We were in high luck on Sunday in getting a private interview with the Cossacks, through some General of M.'s acquaintance. We saw their horses and the white one, 20 years old, which has carried Platoff[34] through all his engagements. They are small horses with very thick legs. The Cossacks themselves would not open the door of their room till luckily a gentleman who could speak Russian came up, and then we were admitted.
There were four, one who had been thirty years in the service, with a long beard and answering exactly my idea of a Cossack; the others, younger men with fine countenances and something graceful and gentleman-like in their figure and manner. They were very happy to talk, and there was great intelligence and animation in their eyes. No wonder they defy the weather with their cloaks made of black sheepskin and lined with some very thick cloth which makes them quite impenetrable to cold or wet. Their lances were 11 feet long, and they were dressed in blue jacket and trousers confined round the waist with a leather belt, in[90] which was a rest for the lance. I envied their saddles, which have a sort of pommel behind and before, between which is placed a cushion, on which they must sit most comfortably. We must see them on horseback to have seen them, but we shall probably have an opportunity of seeing them again.
June 18, 1814.
On returning from Miss Fanshawe's we saw a royal carriage in George Street at Madame Moreau's, and we waited to see the Emperor and the Duchess (of Oldenburg) get into the carriage. He was in a plain blue coat; she without her curious bonnet, so that I had a good view of her face, which I had the satisfaction of finding exactly what I wished to see. The extreme simplicity of her dress—she had nothing but a plain white gown and plain straw hat, with no ornament of any sort—and her very youthful appearance made me doubt whether it was really the Duchess; but it was.
She is very little, and there is a strong expression of intelligence, vivacity, and youthful, unsophisticated animation in her countenance. I fancied I could see so much of her character in the brisk step with which she jumped into the carriage, and the unassuming, lively smile with which she bowed to the people.
The Emperor looks like a gentleman—but a country gentleman, not like an Emperor. His head is very like R. Heber's. The Duchess allowed[91] herself to be pleased and to express her pleasure at all the sights without the least restraint. She asks few questions, but those very pertinent. She is impatient at being detained long over anything, but anxious to silence those who would hence infer that she runs over everything superficially, without gaining or retaining real knowledge.
At Woolwich she was asked if she would see the steam-engines. "No, she had seen them already, and understood them perfectly." As they passed the open door she turned her head to look at the machinery, and instantly exclaimed, "Oh, that is one of Maudesley's engines," her eye immediately catching the peculiarity of the construction.
London, June 22, 1814.
In the middle of Edward's sermon at St. George's to-day somebody in our pew whispered it round that there was the King of Prussia[35] in the Gallery. I looked as directed, and fixed my eyes on a melancholy, pensive, interesting face, exactly answering the descriptions of the King, and immediately fell into a train of very satisfactory reflection and conjecture on the expression of his physiognomy, for which twenty minutes afforded me ample time. The King was the only one I had not seen, therefore this opportunity of studying his face so completely was particularly valuable. When the prayer after the sermon was concluded, my informer said the King was gone, when, to my utter disappoint[92]ment, I beheld my Hero still standing in the Gallery, and discovered I had pitched upon a wrong person, and wasted all my observations on a face that it did not really signify whether it looked merry or sad, and entirely missed the sight of the real King, who was in the next pew.
Nothing but his sending to offer Edward a Chaplaincy in Berlin for his excellent sermon can possibly console me, except, indeed, the honour by itself of having preached before a King of Prussia, which can never happen again in his life.