, as was unavoidable. At last, on the tenth day, the Empress came to see me, and observing the continual passing to and fro, she went into the other chamber, and said to my women, “I will have a different outlet made for you than through the sleeping-room of the Grand Duchess.” But what did she do? She ordered a partition to be made, which took away one of the windows of a room in which, even before this, seventeen persons could hardly exist. Here, then, was the chamber made smaller in order to gain a passage; the window was opened towards the street, a flight of steps was led up to it, and thus my women were obliged to pass and repass along the street. Under their window, necessaries were placed for them; in going to dinner, they must again pass along the street. In a word, this arrangement was worthless, and I cannot tell how it was that these seventeen women, thus huddled up and crowded together, did not catch a putrid fever; and all this, too, close to my bed-room, which, in consequence, was so filled with vermin of every kind that I could not sleep. At last, Madame Tchoglokoff, having recovered after her accouchement, arrived at Moscow, as did, some days later, Serge Soltikoff. As Moscow is very large, and people much dispersed in it, he availed himself of this locality, so favourable to the purpose, to conceal the decrease of his attentions, feigned or real, at court. To tell the truth, I was grieved at this; however, he gave me such good and specious reasons for it, that as soon as I had seen him and spoken to him, my annoyance on the subject vanished. We agreed that, in order to decrease the number of his enemies, I should get some remark repeated to Count Bestoujeff which might lead him to hope that I was less averse to him than in former days. With this message I charged a person called Bremse, who was employed in the Holstein Chancery of M. Pechline. This person, when not at court, frequently went to the residence of the Chancellor Count Bestoujeff. He eagerly accepted the commission, and brought me back word that the Chancellor was delighted, and said that I might command him as often as I thought proper, and that if, on his part, he could be of any use to me, he begged me to point out to him some safe channel by which we might communicate with each other. I perceived his drift, and I told Bremse that I would think of it. I repeated this to Soltikoff, and it was immediately settled that he should go to the Chancellor on the plea of a visit, as he had but just arrived. The old man gave him a most cordial reception; took him aside, spoke to him of the internal condition of our court, of the stupidity of the Tchoglokoffs, saying, among other things, “I know, although you are their intimate friends, that you understand them as well as I do, for you are a young man of sense.” Then he spoke of me, and of my situation, just as if he had lived in my room; adding, “In gratitude for the good-will which the Grand Duchess has so kindly evinced for me, I am going to do her a little service, for which she will, I think, thank me. I will make Madame Vladislava as gentle as a lamb for her, so that she will be able to do with her whatever she pleases; she will see that I am not such an ogre as I have been represented to her.” Finally, Serge Soltikoff returned, enchanted with his commission and his man. He gave him some advice for himself, also, as wise as it was useful. All this made him very intimate with us, without any one having the least suspicion of the fact.
In the meanwhile Madame Tchoglokoff, who never lost sight of her favourite project of watching over the succession, took me aside one day and said, “Listen to me, I must speak to you with all sincerity.” I opened my eyes and ears, and not without cause. She began with a long preamble, after her fashion, respecting her attachment to her husband, her own prudent conduct, what was necessary and what was not necessary for ensuring mutual love and facilitating conjugal ties; and then she went on to say, that occasionally there were situations in which a higher interest demanded an exception to the rule. I let her talk on without interruption, not knowing what she was driving at, a good deal astonished, and uncertain whether it was not a snare she was laying for me, or whether she was speaking with sincerity. Just as I was making these reflections in my own mind, she said to me, “You shall presently see whether I love my country, and whether I am sincere; I do not doubt but you have cast an eye of preference upon some one or other; I leave you to choose between Sergius Soltikoff and Leon Narichkine—if I do not mistake, it is the latter.” Here I exclaimed, “No no! not at all.” “Well, then,” she said, “if it be not Narichkine, it is Soltikoff.” To that I made no reply, and she went on saying, “You shall see that it will not be I who will throw difficulties in your way.” I played the simpleton to such a degree, that she scolded me for it several times, both in town and in the country, whither we went after Easter.
It was at that time, or thereabout, that the Empress gave to the Grand Duke the lands of Liberitza, and several others, at a distance of fourteen or fifteen verstes from Moscow. But before we went to reside on these new possessions of his Imperial Highness, the Empress celebrated the anniversary of her coronation at Moscow. This was the 25th of April. It was announced to us that she had ordered the ceremony to be observed exactly as it had been on the very day of her coronation. We were curious to know how this would be. The evening before, she went to sleep at the Kremlin. We stayed at the Sloboda, in the wooden palace, and received orders to go to mass at the cathedral. At nine o’clock in the morning we started from the wooden palace in the state carriage, our servants walking on foot. We traversed the whole of Moscow, step by step—the distance through the city being as much as seven verstes—and we alighted at the cathedral. A few moments after the Empress arrived with her retinue, wearing the small crown on her head, and the imperial mantle, borne as usual by her chamberlains. She went to her ordinary seat in the church, and in all this there was, as yet, nothing unusual—nothing that was not practised at all the other fêtes of her reign. The church was damp and cold to a degree that I had never before felt. I was quite blue, and frozen in my court-dress and with bare neck. The Empress sent me word to put on a sable tippet, but I had not one with me. She ordered her own to be brought, took one, and put it on her neck. I saw another in the box, and thought she was going to send it to me, but I was mistaken—she sent it back. This I thought a pretty evident sign of displeasure. Madame Tchoglokoff, who saw that I was shivering, procured me, from some one, a silk kerchief, which I put round my neck. When mass and the sermon were over, the Empress left the church, and we were preparing to follow her, when she sent us word that we might return home. It was then we learned that she was going to dine alone on the throne, and that in this respect the ceremonial would be observed just as it was on the day of her coronation, when she had dined alone. Excluded from this dinner, we returned, as we had come, in great state, our people on foot, making a journey of fourteen verstes, going and returning, through the city of Moscow, and we benumbed with cold and dying of hunger. If the Empress seemed to us in a very bad temper during mass, this disagreeable evidence of want of attention, to say no more, did not leave us in the best of humours either. At the other great festivals, when she dined on the throne, we had the honour of dining with her; this time she repelled us publicly. Returning alone in the carriage with the Grand Duke, I told him what I thought of this, and he said that he would complain of it. On reaching home, half dead with cold and fatigue, I complained to Madame Tchoglokoff of having caught cold. The next day there was a ball at the wooden palace; I said I was ill, and did not go. The Grand Duke really did make some complaint or other to the Schouvaloffs on the subject, and they sent him some answer, which appeared satisfactory to him, and nothing more was said about the matter.
About this time we learned that Zachar Czernicheff and Colonel Nicholas Leontieff had had a quarrel, while at play, in the house of Roman Voronzoff; that they had fought with swords, and that Zachar Czernicheff had received a severe wound in the head. It was so serious that he could not be removed from Count Voronzoff’s house to his own. He remained there, was very ill, and there was some talk of trepanning him. I was very sorry for him, for I liked him very much. Leontieff was arrested by order of the Empress. This combat set the whole city in a ferment, on account of the extensive connections of both the champions. Leontieff was the son-in-law of the Countess Roumianzoff, a very near relative of the Panines and Kourakines. The other, also, had relatives, friends, and protectors. The occurrence had taken place at the house of Count Roman Voronzoff; the wounded man was still there. At last, when the danger was over, the affair was hushed up, and matters went no farther.
In the course of the month of May, I again had indications of pregnancy. We went to Liberitza, an estate of the Grand Duke, twelve or fourteen verstes from Moscow. The stone house which was on it, had been built a long time ago by Prince Menchikoff, and was now falling to decay, so that we could not live in it. As a substitute, tents were set up in the court, and every morning, at two or three o’clock, my sleep was broken by the sound of the axe, and the noises made in building a wooden wing, which was being hurriedly erected, within two paces, so to speak, of our tents, in order that we might have a place to live in during the remainder of the summer. The rest of our time we spent in hunting, walking, or riding. I no longer went on horseback, but in a cabriolet. About the Feast of St. Peter we returned to Moscow. I was seized with such drowsiness that I slept every day till noon, and then it was only with difficulty that I was awakened in time for dinner. The Feast of St. Peter was kept in the usual way: I was present at Mass, at the dinner, the ball, and the supper. Next morning I felt great pains in my loins. Madame Tchoglokoff summoned a midwife, who predicted the miscarriage, which actually occurred the following night. I might have been with child two or three months. For thirteen days I was in great danger, as it was suspected that a portion of the after-birth had remained behind. This circumstance was kept a secret from me. At last, on the thirteenth day, it came away of itself—without pain, or even a struggle. In consequence of this accident I had to keep my room for six weeks, during which the heat was insupportable. The Empress came to see me the day I fell ill, and appeared to be affected by my state. During the six weeks that I kept my room I was nearly tired to death. The only society I had was Madame Tchoglokoff, who came but rarely, and a little Kalmuck girl, whom I liked for her pretty, agreeable ways. I frequently cried from ennui. As for the Grand Duke, he was mostly in his own room, where one of his valets, a Ukrainian, named Karnovitch, a fool as well as a drunkard, did his best to amuse him; furnishing him with toys, with wine, and such other strong liquors as he could procure, without the knowledge of M. Tchoglokoff, who, in fact, was deceived and made a fool of by every one. But in these nocturnal and secret orgies with the servants of the chamber, among whom were several young Kalmucks, the Grand Duke often found himself ill-obeyed and ill-served; for, being drunk, they knew not what they did, and forgot that they were with their master, and that that master was the Grand Duke. Then his Imperial Highness would have recourse to blows with his stick, or the blade of his sword; but in spite of all this, he was ill-obeyed; and more than once he had recourse to me, complaining of his people, and begging me to make them listen to reason. On these occasions I used to go to his rooms, give them a good scolding, and remind them of their duties, when they would instantly resume their proper places. This made the Grand Duke often say to me, and also to Bressan, that he could not conceive how I managed those people; for, as for himself, though he belaboured them soundly, yet he could not make them obedient, while I, with a single word, could get them to do whatever I wished. One day when I went for this purpose into the apartments of his Imperial Highness, I beheld a great rat, which he had had hung—with all the paraphernalia of an execution—in the middle of a cabinet, formed by means of a partition. I asked him what all this meant. He told me that this rat had committed a crime; one which, according to the laws of war, was deserving of capital punishment; it had climbed over the ramparts of a fortress of cardboard which he had on the table in his cabinet, and had eaten two sentinels, made of pith, who were on duty at the bastions. He had had the criminal tried by martial law, his setter having caught him, and he was immediately hung, as I saw, and was to remain there exposed to the public gaze for three days, as an example. I could not help bursting into a loud laugh at the extreme folly of the thing; but this greatly displeased him. Seeing the importance he attached to the matter, I retired, excusing myself on account of my ignorance, as a woman, of military law; but this did not prevent his being very much out of humour with me on account of my laughter. In justification of the rat, however, it may at least be said, that he was hung without having been questioned or heard in his own defence.
During this stay of the court at Moscow, it happened that one of the court footmen became insane, and violently so. The Empress gave orders that her chief physician, Boërhave, should take charge of him. He was placed in a chamber close to that of Boërhave, who resided at court. Besides this case, it also happened that several other persons went out of their mind this year. In proportion as these cases came under the notice of the Empress, she had the persons brought to court and lodged near Boërhave, so that they formed a sort of mad-house at court. I remember that the principal persons among them was Tchedajeff, a major of the Semenofsky guards; a Lieutenant-Colonel Lintrum; a Major Tchoglokoff; a monk of the convent of Voskresensky, who emasculated himself with a razor, and several others. The madness of Tchedajeff consisted in his believing Nadir-Schah, otherwise Thamas-Kuli-Khan, the usurper and tyrant of Persia, to be God. When the physicians could not succeed in curing him of his delusion, they placed him in the hands of the priests. These persuaded the Empress to have him exorcised. She herself assisted at the ceremony; but Tchedajeff remained, to all appearance, as mad as before. There were, however, people who had doubts of his lunacy, as he was quite reasonable on every other point, but that of Nadir-Schah; his friends even consulted him about their affairs, and he gave them very sensible advice. Those who did not believe him mad, gave as a reason for his affectation of madness his having had some trouble on his hands, from which he extricated himself by this ruse. At the beginning of the Empress’ reign he had been supervisor of taxes, had been accused of extortion, and was threatened with a trial, in dread of which he took up this fancy, which extricated him from the difficulty.
In the middle of August, 1753, we returned to the country. To keep the 5th of September, the Feast of the Empress, she went to the convent of Voskresensky. Whilst there, the church was struck with lightning; fortunately her Imperial Majesty was in a chapel at the side of the great church, and only learnt the fact through the terror of the courtiers; however, there was no one either hurt or killed by the accident. A little while afterwards she returned to Moscow, whither we also repaired from Liberitza. Upon our return to the city, we saw the Princess of Courland kiss the Empress’ hand in public for the permission which had been given her to marry Prince George Hovansky. She had quarrelled with the object of her first engagement, Peter Soltikoff, who immediately afterwards married a Princess Sonzoff. On the 1st of November of this year, at three o’clock in the afternoon, I was in Madame Tchoglokoff’s room, when her husband, Serge Soltikoff, Leon Narichkine, and several other gentlemen of the court, left us to go to the apartments of the Chamberlain Schouvaloff, to congratulate him on his birthday, which fell on that day. Madame Tchoglokoff, the Princess Gagarine, and I were talking together, when, after hearing some noise in a little chapel close by, a couple of these gentlemen ran in, telling us that they had been prevented from passing through the halls of the chateau, as it was on fire. I immediately went to my room, and, as I passed through an ante-chamber, I saw that the balustrade at the corner of the great hall was on fire. It was about twenty paces from our wing. On entering my apartments, I found them already filled with soldiers and servants, who were removing the furniture, and carrying off everything they could. Madame Tchoglokoff followed me, and as there was nothing more to be done but wait till it caught fire, we left. At the gate we found the carriage of the chapel-master, Araga, who had come to attend a concert given by the Grand Duke, whom I had already informed of the accident. We entered the carriage: the streets were covered with mud, in consequence of the previous heavy rains. Here we had a view of the fire and of the way in which the people were carrying out the furniture from every part of the house. I here saw a strange sight, viz: the astonishing number of rats and mice which were descending the staircase in file without over-much hurrying themselves. The want of engines rendered it impossible to save this immense wooden structure, and, besides, the few that were there were kept under the very staircase which was on fire; this, too, occupied very nearly the centre of the surrounding buildings, which covered a space of some two or three verstes in circumference. The heat became so great that we could not bear it, so that we were obliged to have the carriage driven some few hundred paces outwards. At last M. Tchoglokoff and the Grand Duke came and told us that the Empress was going to Pokrovsky House, and had given orders that we should go to M. Tchoglokoff’s, which formed the right hand corner of the main street of the Sloboda. We at once repaired thither. The house had a hall in the centre and four chambers on each side. It was hardly possible to be more uncomfortable than we were here; the wind blew in every direction, the windows and doors were all half rotten, and the planks of the floor open to the breadth of three or four inches; besides this, there was vermin everywhere. Here resided the children and servants of M. Tchoglokoff. As we entered they were sent out, and we were lodged in this horrible house, which was almost bare of furniture.
On the day after we took up our abode here, I saw what a Kalmuck’s nose could hold. The little girl whom I kept near me, on my waking, pointed to her nose, and said, “I have a nut here.” I felt her nose, but could not find anything. All the morning, however, she kept repeating, over and over again, that she had a nut in her nose. She was a child of from four to five years old. No one could tell what she meant by a nut in her nose. But about noon, as she was running along, she fell down, and struck against the table. This made her cry; while crying, she took out her pocket-handkerchief and wiped her nose, and in doing so the nut fell from it. I saw this myself, and could then understand how a nut, which could not be held in any European nose without being perceived, might be held in the hollow of a Kalmuck nose, which is placed within the head between two immense cheeks.
Our clothes, and everything else, had been left in the mud in front of the burning palace, and were brought to us during the night and following day. What I most regretted was my books. I was at this time just finishing the fourth volume of Bayle’s Dictionary: I had spent two years in reading it, and got through a volume every six months. From this one may judge of the solitude in which my life was passed. At last my books were brought to me. My clothes were found, those of the Countess Schouvaloff, etc. Madame Vladislava showed me, as a curiosity, this lady’s petticoats. They were lined behind with leather, as she was unable to retain her water—an infirmity which had afflicted her ever since her first accouchement. All her petticoats were impregnated with the smell, and I sent them back in all haste to the owner. In this fire the Empress lost all that had been brought to Moscow of her immense wardrobe. She did me the honour of telling me that she had lost 4,000 dresses, and that of all these the only one that she regretted was the one made from the piece of stuff which I had received from my mother. She also lost, on this occasion, several other valuables; amongst them a bowl covered with engraved stones, which Count Roumianzoff had purchased at Constantinople, and for which he had paid 8,000 ducats. All those effects had been placed in a wardrobe over the hall which had caught fire. This hall served as a vestibule to the grand hall of the palace. At ten o’clock in the morning, the men whose duty it was to light the stoves had come to heat this entrance-hall. After putting the wood into the stove, they lighted it as usual. This done, the room became filled with smoke; they thought that it escaped by some imperceptible holes in the stove, and set to work to cover with clay the interstices of the tiles. The smoke increasing, they tried to find some chinks in the stove, but not finding any, they perceived that the outlet must be between the partitions of the apartment. These partitions were only of wood. They got water, and put out the fire in the stove, but the smoke still increased, and made its way into the ante-chamber, where there was a sentinel of the horse-guards. The latter, expecting to be suffocated, and not daring to move from his post, broke a pane of glass, and began to cry out; but no one coming to his assistance, nor hearing him, he fired his musket through the window. The report was heard by the main guard, which was posted opposite the palace. They ran to him, and on coming in, found the place filled with a dense smoke, out of which they withdrew the sentinel. The stove heaters were put under arrest. They had hoped to extinguish the fire, or at least prevent the smoke from increasing without being obliged to give any alarm; and they had been hard at work with this view for five hours.
This fire gave rise to a discovery on the part of M. Tchoglokoff. The Grand Duke had in his apartments several very large chests of drawers. As they were being carried out, some of the drawers, being either open or badly fastened, disclosed to the spectators what they were filled with. Who would have thought it? The drawers contained nothing but a great quantity of bottles of wine and strong liquors. They served his Imperial Highness for a cellar. Tchoglokoff spoke to me on the matter, and I told him I was quite ignorant of the circumstance, which was the truth; I knew nothing of it, but I was a frequent, indeed, almost a daily witness of the Grand Duke’s drunkenness.
After the fire we remained in Tchoglokoff’s house for nearly six weeks. While residing here, we often had to pass in front of a house, situated in a garden near the Soltikoff Bridge. It belonged to the Empress, and was called the Bishop’s House, because she had bought it of a bishop. The idea occurred to us of asking her Majesty, unknown to the Tchoglokoffs, to allow us to occupy it, for it appeared to us, and we were also told that it was, more habitable than the one we were in. We received orders to go and take up our abode in the Bishop’s House. It was a very old wooden house, from which there was no view, but it was built on stone vaults, and by this means was higher than the one we had just quitted, which had only a ground floor. The stoves were so old, that when lighted, one could see the fire through the furnace, so numerous were the chinks and cracks, while the rooms were filled with smoke. We all had headaches and sore eyes. In fact, we ran the risk of being burnt alive in this house. There was only one wooden staircase, and the windows were very high. The place actually did catch fire two or three times while we were there, but we succeeded in extinguishing the flames. I caught there a bad sore throat, with a great deal of fever. The day I fell ill, M. de Breithardt, who had returned to Russia on the part of the Austrian court, was to sup with us, previously to taking leave. He found me with red and swollen eyes, and thought I had been crying: nor was he mistaken: ennui, indisposition, and the physical and moral discomforts of my position had given me much hypochondria. During the whole day, which I passed with Madame Tchoglokoff, waiting for those who never came, she kept saying every moment, “See how they desert us.” Her husband had dined out, and taken everybody with him. In spite of all the promises which Serge Soltikoff had made us to steal away from this dinner party, he only returned with M. Tchoglokoff. All this put me in a very bad humour. At last, some days afterwards, we were allowed to go to Liberitza. Here we thought ourselves in paradise; the house was quite new, and tolerably well fitted up. We danced every evening, and all our court was collected there. At one of these balls we saw the Grand Duke occupied a long while in whispering to M. Tchoglokoff, who, subsequently, appeared vexed, absent, and more close and scowling than usual. Serge Soltikoff seeing this, and finding that Tchoglokoff treated him with great coolness, went and sat down by the side of Mademoiselle Martha Schafiroff, and tried to discover what could be the meaning of this unusual intimacy between the Grand Duke and M. Tchoglokoff. She told him that she did not know, but that the Grand Duke had on several occasions said to her, “Serge Soltikoff and my wife deceive Tchoglokoff in the most unheard-of way. He is in love with the Grand Duchess; but she cannot endure him: Soltikoff is the confidant of Tchoglokoff, and makes him believe that he is working for him with my wife, while instead of that he is working for himself with her. She can very well endure Soltikoff, for he is amusing: she makes use of him to manage Tchoglokoff just as she pleases, and, in reality, she laughs at them both. I must undeceive that poor devil Tchoglokoff, who excites my pity. I must tell him the truth, and then he will see who is his true friend—my wife or I.” As soon as Soltikoff became aware of this dangerous dialogue, and of his delicate position in consequence, he repeated it to me, and then went and seated himself by the side of Tchoglokoff, and asked him what was the matter with him. The latter at first was unwilling to enter into any explanation, and merely sighed; then he began uttering jeremiads on the difficulty of finding faithful friends. At last Soltikoff turned and twisted him in so many different directions, that he drew from him an avowal of the conversation which he had just had with the Grand Duke. No one certainly could have formed any idea of what had passed between them, without being told of it. The Grand Duke began by making great protestations of friendship to Tchoglokoff, saying that it was only in the most important circumstances of life that it was possible to distinguish true friends from false; that to show the sincerity of his own friendship, he was going to give him a very emphatic proof of his frankness; that he knew, beyond doubt, that he was in love with me; that he did not impute it to him as a crime that I should appear agreeable to him, for that no one was master of his own heart; but that, nevertheless, he ought to apprise him that he had made a bad choice of confidants, and in his simplicity believed Serge Soltikoff to be his friend, and working in his interest with me, whereas he was only working for himself, and he suspected he was his rival; that, as for me, I laughed at them both, but if M. Tchoglokoff would follow his advice and trust in him then he would see that he was his only and true friend. M. Tchoglokoff gave the Grand Duke many thanks for his friendship, and his proffers of friendship; but in reality he considered all the rest as mere chimeras and delusions on his part.
It may easily be believed that, in any case, he did not much wish for a confidant who, both by his rank and character, was as little to be trusted as he was able to be useful. This matter being once stated, Soltikoff had but little trouble in restoring tranquillity to Tchoglokoff’s mind, for he was not in the habit of attaching much importance nor paying much attention to the discourses of a person so devoid of judgment, and so generally known to be so. When I learnt all this, I must confess I was extremely indignant with the Grand Duke, and, to prevent his returning to the subject, I told him that I was not ignorant of what had passed between him and Tchoglokoff. He blushed, said nothing, went off, sulked, and so the matter ended.
On returning to Moscow, we left the Bishop’s House for apartments in what was called the Empress’ Summer House, which had not been burnt. The Empress had had new apartments constructed in the space of six weeks. For this purpose beams had been transported from Perova House, from Count Hendrikoff’s, and from the dwelling of the Princes of Georgia. At last she took possession of these rooms about the beginning of the new year.
1754.
The Empress kept the new-year’s day of 1754 in this palace, and the Grand Duke and I had the honour of dining with her in public on the throne. At table, her majesty seemed very lively and talkative. Around the throne, tables were laid for several hundred persons of the highest rank. At dinner the Empress asked who was that thin and ugly woman, with a crane’s neck, whom she saw seated there (pointing to the place); she was told it was Mademoiselle Martha Schafiroff. She burst into a laugh, and, turning to me, remarked that this reminded her of a Russian proverb, which said, “A long neck is only good for hanging.” I could not but smile at the point of this imperial sarcasm, which did not fall unheeded, for the courtiers passed it on from mouth to mouth, so that on rising from table, I found several persons who already knew of it. Whether the Grand Duke heard it, I know not, but at all events he did not allude to it, and I took care not to mention it to him.
Never was a year more fertile in fires than that of 1753-54. I have several times seen, from the windows of my apartments in the Summer Palace, two, three, four, and even five fires at once in different parts of Moscow. During the Carnival, the Empress gave orders for several balls and masquerades to be given in her apartments, at one of which I saw her engaged in a long conversation with the wife of General Matiouchkine. This lady was unwilling that her son should marry the Princess Gagarine. But the Empress persuaded her, and the Princess Gagarine, who numbered a good thirty years, had permission to marry M. Dmitri Matiouchkine. She was much pleased at this, and so was I. It was a marriage of inclination. Matiouchkine was at this time very handsome. Madame Tchoglokoff did not come with us to our summer apartments. Under different pretexts she remained, with her children, in her own house, which was very near the court. But the truth is, that, virtuous and loving wife as she was, she had conceived a passion for Prince Peter Repnine, and a marked aversion for her husband. She thought she could not be happy without a confidant, and I appeared to her the most trustworthy person. She showed me all the letters she received from her lover. I kept her secret faithfully, with scrupulous exactitude and prudence. Her interviews with the Prince were very secret; yet in spite of this the husband had some suspicions. An officer of the horse-guards named Kaminine, had given rise to them. This man was jealousy and suspicion personified: it was his nature. He was an old friend of Tchoglokoff. The latter opened his mind to Serge Soltikoff, who endeavoured to tranquillize him. I was careful not to tell Soltikoff anything I knew, for fear of some involuntary indiscretion on his part. At last the husband also sounded me a little. I pretended ignorance and astonishment, and held my tongue.
In the month of February I had some signs of pregnancy. On Easter Sunday, during mass, Tchoglokoff fell ill of the dry cholic; they gave him various remedies, but his disease only grew worse. During Easter week, the Grand Duke, with the gentlemen of our court, went out riding. Serge Soltikoff was of the number. I remained at home, for they were afraid to let me go out in my present condition, especially as I had twice miscarried. I was alone in my room when M. Tchoglokoff sent me a request to come to him. I went, and found him in bed. He made a thousand complaints of his wife; told me she saw Prince Repnine; that he went to her house on foot; that, during the Carnival, he had gone there, one courtball day, dressed as a harlequin; that Kaminine had had him followed; in short, God only knows all the details he gave me.
Just as he was most excited, his wife arrived; whereupon he began, in my presence, to load her with reproaches, telling her that she deserted him in his sickness. They were both very suspicious and narrow-minded. I was nearly frightened to death lest his wife should suspect that it was I who had betrayed her, from the mass of details which he then went into relative to her interviews. His wife, on the other hand, told him that it was not strange if she punished him for his conduct towards her; that neither he, nor any one else, could reproach her with having ever until now failed in her duty towards him in any respect; and she ended with saying that it ill became him to complain. Both appealed continually to me as a witness of what they said. I held my tongue, fearing to offend the one or the other, or compromise myself: my face was burning from apprehension. I was alone with them. When the quarrel was at its highest, Madame Vladislava came in to tell me that the Empress had just entered my room. I ran back immediately. Madame Tchoglokoff left at the same time, but, instead of following me, she stopped in a corridor, where there was a staircase leading into the garden, and there, as I was afterwards told, she sat down. As for myself, I reached my room quite out of breath, and found the Empress there. As she saw that I was out of breath and rather red, she asked where I had been. I told her that I was just come from the apartments of M. Tchoglokoff, who was ill, and that I had run in order to get back as quickly as possible, having been informed that she had condescended to come to my rooms. She did not ask me any more questions, but seemed to me to be dwelling upon what I had said, as if it appeared strange to her. Nevertheless, she continued speaking to me. She did not ask where the Grand Duke was, for she knew he had gone out. Neither he nor I, during the whole of her reign, dared to go out in the city or leave the house, without first sending to ask her permission. Madame Vladislava was in the room: the Empress addressed her several times, then spoke to me, and always of indifferent matters: finally, after a visit of nearly half an hour, she went away, saying that, in consequence of my pregnancy, she would dispense with my appearing on the 21st and 25th of April. I was surprised that Madame Tchoglokoff had not followed. When the Empress had gone, I asked Madame Vladislava what had become of her. She informed me that she had sat down on the stairs, and burst into tears. Upon the return of the Grand Duke, I recounted to Serge Soltikoff what had occurred during their absence; how Tchoglokoff had sent for me; my alarm at what had been said between the husband and wife, and the visit which the Empress had paid me. His answer was: “If that be the case, I am of opinion that the Empress must have come to see what you do in the absence of your husband; and, in order that it may be seen that you are perfectly alone, both in your own apartments and in those of the Tchoglokoffs, I will be off, and take all my comrades to the house of Ivan Schouvaloff, just as we are, bespattered with mud up to our eyes.” And, in fact, when the Grand Duke retired, he went off with all those who had been riding with his Imperial Highness to Ivan Schouvaloff, who had apartments at the court. When they arrived there, Schouvaloff asked them questions about their ride, and Soltikoff told me afterwards that, from these questions, it seemed to him that he had been correct in his inference.
From this day the illness of Tchoglokoff grew worse and worse. On the 21st of April—my birth-day—the physicians pronounced him beyond hope of recovery. The Empress was informed of this, and gave orders (as she was accustomed to do) that he should be carried to his own house, in order that he might not die at court, for she was afraid of the dead. I was very much grieved on learning his condition. He died at the very time when, after many years of trouble and pain, we had succeeded in rendering him not only less ill-natured and mischievous, but even tractable, and when, by dint of studying his character, we had acquired the power of managing him as we pleased. As for his wife, she at this time loved me sincerely, and, from a harsh and spiteful Argus, had become a firm and attached friend. Tchoglokoff, after his removal to his own house, lived until the afternoon of the 25th of April, the day of the Empress’ coronation, when he died. I was immediately informed of the event, as I kept constantly sending to his house. I was truly sorry for him, and wept a good deal. His wife, too, was confined to her bed during the last days of her husband’s illness; he was at one side of the house, she in the other. Serge Soltikoff and Leon Narichkine happened to be in her room at the moment of her husband’s death; the windows being open, a bird flew into the room, and alighted on the cornice of the ceiling, right opposite to Madame Tchoglokoff’s bed. Upon seeing this, she said, “I am certain that my husband has just breathed his last; send and ask how he is.” She was informed that he was really dead. She said that that bird was the soul of her husband. They tried to prove to her that the bird was an ordinary bird; but then it could not be found. They said it had flown away, but as no one had seen it, she remained convinced that it was the soul of her husband who had come to find her.
As soon as the funeral was over, Madame Tchoglokoff wished to come to my rooms. The Empress seeing her passing along the Yaousa bridge, sent her word that she would dispense with her attendance on me, and that she might return to her own house. Her Imperial Majesty took it ill that, as a widow, she should have gone out so soon. The same day she named M. Alexander Ivanovitch Schouvaloff to discharge the duties of the late M. Tchoglokoff in the Grand Duke’s court. Now this M. Schouvaloff, not so much on his own account as from the place he held, was the terror of the court, the city, and the whole empire. He was the chief of the tribunal of the state inquisition, which was then called the Secret Chancery. His functions, it was said, had given him a sort of convulsive movement, which seized the whole of the right side of his face from the eye to the jaw, whenever he was affected either with joy, anger, fear, or anxiety. It was astonishing that such a man, with so hideous a grimace, should ever have been chosen for a post which placed him continually in the presence of a pregnant young woman. Had I been delivered of an infant having that same wretched twitch, I think the Empress would have been greatly vexed, and this might have happened, seeing him as I did constantly, never with my own wish, and, for the greater part of the time, with a shudder of involuntary repugnance, on account of his personal appearance, his connections, and his office, by which, as may easily be imagined, the pleasure of his society was not likely to be augmented. But this was only a beginning of the “good times” they were preparing for us, and especially for me. The next morning I was informed that the Empress was going to place with me again the Countess Roumianzoff. I knew that she was the sworn enemy of Serge Soltikoff, that she bore no love to the Princess Gagarine, and that she had greatly injured my mother in the estimation of the Empress. The moment I became aware of this arrangement, I lost all patience. I wept bitterly, and told Count Schouvaloff that if the Countess Roumianzoff was placed with me I should look upon it as a great misfortune; that this lady had already injured my mother, had blackened her in the eyes of the Empress, and that now she would do the same with me; that she was feared as a pest when she was formerly in our suite, and that there would be many rendered miserable by the arrangement if he could not find means to prevent it. He promised to do what he could, and tried to tranquillize me. As, in my situation, he dreaded the effect of such excitement, he went at once to the Empress, and on his return told me that he hoped the Countess Roumianzoff would not be placed about my person. And, in fact, I heard no more of the matter, and nothing was now thought of but our departure for St. Petersburg. It was settled that we should be twenty-nine days on the road; that is to say, that we should only travel one post-station each day. I was frightened to death lest Serge Soltikoff and Leon Narichkine should be left behind at Moscow; but I know not how it was, they had the condescension to inscribe their names in the list of our suite.
At last, on the 10th, or the 11th, we set out from the palace of Moscow. I was in a carriage with the wife of Count Alexander Schouvaloff, the most tiresome woman that it is possible to imagine. Madame Vladislava, and the midwife, whom, as I was pregnant, they said I could not do without, were with us. I was tired to death in that carriage, and did nothing but cry. At last, the Princess Gagarine, who personally disliked the Countess Schouvaloff, because her daughter, who was married to Golofkine, a cousin of the Princess, made herself disagreeable to the relatives of her husband, seized a moment when she could get near me to say that she was working hard to make Madame Vladislava favourable to me, as she feared, as did every one else, that the hypochondria which my condition produced might do me harm, as well as injure my child. Soltikoff, she said, dared not come near me, because of the restraint and constant presence of the Schouvaloffs, both husband and wife. She did, in fact, succeed in getting Madame Vladislava to listen to reason, and condescend so far as to mitigate a little the state of perpetual annoyance and restraint which gave rise to this hypochondria which I found it impossible to control. All I wanted was the merest trifle—only a few moments of conversation. At last she succeeded. After this tedious journey of twenty-nine days, we reached St. Petersburg and the Summer Palace. The Grand Duke at once re-established his concerts. This gave me sometimes the opportunity of a little conversation; but my hypochondria had become such that at every moment, and at every word, my eyes filled with tears, and my mind was disturbed with apprehensions; in a word, I could not get it out of my head that everything tended to the removal of Serge Soltikoff.
We went to Peterhoff. I walked a great deal, but in spite of this my melancholy followed me. In the month of August we returned to the city, to occupy again the Summer Palace. It was a death-blow to me when I learned that, for my accouchement, they were preparing apartments close to, and forming part of those belonging to the Empress. Alexander Schouvaloff took me to see them; I found two rooms, gloomy, and with only one issue, like all those of the Summer Palace; the hangings were of ugly crimson damask, there was scarcely any furniture, and no kind of convenience. I saw that I should be isolated there, without any sort of company, and thoroughly wretched. I said so to Soltikoff and to the Princess Gagarine, who, though they bore no love to each other, had nevertheless a point of union in their friendship for me. They saw the matter as I did, but it was impossible to remedy it. I was to go on the Wednesday to these apartments, which were far removed from those of the Grand Duke. I went to bed on Tuesday evening, and in the night awoke with labour-pains. I called Madame Vladislava, who went to fetch the midwife. She pronounced that I was in labour. The Grand Duke, who was sleeping in his own room, was awakened, as also Count Alexander Schouvaloff. The latter sent word to the Empress, who was not long in coming. It was about two o’clock in the morning. I was very ill. At last, towards noon the next day, the 20th September, I gave birth to a son. As soon as it was dressed the Empress called in her confessor, who gave the child the name of Paul, after which the Empress immediately bade the midwife take the child up and follow her. I remained on the bed on which I had been confined. Now this bed was placed opposite a door through which I could see the light; behind me were two large windows which did not close properly, and on the right and left of this bed were two doors, one of which opened into my dressing-room, and the other into the room in which Madame Vladislava slept. As soon as the Empress left, the Grand Duke also went away, as likewise did M. and Madame Schouvaloff, and I saw no one again until three o’clock in the afternoon. I had perspired a great deal, and begged Madame Vladislava to change my linen, and put me into my own bed, but she told me that she dared not. She sent several times to call the midwife, who, however, did not come. I asked for something to drink, but still received the same answer. At last, after three hours, the Countess Schouvaloff arrived, very elaborately dressed. When she saw me lying just where she had left me, she was very angry, and said it was enough to kill me. This was very consolatory, certainly. I had been in tears from the time of my delivery, pained by the neglect in which I was left, after a severe labour; uncomfortably accommodated, lying between doors and windows, which did not shut close, no one daring to lift me into my bed, which was not two paces off, and to which I had not the strength to crawl. Madame Schouvaloff departed immediately, and went, I think, to fetch the midwife; for the latter came in about half an hour afterwards, and told us that the Empress was so taken up with the child that she would not let her go away for a moment. As for me no one gave me a thought. This forgetfulness or neglect was not at all flattering. I was dying of thirst. At last they placed me on my bed, and I did not see a living soul for the rest of the day, nor did any one send even to ask after me. The Grand Duke, for his part, did nothing but drink with all he could find, and the Empress was taken up with the child. In the city and throughout the empire the joy at this event was great. The next day I began to feel an excruciating rheumatic pain, from the hip down the thigh and left leg. This pain prevented me from sleeping, and this brought on a violent fever. In spite of all this, the attentions I received next day were just of the same character. I saw no one, and no one inquired after me. The Grand Duke, indeed, did come into my room for a moment, and then went away, saying, that he had not time to stop. I did nothing but weep and moan in my bed. Nobody was in my room but Madame Vladislava; in her heart she was sorry for me, but she had not the power to remedy this state of things. Besides, I never liked to be pitied nor to complain. I had too proud a spirit for that, and the very idea of being unhappy, was insupportable to me. Hitherto I had done whatever I could not to appear so. I might have seen Count Alexander Schouvaloff and his wife, but they were such insipid and tiresome people that I was always delighted when they were not present. On the third day a messenger came from the Empress to Madame Vladislava to ask if a blue satin mantelet which her Imperial Majesty had worn on the day of my accouchement, had been left in my room. Madame Vladislava searched for it everywhere in my rooms, and it was at last found in a corner of my dressing-room, where it had not been noticed, as, since my confinement, that room had seldom been entered. Having found it, she sent it off immediately. This mantelet, as we afterwards learned, gave rise to a somewhat singular occurrence. The Empress had no fixed hours either for going to bed or getting up, for dinner, supper nor dressing. On one of those three days she was lying, after dinner on a sofa on which she had placed a mattress and pillows. While there, feeling cold, she asked for this mantelet. It was sought for everywhere, but could not be found, as it had been left in my room. The Empress then ordered that it should be looked for under the pillows of her bed, believing that it would be found there. The sister of Madame Krause, the Empress’ favourite lady’s maid, passed her hand under the bolster of her Majesty’s bed and drew it back, saying, that there was no mantle there, but there was a packet of hair there, or something like it, she did not know what. The Empress immediately rose from her place, and had the mattress and the pillows taken up, and under them was found, to their no small astonishment, a paper in which was some hair twisted round the roots of some herbs. Upon this her Majesty’s maids, and the Empress herself, said that assuredly it was some charm or witchcraft, and every one began guessing who it could be that had the hardihood to place the packet under the Empress’ pillow. Suspicion lighted on one of those most in the favour of her Imperial Majesty. She was known by the name of Anna Dmitrevna Doumacheva. Not long since she had become a widow, and had married a second time a valet de chambre in the service of the Empress. The Schouvaloffs did not like this woman, who was in their way, as well by the esteem in which she was held as by the confidence reposed in her by the Empress ever since her youth. She was quite capable of playing them some trick which might diminish their influence. As they were not without their partisans, these began to view the matter in a criminal light; to this view the Empress was of herself sufficiently disposed, since she believed in charms and sorcery. Consequently, she gave orders to Count Alexander Schouvaloff to have the woman arrested, together with her husband and her two sons, one of whom was an officer of the guards, and the other a page of the chamber to her Majesty. Her husband, two days after his arrest, asked for a razor to shave with, and cut his throat with it. As for the wife and her two children, they were a long time under arrest, and she confessed that, with a view to prolong the Empress’ favour, she had made use of charms, and had on Holy Thursday put some grains of burnt salt into a glass of Hungarian wine, which she had presented to the Empress. The affair was concluded by banishing the woman and her two sons to Moscow. A rumour was afterwards set afloat that a fainting fit, which the Empress had a little time before my accouchement, was caused by the drink which this woman had given to her. It is certain, however, that she never gave her more than two or three grains of burnt salt, which most assuredly could never have hurt her. In all this there was nothing reprehensible, but the woman’s rashness and superstition.
At last the Grand Duke, growing weary of his evenings passed without my ladies of honour, came and proposed to spend an evening in my room. At this time he was courting the very ugliest of these ladies, Elizabeth Voronzoff. On the sixth day my son’s baptism took place. He had already come near dying of the thrush. It was only by stealth that I could get any account of him; for to have inquired about him would have passed for a doubt of the Empress’ care, and would have been very ill received. Besides, she had taken him into her own room, and whenever he cried she herself would run to him, and, through excess of care, they were literally stifling him. He was kept in a room extremely warm, wrapped up in flannel, and laid in a cradle, lined with black fox furs; over him was a coverlet of quilted satin, lined with wadding, and above this one of rose-coloured velvet, lined with black fox skins. I saw him myself, many times afterwards, lying in this style, the perspiration running from his face and whole body, and hence it was that, when older, the least breath of air that reached him chilled him and made him ill. Besides, he had in attendance on him a great number of aged matrons who, by their ill-judged cares, and their want of common sense, did him infinitely more harm than good, both physically and morally.
On the day of his baptism, after the ceremony, the Empress came into my room, and brought me, on a golden salver, an order on her cabinet for 100,000 roubles. She had added to it a small casket, which I did not open until she was gone. This money came very seasonably, for I had not a sous, and was heavily in debt. As for the casket, when I opened it, I was not greatly dazzled; it contained only a very poor necklace, with ear-rings and two wretched rings, such as I should have been ashamed to give to my maids. In the whole case there was not a jewel worth 100 roubles; neither was the taste nor workmanship any better. I said nothing, but locked up the imperial casket. It would seem that the meanness of the present was felt, for Count Alexander Schouvaloff was ordered to inquire how I liked the jewel-case. I replied, that whatever came from the hands of the Empress was always of inestimable value in my eyes. With that compliment he went away apparently well pleased. He returned to the charge when he saw that I never wore this beautiful necklace, and especially those miserable ear-rings, telling me to put them on. I said that on the Empress’ fêtes I was accustomed to wear the most beautiful things I possessed, and that this necklace and ear-rings did not come within that category.
Four or five days after the money ordered by the Empress was brought to me, Baron Tcherkassoff, her secretary of the cabinet, sent to beg of me, for Heaven’s sake, to lend it again to the cabinet, because the Empress had asked for money, and there was not a sou left. I sent it back to him, and he repaid me in the month of January. The Grand Duke having heard of the present made me by the Empress, got into a terrible passion because nothing had been given to him. He complained vehemently to Count Alexander Schouvaloff. The latter told the Empress, who immediately sent the Duke an order for a similar sum, and it was to meet this demand that my money was borrowed. The truth is, the Schouvaloffs were very timid, and it was by this weakness that they were to be led; but this trait had not then been discovered.
After my son’s baptism, there were fêtes, balls, illuminations, and fireworks at court. As for me, I was all the while in bed, ill, and suffering dreadfully from ennui. At last they chose the seventeenth day after my confinement to announce to me two pieces of agreeable news at once. First of all, that Serge Soltikoff had been selected to carry the news of the birth of my son to Sweden; secondly, that the marriage of the Princess Gagarine was fixed for the following week; that is to say, in plain language, that I was about to be deprived, almost immediately, of the two persons I most liked of all who were about me. I buried myself more than ever in my bed, where I did nothing but grieve. In order to be able to keep to it, I pretended an increase of the pains in my thigh, which prevented my getting up; but the truth was, I neither could nor would see anybody, I felt so miserable.
During my confinement, the Grand Duke had also a great affliction, for he learned from Count Alexander Schouvaloff, that one of his old huntsmen, named Bastien, whom the Empress a few years before had ordered to marry Mademoiselle Schenck, my old lady’s-maid, had come to give information of his having heard, from some one or other, that Bressan wished to give something or other to the Duke to drink. Now this Bastien was a great scoundrel and drunkard, who from time to time used to drink with his Imperial Highness, and having quarrelled with Bressan, whom he supposed to stand higher in the Duke’s favour than himself, thought to do him an ill turn. The Duke was fond of them both. Bastien was sent to the fortress; Bressan expected to be sent there also, but escaped with nothing worse than the fright. The huntsman was banished the country, and sent to Holstein with his wife, while Bressan retained his place because he served as a general spy. Serge Soltikoff, after some delays, occasioned by the usual dilatoriness of the Empress in signing papers, at last took his departure. The Princess Gagarine, in the meanwhile, was married at the time fixed.
When the forty days of my confinement were over, the Empress, on occasion of the churching, came a second time into my chamber. I had risen from my bed to receive her, but she saw that I was so weak and exhausted, that she made me sit down during the prayers which were read by her confessor. My child was brought into the room; it was the first time I had seen him since his birth. I thought him very pretty, and the sight of him raised my spirits a little; but the moment the prayers were finished, the Empress had him carried away, and then left me. The 1st of November was fixed by her Majesty for my receiving the customary felicitations after the six weeks of my confinement. For this purpose, the room next to mine was magnificently fitted up, and there, seated on a couch of rose-colored velvet, embroidered with silver, everyone came to kiss my hand. The Empress came also, and from my apartments she went to the Winter Palace, and we received orders to follow her two or three days after. We were lodged in the apartments formerly occupied by my mother, and which properly formed a part of Yagoujisky House, and half of Ragousinsky House; the other half being occupied by the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Winter Palace was at this time in course of erection near the great Square.
I passed from the Summer to the Winter Palace, with the firm resolution of not quitting my room as long as I did not feel myself strong enough to conquer my hypochondria. I read at this period the history of Germany, and the Universal History of Voltaire. After these I read, during this winter, as many Russian works as I could procure; among others two immense volumes of Baronius, translated into Russian; next I lit upon the Esprit des Lois of Montesquieu, after which I read the annals of Tacitus, which caused a singular revolution in my brain, to which, perhaps, the melancholy cast of my thoughts at this period contributed not a little. I began to take gloomier views of things, and to look for more hidden and interested motives in the occurrences around me. I gathered all my strength in order to be able to go out at Christmas, and, in fact, I was present at divine service; but while at church I was seized with a shivering and with pains all over my body, so that upon my return home I undressed and went to bed, my bed being merely a pallet, which I had placed before a blocked-up door, through which it seemed to me that no draughts could come, as in addition to a curtain lined with woollen cloth, there was also before it a large screen; but yet I believe it was the cause of all the colds which afflicted me this winter. The day after Christmas, the violence of the fever was so great that I became delirious. When I shut my eyes I saw nothing but the ill-drawn figures of the tiles of the stove, which was at the foot of my pallet, the room being small and narrow. As to my bed-room, I never went into it at all, for it was very cold, as the windows, on two sides, looked out upon the Neva, towards the east and north. A second reason which banished me from it, was the proximity of the Grand Duke’s apartments, where all day long, and for a part of the night, there was a noise and racket just like that of a guard-house. Besides this, as he and all his associates smoked a great deal, the disagreeable smoke and smell of tobacco was perceptible there. I remained, therefore, all the winter in this poor little narrow chamber, which had two windows and a pier between them, so that, in all, the area may have been seven or eight archines in length, by four in breadth, with three doors.
1755.
Thus commenced the year 1755. From Christmas-day to Lent there was nothing but fêtes in the city and the court. It was still, in every case, in honour of the birth of my son that they were given. Every one in turn vied with his neighbour—all eager to give the most splendid dinners, balls, masquerades, illuminations, and fireworks. Under the plea of illness, I did not assist at any of them.
Towards the end of Lent, Serge Soltikoff returned from Sweden. During his absence, the High Chancellor, Count Bestoujeff, sent me all the news he received of him, as well as the despatches of Count Panine, at that time Envoy of Russia to the Swedish Court. They reached me through Madame Vladislava, who received them from her step-son, chief clerk to the High Chancellor, and I sent them back by the same way. I further learned by the same channel, that it was decided that on his return Soltikoff should be sent to Hamburg as resident minister of Russia, in place of Prince Alexander Galitzine, who was appointed to the army. This new arrangement did not diminish my sadness.
On his arrival, Serge Soltikoff requested me, through Leon Narichkine, to let him know if there was any possibility of his coming to see me. I spoke to Madame Vladislava, who consented to our interview. He was to come to her rooms, and thence to mine. I waited for him until three o’clock in the morning, and was in deadly anxiety as to what could have prevented his coming. I learned next day that he had been enticed by Count Roman Voronzoff into a lodge of Free Masons, and he pretended that he could not get away without giving rise to suspicions. But I questioned and cross-questioned Leon Narichkine to such a degree, that I saw as clear as the day that he had failed in his engagement from carelessness and want of interest, regardless of all I had so long suffered solely from my attachment to him. Leon Narichkine himself, although his friend, did not offer much, if any excuse for him. To tell the truth, I was greatly annoyed, and wrote him a letter, in which I complained bitterly of his indifference. He answered it, and came to see me. He had little difficulty in appeasing me, for I was only too well disposed to accept his apologies. He recommended me to go into public: I followed his advice, and made my appearance on the 10th of February, the birthday of the Grand Duke, as well as Shrove Tuesday. I had prepared for the occasion a superb dress of blue velvet, embroidered with gold. As during my solitude, I had thought a great deal, I now determined that, as far as depended on myself, I would make those who had occasioned me so many and such various annoyances, feel that I was not to be offended with impunity, and that it was not by ill-treatment they could hope to gain either my affection or approbation. In consequence, I neglected no opportunity of proving to the Schouvaloffs my feelings towards them. I treated them with profound contempt, pointed out to others their stupidity and ill-nature, turned them into ridicule wherever I could, and had always some sarcasm ready to fling at them, which afterwards flew through the city, and gratified malignity at their expense: in a word, I took my revenge upon them in every way I could think of, and, in their presence, never failed to distinguish, by my attentions, those whom they disliked. As there were a great many people who hated them, I was never at a loss for subjects. The Counts Rasoumowsky, whom I had always liked, were caressed more than ever. I redoubled my politeness and attention to every one except the Schouvaloffs. In a word, I drew myself up, and, with head erect, stood forth rather like the chief of a great party than a person humbled and oppressed. The Schouvaloffs knew not what to make of me. They took counsel, and had recourse to the tricks and intrigues of courtiers. At this time there appeared in Russia, one Brockdorf, a gentleman from Holstein, who, on a former visit, had been sent back over the frontiers, by the party then in power, Brummer and Berkholz, because he was known to be an intriguer, and a person of very bad character. This man came on the scene quite opportunely for the Schouvaloffs. As he had a key, as Chamberlain to the Grand Duke, in his character of Duke of Holstein, this gave him the entrée to his Imperial Highness, who, moreover, was favourably disposed towards every fool who came from that country. Brockdorf gained an introduction to Count Peter Schouvaloff, in the following manner: In the inn where he lodged, he formed the acquaintance of a man who never left the inns of St. Petersburg unless it were to visit three young and rather pretty German girls, named Reifenstein, one of whom enjoyed a pension allowed her by Count Peter Schouvaloff. This man was called Braun; he was a kind of agent for all sorts of matters. He introduced Brockdorf at the house of these girls, where he formed the acquaintance of Count Peter Schouvaloff. The latter made great protestations of affection for the Grand Duke, and by degrees complained of me. All this M. Brockdorf reported to the Grand Duke, at the first opportunity, and they stirred him up until he determined, as he expressed it, to bring his wife to her senses. With this view, his Imperial Highness came into my room one day after dinner, and told me that I was becoming intolerably proud, but that he would bring me to my senses. I asked him in what my pride consisted. He answered that I held myself very erect. I asked whether, in order to please him, I must stoop like the slaves of the Grand Seignior. He got angry, and said, he knew how to bring me to reason. I inquired how this was to be done. Thereupon he placed his back against the wall, and half unsheathing his sword, showed it to me. I asked what he meant by that, for if he meant to fight me, why then I must have one too. He replaced his half-drawn sword in the scabbard, and told me that I had become dreadfully spiteful. “In what respect?” I said. He replied, with a stammer, “Why, to the Schouvaloffs.” To this I answered that it was only tit for tat, and that he had better not meddle with matters which he knew nothing about, and could not understand. Upon this he exclaimed, “See what it is not to trust one’s true friends; one suffers for it. If you had confided in me, it would have been well for you.” “But in what should I have confided in you?” I said. Then he began talking in a manner so utterly extravagant, that finding it useless to reason with him, I let him go on without interruption, and seized a favourable moment to advise him to go to bed, for I saw clearly that wine had disturbed his reason and stupefied what little sense he naturally possessed. He followed my advice, and retired. At this time he began to have always about him an odour of wine mingled with that of tobacco, which was really insupportable to all who came close to him. The same evening, while I was playing at cards, Count Alexander Schouvaloff came to me to signify, on behalf of the Empress, that she had forbidden the ladies to use in their dress certain articles of ornament specified in the announcement. To show him how far his Imperial Highness had corrected me, I laughed at him to his face, and told him he might have saved himself the trouble of notifying the order to me, since I never wore any ornaments which were displeasing to her Imperial Majesty; and that, besides, I did not make my merit consist in beauty nor in ornament, for that when the one had faded, the other was ridiculous, and that there was nothing permanent but character. He listened to this to the end, winking his right eye, as was his custom, and then went off with his grimaces. I called the attention of those who were with me to this peculiarity, which I mimicked, making every one laugh. A few days afterwards the Grand Duke told me he wished to ask the Empress for money for his affairs in Holstein, which were getting worse and worse every day, and that Brockdorf had advised him to do so. I saw very clearly that they were but holding out a bait to him, to make him hope for this money through the intervention of the Schouvaloffs. I asked if there was no means of managing without it. He said he would show me the representations which had been made to him from Holstein, on that head. He did so, and after perusing the papers which he laid before me, I said that it seemed to me he might manage without going begging to his aunt, who, besides, might refuse him, as she had given him, not six months ago, 100,000 roubles. However he kept to his own opinion, and I to mine. For a long time he was buoyed up with hopes, but in the end he got nothing.
After Easter we went to Oranienbaum. Before we set off, the Empress allowed me to see my son for the third time since his birth. It was necessary to go through all the apartments of her Imperial Majesty to get to his chamber, where I found him in a stifling heat, as I have already mentioned. On reaching the country we witnessed a phenomenon. His Imperial Highness—though his Holstein subjects were continually preaching to him of a deficit, while everybody was advising him to diminish his useless retinue, which, after all, he could only see by stealth and piecemeal—suddenly took the daring resolution of bringing over an entire detachment. This again was a contrivance of that wretch Brockdorf, who flattered the ruling passion of the Prince. To the Schouvaloffs he represented that, by conniving at this hobby, they would for ever ensure his favour, make him wholly theirs, and be certain of his approbation in whatever they undertook. From the Empress, who detested Holstein, and all that came from it, who had seen how similar military crotchets had ruined the Grand Duke’s father, the Duke Charles Frederick, in the opinion of Peter I. and of the Russian public, it would seem that the matter was so far concealed as to be represented to her as a mere trifle, not worth speaking of; while, besides, the mere presence of Count Schouvaloff was sufficient to prevent the affair from assuming any consequence. Having embarked at Kiel, the detachment landed at Cronstadt, and then marched to Oranienbaum. The Grand Duke, who in Tchoglokoff’s time had never worn the Holstein uniform, except in his own room, and by stealth, as it were, now wore no other, except on court days, although he was lieutenant-colonel of the Preobrajensky regiment, and had besides a regiment of cuirassiers in Russia. From me, the Grand Duke, by Brockdorf’s advice, kept the transport of these troops a great secret. I own that when I became aware of it, I shuddered at the injurious effect which such a proceeding could not fail to have on the minds of the Russian people, as well as in the opinion of the Empress, of whose sentiments I was not at all ignorant. M. Alexander Schouvaloff saw the detachment defile before the balcony at Oranienbaum, winking all the while: I was by his side. In his heart he disapproved of what he and his relations had agreed to tolerate. The guard of the Château of Oranienbaum belonged to the regiment of Inguermanie, which alternated with that of Astracan. I was informed that, when they saw the Holstein troops pass, they muttered, “Those cursed Germans are all sold to the King of Prussia; it is so many traitors they are bringing into Russia.” Generally speaking, the public was shocked at the apparition; the more earnest shrugged their shoulders, the more moderate looked upon it as simply ridiculous; in reality, it was a childish freak, but a very imprudent one. As for me, I was silent, though, when the matter was mentioned to me, I spoke my mind in such a manner as to show that I in no way approved of a proceeding which, under every point of view, could not but be injurious to the Grand Duke’s interests. In fact, how was it possible to arrive at any other conclusion? His mere pleasure could not compensate for the injury which such a proceeding must do him in public opinion. But the Duke, enchanted with his troop, took up his quarters in the camp which he had prepared for it, where he was constantly employed in exercising it. At last it required to be fed; but this had not been thought of. The matter, however, was pressing, and there were some debates with the Marshal of the Court, who was not prepared for such a demand. At last he yielded, and the servants of the Court, with the soldiers of the Inguermanie regiment, on guard at the château, were employed in conveying provisions for the newly arrived, from the kitchen of the château to the camp. The camp was at some distance from the house; neither the servants nor the soldiers received anything for their trouble; one may easily understand the effect of so sapient an arrangement. The soldiers said, “They make us lackeys to those cursed Germans.” The servants said, “We have to wait upon a set of clowns.”
When I saw and heard what was going on, I resolved to keep myself at as great a distance as possible from this mischievous child’s-play. The gentlemen of our court, who were married, had their wives with them; this made up a tolerably numerous company; no one, not even the gentlemen, would have anything to do with this Holstein Camp, which the Grand Duke never left. Thus, surrounded by these courtiers, I was out as much as possible, but always on the side opposite to the camp, which we never, by any chance, came near.
It was at this time that I took a fancy to form a garden at Oranienbaum, and as I knew that the Grand Duke would not give me an inch of ground for that purpose, I begged Prince Galitzine to sell or cede to me about one hundred toises of some waste land which belonged to his family in the immediate vicinity of Oranienbaum, and had been long since abandoned. This land was owned by eight or ten members of the family, but as it produced nothing, they willingly gave it up to me. I began then to plan and plant, and as this was my first whim in the constructive line, my plans assumed very grand proportions. My old surgeon Gyon, seeing these things, said to me, “What is the good of all this? Now, mark my words; I prophesy that you will one day abandon all this.” His prediction was verified. But I required some amusement at the time, and this exercise of imagination was one. At first I employed, in planting my garden, the gardener of Oranienbaum, whose name was Lamberti. He had been in the service of the Empress, when she was princess, on her estate at Zarskoe-Selo, whence he had been removed to Oranienbaum. He was fond of predictions, and, among others, his prediction relative to the Empress had been fulfilled. He had prophesied that she would ascend the throne. He told me, and repeated it as often as I was willing to listen to him, that I should become the Sovereign Empress of Russia; that I should see sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons; and that I should die at the advanced age of more than fourscore years. He did more: he fixed the year of my accession to the throne six years before the event. He was a very singular man, and one who spoke with an assurance which nothing could disturb. He pretended that the Empress was ill-disposed towards him, because he had foretold to her what had come to pass, and that she had removed him from Zarskoe-Selo to Oranienbaum in consequence of being afraid of him.
It was at Whitsuntide, I think, that we were recalled from Oranienbaum to the city; and it was about the same time that the English Ambassador, the Chevalier Williams,[12] came to Russia. He had in his suite Count Poniatowsky, a Pole, the son of the one who had followed the fortunes of Charles XII. of Sweden. After a short stay at the capital, we returned to Oranienbaum, where the Empress ordered us to keep the Festival of St. Peter. She did not come herself, because she did not wish to celebrate the first fête of my son Paul, which fell on the same day. She remained at Peterhoff, and there placed herself at a window, where she remained, it would seem, the whole day; for all who came to Oranienbaum said they had seen her at that window. A very large company assembled. The dance took place in the hall at the entrance of my garden, and we afterwards supped there. The foreign ambassadors and ministers were present. I remember that the English Ambassador, the Chevalier Williams, sat near me at supper, and that we kept up a conversation as agreeable as it was gay. As he was lively and well-informed, it was not difficult to carry on a conversation with him. I afterwards learned that he had been as much pleased as myself at this soirée and had spoken of me in high terms. This, indeed, was what always happened when I chanced to be with those who suited me in mind and character, and, as at that time, I did not excite so much envy, I was generally well spoken of. I was looked upon as a woman of mind; and many of those more intimately acquainted with me, honoured me with their confidence, depended on me, asked my advice, and found themselves the better for following it. The Grand Duke had long since named me Madame la Ressource, and however angry or sulky he might be, if he found himself at a loss on any point, he would come running to me, in his usual style, to get my advice, and then be off again as fast as he could. I likewise remember, at this same feast of St. Peter, at Oranienbaum, seeing Count Poniatowsky dancing, and I spoke to the Chevalier Williams about his father, and the mischief he had done to Peter I. The English Ambassador spoke very favourably of the son, and confirmed to me what I was already aware of, namely, that his father and the Czartoriskys, his mother’s family, then formed the Russian party in Poland; that the son had been placed under his care, and sent here in order to be brought up in the feelings of his family towards Russia; and that they trusted he would succeed in this country. He might then be about twenty-two or twenty-three years old. I replied that, in general, I looked upon Russia as the stumbling-block of merit for strangers, and considered that those who succeeded in Russia might safely calculate upon success in every other part of Europe. This rule I have always considered as infallible, for nowhere are people more quick in detecting the weak points, absurdities, and defects of a stranger than in Russia. A stranger may be sure that nothing will be overlooked, for, naturally, no Russian really likes a foreigner.
About this time, I learned that the conduct of Sergius Soltikoff had been anything but prudent, whether in Sweden or at Dresden. Besides, he had made love to all the women he met. At first I would not believe these reports; but at last they came from so many quarters, that even his friends could not exculpate him. This year I became more than ever attached to Anne Narichkine. Her brother-in-law, Leon, contributed much to this. He always made a third with us, and there was no end to his nonsense. He used sometimes to say to us, “I have a bijou, which I mean to give to whichever of you two shall behave the best, and you will be very much obliged to me for it.” We let him talk on, without troubling ourselves to inquire what this bijou was.
In the autumn, the Holstein troops were sent off by sea, and we went to occupy the Summer Palace. At this time Leon Narichkine fell ill of a burning fever, during which he sent me letters, which I could easily see were not his own. I replied to him. In these letters he asked me for sweetmeats and such like trifles, and then returned thanks. The letters were very well written, and very lively; he said he employed in them the hand of his secretary. This secretary, I at last learned was Count Poniatowsky, who never left him, and had become intimate with his family. From the Summer Palace we removed, about the beginning of winter, to the new Winter Palace which the Empress had just built. It was of wood, and occupied the spot where the mansion of the Tchitcherines now stands. It took up the whole quarter as far as the residence of the Countess Matiouchkine, which then belonged to Naoumoff. My windows faced this house, which was occupied by the maids of honour. On entering the apartments destined for us, I was very much struck with their size and loftiness. Four large ante-chambers and two chambers, with a cabinet, were prepared for me, and the same number for the Grand Duke. The rooms, too, were so disposed, that I was not incommoded by the proximity of the Grand Duke’s apartments. This was a great point gained. Count Alexander Schouvaloff noticed my satisfaction, and immediately informed the Empress that I was greatly delighted with the number and size of my apartments. This he told me afterwards with a kind of satisfaction, indicated by a smile and the winking of his eye.
At this period, and for a long time afterwards, the principal plaything of the Grand Duke, while in town, consisted of an immense number of little dolls, representing soldiers, formed of wood, lead, pith, and wax. These he arranged on very narrow tables, which took up an entire room, leaving scarcely space enough to pass between them. Along these tables he had nailed narrow bands of brass, to which strings were attached, and when he pulled these strings the brass bands made a noise which, according to him, resembled the roll of musketry. He observed the court festivals with great regularity, making these troops produce their rolling fire; besides which he daily relieved guard, that is to say, from every table was picked out the dolls that were assumed to be on guard. He assisted at this parade in full uniform, boots, spurs, gorget, and scarf. Such of his domestics as were admitted to this precious exercise were obliged to appear in similar style.
Towards the winter of this year, I thought myself again pregnant. I was bled. I had a cold, or, rather, I fancied I had one, in both sides of my face; but after some days of suffering, four double teeth made their appearance at the four extremities of my jaws. As our apartments were very spacious, the Grand Duke had every week a ball and a concert. The only persons who appeared at them were the maids of honour and the gentlemen of our court, together with their wives. These balls were thought interesting by those who assisted at them, who were never many. The Narichkines were more companionable than the rest. Among them I reckon Madame Siniavine and Madame Ismaïloff, Leon’s sisters, together with the wife of his elder brother, of whom I have already spoken. Leon, more absurd than ever, and regarded by every one as a person of no sort of consequence, as was indeed the case, had got into the habit of running continually backwards and forwards between the Grand Duke’s apartments and mine, never stopping long anywhere. In order to gain admittance into my room, he used to mew like a cat at my door, and when I answered him, he would come in. On the 17th of December, between six and seven o’clock in the evening, he announced himself in this fashion, at my door; I desired him to come in. He began by presenting me with his sister-in-law’s compliments, saying that she was not well; and adding, “but you ought to go and see her.” I replied, “I would do so with pleasure; but you know I cannot go out without permission, and they will never give me permission to go to her house.” “Oh! I will take you there,” he said. “Are you mad,” I replied; “how can I go with you? You would be sent to the Fortress, and God knows what trouble I should get into.” “Oh! but no one will know of it; we will take proper precautions.” “But how?” “Why, in this way: I will come and fetch you in an hour or two’s time. The Grand Duke will take supper” (for a long time past, under the pretext of not wishing for supper, I had been in the habit of staying in my own room); “he will remain at table for a considerable part of the night, leave it very tipsy, and go to bed” (since my confinement he generally slept in his own room); “for greater security you can dress in man’s clothes, and we will go together to Anna Nikitichna Narichkine’s.” I began to feel tempted by the adventure, for I was constantly in my room with my books, and without any company. Finally, by dint of debating this mad project, for such it really was, and such it appeared to me at first, I saw in it the possibility of obtaining a moment’s relaxation and amusement. He departed, and I called a Kalmuck hair-dresser in my service, and desired him to bring me one of my male dresses, and all belonging to it, as I wanted to make it a present to some one. This young man was one of those persons who keep their mouths closed; and it was more difficult to make him speak than it was to make others hold their tongues. He executed his commission promptly, and brought me everything I wanted. I feigned a headache, and went to bed early. As soon as Madame Vladislava had undressed me and retired, I got up and dressed myself from head to foot as a man, arranging my hair in the best way I could. I was long in the habit of doing this, and was by no means awkward at it. At the time appointed, Narichkine made his appearance. He came through the apartments of the Grand Duke, and mewed at my door. I opened it, and we passed through a small ante-chamber into the hall, and entered his carriage without having been seen by any one, laughing like a pair of fools at our escapade. Leon lived in the same house with his brother and sister-in-law.
On reaching it, we found there Anna Nikitichna, who suspected nothing, and also Count Poniatowsky. Leon announced one of his friends, whom he begged might be well received, and the evening passed in the wildest gayety. After a visit of an hour and-a-half’s duration, I took leave and returned home without accident, and without having been met by any one. The next day, which was the birthday of the Empress, both at court in the morning, and at the ball in the evening, we could not look one another in the face without being ready to burst out laughing at our last night’s folly. Some days later, Leon prepared a return visit, which was to take place in my apartments; and, as before, he brought his company into my room so skilfully, that no suspicion was excited. Thus began the year 1756. We took a strange delight in these furtive interviews. Not a week passed without one or two, and occasionally even three of them taking place, sometimes at the residence of one party, sometimes at that of another; and if any of us happened to be ill, the visit was always to the invalid. Sometimes at the theatre, without speaking, and simply by means of certain signs previously agreed on, even although we might be in different boxes, and some of us, perhaps, in the pit; yet, by a sign, each one knew where to go, and no mistake ever occurred between us, except that on two occasions I had to return home on foot, which, after all, was only a walk.
1756.
At this period, preparations were making for a war with Prussia. The Empress, by her treaty with the house of Austria, was bound to furnish a contingent of thirty thousand men. Such was the view taken by the High Chancellor Count Bestoujeff; but Austria wanted Russia to aid her with all her forces. Count Esterhazy, the Austrian Ambassador, was intriguing for this object with all his skill, wherever he saw an opening, and often in several different channels at once. The party opposed to Bestoujeff consisted of the Vice-Chancellor Count Voronzoff and the Schouvaloffs. England was at that time in alliance with Prussia, and France with Austria. The Empress began to have frequent indispositions. At first it was not known what was the matter with her. The Schouvaloffs were often seen to be very much disturbed, and full of intrigues, and from time to time they paid great attentions to the Grand Duke. The courtiers whispered that these indispositions of her Imperial Majesty were much more serious than was reported. Some called them hysterical affections, others fainting fits, or convulsions, or nervous complaints. This state of things lasted the whole winter of 1755-1756. Finally, in the spring we learned that Marshal Apraxine was about to depart in command of the army that was to enter Prussia. His lady came to take leave of us, accompanied by her youngest daughter. I mentioned to her my apprehensions relative to the health of the Empress, stating that I much regretted the absence of her husband at a time in which I thought that little reliance was to be placed upon the Schouvaloffs, whom I looked upon as my personal enemies, and who were very ill-disposed towards me, because I preferred their enemies to them, and especially the Counts Razoumowsky. She repeated all this to her husband, who was much pleased with my feelings towards him; so also was Count Bestoujeff, who disliked the Schouvaloffs, and was connected with the Razoumowskys, his son having married their niece. Marshal Apraxine might have been a useful mediator between all interested, on account of the liaison of his daughter with Count Peter Schouvaloff: Leon pretended that this liaison was carried on with the knowledge of her parents. Besides this, I saw clearly that the Schouvaloffs made more use than ever of M. Brockdorf, for the purpose of estranging the Grand Duke from me as much as possible. Notwithstanding all this, he had still an involuntary confidence in me; this he always retained to a remarkable extent, without being at all conscious of it himself. He had just then quarrelled with the Countess Voronzoff, and was in love with Madame Teploff, a niece of the Razoumowskys. When he wished to see this lady, he consulted me as to the best mode of adorning his room so as to please her, and made me observe that he had filled it with muskets, grenadier caps, shoulder belts, etc., so that it looked like a portion of an arsenal. I let him do as he pleased, and went away. Besides this lady, he also kept a little German singing girl, called Leonora, who used to come to him of an evening, and sup with him. It was the Princess of Courland who had led to his quarrel with the Countess Voronzoff. Indeed, I do not very well know how it was that this Princess of Courland managed at that time to play a peculiar part at court. In the first place, she was then nearly thirty years of age, little, ugly, and humpbacked, as I have already said. She had contrived to secure the protection of the confessor of the Empress, and of several old ladies of her Majesty’s bed-chamber, so that every thing she did was excused, and she remained among the Empress’ maids of honour. All these were under the rod of a Madame Schmidt, the wife of one of the court trumpeters. This Madame Schmidt was a native of Finland, prodigiously large and massive, one who knew how to ensure obedience, but who still retained the coarse and vulgar manners of her former condition. She was of some consequence, however, at court, being under the immediate protection of the Empress’ old German and Swedish lady’s-maids, and consequently also under that of the Marshal of the Court, Sievers, who was himself a Fin, and married to a daughter of Madame Krause, whose sister, as I have already mentioned, was one of those lady’s-maids, and one in special favour with the Empress. Madame Schmidt ruled within the dwelling of the maids of honour with more vigour than intelligence, but never appeared at court. In public, the Princess of Courland was at their head, and Madame Schmidt had tacitly confided to her their conduct at court. In their own house, they all lodged in a row of chambers, which terminated at one end in Madame Schmidt’s room, and at the other in the one occupied by the Princess of Courland. There were two, three, or four in a room, each having a screen round her bed, and the only exits from these rooms were through each other. At first sight, it would seem that this arrangement made the residence of the maids of honour impenetrable, for it could only be reached by passing through Madame Schmidt’s, or the Princess of Courland’s room. But Madame Schmidt often suffered from the indigestion occasioned by all the pâtes gras and other dainties sent to her by the relatives of these young ladies, and then the only approach was by the Princess of Courland’s chamber. Here scandal reported that it was necessary for those who wished to pass to any of the rooms beyond, to pay toll in some form or other. At all events, it was certain that for many years the Princess of Courland made up matches and broke them off again—promised and refused the Empress’ maids of honour just as she thought proper; and I have heard from the lips of many persons, and among others from Leon Narichkine and Count Boutourline, the history of this toll, which, they pretended had not in their case been paid in money.
The Grand Duke’s amours with Madame Teploff lasted until we went into the country. Here they were interrupted, because his Imperial Highness was insupportable during the summer. Not being able to see him, Madame Teploff pretended that he must write to her at least once or twice a-week, and to induce him to do so, she began by writing him a letter of four pages. On receiving it, he came into my room much out of temper, holding the letter in his hand, and said to me, in a tone of considerable irritation, “Only fancy! she writes me a letter of four whole pages, and expects that I should read it, and, what is more, answer it also. I who have to go to parade (he had again brought his troops from Holstein), then dine, then shoot, then attend the rehearsal of an opera, and the ballet which the cadets will dance at it! I will tell her plainly that I have not time, and if she is vexed, I will quarrel with her till winter.” I told him that would certainly be the shortest way. These traits are, I think, characteristic, and they will not therefore be out of place. Here is the explanation of the appearance of the cadets at Oranienbaum. In the spring of 1756, the Schouvaloffs thought, that with a view of detaching the Grand Duke from his Holstein troops, it would be a good stroke of policy to persuade the Empress to give his Imperial Highness the command of the corps of Land Cadets, the only body of cadets then existing. Under him was placed A. P. Melgounoff, the intimate friend and confidant of Ivan Ivanovitch Schouvaloff. This person was married to one of the German lady’s-maids, a favourite of the Empress. In this way the Schouvaloffs had one of their most intimate friends in the Grand Duke’s chamber, and with the opportunity of speaking to him at every moment. Under pretext of the opera-ballets at Oranienbaum, they brought there some hundred cadets, together with M. Melgounoff and the officers of the corps who were most intimate with him. These were so many spies à la Schouvaloff. Among the masters who came to Oranienbaum with the cadets was their riding-master, Zimmerman, who was accounted the best horseman at that time in Russia. As my supposed pregnancy of the last autumn had all passed off, I thought I would take some lessons in horsemanship from Zimmerman. I spoke on the subject to the Grand Duke, who made no difficulty. For a long time past all the old rules introduced by the Tchoglokoffs were forgotten, neglected by, or altogether unknown to Alexander Schouvaloff, who, besides, was held in slight or no consideration: we laughed at him, at his wife, his daughter, and his son-in-law, almost to their faces. They gave abundant room for it; for never were faces more ignoble or mean looking than theirs. I had applied to Madame Schouvaloff the epithet of the “pillar of salt.” She was thin, and short, and stiff. Her avarice showed itself even in her dress. Her petticoats were always too narrow, and had a breadth less than was required, and than those of other ladies had. Her daughter, the Countess Golofkine, was similarly dressed. Their head-dresses and ruffles were mean, and had a look of stinginess about them, although these people were very wealthy, and in all respects in easy circumstances. But they naturally liked everything that was little and pinched—a true image of their minds.
As soon as I came to take lessons in systematic riding, I again became passionately fond of this exercise. I rose every morning at six, dressed myself in male attire, and went off to my garden, where I had a place prepared in the open air, which served me for a riding-school. I made such rapid progress, that Zimmerman frequently came running up to me with tears in his eyes, and kissed my foot with a sort of uncontrollable enthusiasm. At other times he would exclaim, “Never in my life have I had a pupil who did me such credit, or who made such rapid progress in so short a time.” At these lessons, there was no one present but my old surgeon Gyon, a lady’s-maid and some domestics. As I paid great attention to these lessons, and took them regularly every morning except Sundays, Zimmerman rewarded my diligence with the silver spurs, which he gave me, according to the rules of the school. By the end of three weeks I had passed through all the gradations of the school, and towards autumn Zimmerman had a leaping-horse bought, after which he intended to give me the stirrups. But the day before that fixed for my mounting, we received orders to return to town; the matter was therefore put off till the following spring.
During this summer Count Poniatowsky made a tour in Poland, from which he returned with his credentials as minister of the King of Poland. Before his departure he came to Oranienbaum, to take leave of us. He was accompanied by Count Horn, whom the King of Sweden, under the pretext of notifying the death of his mother, my grandmother, had sent to Russia, in order to withdraw him from the persecutions of the French party, otherwise called “The Hats,” against that of Russia, or “The Caps.” This persecution became so fierce in Sweden at the diet of 1756, that almost all the chiefs of the Russian party had their heads cut off this year. Count Horn told me himself, that if he had not come to Russia, he would certainly have been of the number.
Count Poniatowsky and Count Horn remained two days at Oranienbaum. The first day the Grand Duke treated them very well, but on the second they were in his way, for his thoughts were running on the wedding of one of his huntsmen, at which he wished to be present for the purpose of drinking. Finding that his guests still stayed, he left them there, and I had to do the honours of the house.
After dinner, I took the company which had remained with us, and which was not very numerous, to view the interior of the house. On reaching my cabinet, a little Italian greyhound that I had there, ran to meet us, and began to bark loudly at Count Horn, but when he perceived Count Poniatowsky, he seemed wild with delight. As the cabinet was very small, no one observed this but Leon Narichkine, his sister-in-law and myself. But it did not escape the notice of Count Horn, and while I was going through the apartments to return to the saloon, Count Horn took Poniatowsky by the coat and said to him, “My friend, there is nothing so terrible as a little Italian greyhound; the first thing I always do with the ladies I am in love with is to give them one of these little dogs, and by this means I can always discover whether there is any one more favoured than myself. The rule is infallible. You see it. The dog growled as if he would have eaten me, because I am a stranger, while he was mad with joy when he saw you again, for most assuredly this is not the first time he has seen you there.” Count Poniatowsky treated all this as an absurdity on his part, but he could not dissuade him. Count Horn merely replied, “Fear nothing; you have to deal with a discreet person.” Next morning they departed. Count Horn used to say, that when he went so far as to fall in love, it was always with three women at a time. And we had an example of this under our eye at St. Petersburg, where he courted three young ladies at once. Count Poniatowsky left two days afterwards for Poland. During his absence the Chevalier Williams sent me word, through Leon Narichkine, that the High Chancellor Bestoujeff was caballing against the nomination of Count Poniatowsky, and had, through him, endeavoured to dissuade Count Bruhl, at that time the minister and favourite of the King of Poland, from making it. He added that he took care not to fulfil this commission, although he had not declined it, fearing it might be given to some one else, who would probably discharge it more exactly, and thus prejudice his friend, who wished, above all things, to return to Russia. The Chevalier suspected that Count Bestoujeff, who for a long time had the Saxo-Polish ministers at his disposal, wished to nominate to that post some person particularly in his confidence. However, Count Poniatowsky obtained the appointment, and returned, towards winter, as Envoy of Poland, while the Saxon embassy remained under the immediate direction of Count Bestoujeff.
Some time before we quitted Oranienbaum, the Prince and Princess Galitzine arrived there, accompanied by M. Betzky. They were going to travel abroad on account of ill-health, especially Betzky, who needed some distraction to relieve the deep melancholy into which he had been plunged by the death of the Princess of Hesse Homburg—born Princess Troubetzkoy, mother of the Princess Galitzine, who was the issue of the first marriage of the Princess of Hesse with the Hospodar of Wallachia, Prince Kantemir. As the Princess Galitzine and Betzky were old acquaintances, I endeavoured to give them the best reception I could at Oranienbaum, and after having shown them about a good deal, the Princess Galitzine and I got into a cabriolet, which I guided myself, and we took a drive in the neighbourhood of Oranienbaum. On our way, the Princess, who was a very singular and narrow-minded person, gave me to understand that she thought I entertained some ill-feeling against her. I assured her that such was not the case, and that I did not know of anything which could give occasion to any ill-feeling on my part, as I had never had any disagreement with her. Thereupon she told me that she had feared Count Poniatowsky might have injured her in my good opinion. I thought I should have dropped at these words. I replied that she must certainly be dreaming; that the person she spoke of was not in a position to prejudice her in my opinion; that he had been gone some time; that I only knew him by sight, and as a stranger; and that I could not understand what could have put such an idea into her head. Upon my return home, I sent for Leon Narichkine, and related to him this conversation, which appeared to me as stupid as it was impertinent and indiscreet. He told me that during last winter the Princess Galitzine had moved heaven and earth to attract Count Poniatowsky to her house, and that he out of politeness, and not to be wanting in respect, had paid her some attention; that she had made all sort of advances to him, to which it may easily be believed he did not much respond, as she was old, ugly, stupid, and foolish—indeed, almost crazy; and that seeing she could make no impression on him, her suspicions seemed to have been excited by the fact that he was always with him, Narichkine, and at his sister-in-law’s house.
During the brief stay of the Countess Galitzine at Oranienbaum, I had a dreadful quarrel with the Grand Duke about my maids of honour. I had observed that these ladies, who were always either confidantes or mistresses of the Grand Duke, had on several occasions been neglectful of their duties, or even failed in the respect and deference which they owed me. I went one afternoon into their apartment, and reproached them with their conduct, reminding them of their duty, of what they owed me, telling them if they went on in the same way I should complain to the Empress. Some of them were alarmed, others got angry, and some wept; but as soon as I was gone, they immediately hurried to the Grand Duke, and told him what I had said to them. His Imperial Highness got furious, and immediately running to my room, exclaimed that there was no living with me; that every day I became more proud and haughty; that I demanded of the maids of honour attentions and deferences which embittered their lives; that I made them cry all day long; that they were ladies of rank, whom I treated like servants; and if I complained of them to the Empress, he would complain of me—of my pride, my arrogance, my ill-nature, and God knows what besides. I listened to him, not without agitation, and replied that he might say of me whatever he pleased; that if the affair was carried before his aunt, she would be able to judge whether it would not be well to dismiss from my service women of bad conduct, who, by their tittle-tattle, caused dissension between her nephew and niece; for that if she wished to restore peace between us, and prevent her ears from being perpetually dinned with our quarrels, she could not adopt any other course; and that, consequently, this would certainly be the course she would adopt. At this he lowered his tone, fancying (for he was very suspicious) that I knew more of the intentions of the Empress with regard to these women than I allowed to appear, and that in reality they might all be dismissed for this business. He therefore said, “Tell me, then; do you know anything on this point? Has any one spoken to her of them?” I replied that if matters went so far as to come before the Empress, I had no doubt she would dispose of them in a very summary manner. At this he began walking with hasty strides up and down my room in a reverie; gradually cooled down; and then went away, only half-sulky. The same evening, I related this conversation, word for word, to one of these maids of honour, who appeared to me more sensible than the rest, and described the scene which their imprudent tattling had caused. This put them on their guard against carrying matters to an extremity, of which, probably, they would become the victims.
During the autumn we returned to town, and shortly afterwards the Chevalier Williams left for England on leave. He had failed in his object in Russia. The very next day after his audience of the Empress, he had proposed a treaty of alliance between England and Russia. Count Bestoujeff had orders and full authority to conclude this treaty. In fact, the treaty was signed by him, and the Ambassador could scarcely contain his joy at his success, but the following day Count Bestoujeff communicated to him, by note, the accession of Russia to the convention signed at Versailles between France and Austria. This was a thunderbolt for the English Ambassador, who had been played with and deceived in this affair by the High Chancellor, or appeared to have been so. But Count Bestoujeff himself could no longer do as he pleased; his opponents were beginning to get the upper hand of him, and they intrigued, or rather others were intriguing with them, to gain them over to the Franco-Austrian party, to which they were already much disposed. The Schouvaloffs, and especially Ivan Ivanovitch, had a passion for France and all that belonged to it, and in this they were seconded by the Vice-Chancellor Voronzoff, for whom Louis XV. in return for this piece of service, furnished the mansion which he had just built at St. Petersburg, with old furniture which his mistress, Madame Pompadour, had become tired of, and had sold to her lover, the King, at a good price. But apart from all considerations of profit, the Vice-Chancellor had another motive: he wished to lessen the credit of his rival, Count Bestoujeff, and secure his place for Peter Schouvaloff. Besides, he meditated a monopoly of the Russian trade in tobacco, in order to sell the article in France.
1757.
Towards the end of the year, Count Poniatowsky returned to Russia as minister of the King of Poland. In the early part of the year, the tenor of our life was the same as in the previous winter; the same balls, the same concerts, and the same coteries. Soon after our return to the city, where I could observe things more closely, I perceived that M. Brockdorf, with his intrigues, was making rapid progress in the good graces of the Grand Duke. He was seconded in this by a considerable number of Holstein officers whom he had encouraged his Highness to retain this winter at St. Petersburg. The number amounted to at least twenty, who were continually within the Grand Duke’s circle, without counting a couple of Holstein soldiers who did duty in his chamber as messengers, valets-de-chambre—factotums, in a word. All these were, in reality, so many spies in the service of Messrs. Brockdorf and Co. I watched for a favourable moment during this winter to speak seriously to the Grand Duke, and tell him exactly what I thought of those about him, and of the intrigues which I saw going on. One presented itself, which I did not neglect. The Grand Duke himself came one day into my cabinet, to tell me that it had been represented to him as indispensably necessary that he should send secret orders to Holstein for the arrest of a person named Elendsheim, who, by his office and the personal consideration he enjoyed, was one of the leading men of the country. He was of bourgeois extraction, but had risen by his learning and capacity to his present post. I asked the Duke what complaints were made against him, and what he had done to require his arrest. He replied, “Why, you see, they tell me he is suspected of malversation.” I inquired who were his accusers. On this, he thought himself very reasonable in saying, “Oh, as for accusers, there are none, for every one in the country fears and respects him; and it is on this very account that I ought to have him arrested, for as soon as this is done, there will be, I am assured, accusers enough and to spare.” I shuddered at this answer, and replied, “But at this rate there will not be an innocent man in the world; it will only be necessary for some envious person to set afloat any vague rumour he pleases, and then any one whatever may be arrested on the principle that accusations and crimes will come afterwards. It is, to use the words of the song, ‘à la façon de Barbari, mon ami,’ that they are advising you to act, without regard to your reputation or your sense of justice. Who is it that gives you such bad advice? if I may be allowed to ask.” My gentleman looked a little foolish at this question, and said, “You are always wanting to know more than other people.” I replied, that it was not for the sake of knowing that I spoke, but because I hated injustice, and could not believe that he wished to commit such a wrong out of mere wantonness. Upon this he began to pace up and down the room with hasty strides, and then went away more agitated than displeased. A little while afterwards he came back, saying, “Come to my room, Brockdorf will talk to you about the affair of Elendsheim, and you will see and be convinced that I must have him arrested.” I replied, “Very well, I will follow you, and will hear what he has to say, since you wish it.” I did so, and as soon as we entered, the Grand Duke said to Brockdorf, “Speak to the Grand Duchess.” Brockdorf, a little confused, bowed to the Duke, and said, “Since your Highness commands me, I will speak to her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess.” Here he paused, and then said, “This is an affair which requires to be managed with much secrecy and prudence.” I listened. “All Holstein is full of rumours of the malversations and extortions of Elendsheim. It is true he has no accusers, for he is feared; but when he is arrested, there will be no difficulty in getting as many as may be wished.” I asked for some details of these malversations and extortions, and learnt that as for embezzlement of the revenue, there could not be any, since the Grand Duke had no money in hand there; but what was looked upon as malversation was, that being at the head of the administration of justice, whenever any cause was to be tried, there was always some pleader or other who complained of injustice, and accused the opposite party of having gained their cause by bribing the judges. But M. Brockdorf displayed his eloquence and skill in vain; he did not convince me. I still maintained to him, in presence of the Grand Duke, that they were pushing on his Imperial Highness to commit an act of crying injustice, by persuading him to despatch an order for the arrest of a man against whom there existed no formal complaint or accusation. I said to M. Brockdorf that after that fashion the Grand Duke might have him locked up at any hour, and say that the crimes and accusations would come afterwards; and that, as to lawsuits, it was easy to conceive that he who lost his cause would always complain of having been wronged. I added, too, that the Grand Duke, more than any other person, ought to be on his guard against such things, as experience had already taught him, to his cost, what persecution and party-spirit could do; for it was not more than two or three years, at the utmost, since his Imperial Highness, at my intercession, had ordered the release of M. de Holmer, who had been kept in prison for six or eight years, in order to compel him to give an account of affairs transacted during the Grand Duke’s minority, and under the administration of his guardian, the Prince Royal of Sweden, to whom M. de Holmer had been attached, and whom he followed to Sweden; whence he did not return until the Grand Duke had signed and sent him a testimonial of approval, and a formal discharge for all that had been done during his minority. And yet in spite of all this, the Grand Duke had been induced to have M. de Holmer arrested, and a commission of inquiry appointed, to examine into things which occurred under the administration of the Prince Royal of Sweden. This commission, after acting at first with much vigour, and offering a clear stage to all informers, had, nevertheless, been able to discover nothing, and had fallen into lethargy for want of aliment. Yet all this time, M. de Holmer languished in close confinement, being allowed to see neither wife, nor children, nor friends, nor relatives; until at last the whole country cried out against the injustice and tyranny of this business, which was in truth outrageous, and which would not even then have been so soon brought to an end had I not advised the Grand Duke to cut this Gordian knot by despatching an order for the release of M. de Holmer, and the abolition of the commission, which, besides, cost no trifling sum to the already nearly exhausted exchequer of the Grand Duke’s hereditary duchy. But it was to no purpose that I quoted this striking example; the Grand Duke listened to me, thinking all the while, I fancy, of something else, while M. Brockdorf, hardened in wickedness, narrow in mind, and obstinate as a block, allowed me to talk on, having no more reasons to produce. And when I was gone away, he told the Grand Duke that all I had urged sprung from no other motive than the desire of ruling; that I disapproved of every measure which I had not myself advised; that I knew nothing of business; that women always liked to be meddling in everything, and always spoilt whatever they did meddle with; and that all vigorous measures especially were beyond their capacity; in short, he managed to overrule my advice, and the Grand Duke, at his persuasion, had an order for the arrest of Elendsheim drawn up, signed, and immediately despatched. A person of the name of Zeitz, secretary to the Grand Duke, who was in the interest of Pechlin, and was son-in-law of the midwife who attended me, informed me of all this. The party of Pechlin, generally, disapproved of this violent and unreasonable measure, with which M. Brockdorf alarmed both them and the whole country of Holstein. As soon as I learnt that the wiles of M. Brockdorf had prevailed over my advice and earnest representations, in a case of such crying injustice, I resolved to make M. Brockdorf feel my indignation to the utmost. I told Zeitz, and I had Pechlin informed, that from that moment I regarded M. Brockdorf as a pest, to be shunned and driven away from the Grand Duke, if it could in any manner be accomplished; as for myself, I would employ every means in my power for that end. And, in fact, I made it a point to manifest, on every occasion, the disgust and the horror with which the conduct of this man had inspired me. There was no sort of ridicule with which he was not covered, and I did not allow any one, whenever an occasion offered, to remain ignorant of what I thought of him. Leon Narichkine, and other young people, amused themselves in seconding me in this. Whenever M. Brockdorf passed through the apartments, everyone cried out after him, Pelican—such was the nickname we had given him. This bird was the most hideous that we knew of, and as a man, M. Brockdorf was quite as hideous, both externally and internally. He was tall, with a long neck, and a broad, flat head, and withal red-haired. He wore a wire wig; his eyes were small, dull and sunk in his head, and almost destitute of eyelashes and eyebrows, while the corners of his month hung down towards his chin, giving him a miserable as well as an evil look. As to his character I may refer to what I have just said; but I will further add that he was so corrupt that he took money from all who were willing to give it him, and in order that his august master might not at some future time be able to blame these extortions, and seeing him always in need of money, he persuaded him to do the same, and in this way he procured him all he could, as well by selling Holstein orders and titles to any one who would pay for them, as by inducing him to solicit, and intrigue for, in the different bureaux of the empire, as well as in the senate, all sorts of things, many of them unjust, some even burdensome to the state, such as monopolies and other privileges which could not otherwise be allowed, since they were contrary to the laws of Peter I. Besides this, M. Brockdorf led the Duke more than ever into drink and debauchery, having surrounded him with a mob of adventurers, drawn from the barracks and taverns, both of Germany and St. Petersburg, who had neither faith nor principle, and did nothing but drink, eat, smoke, and talk disgusting nonsense.
As I saw that, in spite of all I did and said to lessen the credit of M. Brockdorf, he still maintained his position in the good opinion of the Grand Duke, and was even more in favour than ever, I formed the resolution of telling Count Schouvaloff what I thought of the man, adding, that I looked upon him as one of the most dangerous persons it was possible to have near a young prince, heir to a great empire, and that I felt myself in conscience bound to speak to him in confidence, in order that he might inform the Empress, or take what other measures he might deem proper. He asked whether he might venture to mention my name. I told him he might, and that if the Empress asked me about it I would not mince the matter, but tell her what I knew and saw. Count Alexander Schouvaloff winked his eye as he listened to me very seriously, but he was not a person to act without the advice of his brother Peter and his cousin Ivan. For a long time I heard nothing; at last he gave me to understand that the Empress might speak to me on the subject. In the interim, the Grand Duke bounced into my room one day, closely followed by his secretary Zeitz, with a paper in his hand. The Duke, addressing me, said, “Just look at this devil of a fellow! I drank too much yesterday, and to-day my brain is still in a whirl, and he brings me a whole sheet of paper, which, after all, is only a list of the matters which he wishes me to finish; he follows me even into your room.” Zeitz said to me, “All that I have got here only requires a yes or a no, and will not take up a quarter of an hour.” “Well, let us see,” I said, “perhaps you will get through them easier than you think.” Zeitz began to read, and as he read on, I answered, ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ This pleased the Grand Duke, and Zeitz said to him, “Look, my Lord, if you would only consent to do thus twice a week, your affairs would not fall into arrear. These things are but trifles, but they must be attended to, and the Grand Duchess has finished the matter with six times ‘yes,’ and as many times ‘no.’” Thenceforward his Imperial Highness used to send Zeitz to me whenever he had any “yeses” or “noes.” After a time, I asked him to give me a written order, stating what things I might settle, and what I must not determine without his express direction, and this he did. None but Pechlin, Zeitz, and myself were cognizant of this arrangement, with which Pechlin and Zeitz were delighted. When a signature was necessary, the Grand Duke signed what I had settled. The affair of Elendsheim remained under the care of Brockdorf; but when once Elendsheim was under arrest, M. Brockdorf was in no hurry to push the business, for he had thus gained pretty nearly all he wanted, which was to remove Elendsheim from public affairs, and to manifest in Holstein his own influence with his master.
I seized, one day, a favourable opportunity for saying to the Grand Duke, that since he found the affairs of Holstein so troublesome to regulate, and regarded them as a sample of what he would have one day to settle when the Empire of Russia fell to his lot, I thought he must look forward to that charge as something more oppressive still; thereupon he repeated what he had often said to me before—that he felt he was not born for Russia; that he did not suit the Russians nor the Russians him; and that he was persuaded he should perish in Russia. On this point I said to him what I had also said to him many a time before, that he ought not to allow himself to give way to so fatal an idea, but to do his best to make himself liked by every one in Russia, and to ask the Empress to allow him an opportunity of making himself acquainted with the affairs of the empire. I induced him even to ask permission to be present at the conferences which served as a council for the Empress. In fact, he did speak of this to the Schouvaloffs, who induced the Empress to admit him to these conferences whenever she was present at them herself. This was pretty nearly the same thing as settling that he should never be admitted, for after going with him once or twice, neither of them again attended.
The advice which I gave to the Grand Duke was, in general, good and salutary; but he who gives counsel can only do so in accordance with his own cast of mind and turn of thought—his own mode of action and manner of viewing things. But the great object of my counsels to the Grand Duke consisted in the fact that his way of doing things was quite different from mine, and the more we advanced in years the more marked did this difference become. I made it a point, in all things, to keep as close to truth as I possibly could, while he receded from it farther and farther every day, until at last he became a determined liar. As the way in which he became so is rather singular, I will state it, as it may perhaps display the course of the human mind on this point, and so be useful in showing how this vice may be prevented or corrected in those who may evince a tendency towards it. The first falsehood invented by the Grand Duke was told with a view of giving himself consequence in the eyes of some young married woman or girl, on whose ignorance he could count. He would tell her how, while still living with his father in Holstein, his father had put him at the head of a detachment of his guards and had sent him to seize a troop of gipsies who were prowling about Kiel and committing, he said, frightful robberies. These he would relate in detail, as also the several stratagems he had made use of to surround them and to engage them in one or many battles, in which he pretended to have performed prodigies of skill and valour, after which he had taken them prisoners and carried them to Kiel. At first he took care not to tell all this to any one but those who were ignorant of his history. By degrees he grew bold enough to produce his composition before those on whose discretion he could so far rely as not to fear a contradiction from them; but when he ventured to relate this story to me, I asked him how long before his father’s death it had taken place. He replied, without hesitation, “Three or four years.” “Well,” I said, “you began very young to show your prowess; for, three or four years before your father’s death, you were not more than six or seven years old, having been left, at the age of eleven, under the guardianship of my uncle, the Prince Royal of Sweden. And what equally astonishes me,” I observed, “is that your father, of whom you were the only son, and one too whose health, according to what I have been told, was always delicate at that period, should have sent you to fight against brigands, and that too at the early age of six or seven.” The Grand Duke became terribly angry at these remarks, saying that I disbelieved him and wished to represent him as a liar in the eyes of the world. I told him it was not I, but the almanac who threw discredit on his story; and that I left it to himself to judge whether it was possible, in the nature of things, that a child of six or seven, an only son, the heir-apparent of a principality, and the only hope of his father, should be sent to catch gipsies. He held his tongue, and I too; but he sulked with me for a long while. When, however, he had forgotten my remonstrances, he still continued to relate, even in my presence, this story, of which he gave endless variations. He afterwards made up another far more disgraceful, as well as more injurious to himself, which I will relate in its proper place. It would be impossible for me at present to tell all the dreams which he occasionally imagined and gave out as facts, but in which there was not a shadow of truth. The illustration I have given, will, I think, be sufficient for the present. One Thursday, towards the end of the Carnival, there being a ball in our apartments, I was sitting between the sister-in-law of Leon Narichkine and his sister, Madame Siniavine, and we were looking at Marine Ossipovna Sakrefskaïa, Maid of Honour to the Empress and niece of the Count Rasoumowsky, who was dancing a minuet. She was at this time slight and active, and it was said that Count Horn was very much in love with her. But as he was always in love with three women at a time, he also paid his addresses to the Countess Marie Romanovna Voronzoff and to Anne Alexievna Hitroff, who were likewise Maids of Honour to her Imperial Majesty. We thought that the first-mentioned danced well, and that she was rather pretty. She was dancing with Leon Narichkine. While talking on this subject, his sister-in-law and sister told me that his mother talked of marrying him to Mademoiselle Hitroff, a niece of the Schouvaloffs, on the side of her mother, who was the sister of Peter and Alexander Schouvaloff, and married to the father of Mademoiselle Hitroff. This gentleman was often at the Narichkines, and had so managed that Leon’s mother had conceived the idea of this marriage. Neither Madame Siniavine nor his sister-in-law were at all anxious for a connection with the Schouvaloffs, whom, as I have already said, they did not at all like, and as for Leon, he was not even aware that his mother was thinking of marrying him, while he was actually in love with the Countess Marie Voronzoff just spoken of. On hearing this, I told Mesdames Siniavine and Narichkine that we must not permit this marriage with Mademoiselle Hitroff, who was a person very much disliked, was intriguing, disagreeable, and boisterous, and that, to cut short all such ideas, we ought to give Leon a wife of our own sort. For this purpose I suggested the above-named niece of the Count Rasoumowsky, a lady of whom, besides, they were both very fond, and who was always at their house. My two friends greatly approved of my advice, and next day, as there was a masquerade at court, I addressed myself to Marshal Rasoumowsky, who was at that time Hetman of the Ukraine, and told him in plain terms that he was doing very wrong to allow his niece to lose such a desirable husband as Leon Narichkine; that his mother wished him to marry Mademoiselle Hitroff, but that Madame Siniavine, his sister-in-law, and myself, were agreed that his niece would be a more suitable person; and that therefore he ought, without loss of time, to make the proposal to the parties interested. The Marshal relished our project, spoke of it to his then factotum, Teploff, who at once went and spoke of it to the elder Count Rasoumowsky, who also gave his consent. The very next morning Teploff went to the Bishop of St. Petersburg, and purchased for fifty roubles the necessary dispensation. This being obtained, the Marshal and his wife went to their aunt, the mother of Leon, and managed so well that they gained her consent even against her own wishes. They were but just in time, for that very day she was to give her decision to M. Hitroff. This being done, Marshal Rasoumowsky, Mesdames Siniavine and Narichkine, broke the matter to Leon, and persuaded him to marry one of whom he had not even had a thought, while he was actually in love with another. She, however, was as good as promised to Count Boutourline. As for Madame Hitroff, he did not care for her at all. This consent being gained, the Marshal sent for his niece, and she felt that the match was too good to be refused. The next day, which was Sunday, the two Counts Rasoumowsky asked the Empress’ consent to the match, which she gave at once. The Schouvaloffs were astonished at the manner in which M. Hitroff and themselves also had been outwitted, for it was not until the consent of the Empress had been obtained that they even heard of the matter. However, the affair being settled, there was no help for it, and thus Leon, in love with one woman, and his mother wishing him to marry another, married a third, of whom neither he nor any one else had thought three days before. This marriage of Leon Narichkine united me still more closely than ever in friendship with the Counts Rasoumowsky, who were really grateful to me for having procured so excellent and so high a match for their niece, nor were they at all sorry at having got the better of the Schouvaloffs, who could not even complain, but were obliged to conceal their mortification. It was, moreover, an additional distinction which I had thus procured for them.
The amours of the Grand Duke with Madame Teploff were now in rather a languishing condition. One of the greatest obstacles in their way was the difficulty of seeing one another, and this vexed his Imperial Highness, who was no fonder of difficulties than he was of answering letters. At the end of the Carnival, his amours began to be a matter of party. The Princess of Courland informed me one day that Count Roman Voronzoff, the father of the two young ladies who were at the court, and who by the way was the horror of the Grand Duke, as were also his five children, was in the habit of speaking of the Grand Duke with very little respect or reserve.
Among other things, he said that if he thought proper he could easily convert the Duke’s antipathy into favour, it being only necessary to give a dinner to Brockdorf, let him have plenty of English beer to drink, and when going away, put six bottles of it into his pocket for his Imperial Highness, and then he and his youngest daughter would at once take the highest places in the Grand Duke’s favour. At the ball the same evening, I observed a good deal of whispering between his Imperial Highness and the Countess Marie Voronzoff, the eldest daughter of Count Roman, for this family had really become very intimate with the Schouvaloffs, with whom Brockdorf was always welcome. It would have given me anything but pleasure to have seen Mademoiselle Elizabeth Voronzoff come again into favour, and therefore, to put an additional obstacle in the way, I told the Grand Duke what the father had said, and what I have just related. He became almost furious, and demanded in great anger from whom I had heard this. For a long while I was unwilling to tell him, but he said that as I could not name any one, he should believe that I had myself made up this story in order to damage the character of both the father and daughters. It was in vain that I told him I had never in my life made up any such tale; I was obliged at last to name the Princess of Courland. He told me that he should instantly write her a note to London whether I had spoken the truth, and that should there be the least variation between our accounts, he would complain to the Empress of my intrigues and lies; and with these remarks he left the room. Fearing that the answer of the Princess might be in some degree equivocal, I wrote her a note saying, “In Heaven’s name, tell the truth purely and simply on the matter which you are going to be asked about.” My note was instantly despatched, and reached her in time, for it got before the Grand Duke’s. The Princess of Courland gave a truthful answer to his Imperial Highness, and he found that I had not told him a falsehood. This withheld him for some time from his “liaisons” with these two daughters of a man who had but little esteem for him, and whom besides he himself disliked. But in order to put an additional obstacle in the way, Leon Narichkine persuaded Count Rasoumowsky to invite the Duke to his house one or two evenings each week, quite in private. It was almost a partie quarrée, for no one was present at it but the Marshal, Marie Paolovna Narichkine, the Grand Duke, Madame Teploff, and Leon Narichkine. This went on for a good part of Lent, and gave rise to another idea. The Marshal’s house was at this time of wood. He received company in his wife’s apartments, and as they were both fond of play, there was always play there. The Marshal used to go backwards and forwards, and in his private apartments he had his own coterie, when the Grand Duke was not there. But as the Marshal had often been at my rooms in my little furtive parties, he wished our caterer to come in turn to his home. With this view, what he called his hermitage, which consisted of two or three rooms on the ground-floor, was destined for us. Every one was carefully concealed, because, as I have already said, we dared not go out without permission. By this arrangement there were three or four parties in the house; the Marshal went from one to the other, and mine was the only one that knew all that was going on in the house, whereas none knew that we were there.
Towards the spring M. Pechlin, minister of the Grand Duke for Holstein, died. The Grand Chancellor, Count Bestoujeff, foreseeing his death, had advised me to ask the Grand Duke to give the place to a certain M. Stambke. At the commencement of spring we went to Oranienbaum. Here our mode of life was the same as in previous years, with this exception, that the number of Holstein troops, and of adventurers who were appointed as officers over them, was augmented year by year; and as it was impossible to find quarters for them in the little village of Oranienbaum, where at the first there were no more than twenty-eight cottages, tents were pitched for these troops, whose number never exceeded 1300 men. The officers dined and supped at court; but as the number of ladies belonging to the court, together with the wives of the gentlemen, did not exceed fifteen or sixteen, and as his Imperial Highness was passionately fond of grand entertainments, which he frequently gave, both in his camp, and in every nook and corner of Oranienbaum, he admitted to these entertainments, not only the female singers and ballet-girls of his opera, but also a great many women of the middle class, of very bad character, who were brought to him from St. Petersburg. As soon as I was aware that these singing women, etc., were to be admitted, I abstained from attending, under pretext at first that I was taking the waters, and the greater part of the time I took my meals in my own rooms with two or three persons. I afterwards told the Grand Duke that I was afraid the Empress would be displeased if I appeared in so mixed a company; and, in fact, I never went when I knew that the hospitality was general, and therefore, whenever the Grand Duke wished me to come, none were admitted but the ladies of the court. At the masquerades which the Grand Duke gave at Oranienbaum, I never appeared otherwise than very simply dressed, without jewels or ornaments. This, too, had a good effect with the Empress, who neither liked nor approved of these fêtes at Oranienbaum, which really became orgies; and yet she tolerated them, or at least did not forbid them. I was informed that her Imperial Highness said, “These fêtes give no more pleasure to the Grand Duchess than they do to me; she goes to them dressed in the simplest manner possible, and never sups with the crowd admitted to them.” I occupied myself at this time at Oranienbaum in building and planting what is there called my garden, and the rest of the time I took exercise either in walking, riding, or driving, and in my own room I read.
In the month of July we heard that Memel had surrendered on terms to the Russian troops on the 24th of June, and in August the news arrived of the Battle of Gross-Jægersdorf, won by the Russian army on the 19th of that month. On the day of the Te Deum, I gave a grand entertainment in my garden to the Grand Duke, and to all the most distinguished people at Oranienbaum, at which the Grand Duke and all the company appeared very gay, and very much pleased. This diminished for the moment the pain which the Grand Duke felt at the war which had just broken out between Russia and the King of Prussia, for which ever since his boyhood he had felt a singular inclination. This at the first was natural enough, but in the end it degenerated into madness. At this time the public joy at the success of the arms of Russia obliged him to dissemble his real sentiments, which were that he saw with regret the defeat of the Prussian troops, which he regarded as invincible. On that day I had an ox roasted for the masons and laborers at Oranienbaum.
A few days after this entertainment we returned to the capital, where we occupied the Summer Palace. Here Count Alexander Schouvaloff came one evening to tell me that the Empress was in his wife’s room, and that she had sent word to me to come there and speak to her, as I had desired last winter. I went without delay to the apartment of the Count and Countess Schouvaloff, which was at the end of my own apartments, and found the Empress there quite alone. After kissing her hand and receiving her embrace in return, she did me the honour to say, that having been informed that I wanted to speak to her, she had come to-day to know what it was I wanted. It was now eight months and more since my conversation with Alexander Schouvaloff on the subject of Brockdorf. I replied to her Imperial Majesty that last winter, seeing the way in which M. Brockdorf acted, I had thought it necessary to speak of it to Count Alexander Schouvaloff, in order that he might apprise her Imperial Majesty of it; that he had asked if he might name me as his authority, and that I had told him that, if her Imperial Majesty wished it, I would repeat to her all that I knew. Thereupon I related the story of Elendsheim as it had taken place. She seemed to listen to me very coldly, then she asked me for details of the private life of the Grand Duke and of his associates. I told her with the greatest truth all that I knew of them, and when, with regard to the affairs of Holstein, I entered into some details which showed her that I was well acquainted with them, she said to me, “You seem to be well informed in regard to that country.” I said very simply that that was not a difficulty, as the Grand Duke had ordered me to make myself acquainted with them. I saw from her countenance that this confidence made a disagreeable impression on her mind, and generally she appeared to me unusually close during this conversation, in which she questioned me, and made me talk, scarcely saying a word herself, so that this interview appeared to me rather a kind of inquisition on her part, than a confidential conversation. At last she dismissed me quite as coldly as she received me, and I was very little pleased with my audience, which Alexander Schouvaloff recommended me to keep quite secret, which I promised him to do, and indeed there was nothing in it to boast of. On my return I attributed the coldness of the Empress to the antipathy with which, as I had long been informed, the Schouvaloffs had inspired her against me. It will be seen as we proceed what a detestable use, if I may venture to say so, they persuaded her to make of the private conversation.
Some time after this we learned that Marshal Apraxine, far from profiting by his success after the capture of Memel and the victory of Gross-Jægersdorf, to push onwards, was retiring with such precipitation, that his retreat resembled a flight, for he threw away or burned his carriages and spiked his guns. No one understood these operations: his friends, even, could not justify him, and on that account it was suspected that there must be some foul play. Although I do not myself know to what exactly to attribute the precipitate and inconsistent retreat of Marshal Apraxine, never having seen him since, yet I think the cause of it may have been that he received from his daughter, the Princess Kourakine, always connected by policy, though not by inclination, with Peter Schouvaloff, from his son-in-law, Prince Kourakine, and from his friends and relatives, very precise news of the health of the Empress, which was constantly getting worse and worse. At this time it began generally to be conceived that she had very violent convulsions every month, regularly; that these convulsions visibly enfeebled her faculties; that after every convulsion she was for three or four days in a state of weakness and exhaustion which resembled lethargy; and that during this period she could not be spoken to on any subject whatsoever. Marshal Apraxine, perhaps thinking the danger more urgent than it really was, did not judge it advisable to advance farther into Prussia, but thought it best to make a retrograde movement, in order to draw nearer to the frontiers of Russia, under pretext of want of provisions, foreseeing that, in the event of the Empress’ death, the war would be brought at once to a close. It was difficult to justify the proceedings of Marshal Apraxine. But such may have been his views, and the more so as he believed his presence necessary in Russia, as I have already mentioned, when speaking of his departure. Count Bestoujeff informed me, through Stambke, of the turn which the conduct of Marshal Apraxine had taken, and how the Imperial Ambassador, and that of France, loudly complained of it. He begged me to write to the Marshal, as being his friend, and join my persuasions to his, to induce him to retrace his steps and put an end to a flight to which his enemies gave an odious and injurious interpretation. I did write to him, and informed him of the reports current at St. Petersburg, and of the difficulty which his friends found in justifying the precipitancy of his retreat, and begged him to retrace his steps and fulfil the orders he had received from the Government. This letter was sent to him through Bestoujeff, but I received no reply to it. Meanwhile General Fermor, Director-General of Works to her Imperial Majesty, came to take leave of us on his departure from St. Petersburg. We learned that he was appointed to the army. He had formerly been Quarter-master-general to Count Munich. The first thing which he asked for was to have with him his employés or superintendents, at the board of works, the Brigadiers Reaznoff and Mordvinoff; and with them he set off for the army. These were soldiers who had scarcely ever done anything but make contracts for building. On his arrival he was ordered to take the command, in place of Marshal Apraxine, who was recalled, and who, on his return, found at Trihorsky an order to await there the commands of the Empress. These were long in reaching him, because his friends, his daughter, and Peter Schouvaloff moved heaven and earth to calm the anger of the Empress, fomented as it was by Counts Voronzoff, Boutourline, John Schouvaloff, and others, who were urged on by the ambassadors of the courts of Vienna and Versailles, who were anxious to have the Marshal brought to trial. At last, commissioners were named to examine him. After the first interrogatory, the Marshal was seized with a fit of apoplexy, of which he died in about twenty-four hours. In this trial, General Lieven would assuredly have also been included. He was the friend and confidant of Apraxine. I should have had an additional grief, for Lieven was sincerely attached to me. But whatever friendship I may have had for Apraxine and Lieven, I can swear that I was entirely ignorant of the cause of their conduct, and even of their conduct itself, although a good deal of trouble was taken to circulate a report that it was to please the Grand Duke and me that they had retreated instead of advancing. Lieven occasionally gave very singular proofs of his attachment to me; among others, the following. The Ambassador of Austria, Count Esterhazy, gave a masquerade, at which the Empress and all the court were present. Lieven, seeing me pass the room where he was, said to his neighbour, who was Count Poniatowsky, “There is a woman for whom a fellow might take some blows of the knout without complaining.” I have this anecdote from Count Poniatowsky himself, since King of Poland.
As soon as General Fermor had assumed the command, he hastened to fulfil his instructions, which were precise. He instantly moved forward, in spite of the rigour of the season, and occupied Königsberg, which sent deputies to him on 18th January, 1758.
During this winter I suddenly perceived a great change in the behaviour of Leon Narichkine. He began to be disrespectful and rude; no longer visited me except unwillingly, and talked in a manner which made it evident that some one was filling his head with prejudices against me, his sister-in-law, his sister, Count Poniatowsky, and all who held to me. I learned that he was constantly at the house of John Schouvaloff, and I easily guessed that they were turning him against me, in order to punish me for having prevented his marriage with Mademoiselle Hitroff, and that they would certainly go on until they had led him into indiscretions which might be injurious to me. His sister-in-law, his sister, and his brother were equally angry with him on my account, and, literally, he conducted himself like a fool, and took delight in offending us as much as he could, and that, too, while I was furnishing, at my own expense, the house in which he was to live when married. Every one accused him of ingratitude, and told him that he had no interest in what he was doing; in a word, that he had nothing whatever to complain of. It was evident that he was a mere tool in the hands of those who had got possession of him. He was more regular in paying court to the Grand Duke, whom he amused as much as he could, leading him on more and more to courses which he knew I disapproved of. He sometimes pushed his incivility so far as not to reply when I spoke to him. To this very hour I cannot conceive what could have offended him, for I had literally loaded him with favours and friendship, as also all his family, from the first moment I knew them. I fancy he was also induced to cajole the Grand Duke, by the advice of the Schouvaloffs, who told him that the Duke’s favour would be more advantageous than mine, since I was in ill odour both with him and the Empress, neither of whom liked me, and that he would interfere with his own prospects if he did not detach himself from me; that as soon as the Empress died, the Grand Duke would put me into a convent; and other such like statements which the Schouvaloffs made to him, and which were reported to me. Besides, they showed him in perspective the order of St. Anne as the symbol of the Grand Duke’s favour. By these and such like reasonings and promises, they obtained from this weak-minded young man, all the little treacheries they wished; indeed, they made him go not only as far, but even farther than they wished, although now and then, as will hereafter be seen, he had his fits of repentance. He also endeavoured, as much as possible, to alienate the Grand Duke from me, so that his Imperial Highness manifested an almost continuous ill-humour towards me, while he again renewed his connection with the Countess Elizabeth Voronzoff.
In the beginning of the spring of this year it was rumoured that Prince Charles of Saxony, son of Augustus III, King of Poland, intended to visit St. Petersburg. The prospect of this visit appeared no pleasure to the Grand Duke, for many reasons. In the first place, he feared that it would be an additional restraint upon him, as he did not like that the course of life which he had traced out for himself should be in the least disturbed. In the next place the house of Saxony stood opposed to the King of Prussia, while a third reason may have been that he feared to suffer by comparison; if so, this, at all events, was being very modest, for the poor Prince of Saxony was a mere nonentity and wholly devoid of education. Except hunting and dancing, he knew absolutely nothing, and he told me himself that in the whole course of his life he never had a book in his hand except the prayer-books given to him by his mother, who was a great bigot. The Prince, in short, arrived at St. Petersburg on the 5th of April, in this year. He was received with much ceremony, and a great display of magnificence and splendour. His suite was very numerous, and he was accompanied by many Poles and Saxons, among whom there was a Lubomirsky, a Pototsky, a Rzevusky, who enjoyed the appellation of “the handsome,” two princes, Soulkowsky, a Count Sapieha, the Count Branitsky, since Grand-General, a Count Einsiedel, and many others, whose names do not now occur to me. He had a kind of sub-governor or tutor with him, named Lachinal, who directed his conduct and his correspondence. The Prince took up his residence in the house of the chamberlain, John Schouvaloff, which was recently finished, and on which its owner had exhausted his taste, notwithstanding which the house was tasteless and inconveniently though richly furnished. There were numerous paintings, but the greater part were only copies. One of the rooms was ornamented with tchinar wood, but as this wood does not take a polish it had been varnished; this turned it yellow, but of a very disagreeable hue, and, this being pronounced ugly, they sought to remedy it by covering it with very elaborate carvings, which they silvered. Externally, this mansion, though imposing in itself, resembled in its decorations, ruffles of Alençon lace, so loaded was it with ornament. Count John Czernickeff was appointed to attend on Prince Charles, and the Prince was provided with everything he required at the expense of the court, and waited on by the servants of the court.
The night preceding the day of Prince Charles’s visit to us, I suffered so severely from a violent attack of cholic, with such looseness of the bowels that they were moved more than thirty times. Notwithstanding this, and the fever consequent upon it, I dressed the next morning to receive the Prince of Saxony. He was presented to the Empress about two o’clock in the afternoon, and, upon leaving her, was presented to me. The Grand Duke was to enter a moment after him. Three arm-chairs had been placed side by side along the same wall, the centre one was for me, that on my right for the Grand Duke, and the one on my left for the Prince of Saxony. The task of keeping up the conversation devolved entirely upon me, for the Grand Duke had hardly a word to say, and the Prince had no conversational powers. In short, after a brief interview of a quarter of an hour’s length, Prince Charles arose to present his immense suite to us. There were with him, I think, more than twenty persons, to whom were added, upon this occasion, the Polish and Saxon Envoys who resided at the Russian Court, together with their employés. After half an hour’s interview the Prince took leave, and I undressed and went to bed, where I remained three or four days in a very violent fever, at the end of which I showed some signs of pregnancy. At the end of April we went to Oranienbaum. Before our departure we learnt that Prince Charles of Saxony intended to join the Russian army as a volunteer. Before leaving for the army, he went with the Empress to Petershoff where he was fêted. We took no part in these festivities, or in those given in the capital, but remained at our country-house, where he came to take leave of us, and then departed on the 4th of July.
As the Grand Duke was almost always in very bad humour with me, for which I could find no other reasons than my not receiving either M. Brockdorf or the Countess Voronzoff, who again was becoming the reigning favourite, it occurred to me to give a fête to his Imperial Highness in my garden at Oranienbaum, in order, if possible, to mitigate this ill-feeling. A fête was a thing always welcome to his Imperial Highness. Accordingly, I ordered an Italian architect who was at that time in my service, Antonio Renaldi, to construct, in a retired spot in the wood a large car capable of containing an orchestra of sixty persons, singers and instrumentalists. I had verses composed by the Italian poet of the court, and set to music by the chapel-master, Araja. In the large avenue of the garden was placed an illuminated decoration with a curtain, opposite to which a table was laid out for supper. On the 17th of July, at the close of day, his Imperial Highness, and all who were at Oranienbaum and numerous spectators from St. Petersburg and Cronstadt, assembled in the gardens which they found illuminated. We sat down to table, and, after the first course, the curtain which concealed the grand avenue was raised, and in the distance the ambulatory orchestra was seen approaching, drawn by twenty oxen, decorated with garlands and surrounded by all the dancers, male and female, that I had been able to get together. The avenue was illuminated, and so bright that everything could be plainly distinguished. When the car stopped, it so happened that the moon stood directly over it—a circumstance which produced an admirable effect and took the company quite by surprise; the weather, besides, was most delightful. The guests sprang from table, and advanced nearer to enjoy more fully the beauty of the symphony and of the spectacle. When this was ended the curtain dropped, and we sat down again to table for the second course; after which a flourish of trumpets and cymbals was heard, and then a mountebank cried out, “This way, ladies and gentlemen; walk in here, and you will find lottery tickets for nothing.” At each side of the curtained decoration two small curtains were now raised, displaying two small shops brightly illuminated, at one of which tickets were distributed gratis for a lottery of the porcelain it contained; and, in the other, for flowers, fans, combs, purses, ribbons, gloves, sword-knots, and other similar trifles. When the stalls were empty dessert was served, and afterwards came dancing, which was kept up till six the next morning. For once in the way, no intrigue or ill-will occurred to mar the effect of my fête, and his Imperial Highness and every one besides was in ecstasies. Nothing was to be heard but laudations of the Grand Duchess and her fête; and, indeed, I had spared no expense. My wine was pronounced delicious; the repast the best possible. All was at my own expense, and cost from 10,000 to 15,000 roubles; it must be remembered that I had 30,000 roubles a-year. But this fête was near costing me still more dearly; for, during the day of the 17th of July, having gone in a cabriolet with Madame Narichkine to see the preparations, and wishing to descend from the carriage, just as I placed my foot on the step, a sudden movement of the horse threw me on my knees on the ground. I was then four or five months advanced in pregnancy. I pretended to make light of the accident, and remained the last at the fête, doing the honours. However I was very much afraid of a miscarriage, but no ill result occurred, and I escaped with nothing worse than the fright.
The Grand Duke, and all his coterie, all his Holstein retainers, and even my most rancorous enemies, for days afterwards, were never tired of singing my praises, and those of my fête, there being no one, either friend or foe, who did not carry off some trifle or other, as a souvenir; and as at the fête, which was a masquerade, there was a numerous assemblage of all ranks, and as the company in the garden was very mixed, and as among them were a number of women who could not elsewhere have appeared at court, or in my presence, all made a boast and display of my presents, which were, in reality, mere trifles, none of them, I believe, exceeding a hundred roubles in value; but they came from me, and every one was delighted to be able to say, “I received that from her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess; she is goodness itself; she has made presents to every one; she is charming; she gave me a kind smile, and took pleasure in making us all eat, dance, and divert ourselves; she was always ready to find a place for those who had none, and wished every one to see all that was to be seen. She was very lively,” etc.
In short, on that day I was found to possess qualities which had not before been recognized, and I disarmed my enemies. This was what I wanted; but it did not last long, as will shortly appear.
After this fête, Leon Narichkine renewed his visits to me. One day, on entering my boudoir, I found him impertinently stretched on a couch which was there, and singing an absurd song; seeing this, I went out, closing the door after me, and immediately went in search of his sister-in-law, whom I told that we must get a good bundle of nettles, and with them chastise this fellow, who had for some time past behaved so insolently towards us, and teach him to respect us. His sister-in-law readily consented, and we forthwith had brought to us some good strong rods, surrounded with nettles. We took along with us a widow, who was with me, among my women, by name Tatiana Jourievna, and we all three entered the cabinet, where we found Leon Narichkine singing his song at the top of his voice. When he saw us he tried to make off, but we whipped him so well with our rods and nettles, that his hands, legs, and face were swollen for two or three days to such a degree that he could not accompany us to Peterhoff on the morrow, which was a court day, but was obliged to remain in his room. He took care, besides, not to boast of what had occurred, because we assured him that on the least sign of impoliteness, or ground of complaint from him, we would renew the operation, seeing that there was no other means of managing him. All this was done as mere joke, and without anger, but our hero felt it sufficiently to recollect it, and did not again expose himself to it, at least, not to the same extent as before.
In the month of August, while at Oranienbaum, we learnt that the battle of Zorndorff, one of the most sanguinary of the century, had been fought on the 14th of that month. The number of killed and wounded, on each side, was calculated at upwards of 20,000. Our loss in officers was considerable, and exceeded 1,200. This battle was announced to us as a victory, but it was whispered that the loss was equal on both sides; that for the space of three days neither army ventured to claim the victory; that finally, on the third day, the King of Prussia, in his camp, and the Count Fermor on the field of battle, had each caused the Te Deum to be sung. The vexation of the Empress and the consternation of the city were extreme when they learned all the details of this bloody day, in which so many people lost relatives, friends, or acquaintances. For a long time all was sorrow; a great many generals were slain or wounded or taken prisoners. At last, it was acknowledged, that the conduct of Count Fermor was anything but soldierly and skilful. He was recalled, and the command of the Russian forces in Prussia was given to Count Peter Soltikoff. For this purpose he was summoned from the Ukraine, where he commanded, and in the interim the command of the army was given to General Froloff Bagreeff, but with secret instructions to do nothing without the concurrence of the Lieutenant-Generals Count Roumianzoff and Prince Alexander Galitzine, his brother-in-law. A charge was brought, to the effect that Fermor, being at no great distance from the field of battle, with a force of 10,000 men upon the heights, whence he could hear the cannonade, might have rendered the action more decisive, had he attacked the Prussian army in the rear while engaged with ours. He neglected to do this, and when his brother-in-law, Prince Galitzine, came to his camp after the battle, and detailed the butchery that had taken place, he received him very ill, said many disagreeable things to him, and refused to see him afterwards, treating him as a coward, which Prince Galitzine by no means was, the entire army being more convinced of his intrepidity than of that of Roumianzoff, notwithstanding his present glory and victories. At the beginning of September the Empress was at Zarskoe Selo, where, on the 8th of the month, the day of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, she went on foot from the palace to the parish church to hear mass, the distance being only a few steps towards the north from the palace-door to the church. Scarcely had the service commenced, when, feeling unwell, she left the church, and descended the little flight of steps which turns towards the palace, and, on arriving at the re-entering angle of the side of the church, she fell down insensible on the grass, in the midst of, or rather surrounded by, a crowd of people who had come to hear mass from all the neighbouring villages. None of her attendants had followed her when she left the church; but being soon apprised of her condition, the ladies of her suite, and her other intimate attendants, ran to her assistance, and found her without consciousness or movement in the midst of the crowd, who gazed upon her without daring to approach. The Empress was tall and powerful, and could not fall down suddenly without doing herself a good deal of injury by the mere fall. They covered her with a white handkerchief, and went to fetch the physician and surgeon. The latter arrived first, and instantly bled her, just as she lay on the ground, and in the presence of all the crowd. But this did not bring her to. The physician was a long time in coming, being himself ill, and unable to walk. He was obliged to be carried in an arm-chair. The physician was the late Condoijdij, a Greek by nation, and the surgeon, Fouzadier, a French refugee. At last screens were brought from the palace as well as a couch, on which she was placed, and by dint of care, and the remedies applied, she began to revive a little; but, on opening her eyes, she recognized no one, and asked, in a scarcely intelligible manner, where she was. All this lasted above two hours, at the end of which it was determined to carry her Majesty on the couch to the palace. The consternation into which this event threw all who were attached to the court may easily be imagined. The publicity of the affair added to its unpleasantness. Hitherto the state of the Empress had been kept very secret, but in this case the accident was public. The next morning I was informed of the event at Oranienbaum by a note from Count Poniatowsky. I immediately went and told the Grand Duke, who knew nothing of it; because, generally speaking, every thing was carefully concealed from us, and more especially all that concerned the Empress herself. Only that it was customary, whenever we happened not to be in the same place as her Majesty, to send every Sunday one of the gentlemen of our court to make inquiries after her health. This we did not fail to do on the following Sunday, and we learnt that for several days the Empress had not recovered the free use of speech, and that even yet she articulated with difficulty. It was asserted that during her swoon she had bitten her tongue. All this gave reason for supposing that this weakness partook more of the nature of convulsions than mere fainting.
At the end of September we returned to the capital, and as I began to get large, I no longer appeared in public, believing that the period of my confinement was much nearer than it really proved to be. This was a source of annoyance to the Grand Duke, because, when I appeared in public, he very often complained of indisposition, in order to be able to remain in his own apartments, and, as the Empress also rarely appeared, the burden of the reception days, the fêtes, and the balls of the court devolved upon me, and when I could not be there, his Imperial Highness was teased to be present, in order that some one might represent her Majesty. He, therefore, began to be annoyed at my pregnancy, and one day took it in his head to say, in his apartment, before Leon Narichkine, and several others, “God knows where my wife gets her pregnancies, I don’t very well know whether this child is mine, and whether I ought to take the responsibility of it.” Leon Narichkine came running to me with these words, fresh from the Duke’s lips. I was naturally enough alarmed at such a speech, and said to him, “How stupid you all are. Go and ask him to swear that he has not slept with his wife, and tell him if he will take this oath, you will go immediately and give information of it to Alexander Schouvaloff as grand inquisitor of the empire.” Leon actually went to his Imperial Highness, and asked him for this oath, but the answer he got was, “Go to the devil, and don’t talk to me any more about that.” This speech of the Grand Duke, made so indiscreetly, gave me great pain, and I saw from that moment that three paths almost equally perilous presented themselves for my choice: first, to share the fortunes of the Grand Duke, be they what they might; secondly, to be exposed every moment to everything he chose to do either for or against me; or, lastly, to take a path entirely independent of all eventualities; to speak more plainly, I had to choose the alternative of perishing with him, or by him, or to save myself, my children, and perhaps the empire also, from the wreck of which all the moral and physical qualities of this Prince made me foresee the danger. This last choice appeared to me the safest. I resolved, therefore, to the utmost of my power to continue to give him on all occasions the very best advice I could for his benefit, but never to persist in this, as I had hitherto done, so as to make him angry; to open his eyes to his true interests on every opportunity that presented itself; and, during the rest of the time, to maintain a gloomy silence; and, on the other hand, to take care of my own interests with the public, so that in the time of need they might see in me the saviour of the commonwealth. In the month of October I was informed by the High Chancellor, Count Bestoujeff, that the King of Poland had just sent Count Poniatowsky his letters of recall. Count Bestoujeff had had a violent dispute upon this subject with Count Brühl and the Cabinet of Saxony, and was annoyed that he had not been consulted in the matter as heretofore. He learned at last that the Vice-Chancellor, Count Voronzoff, and John Schouvaloff had, with the assistance of Prasse, the resident minister of Saxony, secretly manœuvred the whole affair. This M. Prasse, moreover, often appeared to be well informed of a number of secrets which it puzzled every one to conjecture whence he had obtained them. Many years afterwards their source was discovered. He carried on a love intrigue, though very secretly and very discreetly, with the Vice-Chancellor’s wife, the Countess Anna Karlovna, whose maiden name was Scavronsky. This lady was the intimate friend of the wife of Samarine, the master of the ceremonies, and it was at the house of the latter that the Countess saw M. Prasse. The Chancellor Bestoujeff had all the letters of recall brought to him, and sent them back to Saxony under pretext of informality.
In the night between the 8th and 9th of December, I began to feel the pains of childbirth. I sent to inform the Grand Duke by Madame Vladislava, and also Count Schouvaloff, that he might announce the fact to her Imperial Majesty. In a short time the Grand Duke came into my room, dressed in his Holstein uniform, booted and spurred, with his scarf round his body, and an enormous sword at his side, having made an elaborate toilet. It was about half-past two in the morning. Astonished at his appearance, I inquired the reason of this grand dress. He replied that it was only on an emergency that true friends could be discerned; that in this garb he was ready to act as duty demanded; that the duty of a Holstein officer was to defend, according to his oath, the ducal palace against all its enemies, and that as I was ill he had hastened to my assistance. One would have supposed him jesting; but not at all, he was quite serious. I saw at once that he was intoxicated, and advised him to go to bed, that the Empress when she came might not have the double annoyance of seeing him in such a state, and armed cap-a-pie in the Holstein uniform, which I knew she detested. I had great difficulty in getting him to leave; however, Madame Vladislava and myself finally persuaded him, with the help of the midwife, who assured him that I should not be delivered for some time yet. At length he went away, and the Empress arrived. She asked where the Grand Duke was, and she was informed that he had just quitted the room, and would not fail to return. When she found that the pains abated, and that the midwife told her I might not be confined for some hours yet, she returned to her apartments, and I went to bed and slept till the next morning, when I got up as usual, feeling however occasional pains, after which I continued for hours together entirely free from them. Towards supper time I felt hungry, and ordered some supper to be brought. The midwife was sitting near me, and seeing me eat ravenously, she said, “Eat, eat: this supper will bring you good luck.” In fact, having finished my supper, I rose from the table, and the moment I did so was seized with such a pain, that I gave a loud scream. The midwife and Madame Vladislava seized me under my arms, and placed me on the “bed of pain,” and went to seek the Empress and the Grand Duke. Scarcely had they arrived when I was delivered (between ten and eleven o’clock at night), on the 9th of December, of a daughter, whom I begged the Empress to allow me to name after her. But she decided that she should be named after her eldest sister, Anne Petrovna, Duchess of Holstein, mother of the Grand Duke. His Imperial Highness appeared much pleased at the birth of this child; he made great rejoicings over it in his own apartments, ordered rejoicings to be made in Holstein also, and received all the compliments paid to him on the subject with great manifestations of pleasure. On the sixth day the Empress stood godmother to the child, and brought me an order on the cabinet for 60,000 roubles. A similar present was sent to the Grand Duke, which added not a little to his satisfaction. After the baptism the fêtes commenced, which were very magnificent, according to report. I saw none of them, but remained in my bed, very delicate and quite alone, not a living soul to keep me company; for no sooner was I delivered than the Empress not only carried off the child to her own apartments as previously, but under the plea of my requiring repose, I was left there and abandoned like any poor wretch, no one entering my apartments to ask how I was, or even sending to inquire. As on the former occasion, I had suffered a great deal from this neglect. I had this time taken all possible precautions against draughts, and the other inconveniences of the place; and as soon as I was delivered I arose and went to my bed, and as no one dared to visit me, unless secretly, I had also taken care to provide for this contingency. My bed stood nearly in the middle of a rather long room, the windows being on the right side of the bed. There was also a side door, which opened into a kind of wardrobe, which served also as an ante-chamber, and which was well barricaded with screens and trunks. From the bed to this door I had placed an immense screen which concealed the prettiest little boudoir I could devise, considering the locality and the circumstances. In this boudoir were a couch, mirrors, moveable tables, and some chairs. When the curtains of my bed on that side were drawn, nothing could be seen; but when they were pulled aside, I could see the boudoir, and those who happened to be in it. But any one entering the room could only see the screens. If any one asked what was behind the screen, the answer was, the commode; and this being within the screen, no one was anxious to see it; or even if so, it could be shown without getting into the boudoir, which the screen effectively concealed.
1759.
On the 1st of January, 1759, the court festivities terminated with a grand display of fireworks between the ball and the supper. As I still kept my room, I did not appear at court. Before the fireworks were let off, Count Peter Schouvaloff took it into his head to present himself at my door, to show me the plan of them before they were let off. Madame Vladislava told him I was asleep, but however she would go and see. It was not true that I was asleep; I was merely in bed, and had my usual little party, which then, as formerly, consisted of Mesdames Narichkine, Siniavine, Ismaïloff, and Count Poniatowsky. The latter, since his recall, had given out that he was ill, but came to visit me, and these ladies loved me sufficiently to prefer my company to the balls and fêtes. Madame Vladislava did not exactly know who was with me, but she was a great deal too shrewd not to suspect that there was some one. I had told her early that I should go to bed, as I felt weary; and then she did not afterwards disturb me. Upon the arrival of Count Schouvaloff, she came and knocked at my door. I drew the curtain on the side of the screen, and told her to enter. She came in, and brought me the message of Count Peter Schouvaloff, and I ordered her to admit him. While she went to execute this order, my friends behind the screen were bursting with laughter at the extreme absurdity of the scene—my being about to receive Count Schouvaloff, who would be able to swear that he had found me alone, and in bed, while there was only a curtain which separated my gay little party from this most important personage, who was at that time the oracle of the court, and possessed the confidence of the Empress to a very high degree. In, therefore, he came, and brought me his plan for the fireworks. He was at the time Grand Master of Artillery. I began by making apologies for keeping him waiting—only having, I said, just awoke; I rubbed my eyes, saying that I was still quite sleepy. I told a story, not to make Madame Vladislava out a story-teller. After this, I entered into a rather long conversation with him, so much so even, that he appeared anxious to leave, in order not to keep the Empress waiting for the commencement of the fireworks. I then dismissed him. He took his departure, and I again drew aside the curtain. My company, from laughing so heartily, was beginning to feel hungry and thirsty. “Very well,” I said, “you shall have something to eat and drink; it is only fair that while you are kind enough to give me your company, you should not die of hunger or thirst.” I closed the curtain and rang; Madame Vladislava presented herself. I told her that I was starving, and desired her to bring me some supper. I said I must have at least six good dishes. When it was ready it was brought to me, and I had it placed by the side of my bed, and told the servant not to wait. Then my friends from behind the screen came out like so many famished creatures to eat whatever they could find; the fun of the thing increased their appetite. In fact, this evening was one of the merriest I have ever passed in the whole course of my life. When the supper had been devoured, I had the remains cleared away in the same manner as it had been served. I fancy however the servants were a little surprised at my appetite. About the time the court supper had concluded, my party retired also very well pleased with their evening. Count Poniatowsky, when going out, always wore a wig of fair hair and a cloak, and to the question of the sentinels, “Who goes there?” was accustomed to answer that he was a musician to the Grand Duke. This wig made us laugh a good deal that day.
This time my churching, after the six weeks, took place in the Empress’ chapel; but no one assisted at it except Alexander Schouvaloff. Towards the end of the Carnival, and when all the fêtes of the city were finished, three weddings took place at court: that of Count Alexander Strogonoff with the Countess Anne Voronzoff, daughter of the Vice-Chancellor, was the first; and, two days after, that of Leon Narichkine with Mademoiselle Zakrefsky; and, on the same day, also, that of Count Boutourline with the Countess Marie Voronzoff. These three young ladies were Maids of Honour to the Empress. At the celebration of these weddings, a bet was made at court between the Hetman Count Rasoumowsky and the Minister of Denmark, Count d’Osten, as to which of the three newly-made husbands should be first cuckolded, and it turned out that those who had bet that it would be Strogonoff, whose bride appeared the plainest of the three, and at the time the most innocent and childlike, won the wager.
The evening preceding the day on which Leon Narichkine and Count Boutourline were married, was an unfortunate one. For a long time, it had been whispered that the credit of the Grand Chancellor was wavering, and that his enemies were getting the upper hand of him. He had lost his friend, General Apraxine. Count Rasoumowsky, the elder, had for a long time supported him; but ever since the influence of the Schouvaloffs had preponderated, he scarcely meddled with anything, except, when occasion offered, to ask for some trifling favour for his friends or connections. The hatred of Schouvaloff and Voronzoff against the Chancellor was still further increased by the efforts of the Ambassadors of Austria and France, Count Esterhazy, and Marshal de l’Hôpital. The latter thought Count Bestoujeff more disposed for an alliance with England than with France, and the Ambassador of Austria caballed against him, because, while he wished Russia should adhere to her treaty of alliance with the Court of Vienna, and give aid to Maria Theresa, he did not wish that she should take a leading part in a war against the King of Prussia. The views of Count Bestoujeff were those of a patriot, and he was not easily led; whereas the Messrs. Voronzoff and John Schouvaloff were the tools of the two ambassadors to such an extent that a fortnight before the Grand Chancellor’s disgrace, the Marquis de l’Hôpital, Ambassador of France, went to Count Voronzoff, despatch in hand, and said to him, “Monsieur le Comte, here is the despatch of my court, which I have just received, and in which it is said that if, within a fortnight, the Grand Chancellor is not displaced by you, I am to address myself to him, and treat with no one but him.” Then the Vice-Chancellor took fire, and went to John Schouvaloff, and they represented to the Empress that her glory was suffering from the credit which Count Bestoujeff enjoyed throughout Europe. She ordered that a conference should be held that very evening, and that the Grand Chancellor should be summoned to it. The latter sent word that he was ill. This illness was represented as a disobedience, and word was sent to him to come without delay. He went, and, on his arrival, he was arrested in full conference. He was deprived of his offices, his titles, and his orders, without any one being able to say for what crimes or delinquencies; the first personage of the empire was thus despoiled. He was sent back to his house a prisoner. As all this was pre-arranged, a company of grenadiers of the guard was called out. These, as they passed along the Moïka, where the Counts Alexander and Peter Schouvaloff lived, said to one another, “Thank God, we are going to arrest those cursed Schouvaloffs, who do nothing but invent monopolies.” But when the soldiers found that it was Count Bestoujeff whom they had to arrest, they gave evident signs of displeasure, saying, “It is not this man, it is the others, who trample on the people.”
Though Count Bestoujeff had been arrested in the very palace of which we occupied a wing, and not very far from our apartments, we heard nothing of it that evening, so careful were they to keep from us all that was going on. The next day (Sunday) I received, on waking, a note from Leon Narichkine, which the Count Poniatowsky forwarded to me by this channel, which had long since become of very questionable security. It commenced with these words:—“Man is never without resources. I employ this means of informing you, that last night, Count Bestoujeff was arrested and deprived of his offices and dignities, and with him your jeweller Bernardi, Teleguine, and Adadouroff.” I was thunderstruck upon reading these lines, and, having read them, I felt that I must by no means flatter myself that this affair did not affect me more nearly than yet appeared. Now, to make this understood, a few comments are necessary. Bernardi was an Italian jeweller, not without talent, and whose business gave him the entrée to every house. I think that there was scarcely one which did not owe him something, or to which he had not rendered some little service or other, as he went continually to and fro everywhere. He was also intrusted sometimes with commissions from one to the other. A note sent through Bernardi always reached its destination sooner and more safely than if sent by the servants. Now the arrest of Bernardi interested the whole city, since he executed commissions for everybody, and for me among the rest. Teleguine was the former Adjutant of the Master of the Hounds, Count Rasoumowsky, who had had the guardianship of Beketoff. He had remained attached to the house of Rasoumowsky. He had also become the friend of Count Poniatowsky. He was a man of integrity, and one who could be relied on; and when once his affection was gained it was not easily lost. He had always shown a predilection for me, and zeal in my interest. Adadouroff had been formerly my master in the Russian language, and had remained much attached to me. It was I who had recommended him to Count Bestoujeff, who, within the last two or three years only, had begun to place confidence in him. Formerly, he did not like him, because he held to the party of the Procurator-General, Prince Nikita Youriewitch Troubetskoy, the enemy of Bestoujeff.
After the perusal of the note, and the reflections which I have just made, a crowd of ideas, one more disagreeable than another, presented themselves to my mind. With the iron in my soul, so to speak, I dressed, and went to mass, where it seemed to me that the greater part of those I saw had faces as long as my own. No one made any remark to me during the day; it was just as if every one was in total ignorance of what had happened. I was silent also. The Grand Duke, who had never liked Count Bestoujeff, appeared to be rather gay on this occasion, yet behaved without affectation, though he rather kept away from me a good deal. In the evening I was obliged to go to the wedding; I changed my dress, was present at the benediction of the marriages of Count Boutourline and Leon Narichkine, at the ball, and at the supper, during which I approached the Marshal of the wedding, Prince Nikita Troubetskoy, and, under pretence of examining the ribbons of his marshal’s baton, I whispered to him, “What do all these fine doings mean? Have you found more crimes than criminals, or more criminals than crimes?” To which he replied—“We have done what we were ordered; but as for crimes, they are still to be discovered. Thus far, the search has not been successful.” Having finished with him, I approached Marshal Boutourline, who said to me—“Bestoujeff is arrested, but we have yet to learn why he is so.” Thus spoke the two commissioners appointed by the Empress to investigate the causes that had led to his arrest by Count Alexander Schouvaloff. I also perceived Stambke at the ball, but at a distance, and I saw that his countenance wore an expression of suffering and of despondency. The Empress was not present at either of these two marriages, neither in church nor at the feast. The next day, Stambke came to my apartments, and told me that he had just received a note from Count Bestoujeff, which begged that he would inform me that I need be under no apprehension concerning what I knew; that he had had time to burn everything, and that he would communicate to him (Stambke), by the same channel, the interrogatories which might be put to him. I asked what that channel was? He told me that it was by a horn-player in the Count’s service, who had brought him the note, and that it had been arranged, that for the future, any communications it might be desirable to make should be placed in a particular spot, among some bricks, not far from the Count’s house. I told Stambke to take care that this dangerous correspondence was not discovered, though he appeared to be suffering great anxiety himself. However, he and Count Poniatowsky still continued it. As soon as Stambke had left, I called Madame Vladislava, and told her to go to her brother-in-law, Pougowoschnikoff, and give him the note I was writing to him. It contained only these words:—“You have nothing to fear; there has been time to burn all.” This tranquillized him; for, it appears, that ever since the arrest of the High Chancellor, he had been more dead than alive. This it is which occasioned his anxiety, and what the Count Bestoujeff had had time to destroy.
The weak state of the Empress’ health, and the convulsive fits to which she was subject, very naturally made all eyes turn to the future. Count Bestoujeff, both from his position and abilities, was certainly not one of the last to do so. He knew well the antipathy that had long been excited against him in the mind of the Grand Duke. He was also well aware of the feeble capacity of this Prince, born heir to so many crowns. It was only natural that this statesman, like every one else, should wish to maintain himself in his position. For several years past he had seen me laying aside my prejudices against him; perhaps, also, he regarded me personally as the only one upon whom at that time the hopes of the public could rest, in the event of the Empress’ death.
These and such like reflections had induced him to form the plan that, on the decease of the Empress, the Grand Duke should be proclaimed Emperor of right, but that at the same time I should be declared a participator with him in the administration; that all existing offices should be continued, and that, for himself, he should receive the lieutenant-colonelcy of the four regiments of guards, and the Presidency of the three Colleges of the Empire, of that of foreign affairs, of War, and of the Admiralty. His pretensions were consequently excessive. He had forwarded me, through Count Poniatowsky, the draught of this project, written by the hand of Pougowoschnikoff. I had agreed with the former that I should thank him verbally for his good intentions towards me, but that I regarded the plan as difficult of execution. He had had this project written and re-written several times, had altered, amplified, retrenched, and appeared to be quite absorbed by it. To speak the truth, I looked upon it as the effect of mere dotage, and as a bait which the old man was throwing out in order to obtain a firmer hold on my friendship; but I did not catch at this bait, because I regarded it as prejudicial to the Empire, that every quarrel between my husband (who did not love me) and myself should convulse the state; but as the occasion for such a course did not yet exist, I did not wish to oppose an old man who, when once he took a thing into his head, was self-willed and immovable. This, then, was the project which he had found time to destroy, and concerning which he had sent me word, in order that I might tranquillize those who had been privy to it.
In the mean time, my valet de chambre, Skourine, came to tell me that the captain who guarded Count Bestoujeff was a man who had always been his friend, and who dined with him every Sunday, when he left court and went home. I said that if this were the case, and if he could be relied on, he should endeavour to sound him, and see if he would allow any communication with the prisoner. This had become the more necessary as Count Bestoujeff had communicated to Stambke, by the mode already mentioned, that he wished Bernardi to be told from him to speak the simple truth when interrogated, and to let him know what were the questions asked. When I perceived that Skourine willingly undertook to discover some means of communicating with Count Bestoujeff, I told him also to try and open some means of communication with Bernardi as well, and see if he could not gain over the sergeant or some soldier who kept guard in his quarter. On the evening of the same day, Skourine told me that Bernardi was guarded by a sergeant of the guards named Kalichkine, with whom he was to have an interview on the morrow; but that having sent to his friend the captain, who was with the Count Bestoujeff, to ask if he could see him, the latter had informed him that if he wished to see him he must come to his house; but that one of his subalterns, whom he also knew, and who was his relation, had cautioned him not to go there, because if he did, the captain would arrest him, and would make a merit of so doing at his expense, and that of this he had boasted to a confidant. Skourine therefore kept away from his pretended friend. However Kalichkine, whom I had ordered to be gained over in my name, told Bernardi all that was necessary; besides, he was only asked to speak the simple truth, and to this both willingly lent themselves.
At the end of a few days, very early one morning, Stambke came into my room, very pale and greatly frightened, and told me that his correspondence and that of Count Bestoujeff with Count Poniatowsky had been discovered; that the little horn-player had been arrested, and that there was every reason to fear that their last letters had fallen into the hands of Count Bestoujeff’s keepers; that he himself expected every moment to be dismissed, if not arrested; and that he had come to tell me this, and to take his leave of me. This information caused me no little anxiety. However, I consoled him as well as I could, and sent him away, not doubting but that his visit would tend to augment against me, if that were possible, all kinds of ill-feeling, and that I should, perhaps, be shunned as a person suspected by the Government. I was, however, well satisfied in my own mind that I had nothing to reproach myself with against the Government. With the exception of Michel Voronzoff, John Schouvaloff, the two Ambassadors of Austria and France, and those whom these parties made to believe whatever they wished, the general public, every one in St. Petersburg, great and small, was persuaded that Count Bestoujeff was innocent, and that there was neither crime nor delinquency to be laid to his charge. It was known that the day following the evening of his arrest, a manifesto had been concocted in the chamber of Ivan Schouvaloff, which the Sieur Volkoff, formerly first commissary of Count Bestoujeff, and who, in the year 1755, had absconded from his house, and after wandering some time in the woods, had allowed himself to be taken, and who was at this moment first Secretary to the Conference, had to draw up, and which they intended to publish, in order to make known the reasons which had constrained the Empress to act towards the Grand Chancellor in the way she had done. Now, in this secret conference, in which they had to torment their brains to discover offences, they agreed to state that it was for the crime of high treason, and because Bestoujeff had endeavoured to sow dissension between her Imperial Majesty and their Imperial Highnesses; and it was their wish, the very day after his arrest, to banish him to one of his estates, and deprive him of the rest of his property, without trial or judgment. But there were some who thought that it was going too far to exile a man without crime or trial, and that it was, at least, necessary to look about and see if some crime could not be laid to his charge; and if not, that, in any case, it was indispensable to make the prisoner—who, for some unknown reason, had been shorn of his offices, dignities, and decorations—pass under the judgment of Commissioners. Now, these Commissioners, as I have already stated, were Marshal Boutourline, the Procurator-General Prince Troubetskoy, the General Count Alexander Schouvaloff, and the Sieur Volkoff as Secretary. The first thing these Commissioners did was to give directions, through the department of foreign affairs, to the ambassadors, envoys, and employés of Russia at foreign courts, to send copies of the despatches which Count Bestoujeff had written to them since he had been at the head of affairs. The object of this was to discover in these despatches some crime or other. It was alleged against him that he wrote just what he pleased, and made statements opposed to the orders and wishes of the Empress; but as her Majesty neither wrote nor signed anything, it was difficult to act against her orders; and, as to verbal orders, she could hardly have given any to the High Chancellor, who for whole years had no occasion to see her; and, as for verbal orders delivered through a third party, they might as easily be misapprehended, as they might be imperfectly delivered, as well as imperfectly received and understood. But nothing came of all this except the order I have mentioned, because none of the employés gave himself the trouble of examining papers ranging over twenty years, and then copying them for the purpose of discovering crimes committed by one whose instructions and orders he himself had followed out, and with whom, therefore, however well meant his efforts, he might become implicated in any faults which might be traced in them. Besides, the mere transmission of these papers would put the crown to a considerable expense; and when, after all, they reached St. Petersburg, there would be enough in them to try the patience of many persons for many years in their attempts to discover and unravel something which, after all, they might contain. The order therefore was never executed; nay, even those who sent it at last grew tired of the business itself, and at the end of a year it was concluded by the publication of the manifesto, which they had begun to compose the day after the Chancellor’s arrest.
On the afternoon of the day on which Stambke had come to take leave of me, the Empress sent an order to the Grand Duke to dismiss him, and send him back to Holstein, for that his correspondence with Bestoujeff had been discovered, and that he deserved to be arrested, but that out of consideration for his Imperial Highness, whose minister he was, he should be left at liberty, provided he was immediately sent away. Stambke was immediately sent off, and with his departure ended my interference in the affairs of Holstein. The Grand Duke was given to understand that the Empress was not pleased at my having to meddle with them, and his Imperial Highness was himself inclined that way. I do not well remember who it was that succeeded Stambke, but I rather think it was a person named Wolff. In the next place, the Empress’ ministry formally demanded of the King of Poland, the recall of Count Poniatowsky, as a letter of his, addressed to Count Bestoujeff, had been discovered. It was innocent enough, in fact, but nevertheless was addressed to a so-called prisoner of state. As soon as I heard of the dismissal of Stambke, and the recall of Count Poniatowsky, I prepared myself to expect nothing good, and this is what I did. I summoned my valet de chambre, Skourine, and ordered him to collect and bring to me all my account books, and everything among my effects which could in any way be regarded as a paper. He executed my orders with zeal and exactitude, and when all were brought into my room I dismissed him. As soon as he left the room, I threw all the books into the fire, and when I saw them half-consumed, I recalled Skourine, and said to him, “Look here, and be witness that all my papers and accounts are burnt, in order that if you are ever asked where they are, you may be able to swear that you saw me burn them.” He thanked me for the care I took of him, and told me that a singular alteration had been made in the guard over the prisoners. Since the discovery of Stambke’s correspondence with Count Bestoujeff, a stricter watch had been kept upon him, and with this object they had taken from Bernardi the sergeant Kalichkine, and had placed him in the chamber and near the person of the late High Chancellor. When Kalichkine saw this, he asked to have some of the trusty soldiers who were under him when he was on guard at Bernardi’s. Here, then, was the most reliable and intelligent man we had introduced into the very apartment of Count Bestoujeff, without having lost all means of communication with Bernardi. In the meantime the interrogatories of the Count were going on. Kalichkine made himself known to him as a man devoted to me, and, in fact, he rendered him a thousand good offices. Like myself, he was convinced that the Chancellor was innocent, and the victim of a powerful cabal—and such, also, was the persuasion of the public. As for the Grand Duke, I saw that they had frightened him, and had led him to suspect that I was aware of the correspondence of Stambke with the state-prisoner. I perceived that his Royal Highness was almost afraid to speak to me, and avoided entering my apartment, where I remained for the time, quite alone, seeing no one. I would not, in fact, allow any one to come to me, fearing to expose them to some misfortune or inconvenience, and when at court, in order to be avoided, I refrained from approaching any one I thought likely to be compromised by my notice. On the last days of the Carnival there was to be a Russian play at the court theatre, and Count Poniatowsky begged me to be present, because rumours had been spread that it was intended to send me back to my own country, to prevent my appearance in public, and I know not what besides, and that every time I did not appear at court or at the theatre, every one was anxious to know the reason of my absence, as much perhaps from curiosity as from interest in me. I knew that the Russian drama was one of the things his Imperial Highness least liked, and even to talk of going there was enough to displease him seriously. On this occasion, too, in addition to his dislike of the national drama, he had another and more personal objection, namely, that it would deprive him of the company of the Countess Elizabeth Voronzoff; as she was in the ante-chamber along with the other maids of honour, it was there that his Imperial Highness enjoyed her conversation or her company at play. If I went to the theatre these ladies were obliged to follow me—a circumstance which annoyed his Imperial Highness, who had then no other resource than to retire to his own apartments to drink. Notwithstanding all this, as I had promised to go to the play, I sent a message to Count Alexander Schouvaloff, desiring him to order a carriage for me, as I intended that day to go to the play. The Count came and told me that my intention of going to the theatre was anything but agreeable to the Grand Duke. I replied that as I formed no part of the society of his Royal Highness, I thought it would be the same to him whether I was alone in my room or in my box at the theatre. He went away, winking his eyes, as he always did whenever anything disturbed him. Some time afterwards, the Grand Duke came into my room. He was in a fearful passion, screaming like an eagle; accusing me of taking pleasure in enraging him, and saying that I had chosen to go to these plays because I knew he disliked them; but I represented to him that he ought not to dislike them. He told me that he would forbid my having a carriage. I replied that if he did I should go on foot, and that I could not imagine what pleasure he could find in compelling me to die of ennui in my rooms, with no other company but my dog and my parrot. After a long and very angry dispute on both sides, he went away, in a greater rage than ever, and I still persisted in my intention of going to the play. When it got near the time for starting, I sent to ask Count Schouvaloff if the carriages were ready; he came and told me that the Grand Duke had forbidden any to be provided for me. Then I became really angry, and told him that I would go on foot, and that if he forbade the ladies and gentlemen from attending me I would go alone; and, besides, that I would write and complain to the Empress, both of the Duke and of him. “What will you say to her?” he asked. “I will tell her,” I said, “the manner in which I am treated, and that you, in order to secure for the Grand Duke a rendezvous with my maids of honour, encourage him to prevent my going to the theatre, where I might, perhaps, have the pleasure of seeing her Imperial Majesty; and besides this, I will beg of her to send me back to my mother, because I am weary of, and disgusted with, the part I play here: left alone and deserted in my room, hated by the Grand Duke, and not liked by the Empress, I want to be at rest, and a burden to no one; I want to be freed from the necessity of making every one who approaches me unhappy, and particularly my poor servants, of whom so many have been exiled, because I was kind to them, or wished to be so. It is thus that I shall write to her Imperial Majesty, and I will see, moreover, whether you yourself will not be the bearer of my letter.” My gentleman got frightened at the determined tone I assumed; he left me, and I sat down to write my letter to the Empress in Russian, making it as pathetic as I could. I began by thanking her for the kindness and favours with which she had loaded me ever since my arrival in Russia, saying that, unfortunately, the event proved that I did not deserve them, since I had only drawn upon myself the hatred of the Grand Duke and the very marked displeasure of her Imperial Majesty; that as I was unhappy and shut up in my own room, where I was deprived of even the most innocent amusements, I begged her earnestly to put an end to my sufferings, by sending me to my relations in any manner she judged proper; that as for the children, as I never saw them, though living in the same house with them, it made little difference to me whether I was in the same place with them or some hundreds of leagues distant; that I was well aware that she took better care of them than my poor powers would enable me to do; that I ventured to entreat her to continue this care of them; that confident of this, I would pass the rest of my time with my relations, in praying for her, the Grand Duke, my children, and all those who had done me either good or evil; but that my health was reduced by grief to such a state, that I did what I could to preserve my life, at least; and that with this object I addressed myself to her for permission to go to the waters, and thence to my relations.
Having written this letter, I summoned Count Schouvaloff, who, on entering, informed me that the carriages I had ordered were ready. I told him, while handing him my letter for the Empress, that he might inform the gentlemen and ladies who did not wish to accompany me to the theatre, that I would dispense with their attendance. The Count received my letter, winking his usual wink, but as it was addressed to her Imperial Majesty, he dared not refuse it. He also gave my message to the equerries and ladies, and it was his Imperial Highness who decided who was to go with me, and who was to remain with him. I passed through the ante-chamber, where I found him seated with the Countess Voronzoff, playing at cards in a corner. He rose, and she also, when he saw me—a thing which, on other occasions, he never did. In this ceremony I replied by a low curtsey, and passed on. I went to the theatre, where the Empress did not come on that occasion. I fancy it was my letter which prevented her. On my return, Count Schouvaloff told me that her Imperial Majesty would have an interview with me herself. The Count would seem to have informed the Grand Duke of my letter and the reply of the Empress, for, although from that time he never set foot in my room, he used his utmost endeavours to be present at the interview which the Empress was to have with me, and it was considered that this could not well be refused. While waiting for this interview to take place, I kept myself quiet, in my own apartments. I felt persuaded that if the Schouvaloffs had had any idea of sending me home, or of frightening me with the threats of doing so, I had taken the best method of disconcerting the project; for nowhere were they likely to meet with greater resistance to it than in the mind of the Empress herself, who was not at all inclined to strong measures of this kind; besides, she remembered the old misunderstandings in her own family, and certainly would not wish to see them renewed in her time. Against me there could be only one point of complaint, which was, that her worthy nephew did not appear to me the most amiable of men, any more than I appeared to him the most amiable of women; and, as regarded this nephew, her opinions exactly coincided with my own. She knew him so well that for many years past she could not spend a quarter of an hour in his society without feeling disgust, or anger, or sorrow, and in her chamber, when he happened to be the subject of conversation, she would either melt into tears at the misfortune of having such a successor, or she would be unable to speak of him without exhibiting her contempt, and often applied to him epithets which he but too well merited. I have proofs of this in my hands, having found among her papers two notes written by her own hand, to whom I do not know, though one of them appears to have been for John Schouvaloff, and the other for Count Rasoumowsky, in which she curses her nephew, and wishes him at the devil. In one occurs this expression, “My damned nephew has greatly vexed me;” and in another she says, “My nephew is a fool, the devil take him.” Besides, my mind was made up, and I looked upon my being sent away, or not, with a very philosophic eye. In whatever position it should please Providence to place me, I should never be without those resources which talent and determination give to each one according to his natural abilities, and I felt myself possessed of sufficient courage either to mount or descend without being carried away by undue pride on the one hand, or being humbled and dispirited on the other. I knew that I was a human being, and, therefore, of limited powers, and then incapable of perfection, but my intentions had always been pure and good. If from the very beginning I had perceived that to love a husband who was not amiable, nor took any pains to be so, was a thing difficult, if not impossible; yet, at least, I had devoted myself both to him and his interests with all the attachment which a friend, and even a servant, could devote to his friend and master. My counsel to him had always been the very best I could devise for his welfare, and, if he did not choose to follow it, the fault was not mine, but that of his own judgment, which was neither sound nor just. When I came to Russia, and during the first years of our union, had this Prince shown the least disposition to make himself supportable, my heart would have been opened for him, but when I saw that of all possible objects I was the one to whom he showed the least possible attention, precisely because I was his wife, it is not wonderful I should find my position neither agreeable nor to my taste, or that I should consider it irksome, or even painful. This latter feeling I suppressed more resolutely than any other; the pride and cast of my disposition rendered the idea of being unhappy most repugnant to me. I used to say to myself, happiness and misery depend on ourselves; if you feel unhappy, raise yourself above unhappiness, and so act that your happiness may be independent of all eventualities. With such a disposition I was born with a great sensibility, and a face, to say the least of it, interesting, and which pleased at first sight, without art or effort. My disposition was naturally so conciliating, that no one ever passed a quarter of an hour in my company without feeling perfectly at ease, and conversing with me as if we had been old acquaintances. Naturally indulgent, I won the confidence of those who had any relations with me, because every one felt that the strictest probity and good-will were the impulses which I most readily obeyed, and, if I may be allowed the expression, I venture to assert, in my own behalf, that I was a true gentleman, whose cast of mind was more male than female, though, for all that, I was anything but masculine, for, joined to the mind and character of a man, I possessed the charms of a very agreeable woman. I trust I shall be pardoned for giving this candid expression of my feelings, instead of seeking to throw around them a veil of false modesty. Besides, this very writing must prove what I have asserted of mind, disposition, and character.
I have just said that I was pleasing, consequently half the road of temptation was already traversed, and it is in the very essence of human nature that, in such cases, the other half should not remain untracked. For to tempt, and to be tempted, are things very nearly allied, and, in spite of the finest maxims of morality impressed upon the mind, whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of, and I have yet to learn how it is possible to prevent its being excited. Flight alone is, perhaps, the only remedy; but there are cases and circumstances in which flight becomes impossible, for how is it possible to fly, shun, or turn one’s back in the midst of a court? The very attempt would give rise to remarks. Now, if you do not fly, there is nothing, it seems to me, so difficult as to escape from that which is essentially agreeable. All that can be said in opposition to it will appear but a prudery quite out of harmony with the natural instincts of the human heart; besides, no one holds his heart in his hand, tightening or relaxing his grasp of it at pleasure.
But to return to my narrative. The morning after the play, I gave out that I was unwell, and kept my room, waiting patiently for the decision of her Imperial Majesty upon my humble request. However, the first week in Lent I judged it prudent to go to my duty, in order to show my attachment to the Orthodox Church. The second or third week of Lent brought me another bitter affliction. One morning after I had risen, my servants informed me that Count Alexander Schouvaloff had sent for Madame Vladislava. This I thought somewhat strange. I waited her return anxiously, but in vain. About an hour after noon, Count Schouvaloff came to apprise me that her Majesty the Empress had thought fit to remove Madame Vladislava from me. I burst into tears, and said, that of course, her Imperial Majesty had a right to remove or place with me whomsoever she pleased, but that I was grieved to find, more and more, that all who came near me were so many victims devoted to the displeasure of her Imperial Majesty; and that in order that there might be fewer such victims, I begged and entreated him to request her Majesty to send me home to my relations as soon as possible, and thus put an end to a state of things which compelled me to be continually making some one or other miserable. I also assured him that the removal of Madame Vladislava would not serve to throw any light upon anything whatever, because, neither she nor any one else possessed any confidence. The Count was about to reply, but hearing my sobs, he began to weep with me, and told me that the Empress would herself speak to me on the subject. I entreated him to hasten the moment, which he promised to do. I then went to my attendants, related what had occurred, and added that if any duenna I happened to dislike took the place of Madame Vladislava, she might make up her mind to receive from me the worst possible treatment, not even excepting blows; and I begged them to repeat this wherever they pleased, so as to deter all who might wish to be placed about me from being in too great haste to accept the charge, for that I was tired of suffering, and as I saw that my mildness and patience had produced no other result than that of making everything connected with me go from bad to worse, I had made up my mind to change my conduct entirely. My people did not fail to repeat all I wished.
The evening of this day, during which I had wept a great deal, walking up and down my room, much agitated both in mind and body, one of my maids, named Catherine Ivanovna Cheregorodskaya, came into my bed-room, where I was quite alone, and said to me very affectionately, and with many tears, “We are all very much afraid you will sink under these afflictions; let me go to-day to my uncle—he is your own confessor as well as the Empress’—I will talk to him, and tell him everything you wish, and I promise you he will speak to the Empress in a manner that will give you satisfaction.” Perceiving her good disposition towards me, I told her without reserve the state of matters; what I had written to her Imperial Majesty, and everything else. She went to her uncle, and, having talked the matter over, and disposed him to favour my cause, she returned about eleven o’clock to tell me that her uncle advised me to give out in the course of the night that I was ill, and wanted to confess, and thus send for him, in order that he might be able to repeat to the Empress what he should hear from my own lips. I very much approved of this idea, and promised to carry it out, and then dismissed her, thanking both herself and uncle for the attachment they displayed for me. Accordingly, between two and three o’clock in the morning, I rang my bell. One of my women entered. I told her I felt so unwell that I wished to confess. In place of a confessor, Count Alexander Schouvaloff came running to me. In a weak and broken voice I renewed my request that my confessor should be sent to me. He sent for the doctors, and to these I said that it was spiritual succour I stood in need of; that I was choking. One felt my pulse, and said it was weak; I replied that my soul was in danger, and that my body had no further need of doctors. At length my confessor arrived, and we were left alone. I made him sit by the side of my bed, and we had a conversation of at least an hour and a-half in length. I described to him the state of things past and present; the Grand Duke’s conduct to me, and mine towards him; the hatred of the Schouvaloffs, and the constant banishment, or dismissal, of my people, and always of those who had grown most attached to me, and, finally, the hatred of her Imperial Majesty, drawn upon me by the Schouvaloffs; in short, the whole present position of affairs, and what had led me to write to the Empress the letter in which I demanded to be sent home, and I begged him to procure me a speedy reply to my prayer. I found him with the best disposition possible for serving me, and by no means such a fool as he was reported to be. He told me that my letter did and would produce the effect I wished; that I must persist in my demand to be sent home, a demand which most certainly would not be complied with, because such a step could not be justified in the eyes of the public, who had their attention directed towards me. He agreed that I had been treated very cruelly; that the Empress, having chosen me at a very tender age, had abandoned me to the mercy of my enemies; and that she would do far better to banish my rivals, and especially Elizabeth Voronzoff, and keep a check upon her favourites, who had become the blood-suckers of the people, by means of the new monopolies which the Schouvaloffs were every day devising, besides which, they were daily giving the people cause to complain of their injustice, as witness the affair of Count Bestoujeff, of whose innocence the public were persuaded. He concluded by telling me that he would immediately proceed to the Empress’ apartments, where he would wait until she awoke, in order to speak to her on the subject; and that he would then press for the interview which she had promised me, and which ought to be decisive; and that I would do well to keep my bed: he would add, he said, that grief and affliction might cause my death, if some speedy remedy were not applied, and I was not removed, by some means or other, from my present condition where I was left, alone and abandoned by every one. He kept his word, and painted so vividly to the Empress my unfortunate state, that she summoned Count Alexander Schouvaloff, and ordered him to inquire if my condition would allow me to come and speak to her the following evening. Count Schouvaloff came to me with this message, and I told him for such an object I would summon all the strength I had left. Towards evening I rose, and Schouvaloff informed me that, after midnight, he would accompany me to the apartments of her Imperial Majesty. My confessor sent me word by his niece, that everything was going on well, and that the Empress would speak to me that evening. I therefore dressed myself about ten o’clock at night, and lay down fully dressed upon a couch, where I fell asleep. About half-past one, Count Schouvaloff entered the apartment, and told me that the Empress had asked for me. I arose, and followed him. We passed through several ante-chambers, entirely empty, and on arriving at the door of the gallery, I saw the Grand Duke enter by the opposite door, and perceived that he too was about to visit the Empress. I had never seen him since the day of the play; even when I had given out that my life was in danger, he neither came nor sent to inquire after my health. I afterwards learned that on this very day he had promised Elizabeth Voronzoff to marry her if I happened to die, and that both were rejoicing greatly at my condition.
Having at last reached her Imperial Majesty’s room, I there found the Grand Duke. As soon as I perceived the Empress, I threw myself at her feet, and begged her earnestly, and with tears, to send me back to my relations. The Empress wished to raise me, but I remained at her feet; she appeared more grieved than angry, and said to me, with tears in her eyes, “Why do you wish me to send you home? Do you not remember that you have children?” I replied, “My children are in your Majesty’s hands, and cannot be better placed, and I trust that you will not abandon them.” She then said to me, “But what excuse should I give to the public in justification of this step?” “Your Imperial Majesty,” I replied, “will state, if you think fit, the causes which have brought upon me your Majesty’s displeasure, and the hatred of the Grand Duke.” “But how will you manage to live when you are with your relatives?” I replied, “As I did before your Majesty did me the honour of bringing me here.” To this she answered, “Your mother is a fugitive; she has been compelled to retire, and has gone to Paris.” “I am aware of this,” I said; “she was thought to be too much attached to the interests of Russia, and the King of Prussia has therefore persecuted her.” The Empress again bid me rise, which I did, and she walked away from me to some distance, musing.
The apartment in which we were was long, and had three windows between which stood two tables, containing the gold toilet-service of the Empress. No one was in the room but myself, the Empress, the Grand Duke, and Alexander Schouvaloff. Opposite the Empress were some large screens, in front of which was a couch. I suspected from the first that John Schouvaloff certainly, and perhaps also his cousin Peter, were behind these. I learnt afterwards that my conjecture was in part correct, and that John Schouvaloff actually was there. I stood by the side of the toilet-table, nearest to the door by which I entered, and noticed in the toilet-basin some letters folded up. The Empress again approached me, and said, “God is my witness how I wept when you were dangerously ill, just after your arrival in Russia. If I had not liked you, I should not have kept you.” This I looked upon as an answer to what I had just said in reference to my having incurred her displeasure. I replied by thanking her Majesty for all the kindness and favour she had shown me then and since, saying that the recollection of them would never be effaced from my memory, and that I should always regard my having incurred her displeasure as the greatest of my misfortunes. She then drew still nearer to me, and said, “You are dreadfully haughty: do you remember, that at the Summer Palace, I one day approached you, and asked if you had a stiff neck, because I noticed that you hardly bowed to me, and that it was from pride you merely saluted me with a nod.” “Gracious heavens! madame,” I said, “how could your Majesty possibly suppose that I should be haughty to you? I solemnly declare that it never once occurred to me that this question, asked four years ago, could have reference to any such thing.” Upon this she said, “You fancy there is no one so clever as yourself.” “If I ever had any such conceit,” I replied, “nothing could be better calculated to undeceive me than my present condition and this very conversation, since I see that I have been stupid enough not to understand, till this moment, what you were pleased to say to me four years ago.” During my conversation with her Majesty, the Grand Duke was whispering to Count Schouvaloff. She perceived this, and went over to them. They were both standing near the middle of the room. I could not very well hear what they were saying, as they did not speak loud, and the room was large. At last I heard the Grand Duke raise his voice and say, “She is dreadfully spiteful, and very obstinate.” I then perceived they were talking about me, and, addressing the Grand Duke, I observed, “If it is of me you are speaking, I am very glad to have this opportunity of telling you, in the presence of her Imperial Majesty, that I am indeed spiteful to those who advise you to commit injustice, and that I have become obstinate because I see that I have gained nothing by yielding, but your hostility.” He immediately retorted, “Your Majesty can see how malicious she is by what she says herself.” But my words made a very different impression on the Empress, who had infinitely more intellect than the Grand Duke. I could plainly see as the conversation progressed, that although she had been recommended, or had herself, perhaps, resolved to treat me with severity, her feelings softened by degrees in spite of herself and her resolutions. She, however, turned towards him, and said, “Oh, you do not know all she has told me against your advisers, and against Brockdorff, relative to the man you have had arrested.” This must naturally have appeared to the Duke a formal treason on my part. He did not know a word of my conversation with the Empress, at the Summer Palace, and he saw his dear Brockdorff, who had become so precious in his eyes, accused to her Majesty, and that by me. This, therefore, was to put us on worse terms than ever, and perhaps render us irreconcilable, as well as deprive me, for the future, of all share in his confidence. I was thunderstruck when I heard her relating to him, in my presence, what I had told her, and, as I believed, for his own good, and found it thus turned against me like a weapon of destruction. The Grand Duke, very much astonished at this disclosure, said, “Ah! here is an anecdote quite new to me; it is very interesting, and proves her spitefulness.” I thought to myself, “God knows whose spitefulness it proves.” From Brockdorff her Majesty passed abruptly to the connection discovered between Stambke and Count Bestoujeff, and said to me, “I leave you to imagine how it is possible to excuse him for having held communication with a state-prisoner.” As my name had not appeared in this affair, I was silent, as if the matter did not concern me. Upon which the Empress approached me, and said, “You meddle with many things which do not concern you. I should not have dared to have done so in the time of the Empress Anne. How, for instance, could you presume to send orders to Marshal Apraxine?” I replied, “I, madame? Never has such an idea entered my head.” “What!” she said, “will you deny having written to him? There are your letters in that basin,” and she pointed to them as she spoke. “You are forbidden to write.” “True,” I replied, “I have transgressed in this respect, and I beg your pardon for it; but since my letters are there, these three letters will prove to your Imperial Majesty that I have never sent him any orders; but that in one of them I informed him of what was said of his conduct.” Here she interrupted me by saying, “And why did you write this to him?” I replied simply, “Because I took a great interest in the Marshal, whom I like very much. I begged him to follow your orders. Of the two other letters, one contains only my congratulations on the birth of his son; and in the other I merely presented to him the compliments of the new-year.” Upon this she said, “Bestoujeff asserts that there were many others.” I replied, “If Bestoujeff says that, he lies.” “Very well, then,” she said, “since he has told lies concerning you, I will have him put to the torture.” She thought by this to frighten me, but I answered that she could, of course, act according to her sovereign pleasure, but that I had never written more than those three letters to Apraxine. She was silent, and appeared to be meditating.
I relate the most salient points of this conversation which have remained in my memory; but it would be impossible for me to recollect all that was said in the course of an interview which lasted an hour and a-half at the least. The Empress walked to and fro in the apartment, sometimes addressing herself to me, sometimes to her nephew, but more frequently to Count Alexander Schouvaloff, with whom the Grand Duke conversed the greater part of the time, while the Empress was speaking to me. I have already said that I remarked in her Majesty’s manner less of anger than of anxiety. As to the Grand Duke, during the whole interview he manifested much bitterness, animosity, and even passion towards me. He endeavoured as much as he could to excite the anger of her Majesty against me, but as he did it so stupidly, and displayed more anger than justice, he failed in his object, and the penetration and sagacity of the Empress disposed her rather to take my part. She listened, with marked attention and a kind of involuntary approval, to my firm and temperate replies to my husband’s outrageous statements, from which it was perfectly evident that his object was to clear out my place, in order to establish in it the favourite of the moment. But this might not be to the Empress’ liking, neither might it suit the fancy of the Messrs. Schouvaloff to give themselves Count Voronzoff for a master; but all this transcended the judicial penetration of his Imperial Highness, who always believed in what he wished, and never would listen to anything which appeared the dominant idea of the moment; and on this occasion he dwelt so much upon it that the Empress approached me and said, in a low voice, “I have many other things to say to you, but I do not wish you to be embroiled more than you are already.” And with a look and a movement of her head, she intimated that it was on account of the presence of the others that she would not speak. Perceiving this mark of sincere good-will at so critical a moment, my heart was moved, and I said to her, in a similar tone, “And I also am prevented from speaking, however earnest my desire to open to you my mind and heart.” I saw that this made a favourable impression on her. Tears came into her eyes, and to conceal her emotion, and the extent to which she was moved, she dismissed us, observing that it was very late; and, in fact, it was nearly three o’clock in the morning. The Grand Duke went out first, I followed, and just as Alexander Schouvaloff was passing out after me, her Majesty called him back, and he remained with her. The Grand Duke strode on rapidly, as usual, but on this occasion I did not hurry myself to follow him. He entered his apartments, and I mine. I was beginning to undress, in order to go to bed, when I heard some one knocking at the door by which I had entered. On asking who was there, Schouvaloff replied that it was he, and begged me to admit him, which I did. He desired me to dismiss my maids. They left the room. He then told me that the Empress had called him back, and that, after talking to him for some time, she had charged him to bear to me her compliments, and to tell me not to distress myself, and that she would have another conversation with me quite alone. I made a low bow to the Count, and begged him to present my most humble respects to her Imperial Majesty, and thank her for her kindness, which had restored me to life. I told him that I should look forward to this second interview with the utmost impatience, and entreated him to hasten its time. He requested me not to speak of it to any one whatever, especially the Grand Duke, who, her Majesty saw, with regret, was greatly irritated against me. This I promised; though I could not help thinking to myself, “But if she regrets his irritation, why increase it by repeating our conversation at the Summer Palace, concerning those people whose society was brutalizing him?”
This unexpected restoration of the favour and confidence of the Empress, gave me, however, great pleasure. The next day I desired my confessor’s niece to thank her uncle from me, for the signal service he had rendered me, by procuring for me this interview with her Majesty. On her return she told me that her uncle had heard that the Empress had called her nephew a fool, but said that the Grand Duchess had a great deal of sense. This remark came to me from more quarters than one, as well as that her Majesty, among her intimate associates, was constantly extolling my talents, often adding, “She loves truth and justice; she is a woman of great sense; but my nephew is a fool.”
I still continued to keep my room, as before, under the pretext of bad health. I recollect that I read at this time, with the map before me, the first five volumes of the “Histoire des Voyages,” and that I was both amused and instructed by the perusal. When tired of these, I turned over the early volumes of the “Encyclopedia,” while waiting until it should please her Majesty to admit me to a second interview. I renewed, from time to time, my request to Count Schouvaloff, telling him that I was very anxious to have my destiny decided. As to the Grand Duke, I heard nothing more about him. I only knew that he was impatiently waiting for my dismissal, and that he confidently calculated on afterwards marrying Elizabeth Voronzoff. She came into his apartments, and already did the honours there. It appeared that her uncle, the Vice-Chancellor, who was a hypocrite, if ever there was one, had become aware of the projects of his brother, perhaps, or rather, it may be, of his nephews, who were then very young, the eldest being only twenty, or thereabouts, and fearing that his newly-revived credit with her Majesty might suffer by it, he intrigued for the commission of dissuading me from demanding my dismissal; for this is what occurred.
One morning, it was announced to me, that the Vice-Chancellor Count Voronzoff requested to speak to me on the part of the Empress. Surprised at this extraordinary deputation, I ordered him to be admitted, though I was not yet dressed. He began by kissing my hand, and pressing it warmly, and then wiped his eyes, from which a few tears fell. As I was a little prejudiced against him at that time, I did not put much faith in this preamble, by which he intended to show his zeal, but allowed him to go on with what I looked upon as a piece of buffoonery. I begged him to be seated. He was a little out of breath, owing to a species of goitre which troubled him. He sat down by me, and told me that the Empress had charged him to speak to me, and dissuade me from insisting on my dismissal; that her Majesty had even gone so far as to authorize him to beg me, in her name, to renounce a wish to which she never would give her consent, and that for his own part, especially, he conjured me to promise him that I would never speak of it again; adding that the project was a source of great grief to the Empress, and to all good men, among whom, he begged to include himself. I replied that there was nothing I would not willingly do to please her Majesty, and satisfy good men; but that I believed my health and life were endangered by my present mode of existence, and the treatment to which I was exposed; that I made everybody miserable; that all who came near me were either driven into exile or dismissed; that the Grand Duke was embittered against me even to hatred, and that, besides, he had never loved me; that her Imperial Majesty had shown me almost unceasing marks of her displeasure, and that seeing myself a burden to everybody, and nearly worn out with ennui and grief, I had asked to be sent back to my home, in order to free them all from the presence of so troublesome a personage. He spoke to me about my children; I told him I never saw them, and that I had not seen the youngest since my confinement, nor could I see them without an express permission from the Empress, as their apartment was only two rooms distant from her own, and formed part of her suite; that I had not the least doubt she took great care of them, but that being deprived of the pleasure of seeing them, it was a matter of indifference to me whether I was a hundred yards or a hundred leagues away from them. He informed me that the Empress would have a second conversation with me, and that it was greatly to be desired that her Majesty should become reconciled to me. To this I replied by begging him to accelerate this second interview, and that I for my part would neglect nothing that could tend to realize his wishes. He remained more than an hour with me, and spoke at great length upon a multitude of things. I remarked that the increase of his influence had given him a certain advantage in speech and deportment which he did not formerly possess when I saw him in the crowd; and when discontented with the Empress, with the state of affairs, and with those who possessed her confidence and favour, he said to me one day at court, seeing the Empress speaking for a long time to the Austrian Ambassador, while he and I, and all besides, were kept standing, and tired to death, “What will you wager that she is not talking mere fiddle-faddle to him?” “Good heavens!” I replied laughing, “what is it you say?” He answered me in Russian, in the characteristic words, “She is by nature....”[13] At length he left me, assuring me of his zeal, and took his leave, again kissing my hand.
For the present, then, I might feel sure of not being sent home, since I was requested not even to speak of it; but I deemed it as well not to quit my room, and to continue there as if I did not expect my fate to be finally decided until the second audience which the Empress was to give. For this I had to wait a long time. I remember that on the 21st of April, 1759, my birth-day, I never went out. The Empress, at her dinner-hour, sent me word by Count Alexander Schouvaloff that she drank to my health. I requested my thanks to be given to her for her kind remembrance of me upon this day of my unhappy birth, which, I added, I would curse, were it not also the day of my baptism. When the Grand Duke learned that the Empress had sent this message to me, he took it into his head to do the same. When his message was announced to me, I rose, and with a low courtesy expressed my thanks.
After the fêtes in honour of my birth-day, and of the Empress’ coronation day, which occurred within four days of each other, I still remained in my chamber, and never went out until Count Poniatowsky sent me word that the French Ambassador, the Marquis de l’Hôpital, had been eulogizing the firmness of my conduct, and observed that the resolution I maintained of never leaving my room could not but be productive of advantage to me. Taking this speech as the treacherous praise of an enemy, I determined to do exactly the contrary to what he advised; and, one Sunday, when it was least expected, I dressed, and came out of my private room. The moment I entered the apartment occupied by the ladies and gentlemen in waiting, I remarked their astonishment at seeing me. Some minutes after my appearance, the Grand Duke also entered. He looked equally astonished, and, while I was conversing with the company, he joined in the conversation, and addressed some remarks to me, to which I civilly replied.
About this time, Prince Charles of Saxony paid a second visit to St. Petersburg. The Grand Duke had treated him cavalierly enough on the first occasion, but this time his Imperial Highness thought himself justified in observing no terms with him, and for this reason: It was no secret in the Russian army that in the battle of Zorndorf Prince Charles had been one of the first to fly; and it was even asserted that he had fled without once stopping until he reached Landsberg. Now his Imperial Highness having heard this, resolved that, as a proved coward, he would not speak to him, nor have anything to do with him. There was every reason to believe that the Princess of Courland, daughter of Biren, did not a little contribute to this; for it had already begun to be whispered that there was an intention of making Prince Charles Duke of Courland. The father of the Princess of Courland was constantly retained at Yaroslav. She communicated her hostility to the Grand Duke, over whom she had always contrived to retain a kind of ascendancy. She was then engaged for the third time to Baron Alexander Tcherkassoff, to whom she was married the winter following.
At last, a few days before our going into the country, Count Alexander Schouvaloff came to inform me, on the part of the Empress, that I was to ask this afternoon, through him, permission to visit my children, and that then, upon my leaving them, I should have that second audience with her Majesty which had been so long promised. I did as I was directed, and, in presence of a number of people, I begged Count Schouvaloff to ask her Majesty’s permission for me to see my children. He went away, and on his return told me that I could see them at three o’clock. I was punctual to the time, and remained with my children until Count Schouvaloff came to tell me that her Imperial Majesty could be seen. I went to her, and found her quite alone, and this time there were no screens in the room, and consequently we were able to speak freely. I began by thanking her for the audience she gave me, saying that her gracious promise of it had restored me to life. Upon which she said, “I expect you to reply with sincerity to all the questions that I may put to you.” I assured her that she should hear nothing but the strict truth from me, and that there was nothing I desired more than to open my heart to her without reserve. Then she again asked if there really had been no more than three letters written to Apraxine. I solemnly assured her, and with perfect truth, that such was the fact. Then she asked me for details concerning the Grand Duke’s mode of life....
APPENDIX.
LETTERS OF THE GRAND DUKE PETER.
[The following letters, by the Grand Duke Peter, were discovered at Moscow about a year ago, and have been communicated by M. A. Herzen. We take them from the second edition of these Memoirs, just issued, where they appear in print for the first time. They are curious and interesting, as illustrative of the defective education and low mental condition of the writer, but it would be impossible to translate them without depriving them of the very peculiarities which give them this value; for to attempt to represent, by English equivalents, their defects of style, and their grammatical and orthographical blunders, would be simply to produce a ridiculous travesty. We, therefore, present them in their original form, with their special orthography faithfully preserved.—TR.]
I.
Lettre à la Grande-Duchesse Catherine.
Madame,[14]—Je vous prie de ne point vous incommodes cette nuis de dormir avec moi car il n’est plus tems de me trompes, le let a été trop étroit, apres deux semaines de séparation de vous aujourd’hui apres mide.
Votre
tres infortuné
mari qui vous ne
daignez jamais de
ce nom
Peter.
Le . . . . . Xr
1746.
II.
Lettres à Jean Schouvaloff.
Monsieur,—Je vous aie fait prier par Lef Alexandritz pour que je puisse aller a Oranienbaum, mais je vois que ca n’a point d’effet, je suis malade et melancolique jusqu’au suppreme degré, je vous prie pour l’amour de Dieu de faire ensorte aupres de sa Majesté pour que je puisse partir bientot a Oranienbaum si je ne vient point dehors de cette belle vie de cour pour être un peu dans ma volonté et jouir a mon aise l’air de la campagne je creverai surement ici d’aneui et de deplaisir vous me ferez revivre si vous ferez cela vous obligerez celui qui sera toute sa vie.
Votre affectioné,
Pierre.
III.
Monsieur,—Comme je suis assuré que vous ne cherchez autre chose qua me faire plaisir, je suis donc assuré que vous le fairè dans l’affaire d’Alexandre Iwanitz Narischkin pour prier sa Majesté de me faire la grace de le faire gentilhomme de chambre aupres de moi pour la feste de pacques, cest un parfait hoñette homme que je ne recommanderai pas si je ne le conñoissois pour tel, pressé cette affaire je vous en seré bien redevable et au rest je suis.
Votre affectioné,
Pierre.
IV.
Mon Cher Amy,—Vous m’avez encore demonstré vostre amitié en faisant aupres de sa Majesté imperiale qu’elle me donne dix mille ducats pour pajer ma deste que jai faite aux jeux, je vous prie de remercier de ma part sa Majesté de cette nouvelle grace qu’elle m’a faite et assuré la que je tacherai toute ma vie de m’en rendre de plus en plus digne de touts des graces dont elle m’a comblé. Pour vous Monsieur recevez les remerciemens sincère d’un amy qui voudraint estre en etat de vous pouvoir convaincre combien il souhaitairai de vous en pouvoir rendre la pareille. Aureste en vous priant destre toujour de ses amis comme auparavant je reste.
Vostre affectione amy,
Pierre.
V.
Monsieur,—Je vous aie tant de fois prie de supplier de ma part Sa Majesté impériale de me laisser voyager pour deux ans hors du pais, je vous le repete encore une fois vous priant tres instament de faire ensorte pour qu’on me l’accorde, ma santé sanfaiblissant de jour en jour plus, faites moi pour l’amour le Dieu cette seule amitié de le faire et de ne me laisser pas mourir de chagrin mon etat n’etant plus en etat de soutenir mes chagrin et ma melancolie empirant de jour en jour, si vous croyez quil est besoin de la montrer a Sa Majesté vous me ferez le plus grand plaisir du monde et de plus je vous en prie. Au reste je suis
Vostre affectioné,
Pierre.
VI.
Monsieur,—Je vous prie comme je scais que vous estes de mes amis de me faire le plasir d’aider le pere du porteur de cette lettre qui est le lieutenant Gudowitz de mon regiment, sa fortune en depandt, il vous instruira de bouche lui meme comment l’affaire est tout ce que je scai se sont des intrigues de monsieur Teploff qui n’en a fait pas la premiere, le hetman se laisse mener par cette homme par le nez et je ne peut plus vous dire que ca n’est pas la premiere ni la derniere affaire dont jaurai prie le hetmann, qui m’a refusé; jespere que vous fairez cette affaire, vous me fairez plaisir par ca parceque jaime cet officier encore je vous prie n’oubliez pas mes interest et moi je chercheré toujours de vous convaincre que je suis de vos amis.
Vostre affectioné,
Pierre.
VII.
Monsieur,—J’ai esté extremement etonné que sa Majesté s’est faché de ce que j’ai fait la mascarade et l’opera j’ai crue le faire de plus qu’à Petersbourg Monsieur Locatelli l’a fait tout les semaines deux foix encore je me resouviens tres bien que quant il y avait le dœuil pour ma grand Mere nous avons fait le bal chez nous et trois jour que le dœuil avoit commencé nous avons esté a la comedie au petit teatre, je vous prie dont Monsieur d’avoir la bonté de prier Sa Majesté de me permettre de me divertir à mon aise et sans que je sois empeché leté vous savez assez combien ont sannuye dejà l’hiver de plus ajant dejà fait la depense du nouvau opera je ne croi pas que Sa Majesté voudra me faire faire une depense inutile au reste je suis
Vostre affectioné,
Pierre.
VIII.
Lettre à M. le Baron de Shakelberg à Oranienbaum.
Mon Cher frere et Amy,—Je vous prie aujourd, hui de ne point oublier de faire ma commission auprès de la personne en question et de l’assurer que je suis pret à lui demontres mon parfait amour et que ce que je fait dans l’eglise, de ne la pas parler est que je ne veux pas faire trop devant les gens et assure lui encore que si elle voudra une fois seulement venir chez moy que je lui demontreré que je l’aime baucoup, si vous voulez mon cher et mon vray amy montrez luy la lettre et en croyant que je ne peut estre mieux servis que d’un ami comme vous, je suis
Votre fidel et attaché amy,
Pierre.
1758
THE LETTER OF CATHERINE II TO PONIATOWSKY.[15]
PETER III had lost the small share of sense which naturally belonged to him; he openly offended all parties; he wished to dismiss the guards, and was on the point of leading them into the country for this purpose, intending to replace them by his Holstein troops, who were to be stationed in the city; he wished also to change the religion of the country, marry Elizabeth Voronzoff, repudiate me, and place me in confinement.
On the occasion of the celebration of peace with the King of Prussia, after having publicly insulted me at table, he gave, in the evening, an order for my arrest. My uncle, Prince George, had the order retracted, and it was only from this time that I listened to the proposals which had been made to me since the death of the Empress Elizabeth. It was intended to seize him in his room, and imprison him, as had formerly been done in the case of the Princess Anne and her children. He went to Oranienbaum. We had in our interest a great number of captains in the regiments of the guards. The fate of the secret was in the hands of the three brothers Orloff, the elder of whom Osten remembers to have seen following me everywhere, and perpetrating a thousand follies; his passion for me was notorious, and everything he has done has been inspired by it. All three are men of great determination, and very much beloved by the soldiery, as they have served in the guards. I am under the greatest obligations to them, as all St. Petersburg can bear witness. The minds of the guards were prepared, and, towards the end, some thirty or forty officers and nearly ten thousand men were in the secret. In this number there was not a single traitor during the space of three weeks. There were four distinct parties, the chiefs of which were united for the execution, and the true secret was in the hands of the three brothers. Panin wished to have it in favour of my son, but they would not listen to this. I was at Peterhoff; Peter III was residing and carousing at Oranienbaum. It had been agreed that, in case of treason, they would not await his return, but at once assemble the guards and proclaim me. Their zeal for me did what treason would have effected. A report was spread on the 27th that I had been arrested. The soldiers became excited; one of our officers quieted them. Then came a soldier to a captain, named Pacik, the head of a party, and told him that I was certainly lost. Pacik assured him that he had just heard from me. The man, still alarmed for my safety, went to another officer and told him the same story. This person was not in the secret; terrified at learning that an officer had dismissed the man without arresting him, he went to the major; the latter had Pacik arrested, and sent, during the night, a report of the arrest to Oranienbaum. Instantly the whole regiment was in commotion, and our conspirators in alarm. It was resolved, in the first instance, to send to me the second brother Orloff, to bring me into the city, while the other two brothers went about everywhere reporting that I had arrived there. The Hetman, Volkonsky, and Panin, were in the secret.
I was almost alone, at Peterhoff, amongst my women, seemingly forgotten by every one. My days, however, were much disturbed, for I was regularly informed of all that was plotting both for and against me. At six o’clock on the morning of the 28th, Alexis Orloff entered my room, awoke me, and said very quietly, “It is time to get up; everything is prepared for proclaiming you.” I asked for details. He replied, “Pacik has been arrested.” I no longer hesitated, but dressed hastily, without waiting to make any toilet, and entered the carriage which he had brought with him. Another officer, disguised as a valet, was at the carriage-door; a third met us at the distance of some verstes from Peterhoff. At five verstes from the city, I met the elder Orloff with the younger Prince Baratinsky. The latter gave me up his seat in his carriage, my horses being tired out, and we drove to the barracks of the Ismaïlofsky regiment. We found there only twelve men and a drummer, who instantly beat the alarm. The soldiers came running in, embraced me, kissed my feet, my hands, my dress, calling me their saviour. Two of them brought in a priest between them, with the cross, and the oath was at once administered. This done, I was requested to enter a carriage. The priest walked in front, bearing the cross, and we proceeded to the regiment of Simeonofsky, which advanced to meet us with shouts of Vivat! We next went to the church of Kasan, where I alighted. The regiment of Preobrajensky came up with like shouts of Vivat! at the same time saying to me, “Pardon us for having come last, our officers detained us, but here are four of them whom we have brought to you under arrest, to show you our zeal, for we are of the same mind as our brethren.” Then came the horse-guards in a perfect delirium of delight. I have never seen anything like it. They shouted, they wept for very joy at the deliverance of their country. This scene took place between the garden of the Hetman and the Kasanski. The horse-guards were in a body, with their officers at their head. As I knew that my uncle Prince George, to whom Peter III had given this regiment, was thoroughly hated by it, I sent some footguards to him, begging him to remain at home for fear of accident. But the guards had anticipated me, and had sent a detachment to arrest him. His house was pillaged, and he himself ill-treated. I went to the new Winter Palace, where the synod and senate had assembled. The manifesto and oath were drawn up in haste. Thence I descended, and made, on foot, the inspection of the troops; there were more than fourteen thousand men, guards and country regiments. The instant I appeared the air was rent with shouts of joy, which were caught up and repeated by an innumerable multitude. I then proceeded to the old Winter Palace, to take the necessary measures for completing our work. There a council was held, and it was determined that I should go at the head of the troops to Peterhoff, where Peter III was to dine. Posts were stationed on all the roads, and we received information from moment to moment. I sent Admiral Taliezsin to Cronstadt. Then came the Chancellor Voronzoff to reprove me for having left Peterhoff. He was led to the church to swear fealty to me; that was my answer. Next came Prince Troubetzkoy and Count Alexander Schouvaloff, also from Peterhoff: they came to assure themselves of the fidelity of the regiments, and put me to death. They also were quietly led away to take the oath.
Having despatched all our couriers, and taken all our precautions, I dressed, about ten o’clock at night, in the uniform of the guards, and had myself proclaimed Colonel amid acclamations of inexpressible enthusiasm. I mounted on horseback, and we left behind us only a small detachment from every regiment for the protection of my son, who remained in the city.
Thus I set out at the head of the troops, and we marched all night towards Peterhoff. Having reached the little monastery, the Vice-Chancellor Galitsin brought me a very flattering letter from Peter III. I forgot to say that, on leaving the city, three soldiers, sent from Peterhoff to distribute a manifesto among the people, brought it to me, saying, “Here, this is what Peter III has charged us with; we give it to you, and we are very glad to have this opportunity of joining our brethren.” After this first letter from Peter III, another was brought to me by General Michael Ismaïloff, who, throwing himself at my feet, said, “Do you take me for an honest man?” I replied, “Yes.” “Well, then,” he said, “it is pleasant to have to deal with sensible people. The Emperor offers to resign. I will bring him to you after his resignation, which is entirely voluntary, and I shall save my country from a civil war.” I willingly charged him with this commission, and he departed to fulfil it.
Peter III renounced the empire at Oranienbaum, in full liberty, surrounded by fifteen hundred Holstein troops, and came to Peterhoff, accompanied by Elizabeth Voronzoff, Godowitz, and Michael Ismaïloff. There, as a guard, I assigned him five officers and some soldiers. This was on the 29th of June, the Feast of St. Peter, at noon. While dinner was being prepared for every one, the soldiers got it into their heads that Peter III had been brought by the Field-Marshal Prince Troubetzkoy, and that the latter was endeavouring to make peace between us. Instantly they charged all the passers-by, among others the Hetman, the Orloffs, and many others, saying that they had not seen me for three hours, and that they were dying with fear lest that old rogue, Troubetzkoy, should deceive me “by making,” they said, “a pretended peace between your husband and you, and thus ruining you and us also, but we will cut them in pieces.” These were their expressions. I went and spoke to Troubetzkoy, and said to him, “Pray get into your carriage, while I make, on foot, the tour of these troops.” I related what had occurred; he was much frightened, and instantly set off for the city, while I was received by the soldiers with unbounded joy. After this, I placed the deposed Emperor under the command of Alexis Orloff, with four chosen officers, and a detachment of quiet and sober men, and sent him to a distance of twenty-seven verstes from St. Petersburg, to a place called Rapscha, very retired, but very pleasant, where he was to remain, while decent and comfortable apartments were prepared for him at Schlusselburg, and relays of horses placed on the road. But it pleased God to dispose otherwise. Terror had brought on a dysentery, which continued for three days, and stopped on the fourth. He drank to excess on that day, for he had everything he wanted except his liberty. He had, however, asked me for nothing but his mistress, big dog, his negro, and his violin; but, for fear of scandal, and not wishing to increase the general excitement, I sent him only the three last named. The hemorrhoidal cholic again came on, accompanied by delirium; he was two days in this condition, which was followed by excessive weakness, and, notwithstanding the efforts of the physicians, he at last sunk, demanding a Lutheran clergyman. I was afraid the officers might have poisoned him, so much was he hated. I had him opened, but not a trace of poison could be discovered. The stomach was very healthy, but the bowels were inflamed, and he had been carried off by a stroke of apoplexy. His heart was excessively small, and also dried up.
After his departure from Peterhoff, I was advised to go straight to the city. I foresaw that the troops would be alarmed, and I therefore had the report spread, under the pretext of ascertaining at what hour they would be in a condition to march. After three days of such excessive fatigue, they fixed the time for ten o’clock that night, “provided,” they added, “that she comes with us.” I departed, therefore, with them, and midway stopped to rest at the country residence of Kourakin, where I flung myself on a bed, dressed as I was. An officer took off my boots. I slept two hours and a half, and then we resumed our march by the Catherinoff road. I was on horseback; a regiment of hussars marched in front; then my escort, which was the horse-guards; then immediately after me came my court; behind which marched the regiments of the guards, according to seniority, and three country regiments. I entered the city amid loud acclamations, and proceeded thus to the Summer Palace, where the court, the synod, my son, and all privileged to approach me, were awaiting me. I went to mass; then the Te Deum was sung; then I had to receive felicitations—I who had scarcely eaten, or drank, or slept since six o’clock on Friday morning. I was very glad to be able to retire to rest on Sunday night.
Scarcely was I asleep, when, at midnight, Captain Pacik entered my room and awoke me, saying, “Our people are horribly drunk: a hussar, in the same condition, has gone among them crying, ‘To arms! three thousand Prussians are coming; they want to carry off our mother!’ Upon this they have seized their arms, and have come to inquire how you are, saying that it is three hours since they have seen you, and that they will go quietly home, provided they find that you are well. They will not listen to their chiefs, nor even to the Orloffs.” So I had to get up again; and, not to alarm the guard of the court, which consisted of a battalion, I first went to them, and explained the reason of my going out at such an hour. I then entered my carriage with two officers, and proceeded to the troops. I told them I was quite well, that they must go home to bed, and allow me also to have some rest, as I had only just laid down, having had no sleep for three nights, and that I trusted they would in future listen to their officers. They replied that they had been frightened with those cursed Prussians, and that they were ready to die for me. “Very well, then,” I said, “I am very much obliged to you, but go to bed.” Upon this they wished me good night and good health, and went off like lambs, every now and then turning back to look at my carriage as they went. The next day they sent me their apologies and regrets for having broken my rest.
It would require a volume to describe the conduct of each of the chiefs. The Orloffs have shone by their skill in guiding others, their prudent daring, their great presence of mind, and the authority which this conduct gave them. They have a great deal of good sense, a generous courage, an enthusiastic patriotism, and an honourable mind. They are passionately devoted to me, and united amongst each other to a degree that I have never before seen in brothers. There are five of them, but only three were here. Captain Pacik has greatly distinguished himself by remaining for twelve hours under arrest, although the soldiers opened doors and windows for him; and this he did in order not to alarm his regiment before my arrival, although he expected every moment to be led to Oranienbaum, and put to the question. Fortunately this order from Peter III did not arrive until I had entered St. Petersburg. The Princess Dashkoff, the youngest sister of Elizabeth Voronzoff, although she wishes to arrogate to herself all the honour of this revolution, was in very bad odour on account of her connections, while her age, which is only nineteen, was not calculated to inspire confidence. She pretends that everything passed through her to reach me, yet I was in communication with all the chiefs for six months before she even knew one of their names. It is quite true that she has great talent, but it is spoilt by her excessive ostentation and her naturally quarrelsome disposition. She is hated by the chiefs, and liked by the giddy and rash, who communicated to her all they knew, which was only the minor details. Ivan Schouvaloff, the basest and most cowardly of men, has written, I am told, to Voltaire, that a woman of nineteen had overturned the government of this empire. Pray undeceive this distinguished writer. It was necessary to conceal from the Princess Dashkoff the channels through which others reached me, five months before she knew anything; and, during the last four weeks, no more was told her than was absolutely unavoidable. The strength of mind of Prince Baratinsky, who concealed this secret from a beloved brother, adjutant to the late Emperor, simply because a disclosure would have been in this case useless, also deserves great commendation. In the horse-guards an officer named Chitron(?), only twenty-two years old, and an inferior officer of seventeen, named Potemkin, directed everything with great courage and activity.
Such, pretty nearly, is our history. The whole was managed, I confess, under my immediate direction, and towards the end I had to check its progress, as our departure for the country prevented the execution; everything, in fact, was more than ripe a fortnight beforehand. The late Emperor, when he heard of the tumult in the city, was hindered by the women about him from following the counsel of old Field-Marshal Munich, who advised him to throw himself into Cronstadt, or proceed with a small retinue to the army; and when, finally, he went in a galley to Cronstadt, the place was in our hands by the good management of Admiral Talieszin, who disarmed General Lievers, previously sent there on the part of the Emperor. After the arrival of Talieszin, an officer of the port, on his own responsibility, threatened to open fire on the galley of the unfortunate Prince if he attempted a landing. In a word, God has brought everything about in his own good pleasure, and the whole is more of a miracle than a merely human contrivance, for assuredly nothing but the Divine will could have produced so many felicitous combinations.
We will close this letter of Catherine II. by a short extract from a dispatch of M. Bérenger, Chargé d’Affaires of France, dated the 23d of June, and bearing on these occurrences:
“What a sight for the nation itself, a calm spectator of these events! On one side, the grandson of Peter I dethroned and put to death; on the other, the grandson of the Czar Ivan languishing in fetters; while a Princess of Anhalt usurps the throne of their ancestors, clearing her way to it by a regicide.”
THE END.
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[1] See Memoirs of the Princess Daschkaw. London. 1840.
[2] Du Développement des idées révolutionnaires en Russie. 2 Ed., London, 1853.
[3] Official?—Ed.
[4] Diplomatic?—Ed.
[5] That is, went to confession and communion.—Tr.
[6] Devierre?—Ed.
[7] That is, from meat.—Tr.
[8] Montagnes russes.—Ed.
[9] Probably Dartres.—Ed.
[10] “Quoi, pas une mouche!” Je me mis à rire et lui répondis que c’était pour être plus légèrement habillée.—The English word fails to convey the playfulness of the reply.—Tr.
[11] To make a history of a thing is a common Russian phrase for “to season it with scandal and exaggeration.”—Tr.
[12] Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.—Tr.
[13] A fool (Doura, in Russian).—Ed.
[14] This letter was sent by one of the Grand Duke’s servants, named André, but it was intercepted by Steholin, and the Grand Duchess never received it.
[15] After the perusal of the foregoing Memoirs, it will be interesting to turn to the account which Catherine has given of the revolution which placed her on the throne. It is in the form of a letter, written or dictated by the Empress herself, and appears to have been addressed to Poniatowsky. Although already printed, it is but little known, and the reader, we doubt not, will be glad to have it in this place. We take it from a most interesting work, published at Berlin in 1843, by Schneider, La Cour de la Russie, il y cent ans (The Court of Russia, a hundred years ago).
| Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: |
|---|
| I told hiin=> I told him {pg 31} |
| I bey your pardon=> I beg your pardon {pg 64} |
| placed with me bebause=> placed with me because {pg 66} |
| Pepnine=> Repnine {pg 75} |
| the Prineess Repnine=> the Princess Repnine {pg 75} |
| Yevrienoff entreated me=> Yevreinoff entreated me {pg 79} |
| seven vertses=> seven verstes {pg 110} |
| The fits thing=> The first thing {pg 243} |