CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THREE CELEBRATED WOMEN.
Every one is aware of the mystic influence which Madame de Krudener exercised for many years over the enthusiastic temperament of the Emperor Alexander. This lady who has so charmingly portrayed her own character in Valérie, who was pre-eminently distinguished in the aristocratic salons of Paris by her beauty, her talents, and her position as an ambassadress, who was by turns a woman of the world, a heroine of romance, a remarkable writer, and a prophetess, will not soon be forgotten in France. The lovers of mystic poetry will read Valérie, that charming work, the appearance of which made so much noise, notwithstanding the bulletins of the grand army (for it appeared in the most brilliant period of the empire); those who delight in grace, combined with beauty and mental endowments, will recall to mind that young woman who won for herself so distinguished a place in French society; and those whose glowing imaginations love to dwell on exalted sentiments and religious fervour, united to the most lively faith, cannot refuse their admiration to her who asked of the mighty of the earth only the means of freely exercising charity, that evangelical virtue, of which she was always one of the most ardent apostles.
The Lettres de Mademoiselle Cochelet make known to us with what zeal Madame de Krudener applied herself to seeking out and comforting the afflicted. Her extreme goodness of heart was such that she was called, in St. Petersburg, the Mother of the Poor. All the sums she received from the emperor were immediately distributed to the wretched, and her own fortune was applied in the same way, so that her house was besieged from morning till night by mujiks and mothers of families, to whom she gave food both for soul and body.
With so much will and power to do good, Madame de Krudener by and by acquired so great an influence in St. Petersburg, that the government at last became alarmed. She was accused of entertaining tendencies of too liberal a cast, religious notions of no orthodox kind, extreme ambition cloaked under the guise of charity, and therewith too much compassion for those miserable mujiks of whom she was the unfailing friend. But the chief cause of the displeasure of the court was the baroness's connexion with two other ladies, whose religious sentiments were by all means exceedingly questionable. They were the Princess Gallitzin and Countess Guacher (we will give the real name of the latter by and by).
The publicity which these ladies affected in all their acts could not but be injurious to the meek Christian enterprise of Madame de Krudener. The princess was detested at court. Too superior to disguise her opinions, and renowned for her beauty, her caustic wit, and her philosophic notions, she had excited against her a host of enemies, who were sure to take the first opportunity of injuring her with the emperor. As for the Countess Guacher, the chief heroine of our tale, her rather equivocal position at the court furnished a weapon against her, when suddenly issuing from the extreme retirement in which she had previously lived, she became one of Madame de Krudener's most enthusiastic adepts. But before we proceed further it will be necessary to give a brief account of her arrival in Russia.
Two years before the period I am speaking of, a lady of high rank arrived in St. Petersburg, accompanied by a numerous retinue, and giving herself out for one of the victims of the French revolution. In that quality she was received with alacrity in the society of the capital, and the Emperor Alexander himself was one of the foremost to notice her. It appeared that she came last from England, where she had taken shelter during the revolutionary troubles; but the motive which had induced her, after so long a residence among the English, to quit their country for Russia, remained an impenetrable secret. She always evinced an extreme repugnance to meet the French emigrants, who resided in St. Petersburg, and they on their part declared that the name she bore was entirely unknown to them. It soon began to be whispered about, that the lady was, perhaps, a personage of illustrious birth who desired to be incognita; but what her real name was no one could tell, not even the emperor. The wit of the courtiers was baffled by the lofty reserve of the countess, who always affected a total silence whenever France was mentioned in conversation. Alexander, always prompt to declare himself a champion of dames, respected the fair stranger's incognito with chivalric loyalty, and declared that any attempt to penetrate the mystery would exceedingly displease him. This was enough to cool the fever of curiosity that had infected the courtiers since Madame Guacher's first appearance; her name was thenceforth mentioned only with a circumspection that would have seemed very curious to any one unacquainted with the Russians, and she soon became a stranger to the court, where she appeared only on rare occasions.
The emperor alone, stimulated no doubt by the mystery she observed respecting her past history, and struck by her high-bred demeanour, kept up an intercourse with her to which he seemed to attach much value. There was nothing of ordinary gallantry in this, at least there never was any thing to indicate that their intimacy had led to so commonplace a result. The romantic spirit of Alexander, delighted to build all sorts of hypotheses on a person whose noble presence and lofty airs exercised a peculiar prestige upon his imagination.
When the Princess Gallitzin returned to St. Petersburg after a journey to Italy, the emperor, who sincerely admired her, took upon himself to make two ladies acquainted whom he thought so fitted to appreciate each other. As he had foreseen, a close intimacy grew up between them, but to the great mortification of the court, this intimacy was, through Madame de Krudener's influence, the basis of an association which aimed at nothing less than the conversion of the whole earth to the holy law of Christ.
At first the scheme was met with derision, then alarm was felt, and at last, by dint of intrigues, the emperor, whom these ladies had half made a proselyte, was forced to banish them from court, and confine them for the rest of their days to the territory of the Crimea. It is said that this decision, so contrary to the kind nature of Alexander, was occasioned by an article in an English newspaper, in which the female trio and his imperial majesty were made the subjects of most biting sarcasms. Enraged at being accused of being held in leading strings by three half-crazed women, the emperor signed the warrant for their exile to the great joy of the envious courtiers. The victims beheld in the event only the manifestation of the divine will, that they should propagate the faith among the followers of Mahomet. In a spirit of Christian humility they declined receiving any other escort than that of a non-commissioned officer, whose duty should be only to see to their personal safety, and transmit their orders to the persons employed in the journey. Their departure produced a great sensation in St. Petersburg; and every one was eager to see the distinguished ladies in their monastic costume. The court laughed, but the populace, always sensitive where religion is concerned, and who, besides, were losing a most generous protectress in Madame de Krudener, accompanied the pilgrims with great demonstrations of respect and sorrow to the banks of the Neva, where they embarked on the 6th of September, 1822.
Two months after that date, on a cold November morning, when the Sea of Azof was already beginning to be covered near shore with a thin coat of ice, there arrived in Taganrok one of those large boats called lodkas, which ply on all the navigable rivers of the empire, and are used for the transport of goods. This one seemed to have been fitted up for the temporary accommodation of passengers. The practised eyes of the sailors in the port soon noticed the peculiar arrangement of the deck, the care with which the bales of merchandise were ranged along the gangways, and above all, the great carpet that covered the whole quarter-deck. These circumstances excited much curiosity in the port, especially as at that advanced season arrivals were very rare; but conjecture was exerted in vain, as to who might be the mysterious passengers, for the whole day passed without one of them appearing. It was ascertained, indeed, that a non-commissioned officer landed from the lodka, and waited on the police-master and the English consul, and that those functionaries repaired on board the lodka; but that was all, and the public remained for ever in ignorance whence the lodka came, whither it was bound, and who were the persons on board of it.
The same evening the English consul was waiting with some curiosity for the visit of a foreigner, who, as he had been informed by the non-commissioned officer of the lodka, would call on him at eight o'clock; but her name and her business remained a mystery for him. At the appointed time the door opened, and a person entered whose appearance at first sight did not seem to justify the curiosity which the consul had felt about her. Dressed in a long, loose, grey robe, and a white hood with lappets falling on the bosom, she had all the appearance of those Russian nuns who go about to rich houses and beg for their convents. Taking her for one of these persons, Mr. Y—— was about to give her a very expeditious answer, when to his surprise she accosted him in excellent English. The appearance and manners of the visitor soon convinced him she was a person of superior station. The conversation turned at first on England. The unknown told him that having long resided in that country, she had felt desirous of seeing its representative in Taganrok; she then went on to discuss English society, mentioning the most aristocratic names, and talking in such a manner as to show that she must have been long familiar with the London world of fashion. After this she proceeded to the main object of her visit, which was to procure from the consul a podoroshni, to continue her journey by land instead of by water as before.
All this while the consul was scrutinising his strange visitor with increasing astonishment. She appeared to be about fifty years of age; her features, which were still very well preserved, must have been once very handsome. She had a Bourbon countenance, large blue eyes, grave lineaments, and a somewhat haughty ease in her demeanour, that altogether produced a singularly imposing effect. The conversation gradually becoming more familiar, the lady confessed that having been converted by the Baroness de Krudener and the Princess Gallitzin, she had been exiled with those ladies to the Crimea, where she purposed to preach the faith.
This unexpected communication of course increased the surprise of Mr. Y——, and drew from him some observations on the nature of such a project. After lauding the zeal of the fair missionary, he hinted a doubt that she would find many proselytes among the Mahometans, and asked her had she no family or friends who had a more direct claim on her charity than strangers, who were too barbarous to appreciate her motives. This question produced an extraordinary effect on the lady. She grew pale and confused, and muttered indistinctly that all her earthly ties were broken, and that the wrath of Heaven had long rested on her head! A silence of some minutes followed that avowal. The consul remained with his eyes fixed on the strange being before him, and in spite of all his address and knowledge of the world, he was quite at a loss how to behave or how to renew the conversation. His visitor, however, relieved him by taking her leave, after repeating her request that he would supply her with a podoroshni on the following morning.
It may easily be imagined that Mr. Y—— did not wait until the next day to satisfy his curiosity respecting the ladies whose invincible spirit of proselytism had sent them from the banks of the Neva to the shores of the Black Sea, and soon after the departure of his visitor he was on his way to the port. He had no difficulty in finding the lodka; the deck was deserted, but a light shone through one of the skylights. Looking down he saw three phantom-like females standing at a table covered with papers, and reading out of large books. When their prayers were ended they began to chant hymns in a slow measure. The solemn religious harmony, suddenly breaking the deep silence, made so intense an impression on the consul, that twenty years afterwards he still spoke of it with enthusiasm.
Countess Guacher stood with her back towards him, but he had a full view of the faces of the two other ladies. Madame de Krudener was small, delicate, and fair haired; her inspired looks and the gentleness of her countenance bespoke her boundless beneficence of soul. The Princess Gallitzin, on the contrary, had an imposing countenance, the expression of which presented a strange mixture of shrewdness, asceticism, sternness, and raillery. For a long while the pilgrims continued chanting Sclavonic psalms, the mysterious impart of which accorded with the enthusiastic disposition of their souls. Before they had ended, the sound of footsteps on the deck woke Mr. Y—— from his trance of wonder. The new comer was the non-commissioned officer, and Mr. Y—— desired the man to announce him, although he hardly expected to be admitted at so late an hour. His visit was nevertheless accepted, and the ladies received him with as much ease as if they had been doing the honours of a drawing-room.
In spite of their religious enthusiasm, and the apostolic vocation which they attributed to themselves, it may easily be imagined that these three high-bred ladies, accustomed to all the refinements of luxury, should now and then have had their tempers a little ruffled by the hardships of their journey, and that their mutual harmony should have suffered somewhat in consequence. Their wish, therefore, to separate on their arrival at Taganrok was natural enough. Countess Guacher especially, having made less progress than her companions in the path of perfection, had often revolted against the austere habits imposed on her; but these ebullitions of carnal temper were always brief and transient; and on the day after her visit to the consul, when he returned to the port to announce that the podoroshni was ready, the boat and its passengers had disappeared, and no one could give any information about them.
II.
The apparition of these ladies in the Crimea threw the whole peninsula into commotion. Eager to make proselytes, they were seen toiling in their béguine costume, with the cross and the gospel in their hands, over mountains and valleys, exploring Tatar villages, and even carrying their enthusiasm to the strange length of preaching in the open air to the amazed and puzzled Mussulmans. But as the English consul had predicted, in spite of their mystic fervour, their persuasive voices, and the originality of their enterprise, our heroines effected few conversions. They only succeeded in making themselves thoroughly ridiculous not only in the eyes of the Tatars, but in those also of the Russian nobles of the vicinity, who instead of seconding their efforts, or at least giving them credit for their good intentions, regarded them only as feather-witted illuminatæ, capable at most of catechising little children. The police, too, always prompt to take alarm, and having besides received special instructions respecting these ladies, soon threw impediments in the way of all their efforts, so that two months had scarcely elapsed before they were obliged to give up their roving ways, their preachings, and all the fine dreams they had indulged during their long and painful journey. It was a sore mortification for them to renounce the hope of planting a new Thebaid in the mountains of the Crimea. Madame de Krudener could not endure the loss of her illusions; her health, already impaired by many years of an ascetic life, declined rapidly, and within a year from the time of her arrival in the peninsula, there remained no hope of saving her life. She died in 1823, in the arms of her daughter, the Baroness Berckheim, who had been for some years resident on the southern coast, and became possessed of many documents on the latter part of a life so rich in romantic events: but unfortunately these documents are not destined to see the light.
Princess Gallitzin, whose religious sentiments were perhaps less sincere, thought no more of making conversions after she had installed herself in her delightful villa on the coast. Throwing off for ever the coarse béguine robe, she adopted a no less eccentric costume which she retained until her death. It was an Amazonian petticoat, with a cloth vest of a male cut. A Polish cap trimmed with fur completed her attire, that accorded well with the original character of the princess. It is in this dress she is represented in several portraits still to be seen in her villa at Koreis.
The caustic wit that led to her disgrace at the court of St. Petersburg, her stately manners, her name, her prodigious memory, and immense fortune, quickly attracted round her all the notable persons in Southern Russia. Distinguished foreigners eagerly coveted the honour of being introduced to her, and she was soon at the head of a little court, over which she presided like a real sovereign. But being by nature very capricious, the freak sometimes seized her to shut herself up for whole months in total solitude. Although she relapsed into philosophical and Voltairian notions, the remembrance of Madame de Krudener inspired her with occasional fits of devotion that oddly contrasted with her usual habits. It was during one of these visitations that she erected a colossal cross on one of the heights commanding Koreis. The cross being gilded is visible to a great distance.
Her death in 1839 left a void in Russian society which will not easily be filled. Reared in the school of the eighteenth century, well versed in the literature and the arts of France, speaking the language with an entire command of all that light, playful raillery that made it so formidable of yore; having been a near observer of all the events and all the eminent men of the empire; possessing moreover a power of apprehension and discernment that gave equal variety and point to her conversation; a man in mind and variety of knowledge, a woman in grace and frivolity; the Princess Gallitzin belonged by her brilliant qualities and her charming faults to a class that is day by day becoming extinct.
Now that conversation is quite dethroned in France, and exists only in some few salons of Europe, it is hard to conceive the influence formerly exercised by women of talent. Those of our day, more ambitious of obtaining celebrity through the press than of reigning over a social circle, guard the treasures of their imagination and intellect with an anxious reserve that cannot but prove a real detriment to society. To write feuilletons, romances, and poetry, is all very well; but to preside over a drawing-room, like the women of the eighteenth century, has also its merit. But we must not blame the female sex alone for the loss of that supremacy which once belonged to French society. The men of the present day, more serious than their predecessors, more occupied with positive, palpable interests, seem to look with cold disdain on what but lately commanded their warmest admiration.
But we have lost sight of the Countess Guacher, who is not for all that the least interesting of our heroines. Resigning herself with much more equanimity than her companions to the necessity of leaving the Tatars alone, she hired for herself, even before their complete separation, a small house standing by itself on the sea shore; and there she took up her abode with only one female attendant. Following the example of the Princess Gallitzin, she threw off the béguine robe and assumed a kind of male attire. For some time her existence was almost unknown to her neighbours; so retired were her habits. The only occasions when she was visible was during her rides on horseback on the beach, and it was noticed that she chose the most stormy weather for these excursions.
But her recluse habits did not long conceal her from curious inquiry. A certain Colonel Ivanof, who had noticed the strange proceedings of the pilgrims from their first arrival in the Crimea, set himself to watch the countess, and at last took a house near her retreat; but in order that his presence might not scare her, he contented himself for some weeks with following her at a distance during her lonely promenades, trusting to chance for an opportunity of becoming more intimately acquainted with her. His perseverance was at last rewarded with full success.
One evening, as the colonel stood at his window observing the tokens of an approaching storm, he perceived a person on horseback galloping in the direction of his house, evidently with the intention of seeking shelter. Before this could be accomplished the storm broke out with great fury, and just then the colonel was startled by the discovery that the stranger was his mysterious neighbour. The sequel will be best told in his own words:
"Full of surprise and curiosity I hastened to meet the countess, who entered my doors without honouring me with a single look. She seemed in very bad humour, and concentrated her whole attention upon a tortoise she carried in her left hand. Without uttering a word or caring for the water that streamed from her clothes, she sat down on the divan, and remained for some moments apparently lost in thought. For my part, I continued standing before her, waiting until she should address me, and glad of the opportunity to scrutinise her appearance at my ease. She wore an Amazonian petticoat, a green cloth vest, buttoned over the bosom, a broad-brimmed felt hat, with a pair of pistols in her girdle, and, as I have said, a tortoise in her hand. Her handsome, grave countenance excited my admiration. Below her hat appeared some grey locks, that seemed whitened not so much by years as by sorrow, of which her visage bore the impress.
"Without taking off her hat, the flap of which half concealed her face, she began to warm the tortoise with her breath, calling it by the pet name Dushinka (little soul), which duty being performed she deigned to look up, and perceived me. Her first gesture bespoke extreme surprise. Until then, supposing she was in a Tatar house, she had taken no notice of the objects around her, but the sight of my drawing-room, my library, my piano, and myself, struck her with stupefaction. 'Where am I?' she exclaimed, in hurried alarm. 'Madam,' I replied, 'you are in the house of a man who has long lived as a hermit—a man who like you loves solitude, the sea, and meditation—who has renounced like you the society of his kind to live after his own way in this wilderness.' These words struck her forcibly. 'You, too,' she ejaculated, 'you, too, have divorced yourself from the world, and why? Ay, why?' she repeated, as if conversing with her own thoughts, 'why bury yourself alive here, without friends, without relations, without a heart to respond to yours? Why die this lingering death, when the world is open to you—the world with its delights, its balls and spectacles, its passionate adorations, with the fascinations of the court, the favour of a queen?' Imagine my astonishment to hear her thus in a sort of hallucination, revealing her secret thoughts and recollections. In these few words her whole life was set forth, the life of a beautiful woman, rich, flattered, habituated to the atmosphere of courts.
"After a pause of some duration she entered into conversation with me, questioned me at great length on the way in which I passed my time, on my tastes, the few resources I enjoyed for cultivating the arts, &c. We chatted for more than an hour like old acquaintances, and she seemed quite to have forgotten the strange words she had uttered in the beginning of the interview. Being very much puzzled to know what pleasure she took in carrying the tortoise about with her, I asked her some questions on the subject; but with a solemnity that seemed to me strangely disproportioned to the subject, she told me she had made a vow never to separate from it. 'It is a present from the Emperor Alexander,' she said, 'and as long as I have it near me I shall not utterly despair of my destiny.' Availing myself of this opening I tried to make her talk of the motives that had brought her to the peninsula, but she cut me short by saying that since she had become acquainted with the character of the Tatars she had given up all thought of making converts among them. 'They are men of pure feelings and pure consciences,' she said, impressively; 'why insist on their changing their creed, since they live in accordance with the principles of morality and religion? After all it matters little whether one adores Jesus Christ, Mahomet, or the Grand Lama, if one is charitable, humble, and hospitable.'
"I laughed, and said she spoke rank heresy, and that if she preached such doctrines, she ran great risk of having a bull of excommunication fulminated against her. 'It is since I have given up preaching,' she replied, 'that I have begun to think in this way; solitude makes one regard things in quite a different aspect from that in which they are seen by the world. Only three months ago I set Catholicism above all religions, and now I meditate one still more perfect and sublime. Will you be my first disciple?' she said, in a tone between jest and earnest, that left me very uncertain whether she was serious or not. When she left my house I escorted her to her own door, and promised I would call on her the next day."
The second interview was not less curious than the first: the colonel found his neighbour busily at work with a glass spinner's lamp and a blowpipe, making glass beads. She did not allow her visitor's presence to interrupt her operations, but finished before him enough to make a necklace. She then showed him several boxes filled with beads of all sorts, made by her own hands, and said very seriously, "If ever I return to the world I will wear no other ornaments than such pearls as these. It is a stupid thing to wear true ones. See how bright, clear, and large these are! Would any one suppose they were not the produce of the Indian Ocean? So it is with every thing else: what matters the substance if the form is beautiful and pleasing to the eye?" The colonel was about to enter into a grave discussion of this very questionable moral doctrine, very common in the eighteenth century, when suddenly changing the subject, the countess took down a sword that hung at the head of her bed and laid it on his lap. "You see this weapon, colonel: it was given me by a Vendean chief in admiration of my courage; for though a woman I have fought for the good cause, and many a time smelt powder among the bushes and heaths of Bretagne. You need not wonder at my partiality for weapons and for male costume; it is a reminiscence of my youth. A Vendean at heart, I long made part in the heroic bands that withstood the republican armies, and the dangers, hardships, and fiery emotions of partisan warfare are no secrets to me." "But," observed the colonel, "how is it that thus devoted as you are to the royal cause you do not return to your country, where monarchy is again triumphant?" "Hush!" she answered, lowering her voice, "hush! let us say no more of the present or the past. Would you ask the shrub broken by the storm why the breath of spring does not reanimate its mutilated form? Let us leave things as they are, and not strive to repair what is irreparable. Man's justice has pronounced its decree; let us trust in that of God, merciful and infinite, like all that is eternally just and good!"
It was in vain the colonel endeavoured by further questions to become acquainted with that mysterious past to which she could not make any allusion without extreme perturbation of mind; she remained silent, and retired to another room without renewing the conversation.
After these two interviews, Colonel Ivanof had no other opportunity of gathering any hints that could lead him towards a definite conclusion respecting this extraordinary woman, although he saw her almost daily for more than two months. She often talked to him of her residence in London, her friendly relations with the Emperor of Russia, her travels, and her fortune; but of France not a word. Not an expression of regret, not a name or allusion of any sort, afforded the colonel reason to suspect that his neighbour had left behind her in her native land any objects on which her memory still dwelt. His brain was almost turned at last by the romantic acquaintance he had made. His vanity was piqued, and his desire to solve so difficult an enigma gave him no rest. He diligently perused the history of the French Revolution, in hopes to find in it a clue to his inquiry, but it was to no purpose. He felt completely astray in such a labyrinth. Many great names successively occurred to him as likely to belong to his mysterious neighbour, but there were always some circumstances connected with them that refuted such a supposition.
Perhaps a more matter-of-fact person would at last have discovered the truth; but the colonel's lively imagination led him to embrace the oddest hypothesis. It was his belief that the countess was the illegitimate offspring of a royal amour. Setting out from this principle he put aside all the names proscribed by the revolution, and stuck obstinately to a myth. But tired at last of this pursuit of shadows, he resolved to trust to that chance which had already been so favourable for the clearing up of his uncertainty. Assiduously noting all the lady's eccentricities, he knew not whether to pity or admire her, though very certain that her wits wandered at times.
She frequently received despatches from St. Petersburg, and seemed, notwithstanding her exile, to have retained a certain influence over the mind of the tzar. One day she showed her neighbour a letter from a lady of the court, who thanked her warmly for having obtained from the emperor a regiment which that lady had long been ineffectually soliciting for her son.
So absorbed was the Russian officer by the interest he took in the countess, that he seemed to have forgotten all the world besides; but an unexpected event suddenly put an end to his romantic loiterings, and sent him back to the realities of life. A Frenchman, calling himself Baron X—, arrived one fine morning from St. Petersburg, and established himself without ceremony as the countess's factotum. From that moment all intimacy was broken off between the latter and Colonel Ivanof. The cold, astute behaviour of the baron, and his continual presence, obliged the colonel to retire. It may seem strange that he surrendered the field so quickly to an unknown person, but it was time for him to return to his military duties, and besides, what could he do with a man whose connexion with the countess seemed of old standing, and who watched her with a jealous vigilance enough to discourage the most intrepid curiosity? His departure was scarcely noticed by Madame Guacher, whose habits had undergone an entire change since the arrival of the baron. The incoherence of her mind became more and more visible; it was only at long and uncertain intervals she rode out on horseback; the rest of her time was spent in enduring all sorts of extraordinary mortifications.
Baron X—remained in the Crimea until the death of the countess, which took place in 1823. Being fully acquainted with all her affairs he was her sole heir, not legally, perhaps, but de facto. On leaving the peninsula he proceeded to England, where a large part of our heroine's property was invested, and he afterwards returned to Russia with a considerable fortune.
A curious incident occurred after the death of the countess. As soon as the emperor was informed of the event he despatched a courier to the Crimea, with orders to bring him a casket, the form, size, and materials of which were described with the most minute exactness. The messenger, assisted by the chief of the police, at first made a fruitless search; but at last, through the information of a waiting woman, the casket was found sealed up, under the bed of the deceased lady. The courier took possession of it and returned with the utmost speed. In ten days he was in St. Petersburg.
The precious casket was delivered to the emperor in his private cabinet, in the presence of two or three courtiers. Alexander was so impatient to open it that he had the lock forced. But alas! what a sad disappointment! The casket contained only—a pair of scissors. It surely was not for the sake of a pair of scissors that Alexander had made one of his Cossacks gallop 4000 versts in a fortnight. Be that as it may, Baron X—was accused of having purloined papers of the highest importance, and unfairly possessed himself of Madame Guacher's fortune. But as he was then on his road to London, the emperor's anger was of no avail.
At a subsequent period, the disclosures made by this man, and the discovery of a curious correspondence, at last revealed the real name of the countess; but the tardy information arrived when there was no longer any one to be interested in it; the emperor was dead, and Colonel Ivanhof was fighting in the Caucasus.
Interred in a corner of the garden belonging to her house, that mysterious woman who had been the subject of so many contradictory rumours, had not even a stone to cover her grave, and to mark to the stranger the spot where rest the remains of the Countess de Lamothe, who had been whipped and branded in the Place de Grève, as an accomplice in the scandalous affair of the diamond necklace.[69]
FOOTNOTE:
[69] All the facts we have related respecting Madame de Lamothe are positive and perfectly authentic: they were reported to us by persons who had known that lady particularly, and who moreover possessed substantial proofs of her identity. It is chiefly to Mademoiselle Jacquemart, mentioned in "Marshal Marmont's Travels," that we are indebted for the details we have given respecting the arrival of our three heroines in the Crimea. We have ourselves seen in that lady's possession the sword which the countess alleged she had used in the wars of La Vendée, and sundry letters attesting the great influence she exercised over the Emperor Alexander.