“I will place your Prussian officer. I cannot make Prince Potemkin advance as far as the Liman, but I can advance officers. I have made generals, majors, etc.; but you have made your crop of laurels, and can laugh at me.
“Always the same inaction, one-third through fear, one through spite, and one through ignorance. I would wish, at the end of the war, to have one-quarter of your glory in this campaign. Your letters are gay and brave, like yourself; they bear your image.
“A fearful storm obliges me to go to bed. A cloud has burst over the camp, and inundated the two pretty little houses I have erected under my immense Turkish tent, so that I do not know where to put my foot. Oh, oh! I am this moment informed that a major has been killed by lightning in his tent; it falls nearly every day, catch it who may.
“The other day the arms of an officer of light cavalry had to be amputated on account of the bite of a tarentula; as for lizards, no one is in a better position than I am to assert that they are the friend of man; for I live with them, and can trust them better than my friends in this country. Sometimes I hear the wind rising, and have my tent opened, but I shut it up again quickly; for the wind seems to blow off a furnace. Oh! we do enjoy every sort of advantage here. Shall I give you a specimen of Prince Repnin’s good taste? You know the habits of the service here, the baseness of the inferiors, and the insolence of the superiors. When Prince Potemkin makes a sign or drops anything, twenty generals prostrate themselves to earth. The other day seven or eight of them tried to help Prince Repnin off with his cloak: ‘No, gentlemen,’ he said; ‘the Prince de Ligne will kindly do it.’ A good lesson! They have more refinement of mind than of heart, and they felt it.
“Nevertheless, I rather play the victim; but Sarti[71] is here with an excellent orchestra, and he has brought that music you know so well, in which there are thirty C’s, thirty D’s, etc. Sometimes we have no bread, only biscuits and macaroons; no apples or pears, but pots of jam; no butter, but ices; no water, but every kind of wine; no wood for the kitchen fire sometimes, but logs of aloës to burn for perfume. We have here Madame Michel Potemkin, who is extremely beautiful; Madame Skawrowski, another niece of the vizier or patriarch Potemkin (for he arranges his religion also), very charming; and Madame Samoiloff, another niece, still more lovely. I played a proverb for her in this desert, and she seemed to like it, for she has since said: ‘Do play another riddle for me.’
“I presented the other day to the Prince a blockhead sent to me by a fool. One is called Marolles, the other is M. de X——, who recommends him as head of the engineers, and destined to take Oczakoff.
“‘Good morning, General,’ he said, on entering, to the Prince, ‘I will take that place for you in a fortnight. Have you any books here? Do you know in Russia those of a M. Vauban and a certain Coëhorn?[72] I should like to look them over before beginning.’ You may fancy Potemkin’s astonishment. ‘What a man!’ he said to me, ‘I do not know if he is an engineer, but I know he is French. Ask him a few questions.’ I did so, and he admitted he was an engineer for roads and bridges.
“Baron de Stad, who is here, delights me. He also is a thorough Frenchman; annoying the Prince, unpleasant to every one, writing charming verses, hating the petulance of Roger,[73] with whom he is perpetually quarrelling, and going gallantly into action, though declaring all the time that he is dying of fright. ‘Behold,’ says he, ‘how nature suffers; my horse himself trembles, and cares no more for glory than I do.’ We have seen another personage, as ridiculous as his name, which is Gigandé, a lieutenant in the guards of the Abbé de Porentruy. Yesterday he was robbed. Furious, he exclaimed, with his Swiss accent: ‘Che me lèfe, che m’égorge les pieds pour aller tout te suite faire mes blaintes à un chéneral et il me tit: ‘Si c’est un soltat, che vous ferai rentre, mais, si c’est un officier, cela sera tifficile.’[74]
“Another Frenchman, whose name is M. Second, came to consult me about an affair of honour. ‘For I see, sir,’ he said, ‘that I shall be forced to fight!’ I assured him that if he spoke in that way to everybody he would have no need of a man of his own name; that was a good piece of nonsense, was it not?
“Shall I tell you one of my innocent amusements? I place my dromedaries in the way of the gilded staff, when by chance ‘Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre’ (Marlborough goes off to the wars).[75] The other day two or three generals were thrown, half the escort upset, and the other half sent flying.