The Englishwoman in Russia

by A lady

The Russian, finding he was no match for the English lady, remained silent, and was soon glad to beat a retreat to hide his discomfiture.

In revenge we were told that “she would not be invited to their balls,” as if to be excluded from their dull feasts of frivolity were a severe punishment and an irremediable misfortune. It was really ridiculous to see what puny efforts the Russians made to show their anger at the English: they would pass you in the street, and not bow, although they had previously been well acquainted with you. It may be judged to what an excess they carried their resentment, when I mention that even children behaved in the same manner. I was well acquainted with a lady who resided at one of the Institutes in St. Petersburg, and I was in the habit of frequently calling to see her; before the Declaration I was always met with smiles, and, according to the established custom, the young persons used to bow as they passed us; but as soon as they knew that the war had commenced, we heard them continually make the remark one to the other, “Ne la saluez pas, ma chère, c’est une Anglaise!”

All the shop windows in St. Petersburg were filled with plates inscribed “The Glorious Battle of Sinope,” as the Russians are pleased to call that fearful act of cowardice. On my arrival in London I found the very same representations, or fac-similes of them, displayed, with the far truer designation of “Horrible Massacre!”

Among the upper ranks the most ridiculous ideas concerning the war were prevalent; they were kept so entirely in the dark by all the government accounts, and by the absurd severity of the officials at the Censor’s office, who carefully erase every article that has any reference to political affairs or to Muscovite losses, that it is no wonder that their conjectures were sometimes laughable, and if related in England appear incredible. The Emperor in their eyes was a martyr, and the English his persecutors; they blamed them as the most cunning of people, nor could they conceal their spite and vexation at having been outwitted by our government. They were convinced that the union with France could not possibly last, and that the Americans would come to their rescue; that English money was the chief instigator in the whole affair; and that it was mainly the curry-favouring spirit of our people, who hastened to congratulate Louis Napoleon on his being elected Emperor, that had prevented a friendship between Russia and la grande nation. “Ah, quel malheur!” exclaimed one of the Czar’s aides-de-camp, “that our Emperor did not call him ‘mon frère;’ how different it would have all been!” To hear them talk, one would imagine that all the evils existing in the world are to be ascribed to British influence, which at least proves how very powerful they must deem it. It was usual to hear them affirm that the revolution in China was all our doing, and that we were trying to raise Poland against Russia; that the Indian empire was in imminent danger from their army in Asia, which they declared had been sent against Hindûstan; that we were on the point of learning a great deal from their teaching in military matters, meaning by that, that our soldiers never had so powerful an enemy to contend with as the Russians. “Deceitful England” was to receive condign punishment. “If,” said an old general, “Napoleon the Great called England ‘Perfide Albion,’ our Emperor should name her ‘Fausse Angleterre:’” a sentiment that met with universal approbation. The Greeks, according to them, were a nation of saints and martyrs, who were worthy of the utmost admiration, and the French were to be despised and pitied for being so led astray; yet, notwithstanding their pretended disdain of the latter people for their inferiority to themselves in every respect, they still had a dash of hope that they would ultimately be induced to change sides and serve the turn of Russia.

It was extraordinary how the Russians clung to the idea that they had secured the aid of America[22] to save them from their embarrassments. They spoke of the help they were to receive with as much assurance as if a treaty had already been signed on the subject, and they appeared to regard the President of the United States with as much respect as a sailor does his sheet-anchor in a storm. To do the Americans justice, they took all the advances in perfectly good faith, and rather encouraged the hope: they were courted in all companies, feasted, petted, and, as they say, “made much of,” and seemed rather pleased than otherwise. It is odd that citizens of a republican nation such as that of the States should have so great a reverence for titles, orders, stars, and the like trumpery, for surely, if a person be a gentleman in the proper sense of the word, it is not necessary that he be ticketed as such like a prize-ox in a cattle-show; and in Russia, above every other country, a glittering star, or a cross suspended by à scarlet ribbon round the neck, would be a most fallacious criterion that the wearer merited so high an appellation. Indeed it often happens that the subjects of the Czar, the breast of whose coat is like a cushion, on which all the family jewels are pinned, have the vilest souls and the blackest hearts, together with the most empty heads, in his dominions. I do not know if a foreigner would not really form a more correct estimate of their character if he judged of their baseness by the number of orders they display. The Americans in St. Petersburg did not seem to think so, for, the very morning I left it, one of the attachés of their embassy showed my friends, with the greatest exultation, the Easter eggs with which the Princess so-and-so, the Countess such-an-one, and several officials of high rank about the court, had presented him: he also exhibited the portraits of the whole of the Imperial family, which he intended to hang up, he said, “as household treasures, when he returned to New York,” whither he was going “right away,” as he assured us.

The Russians, upon the strength of their hopes, were always threatening us with the American fleet in the Baltic, which would place the Allied fleets between two enemies. Is the old adage about extremes meeting really so near the truth? Whether there were any substantial foundations to all these castles in the air, we had no means of knowing. The French have a proverb, “Il n’y a pas de fumée sans feu.”

Almost every morning we were hearing news of the discomfiture of the Allies, the destruction of at least a part of the fleet, and so on. One day I went to call on a lady, and an elderly gentleman there present informed her, as a piece of pleasing intelligence, that four more of the ships in the Baltic had been sunk. As this was about the tenth time that reliable information had been received of a similar event, upon a fair calculation there were already forty of them put hors de combat. In speaking of Sir Charles Napier one evening, I was informed, “He is the most savage monster breathing; he never shows mercy to any one, because he really does not know what the word means; and as the parliament has ordered him to spare nothing that is Russian, God knows who would live to speak of the scenes we shall witness when he comes to St. Petersburg.”

Notwithstanding the terror which was universal, they still affected to laugh at the idea of a naval invasion. “Look at Odessa; what did the fleet do except making themselves ridiculous, and what is that place compared to Cronstadt and our other forts?”

We were much amused once by the account an old gentleman gave a whole company concerning the manœuvres of the Allied fleets near Denmark. According to him, the splendid “men” of war now floating on the Russian seas were constructed somewhat in the fashion of hens and chickens; for he gravely told us that the hulls were made to open, and a whole progeny of little gunboats made their sudden appearance, which, after having fired off the cannon and done all the mischief they could, ran back like lightning to the shelter of their great parent’s wing, the hull of which opened and closed by means of machinery, and were thus enabled to place all the young fry in safety!