It is not, the reader may be well assured, a work of this sort which the author has undertaken in the following pages. We have only given the mere sketch of a picture which, to be even in a slight degree full and satisfactory, would have required much larger proportions, and above all a much more skillful hand. Without pretending to present here new and unpublished materials, or indeed to reunite all those which are already known, we have simply chosen a few, and tried to assort and arrange them so as to afford a better perspective. We have been obliged to renounce the wish to give to the different parts an equality of design and depth of coloring, and we have not even bound ourselves to follow a very regular and methodical course in this narration. Before a subject so vast and presenting so many shades and shadows, we have thought that it was permissible, that it was indeed occasionally useful, to vary the points of observation and to present it in different aspects.
I.
Like the Odoïefski, the Obolenski, the Dolgorouki, and many aristocratic families on the banks of the Moscova and the Neva, the Gortchakof also pride themselves on their descent from the Rourik; to speak more plainly, they claim to trace their origin from one of the sons of Michael, Grand Duke of Tchernigof, put to death towards the middle of the thirteenth century by the Mongolians of Batou Khan, since proclaimed martyr of the faith, exalted, indeed, among the saints of the Orthodox Church. One meets, nevertheless, with but few illustrious bearers of the name of Gortchakof in the gloomy and exciting annals of old Russia. In the epoch which preceded the accession of the Romanof, there lived a certain Peter Ivanovitch Gortchakof, the unfortunate commander of Smolenski, who surrendered this celebrated place to the Poles after two years of energetic and desperate resistance. He was taken to Warsaw, and there, in 1611, with the Czar Vassili, the two princes Schouyski, Sèhine, and a number of powerful boiars, he was forced to take part in the famous "cortége of captives" which the grand constable Zolkiweski presented one day—honorificentissime, says the chronicle of the times—to the king and the senate of the most serene republic. It was only in the second half of the last century, under the reign of Catherine II., that a Prince Ivan Gortchakof succeeded (thanks especially to his marriage with a sister of the opulent and courageous Souvorof) in again raising the glory of his old house, which has never since ceased to distinguish itself in the different branches of state service, principally in the career of arms. The France of to-day has preserved the memory of two Princes Gortchakof, two old soldiers of Borodino who distinguished themselves during the war of the Orient. The one commanded the left wing of the Russian troops at the battles of Alma and Inkermann; the other, Prince Michael, was the generalissimo of the armies of the czar in the Crimea, and rendered his name imperishable by the heroic defense of Sebastopol. Afterwards he governed the Kingdom of Poland as lieutenant of the emperor, and became therefore (strange example of the vicissitudes of history!) the supreme representative of a harsh, foreign government in this same city of Warsaw, where one of his ancestors had formerly figured in a memorable procession of the vanquished. However, if this circumstance ever occurred to Prince Michael, he drew therefrom none but suggestions worthy of his character; he governed the conquered country with moderation and benevolence, and left behind him the fame of a man as just in civil administration as he was intrepid in war.
The cousin of Prince Michael and present chancellor of the empire, Alexander Mikhaïlovitch Gortchakof, was born in 1798, and was educated in that lyceum of Zarkoe-Zeloe which has its distinct place in the pedagogic history of Russia. Founded by Catherine II. as a model educational establishment for the aristocratic youth of the empire, the lyceum shone with great éclat under the reign of Alexander I., although the Rollin and the Pestalozzi would certainly have had more than one reservation to make with respect to a college which only moulded its scholars for the world, and thought the vigorous classical studies a burden too heavy to carry into the ethereal spheres of pleasures and elegance. Almost all the professors of the establishment were foreigners, men marked with the stamp of the eighteenth century, acute minds, slightly frivolous, and above all disciples of Voltaire. The most eminent among them, the professor of French literature, he who initiated the future chancellor into the language of Voltaire, of which he so well knew the subtleties, was a Genevese, who, under the inoffensive name of M. de Boudry, concealed another of a terrible significance. M. de Boudry was the brother of Marat, that "sinistre conventionnel."[2] The Empress Catherine, in order "to end a scandal," had forced this patronymic change on M. Marat, without, however, succeeding in making him change his opinions, which always remained "Jacobin." He died in final impenitence, cherishing an openly avowed admiration for the friend of the people, unjustly calumniated. From this education of very doubtful value, the young Gortchakof succeeded in extracting a strong and useful substance. He left Zarkoe-Zeloe with various and solid acquirements; a surprising matter, he was even a good Latinist, and this last fact has remained a cause of amazement to his fellow-scholars as well as to the generations who followed. It is certain, however, that the chancellor could quote Horace with about the same appropriateness as Louis XVIII. of sainted memory. One of his best known dispatches ingeniously borrows from Suetonius an eloquent passage on the distinction to be established between liberty and anarchy.
Next to his classical attainments, that part of his youth which the chancellor loves especially to recall is that he was the fellow-scholar, and that he remained the friend, of the great national poet, Pouchkine, a fact more to his honor inasmuch as this friendship has brought with it embarrassments at certain times. When, by the order of the Emperor Alexander I., in consequence of an offensive ode, which one is not now known, the young singer of "Rouslan" and "Loudmila" was confined in an obscure village in the far interior of Russia, only two of his former comrades at the lyceum had the courage to go to see and offer him their condolence, and one of these intrepid youths was Prince Gortchakof. One finds in the work of Pouchkine some verses written in a lively and playful style, and which only derive their interest from the name of Alexander Mikhaïlovitch, to whom they are addressed. In one of these juvenile pieces, Pouchkine wishes his friend "to have Cupid as an inseparable companion as far as the banks of the Styx, and to go to sleep on the bosom of Helen in the very boat of Charon." Thoughtless wishes, which human malignity would surely not have failed to carry out in the end, if very fortunately the chancellor had not been able to preserve his old days from every deceitful seduction, and to avoid even the appearance of an arctic Ruy Gomez. The inspiration of the poet was happier another time, when, speaking of their different vocations, he predicts for Alexander Mikhaïlovitch a splendid destiny, and calls him "the beloved child of fortune."
Fortune was nevertheless slow to recognize its child, and to give him the lot which he merited. Having early entered the department of foreign affairs, being attached to the suite of M. de Nesselrode at the time of the Congresses of Laybach and Verona, Prince Gortchakof had already long passed that period which Dante calls the mezzo del cammin di vita; and even when very near his fiftieth year, was still only a minister plenipotentiary at a little court in Germany. A fortunate event at last came to commend him to the kindness of his master, and to render him distinguished in those diplomatic circles, in those regions "free from tears, but filled with sighs," which in the language of diplomacy are called the secondary posts.
In a moment of paternal weakness, the Emperor Nicholas had one day consented to the union of his daughter, the Grand Duchess Marie, with the Duke of Leuchtenberg, "the son of a Beauharnais, a Catholic officer in the service of the King of Bavaria," as was whispered with sadness in the intimate circles of the winter palace. Nicholas was not the man to retract his given word, but not the less did he feel the sting of what his surrounding court did not cease to call a mésalliance; and the bitterness increased when none of the foreign members of the imperial family came to take part in the brilliant festivities which preceded or followed the nuptial ceremony. Ill-luck would have it that soon afterwards a first cousin of the new imperial son-in-law and daughter of the ex-King Jerome married a Russian grown rich in trade, a prince in the valley of the Arno but scarcely a gentleman on the banks of the Neva,—a disagreeable accident, and which, according to the amazed courtiers, made the autocrat of all the Russias the relation of one of his subjects! It became necessary to efface all these unpleasant impressions, and to take, by a brilliant alliance, an incontestable revenge for so many vexations. It was hoped for a moment to be able to marry the Grand Duchess Alexandra to an arch-duke of Austria, but it was necessary to fall back on a prince of Darmstadt; for the Grand Duchess Olga, the most beautiful and the most beloved of the emperor's daughters, had been chosen by the only prince royal then unengaged, the presumptive heir to the throne of Würtemberg, of the old and illustrious house of Suabia.
The plan was not easily executed. The good Suabian people had little liking for it. A Russian marriage made it tremble for its constitutional liberties; and what was a graver matter, the old King William of Würtemberg, a good, liberal sovereign, but obstinate in all things, showed himself rather reluctant, and at his own pleasure retarded the negotiation. Other objections came from other sides still; but the Russian minister plenipotentiary at Stuttgart, the old fellow-scholar of Pouchkine, knew how to overcome them all with consummate skill. By aid of art and address, he was able to establish the Grand Duchess Olga in the royal family of Würtemberg. The joy of the Emperor Nicholas was great and unreserved, and the winter palace sang the panegyrics of the wonderful diplomat. After such a success, Prince Gortchakof could well demand to be promoted in his career, having approached nearer by several strides towards that embassy of Vienna which was considered as the supreme goal of ambition. He did nothing of this sort, however, and showed an admirable patience,—the patience of the patriarch Jacob with Laban, son of Nahor. To the four years which he had already passed at Stuttgart, Alexander Mikhaïlovitch declared himself ready to add another term more prolonged if it were necessary. He promised the empress-mother to remain indefinitely by the side of the Grand Duchess Olga, to aid her as a guide and counselor in a foreign country and in the midst of surroundings entirely new to her. Barren as the soil might be, he did not despair of growing there under this ray of beauty and of grace, which came directly from the great boreal sun; and in truth he kept this post at Stuttgart for eight more long years. Tenues grandia conamur!
However, any point of observation is good for one who understands how to adjust his glass and question the stars. The resident minister at Stuttgart had extensive information and found means of informing his government of many things quite outside the limits of the horizon of the little kingdom of Würtemberg. Soon the year 1848 came with its terrible catastrophes, with its great revolutionary earthquakes which added to the experience of the most experienced, which lightened with a sudden glimmer the ignorant depths of human nature, and, in the words of Milton, lightened the darkness. Such a lesson of history was not without profit, one can well believe, to the former scholar of Zarkoe-Zeloe. The salons and the cabinets for a long time had had no secrets from him; he now knew those of the forum and of the cross-roads. The vicinity of Frankfort, seat of the famous parliament, permitted him to study closely and fully the German agitation of this memorable epoch; he understood beforehand the phases, by turns naïve, burlesque, and odious, and was able to predict in good time the unfailing miscarriage of a revolution, the subdued billows of which foamed for a day even in the streets of Stuttgart, ordinarily so peaceful.
It was in the month of April, 1849. Preceding by twenty years the great work of 1870, the parliament of Frankfort had just formed a German Empire to the exclusion of Austria, and offered the crown to the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV. The King of Prussia hesitated, and ended by declining; the other German princes were still less willing to assent to a decree which implied their abdication; but this was by no means the plan of the German demagogy. It suddenly fell enthusiastically in love with this constitution, which on the very eve before it had denounced as reactionary, fatal to the liberties of the people, and designed to impose by force the Prussian vassalage decreed at Frankfort on different sovereigns of Germany. In Würtemberg, the chamber of deputies voted a pressing, imperious address in order to draw from the king the recognition of the Emperor Frederick William IV. The monarch replied by a refusal. The riot thundered on the public square, and the members of the court were forced to seek refuge at Ludwigsburg, fleeing from an enraged capital. "I will not submit to the House of Hohenzollern," the old King William of Würtemberg had said to the deputation of the chamber. "I owe it to my people and to myself. It is not for myself that I speak thus; I have but very few years to live. My duty to my country, my House, my family, forces this course of action on me." Alexander Mikhaïlovitch, touched by these agitating scenes, by this pathetic protestation of the father-in-law of Olga, "for the House, for the family of Würtemberg," assuredly had then but little expectation that one day, as Chancellor of the Russian Empire, he would become the most useful auxiliary, the firmest aid of an aggressive, audacious policy, destined to realize in every particular the plan of the rioters of Stuttgart, and to make Queen Olga the vassal of Hohenzollern.