The first week of Lent I had a singular scene with the Grand Duke. In the morning, while in my room with my maids, who were all very devout, listening to matins, which were sung in the ante-chamber, I received an embassy from the Grand Duke. He had sent me his dwarf to inquire how I was, and to tell me that, on account of its being Lent, he should not visit me that day. The dwarf found us all listening to the prayers, and fulfilling exactly the prescriptions of Lent, according to our creed. I returned the usual compliments to the Duke, through his dwarf, who then departed. When he got back, whether it was that he had really been edified by what he had seen, or that he wished his dear lord and master, who was anything but devout, to do the same, he passed a high eulogium upon the devotion which reigned in my apartments, and, by doing so, put the Duke in a very bad humour with me. The first time we met he began by sulking. Having asked the cause of this, he scolded me very much for what he called the excessive devotion to which I gave myself up. When I asked who had told him this, he named his dwarf as an eye-witness of it. I told him I did no more than was proper, only what every one else did, and what could not be dispensed with without scandal; but he thought differently. The dispute ended as most disputes do, by leaving each one with his own opinion; but, as his Imperial Highness had no one but me to speak to during mass, he gradually left off pouting.
Two days after, I had another alarm. In the morning, while matins were being sung in my apartments, Mademoiselle Schenck entered my room in great consternation, telling me that my mother had been taken ill, and had fainted. I instantly ran to her, and found her lying on the ground on a mattress, but not unconscious. I ventured to ask her what was the matter. She told me, that wishing to be bled, the surgeon was so clumsy as to miss four times, having tried both arms and both feet, and that she had fainted. I knew that she dreaded bleeding; I was ignorant of her intention in wishing to be bled, and did not even know that she stood in need of it. Yet she reproached me with caring little for her condition, and said many disagreeable things on the subject. I excused myself in the best way I could, acknowledging my ignorance; but, seeing that she was in a very bad humour, I became silent, and endeavoured to restrain my tears, nor did I leave her till she had desired me to do so with some degree of harshness. On my return to my room, in tears, my maids wanted to know what was the matter, and I told them quite simply. I went several times during the day to my mother’s room, and remained there as long as I thought I could do so without being troublesome. This was a capital point with her, to which I was so well accustomed, that there is nothing I have so carefully avoided during my life as remaining with any one longer than I was wanted. I have made it a point instantly to retire whenever the least suspicion crossed my mind that my farther stay would be an inconvenience. But I know by experience that every one does not act upon the same principle, for my own patience has often been put to the test by those who do not know how to go away before they have worn out their welcome or become a source of weariness.
In the course of the Lent, my mother had a grief which was very real. At a time when it was least expected, she received the news of the sudden death of my younger sister, Elizabeth, a child only between three and four years old. She was very much afflicted, and I grieved also.
One morning, some few days afterwards, I saw the Empress come into my room. She sent for my mother, and they retired to my dressing-room, where they had a long and private conversation; after which they returned into my bed-room, and I saw that my mother’s eyes were red and filled with tears. From the sequence of the conversation I understood that they had been talking about the death of the Emperor Charles VII, of the house of Bavaria, the news of which had just reached the Empress. Her Majesty was then without alliance, and she hesitated between Prussia and the house of Austria, each of which had their partisans. She had the same complaint against Austria as against France, towards which the King of Prussia leaned, for the Marquis de Botta, the minister of the court of Vienna had been sent away from Russia for speaking against the Empress—an act which at the time it was sought to represent as a conspiracy. The Marquis de la Chétardie had been similarly dismissed for the same reasons. I do not know what was the object of this conversation, but my mother seemed to conceive great hopes from it, and went away very well satisfied. As for me, I was in all this simply a spectator, and one, too, very passive, very discreet, and pretty nearly indifferent.
After Easter, when the spring had fully set in, I expressed to the Countess Roumianzoff the desire I had to learn to ride, and she obtained the consent of the Empress. I had begun to have pains in the chest at the commencement of the year, after the pleurisy I had had in Moscow, and I was still very thin. The doctors ordered me milk and Seltzer water every morning. It was at Roumianzoff House, in the barracks of the Ismaïlofsky regiment, that I took my first lesson in riding. I had already ridden several times at Moscow, but very badly.
In the month of May, the Empress, with the Grand Duke, went to occupy the Summer Palace. To my mother and I had been assigned a stone building, by the side of the Fontanka, close to the house of Peter I. My mother occupied one side of this building, and I the other. Here ended all the assiduities of the Grand Duke; he told me quite plainly, and through a servant, that he now lived too far off to come and see me often. I fully perceived his want of interest, and how little I was cared for. My self-esteem and vanity grieved in silence, but I was too proud to complain. I should have thought myself degraded if any one had shown me a friendship which I could have taken for pity. Nevertheless, I shed tears when alone, then quietly dried them up, and went to romp with my maids. My mother also treated me with great coldness and ceremony, but I never missed visiting her several times during the day. At heart I felt very sad, but I took care not to speak of this. However, Mademoiselle Joukoff one day perceived my tears, and spoke to me on the subject. I gave her the best reasons I could, without however giving her the true ones. I laboured more earnestly than before to gain the affection of every one. Great or small, I neglected no one, but laid it down to myself as a rule to believe that I stood in need of every one, and so to act in consequence as to obtain the good will of all; and I succeeded in doing so.
After some days’ stay in the Summer Palace, where people began to speak of the preparations for my marriage, the court removed to Peterhoff, where it was more concentrated than in the city. The Empress and the Grand Duke occupied the upper portion of the house built by Peter I; my mother and I were beneath, in the apartments of the Grand Duke. We dined with him every day, under a tent, upon the open gallery adjoining his apartments; he supped with us. The Empress was often absent, moving about among her different country residences. We were out a good deal, walking, riding, or driving. I then saw as clear as day, that the persons about the Grand Duke had lost all credit with him, and all control over him. The military games, which he formerly carried on in private, he now enacted almost in their presence. Count Brummer and his head master scarcely ever saw him, except to follow him in public. The rest of his time was literally passed, in the company of his valets, in acts of childishness unheard of at his age, for he played at puppets.
My mother took advantage of the absences of the Empress to go and sup at the neighbouring mansions, and especially at that of the Prince and Princess of Hesse-Homburg. One evening when she had ridden out there, I was sitting, after supper, in my room, which was on a level with the garden, one of the doors leading into it, when I felt tempted by the fine weather. I proposed to my maids and my three ladies of honour to take a walk in the garden; and I had no great trouble in persuading them. We were eight, and my valet, who made nine, followed us with two other valets. We walked about till midnight in the most innocent manner possible. My mother having returned, Mademoiselle Schenck, who had refused to accompany us, and grumbled at our project, was in a great hurry to tell her that I had gone out against her advice. My mother went to bed, and when I got back with my troop, Mademoiselle Schenck told me, with an air of triumph, that my mother had sent twice to inquire if I had returned, as she wished to speak to me; but that as it was very late, and she tired of waiting, she had gone to bed. I would have instantly gone to her, but I found the door closed. I told Schenck that she might have had me called. She pretended that she had not been able to find us; but this was a mere story to make a quarrel, and get me scolded; I saw this clearly, and went to bed with a good deal of uneasiness. The following day, as soon as I awoke, I went to my mother and found her in bed. I approached to kiss her hand, but she angrily withdrew it, and gave me a dreadful scolding for having dared to walk out at night without her permission. I said she was not at home; but she replied that the hour was improper, and said all sorts of disagreeable things, for the purpose, seemingly, of giving me a distaste for nocturnal promenades. This, however, is certain, that although this walk may have been an imprudence, nothing could have been more innocent. What most distressed me was, that she accused me of having gone up to the apartments of the Grand Duke. I replied that this was an abominable calumny, at which she became so enraged that she seemed out of herself. It was in vain that I went on my knees to soothe her irritation. She treated my submission as acting, and ordered me out of the room. I retired to my own apartments in tears. At dinner-time I ascended with her, she still being very angry, to the apartments of the Grand Duke, who inquired what was the matter, as my eyes were very red. I told him exactly what had happened. This time he took my part, and accused my mother of being capricious and passionate. I begged him not to speak to her on the subject, which request he complied with, and by degrees her anger wore off; but I was always treated very coldly. We left Peterhoff at the end of July, and returned to the city, where all was preparation for the approaching marriage.
At last the Empress fixed the 21st of August for the ceremony. As the day came nearer, I became more and more melancholy. My heart predicted but little happiness; ambition alone sustained me. In my inmost soul there was a something which never allowed me to doubt for a single moment that sooner or later I should become the sovereign Empress of Russia in my own right.
The marriage was celebrated with much pomp and magnificence. In the evening I found in my room Madame Krause, sister of the head lady’s-maid to the Empress, who had placed her with me as my head lady’s-maid. From the very next day I found that this person had thrown all my other women into consternation, for on approaching one of them to speak to her, as usual, she said to me, “In God’s name, do not come near me; we have been forbidden to whisper to you.” On the other hand, my beloved spouse did not trouble himself in the slightest degree about me, but was constantly with his valets, playing at soldiers, exercising them in his room, or changing his uniform twenty times a-day. I yawned, and grew weary, having no one to speak to; or I endeavoured to keep up appearances. On the third day after my marriage, the Countess Roumianzoff Sent me word that the Empress had dispensed with her attendance on me, and that she was going to return home to her husband and children. This did not grieve me much, for she had been the cause of a great deal of scandal.