Towards autumn we returned to town, and learned that we were to go to Moscow in the course of the winter. Madame Krause came to tell me that it was necessary to increase my stock of linen for this journey. I entered into the details of the matter; Madame Krause pretended to amuse me by having the linen cut up in my room, in order, as she said, to teach me how many chemises might be cut from a single piece of cloth. This instruction or amusement seems to have displeased Madame Tchoglokoff, who had become very ill-tempered since the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. I know not what she told the Empress; but, at all events, she came to me one afternoon and said that her Majesty had dispensed with Madame Krause’s attendance on me, and that she was going to retire to the residence of her son-in-law the Chamberlain Sievers; and next day Madame Tchoglokoff brought Madame Vladislava to me to occupy her place. Madame Vladislava was a tall woman, apparently well formed, and with an intelligent cast of features, which rather prepossessed me at the first look. I consulted my oracle Timothy Yevreinoff relative to this choice. He told me that this woman, whom I had never before seen, was the mother-in-law of the Counsellor Pougovichnikoff, head clerk to Count Bestoujeff; that she was not wanting either in intelligence or sprightliness, but was considered very artful; that I must wait and see how she conducted herself, and especially be careful not to place much confidence in her. She was called Praskovia Nikitichna. She began very well; she was sociable, fond of talking, conversed and narrated with spirit, and had at her fingers’ ends, all the anecdotes of the time, past and present. She knew four or five generations of all the families, could give at a moment everybody’s genealogy, father, mother, grandfathers, grandmothers, together with their ancestors, paternal and maternal; and from no one else have I received so much information relative to all that has occurred in Russia for the last hundred years. The mind and manners of this woman suited me very well; and when I felt dull I made her chat, which she was always ready to do. I easily discovered that she very often disapproved of the sayings and doings of the Tchoglokoffs; but as she also went very often to her Majesty’s apartments, no one knew why, we were obliged to be on our guard with her, to a certain degree, not knowing what interpretation might be put upon the most innocent words and actions.
From the Summer Palace we passed to the Winter Palace. Here was presented to us Madame La Tour l’Annois, who had been in attendance on the Empress in her early youth, and had accompanied the Princess Anna Petrovna, eldest daughter of Peter I., when she left Russia with her husband, the Duke of Holstein, during the reign of the Emperor Peter II. After the death of this Princess, Madame l’Annois returned to France, and she now came to Russia, either to remain there, or possibly to return after having obtained some favours from her Majesty. Madame l’Annois hoped, on the ground of old acquaintance, to re-enter into the favour and familiarity of the Empress. But she was greatly deceived; every one conspired to exclude her. From the first few days after her arrival I foresaw what would happen, and for this reason: One evening, while they were at cards in the Empress’ apartment, her Majesty continued moving from room to room without fixing herself anywhere, as was her custom; Madame l’Annois, hoping, no doubt, to pay her court to her, followed her wherever she went. Madame Tchoglokoff seeing this, said to me, “See how that woman follows the Empress everywhere; but that will not continue long, she will very soon drop that habit of running after her.” I took this as settled, and, in fact, she was first kept at a distance, and finally sent back to France with presents.
During this winter was celebrated the marriage of Count Lestocq with Mademoiselle Mengden, Maid of Honour to the Empress. Her Majesty and the whole court assisted at it, and she paid the newly-married couple the honour of visiting them at their own house. One would have said that they enjoyed the highest favour, but in a couple of months afterwards fortune turned. One evening, while looking on at those engaged at play in the apartments of the Empress, I saw the Count, and advanced to speak to him. “Do not come near me,” he said in a low tone, “I am a suspected man.” I thought he must be jesting, and asked what he meant. He replied, “I tell you quite seriously not to come near me, because I am a suspected man, whom people must shun.” I saw that he had an altered look, and was extremely red. I fancied he must have been drinking, and turned away. This happened on the Friday. On the Sunday morning, while dressing my hair, Timothy Yevreinoff said to me, “Are you aware that last night Count Lestocq and his wife were arrested, and conducted to the Fortress as state criminals?” No one knew why, but it became known that General Stephen Apraxine and Alexander Schouvaloff had been named commissioners for this affair.
The departure of the court for Moscow was fixed for the 16th of December. The Czernicheffs had been transported to the Fortress, and placed in a house belonging to the Empress, called Smolnoy Dvoretz. The elder of the three sometimes made his guards drunk, and then went and walked into town to his friends. One day, a Finnish wardrobe-maid, who was in my service, and was engaged to be married to a servant belonging to the court, a relation of Yevreinoff, brought me a letter from Andrew Czernicheff, in which he asked me for several things. This girl had seen him at the house of her intended, where they had spent the evening together. I was at a loss where to conceal this letter when I got it, for I did not like to burn it, as I wanted to remember what he asked for. I had long been forbidden to write even to my mother. I purchased, through this girl, a silver pen and an inkstand. During the day I had the letter in my pocket; when I undressed, I slipped it under my garter, into my stocking, and before going to bed I removed it, and placed it in my sleeve. At last I answered it; sent him what he asked for through the channel by which his letter had reached me, and then, at a favourable moment, burned this letter which had occasioned me so much anxiety.
About the middle of December we set out for Moscow. The Grand Duke and I occupied a large sledge, and the gentlemen in waiting sat in the front. During the day the Grand Duke joined M. Tchoglokoff in a town sledge, while I remained in the large one. As we never closed this, I conversed with those who were seated in front. I remember that the Chamberlain, Prince Alexander Jourievitch Troubetzkoy, told me, during this time, that Count Lestocq, then a prisoner in the Fortress, wanted to starve himself during the first eleven days of his detention, but that he had been forced to take nourishment: he had been accused of having accepted 1,000 roubles from the King of Prussia to support his interests, and for having had a person named Oettinger, who might have borne witness against him, poisoned. He was subjected to the torture, and then exiled to Siberia.
In this journey, the Empress passed us at Tver, and as the horses and provisions intended for us were taken by her suite, we remained twenty-four hours at Tver without horses, and without food. We were dreadfully hungry. Towards night Tchoglokoff had prepared for us a roasted sturgeon, which we thought delicious. We set off at night, and reached Moscow two or three days before Christmas. The first thing we heard there was, that the Chamberlain of our Court, Prince Alex. Mich. Galitzine, had received, at the moment of our departure from St. Petersburg, an order to repair to Hamburg as minister of Russia, with a salary of 4,000 roubles. This was looked upon as another case of banishment: his sister-in-law, Princess Gagarine, who was with me, grieved very much, and we all regretted him.
We occupied at Moscow the apartments which I had inhabited with my mother in 1744. To go to the great church of the court, it was necessary to make the circuit of the house in a carriage. On Christmas-day, at the hour for mass, we were on the point of descending to our carriage, and were already on the stairs, during a frost of 29 degrees, when a message came from the Empress to say that she dispensed with our going to church on this occasion, on account of the extreme cold; it did, in fact, pinch our noses. I was obliged to keep my room during the early portion of our residence in Moscow, on account of the excessive quantity of pimples which had come on my face: I was dreadfully afraid of having to continue with a pimpled face. I called in the physician Boërhave, who gave me sedatives, and all sorts of things to dispel these pimples. At last, when nothing was of avail, he said to me one day, “I am going to give you something which will drive them away.” He drew from his pocket a small phial of oil of Falk, and told me to put a drop in a cup of water, and to wash my face with it from time to time, say, for instance, once a-week. And really the oil of Falk did clear my face, and by the end of some ten days I was able to appear. A short time after our arrival in Moscow (1749), Madam Vladislava came to tell me that the Empress had ordered the marriage of my Finnish wardrobe-maid to take place as soon as possible. The only apparent reason for thus hastening her marriage was, that I had shown some predilection for her; for she was a merry creature, who from time to time made me laugh by mimicking every one, Madame Tchoglokoff especially being hit off in a very amusing manner. She was married, then, and no more said about her.
In the middle of the Carnival, during which there were no amusements whatever, the Empress was seized with a violent cholic, which threatened to be serious. Madame Vladislava and Timothy Yevreinoff each whispered this in my ear, entreating me not to mention to any one who had told me. Without naming them, I informed the Grand Duke of it, and he became very much elated. One morning, Yevreinoff came to tell me that the Chancellor Bestoujeff and General Apraxine had passed the previous night in the apartment of M. and Madame Tchoglokoff, which seemed to imply that the Empress was very ill. Tchoglokoff and his wife were more gruff than ever; they came into our apartments, dined there, supped, but never allowed a word to escape them relative to this illness. We did not speak of it either, and consequently did not dare to send and inquire how her Majesty was, because we should have been immediately asked, “How, whence, by whom came you to learn, that she was ill?” and any one named, or even suspected, would infallibly have been dismissed, exiled, or even sent to the Secret Chancery, that state inquisition, more dreaded than death itself. At last her Majesty, at the end of ten days, became better, and the wedding of one of her maids of honour took place at court. At table I was seated by the side of the Countess Schouvaloff, the favourite of the Empress. She told me that her Majesty was still so weak from the severe illness she had just had, that she had placed her diamonds on the bride’s head (an honour which she paid to all her maids of honour) while seated in bed, her feet only being outside; and that it was for this reason she was not present at the wedding-feast. As the Countess Schouvaloff was the first to speak to me of this illness, I expressed to her the pain which her Majesty’s condition gave me, and the interest I took in it. She said her Majesty would be pleased to learn how much I felt for her. Two mornings after this, Madame Tchoglokoff came to my room, and, in the presence of Madame Vladislava, told me that the Empress was very angry with the Grand Duke and myself on account of the little interest we had taken in her illness, even carrying our indifference to such an extent as not once to send and inquire how she was. I told Madame Tchoglokoff that I appealed to herself, that neither she nor her husband had spoken a single word to us about the illness of her Majesty, and that knowing nothing of it, we had not been able to testify our interest in it. She replied, “How can you say that you knew nothing of it, when the Countess Schouvaloff has informed her Majesty that you spoke to her at table about it.” I replied, “It is true that I did so, because she told me her Majesty was still weak and could not leave her room, and then I asked her the particulars of this illness.” Madame Tchoglokoff went away grumbling, and Madame Vladislava said it was very strange to try and pick a quarrel with people about a matter of which they were ignorant; that since the Tchoglokoffs alone had the right to speak of it, and did not speak, the fault was theirs, not ours, if we failed through ignorance. Some time afterwards, on a court-day, the Empress approached me, and I found a favourable moment for telling her that neither Tchoglokoff nor his wife had given us any intimation of her illness, and that therefore it had not been in our power to express to her the interest we had taken in it. She received this very well, and it seemed to me that the credit of these people was diminishing.
The first week of Lent, M. Tchoglokoff wished to go to his duty. He confessed, but the confessor of the Empress forbade him to communicate. The whole court said it was by the order of her Majesty, on account of his adventure with Mademoiselle Kocheleff. During a portion of our stay at Moscow, M. Tchoglokoff appeared to be intimately connected with Count Bestoujeff and his tool General Stephen Apraxine. He was continually with them, and, to hear him speak, one would have supposed him to be the intimate adviser of Count Bestoujeff—a thing that was quite impossible, for Bestoujeff had far too much sense to allow himself to be guided by such an arrogant fool as Tchoglokoff. But, at about half the period of our stay, this intimacy suddenly ceased—I do not exactly know why—and Tchoglokoff became the sworn enemy of those with whom he had been so intimate a short time previously.
Shortly after my arrival in Moscow, I began, for want of other amusement, to read the History of Germany, by le Père Barre, canon of Ste. Geneviève, in nine volumes quarto. Every week I finished one, after which I read the works of Plato. My rooms faced the street; the corresponding ones were occupied by the Duke, whose windows opened upon a small yard. When reading in my room, one of my maids usually came in, and remained there standing as long as she wished; she then retired, and another took her place when she thought it suitable. I made Madame Vladislava see that this routine could serve no useful purpose, but was merely an inconvenience; that, besides, I already had much to suffer from the proximity of my apartments to those of the Grand Duke, by which she, too, was equally discommoded, as she occupied a small cabinet at the end of my rooms. She consented, therefore, to relieve my maids from this species of etiquette. This is the kind of annoyance we had to put up with, morning, noon and night, even to a late hour: The Grand Duke, with rare perseverance, trained a pack of dogs, and with heavy blows of his whip, and cries like those of the huntsmen, made them fly from one end to the other of his two rooms, which were all he had. Such of the dogs as became tired, or got out of rank, were severely punished, which made them howl still more. When he got tired of this detestable exercise, so painful to the ears and destructive to the repose of his neighbours, he seized his violin, on which he rasped away with extraordinary violence, and very badly, all the time walking up and down his rooms. Then he recommenced the education and punishment of his dogs, which to me seemed very cruel. On one occasion, hearing one of these animals howl piteously and for a long time, I opened the door of my bed-room, where I was seated, and which adjoined the apartment in which this scene was enacted, and saw him holding this dog by the collar, suspended in the air, while a boy who was in his service, a Kalmuck by birth, held the animal by the tail. It was a poor little King Charles’s dog of English breed, and the Duke was beating him with all his might with the heavy handle of a whip. I interceded for the poor beast, but this only made him redouble his blows. Unable to bear so cruel a scene, I returned to my room with tears in my eyes. In general, tears and cries, instead of moving the Duke to pity, put him in a passion. Pity was a feeling that was painful, and even insupportable in his mind.