From Cronstadt every one returned to his own quarters; the Empress went to Peterhoff, and we to Oranienbaum. M. Tchoglokoff asked and obtained leave to go for a month to one of his estates. During his absence Madame Tchoglokoff gave herself a great deal of trouble to execute the Empress’ orders to the letter. At first she had many conferences with Bressan, the Grand Duke’s valet de chambre. Bressan found at Oranienbaum a pretty woman named Madame Groot, the widow of a painter. It took several days to persuade her, to promise her I know not what, and then to instruct her in what they wanted of her, and to what she was to lend herself. At last Bressan was charged with the duty of making this young and pretty widow known to the Grand Duke. I clearly saw that Madame Tchoglokoff was deep in some intrigue, but I knew not what. At last, Serge Soltikoff returned from his voluntary exile, and told me pretty nearly how matters stood. Finally, after much trouble, Madame Tchoglokoff gained her end, and when she felt sure of this she informed the Empress that everything was going on as she wished. She expected a great reward for her trouble; but in this she was much mistaken, for nothing was given her; however, she maintained that the Empire was in her debt. Immediately after this we returned to the city.
It was at this time that I persuaded the Grand Duke to break off the negotiations with Denmark. I reminded him of the advice of the Count de Bernis, who had already departed for Vienna. He listened to me, and ordered the negotiations to be closed without anything being concluded: and this was done. After a short stay at the Summer Palace, we returned to the Winter Palace.
It seemed to me that Serge Soltikoff was beginning to be relax in his attentions; that he became absent, sometimes absurd, arrogant, and dissipated. I was vexed at this, and spoke to him on the subject. He gave me but poor excuses, and pretended that I did not understand the extreme cleverness of his conduct. He was right, for I did think it strange enough. We were told to get ready for the journey to Moscow, which we did. We left St. Petersburg on the 14th of December, 1752. Soltikoff remained behind, and did not follow us for several weeks after. I left the city with some slight indications of pregnancy. We travelled very rapidly day and night. At the last stage before reaching Moscow, these signs disappeared with violent spasms. On our arrival, and seeing the turn things were taking, I felt satisfied that I had had a miscarriage. Madame Tchoglokoff also remained behind at St. Petersburg, as she had just been delivered of her last child, which was a girl. This was the seventh. On her recovery she joined us at Moscow.
1753.
Here we lodged in a wing built of wood, constructed only this autumn, and in such a way that the water ran down the wainscoting, and all the apartments were exceedingly damp. This wing consisted of two ranges of apartments, each having five or six large rooms, of which those looking to the street were for me, and those on the other side for the Grand Duke. In the one intended for my toilet, my maids and ladies of the bedchamber were lodged, together with their servants; so that there were seventeen girls and women lodged in one room, which had, it is true, three large windows, but no other outlet than my bed-room, through which, for every kind of purpose, they were obliged to pass, a thing neither pleasant for them nor for me. We were obliged to put up with this inconvenience, of which I have never seen the like. Besides, the room in which they took their meals was one of my ante-chambers. I was ill when I arrived. To remedy this inconvenience, I had some very large screens placed in my bed-room, by means of which I divided it into three; but this was scarcely of any use, for the doors were opening and shutting continually, as was unavoidable. At last, on the tenth day, the Empress came to see me, and observing the continual passing to and fro, she went into the other chamber, and said to my women, “I will have a different outlet made for you than through the sleeping-room of the Grand Duchess.” But what did she do? She ordered a partition to be made, which took away one of the windows of a room in which, even before this, seventeen persons could hardly exist. Here, then, was the chamber made smaller in order to gain a passage; the window was opened towards the street, a flight of steps was led up to it, and thus my women were obliged to pass and repass along the street. Under their window, necessaries were placed for them; in going to dinner, they must again pass along the street. In a word, this arrangement was worthless, and I cannot tell how it was that these seventeen women, thus huddled up and crowded together, did not catch a putrid fever; and all this, too, close to my bed-room, which, in consequence, was so filled with vermin of every kind that I could not sleep. At last, Madame Tchoglokoff, having recovered after her accouchement, arrived at Moscow, as did, some days later, Serge Soltikoff. As Moscow is very large, and people much dispersed in it, he availed himself of this locality, so favourable to the purpose, to conceal the decrease of his attentions, feigned or real, at court. To tell the truth, I was grieved at this; however, he gave me such good and specious reasons for it, that as soon as I had seen him and spoken to him, my annoyance on the subject vanished. We agreed that, in order to decrease the number of his enemies, I should get some remark repeated to Count Bestoujeff which might lead him to hope that I was less averse to him than in former days. With this message I charged a person called Bremse, who was employed in the Holstein Chancery of M. Pechline. This person, when not at court, frequently went to the residence of the Chancellor Count Bestoujeff. He eagerly accepted the commission, and brought me back word that the Chancellor was delighted, and said that I might command him as often as I thought proper, and that if, on his part, he could be of any use to me, he begged me to point out to him some safe channel by which we might communicate with each other. I perceived his drift, and I told Bremse that I would think of it. I repeated this to Soltikoff, and it was immediately settled that he should go to the Chancellor on the plea of a visit, as he had but just arrived. The old man gave him a most cordial reception; took him aside, spoke to him of the internal condition of our court, of the stupidity of the Tchoglokoffs, saying, among other things, “I know, although you are their intimate friends, that you understand them as well as I do, for you are a young man of sense.” Then he spoke of me, and of my situation, just as if he had lived in my room; adding, “In gratitude for the good-will which the Grand Duchess has so kindly evinced for me, I am going to do her a little service, for which she will, I think, thank me. I will make Madame Vladislava as gentle as a lamb for her, so that she will be able to do with her whatever she pleases; she will see that I am not such an ogre as I have been represented to her.” Finally, Serge Soltikoff returned, enchanted with his commission and his man. He gave him some advice for himself, also, as wise as it was useful. All this made him very intimate with us, without any one having the least suspicion of the fact.
In the meanwhile Madame Tchoglokoff, who never lost sight of her favourite project of watching over the succession, took me aside one day and said, “Listen to me, I must speak to you with all sincerity.” I opened my eyes and ears, and not without cause. She began with a long preamble, after her fashion, respecting her attachment to her husband, her own prudent conduct, what was necessary and what was not necessary for ensuring mutual love and facilitating conjugal ties; and then she went on to say, that occasionally there were situations in which a higher interest demanded an exception to the rule. I let her talk on without interruption, not knowing what she was driving at, a good deal astonished, and uncertain whether it was not a snare she was laying for me, or whether she was speaking with sincerity. Just as I was making these reflections in my own mind, she said to me, “You shall presently see whether I love my country, and whether I am sincere; I do not doubt but you have cast an eye of preference upon some one or other; I leave you to choose between Sergius Soltikoff and Leon Narichkine—if I do not mistake, it is the latter.” Here I exclaimed, “No no! not at all.” “Well, then,” she said, “if it be not Narichkine, it is Soltikoff.” To that I made no reply, and she went on saying, “You shall see that it will not be I who will throw difficulties in your way.” I played the simpleton to such a degree, that she scolded me for it several times, both in town and in the country, whither we went after Easter.
It was at that time, or thereabout, that the Empress gave to the Grand Duke the lands of Liberitza, and several others, at a distance of fourteen or fifteen verstes from Moscow. But before we went to reside on these new possessions of his Imperial Highness, the Empress celebrated the anniversary of her coronation at Moscow. This was the 25th of April. It was announced to us that she had ordered the ceremony to be observed exactly as it had been on the very day of her coronation. We were curious to know how this would be. The evening before, she went to sleep at the Kremlin. We stayed at the Sloboda, in the wooden palace, and received orders to go to mass at the cathedral. At nine o’clock in the morning we started from the wooden palace in the state carriage, our servants walking on foot. We traversed the whole of Moscow, step by step—the distance through the city being as much as seven verstes—and we alighted at the cathedral. A few moments after the Empress arrived with her retinue, wearing the small crown on her head, and the imperial mantle, borne as usual by her chamberlains. She went to her ordinary seat in the church, and in all this there was, as yet, nothing unusual—nothing that was not practised at all the other fêtes of her reign. The church was damp and cold to a degree that I had never before felt. I was quite blue, and frozen in my court-dress and with bare neck. The Empress sent me word to put on a sable tippet, but I had not one with me. She ordered her own to be brought, took one, and put it on her neck. I saw another in the box, and thought she was going to send it to me, but I was mistaken—she sent it back. This I thought a pretty evident sign of displeasure. Madame Tchoglokoff, who saw that I was shivering, procured me, from some one, a silk kerchief, which I put round my neck. When mass and the sermon were over, the Empress left the church, and we were preparing to follow her, when she sent us word that we might return home. It was then we learned that she was going to dine alone on the throne, and that in this respect the ceremonial would be observed just as it was on the day of her coronation, when she had dined alone. Excluded from this dinner, we returned, as we had come, in great state, our people on foot, making a journey of fourteen verstes, going and returning, through the city of Moscow, and we benumbed with cold and dying of hunger. If the Empress seemed to us in a very bad temper during mass, this disagreeable evidence of want of attention, to say no more, did not leave us in the best of humours either. At the other great festivals, when she dined on the throne, we had the honour of dining with her; this time she repelled us publicly. Returning alone in the carriage with the Grand Duke, I told him what I thought of this, and he said that he would complain of it. On reaching home, half dead with cold and fatigue, I complained to Madame Tchoglokoff of having caught cold. The next day there was a ball at the wooden palace; I said I was ill, and did not go. The Grand Duke really did make some complaint or other to the Schouvaloffs on the subject, and they sent him some answer, which appeared satisfactory to him, and nothing more was said about the matter.
About this time we learned that Zachar Czernicheff and Colonel Nicholas Leontieff had had a quarrel, while at play, in the house of Roman Voronzoff; that they had fought with swords, and that Zachar Czernicheff had received a severe wound in the head. It was so serious that he could not be removed from Count Voronzoff’s house to his own. He remained there, was very ill, and there was some talk of trepanning him. I was very sorry for him, for I liked him very much. Leontieff was arrested by order of the Empress. This combat set the whole city in a ferment, on account of the extensive connections of both the champions. Leontieff was the son-in-law of the Countess Roumianzoff, a very near relative of the Panines and Kourakines. The other, also, had relatives, friends, and protectors. The occurrence had taken place at the house of Count Roman Voronzoff; the wounded man was still there. At last, when the danger was over, the affair was hushed up, and matters went no farther.
In the course of the month of May, I again had indications of pregnancy. We went to Liberitza, an estate of the Grand Duke, twelve or fourteen verstes from Moscow. The stone house which was on it, had been built a long time ago by Prince Menchikoff, and was now falling to decay, so that we could not live in it. As a substitute, tents were set up in the court, and every morning, at two or three o’clock, my sleep was broken by the sound of the axe, and the noises made in building a wooden wing, which was being hurriedly erected, within two paces, so to speak, of our tents, in order that we might have a place to live in during the remainder of the summer. The rest of our time we spent in hunting, walking, or riding. I no longer went on horseback, but in a cabriolet. About the Feast of St. Peter we returned to Moscow. I was seized with such drowsiness that I slept every day till noon, and then it was only with difficulty that I was awakened in time for dinner. The Feast of St. Peter was kept in the usual way: I was present at Mass, at the dinner, the ball, and the supper. Next morning I felt great pains in my loins. Madame Tchoglokoff summoned a midwife, who predicted the miscarriage, which actually occurred the following night. I might have been with child two or three months. For thirteen days I was in great danger, as it was suspected that a portion of the after-birth had remained behind. This circumstance was kept a secret from me. At last, on the thirteenth day, it came away of itself—without pain, or even a struggle. In consequence of this accident I had to keep my room for six weeks, during which the heat was insupportable. The Empress came to see me the day I fell ill, and appeared to be affected by my state. During the six weeks that I kept my room I was nearly tired to death. The only society I had was Madame Tchoglokoff, who came but rarely, and a little Kalmuck girl, whom I liked for her pretty, agreeable ways. I frequently cried from ennui. As for the Grand Duke, he was mostly in his own room, where one of his valets, a Ukrainian, named Karnovitch, a fool as well as a drunkard, did his best to amuse him; furnishing him with toys, with wine, and such other strong liquors as he could procure, without the knowledge of M. Tchoglokoff, who, in fact, was deceived and made a fool of by every one. But in these nocturnal and secret orgies with the servants of the chamber, among whom were several young Kalmucks, the Grand Duke often found himself ill-obeyed and ill-served; for, being drunk, they knew not what they did, and forgot that they were with their master, and that that master was the Grand Duke. Then his Imperial Highness would have recourse to blows with his stick, or the blade of his sword; but in spite of all this, he was ill-obeyed; and more than once he had recourse to me, complaining of his people, and begging me to make them listen to reason. On these occasions I used to go to his rooms, give them a good scolding, and remind them of their duties, when they would instantly resume their proper places. This made the Grand Duke often say to me, and also to Bressan, that he could not conceive how I managed those people; for, as for himself, though he belaboured them soundly, yet he could not make them obedient, while I, with a single word, could get them to do whatever I wished. One day when I went for this purpose into the apartments of his Imperial Highness, I beheld a great rat, which he had had hung—with all the paraphernalia of an execution—in the middle of a cabinet, formed by means of a partition. I asked him what all this meant. He told me that this rat had committed a crime; one which, according to the laws of war, was deserving of capital punishment; it had climbed over the ramparts of a fortress of cardboard which he had on the table in his cabinet, and had eaten two sentinels, made of pith, who were on duty at the bastions. He had had the criminal tried by martial law, his setter having caught him, and he was immediately hung, as I saw, and was to remain there exposed to the public gaze for three days, as an example. I could not help bursting into a loud laugh at the extreme folly of the thing; but this greatly displeased him. Seeing the importance he attached to the matter, I retired, excusing myself on account of my ignorance, as a woman, of military law; but this did not prevent his being very much out of humour with me on account of my laughter. In justification of the rat, however, it may at least be said, that he was hung without having been questioned or heard in his own defence.