The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday / Being Some Random Reminiscences of a British Diplomat

by Lord Frederic Hamilton

A cordon of soldiers had to guard the opening in the ice until it froze over again, in order to prevent fanatical peasants from bathing in the newly-consecrated waters. Many had lost their lives in this way.

A friend of mine, the Director of the Hermitage Gallery, offered to take me all over the Winter Palace, and the visit occupied nearly an entire day. The maze of rooms was so endless that the mind got a little bewildered and surfeited with the sight of so many splendours. A detail that amused me was a small library on the second floor, opening on to an avenue of lime trees. One of the Empresses had chosen for her private library this room on the second floor, looking into a courtyard. She had selected it on account of its quiet, but expressed a wish to have an avenue of trees, under which to walk in the intervals of her studies. The room being on the second floor, and looking into a yard, the wish appeared to be difficult to execute, but in those days the word "impossible" did not exist for an Empress of Russia. The entire courtyard was filled in with earth, and full-grown lime trees transplanted there. When I saw this aerial grove eighty years afterwards, there was quite a respectable avenue of limes on the second floor of the building, with a gravel walk bordered by grass-plots beneath them. Another Empress wished to have a place to walk in during the winter months, so a very ingenious hanging winter-garden was contrived for her, following all the exterior angles of the building. It was not in the least like an ordinary conservatory, but really did recall an outdoor garden. There were gravel walks, and lawns of lycopodium simulating grass; there were growing orange trees, and quite large palms. For some reason the creepers on the walls of this pseudo-garden were all artificial, being very cleverly made out of painted sheet-iron.

I had an opportunity later of seeing the entire Winter Palace collection of silver plate, and all the Crown jewels, when they were arranged for the inspection of the late Duke of Edinburgh, who was good enough to invite me to come. There were enormous quantities of plate, of Russian, French, and English make, sufficient to stock every silversmith's shop in London. Some of the English plate was of William and Mary's and Queen Anne's date, and there were some fine early Georgian pieces. They, would, I confess, have appeared to greater advantage had they conveyed the idea that they had been occasionally cleaned. As it was, they looked like dull pewter that had been neglected for twenty years. Of the jewels, the only things I remember were a superb "corsage" of diamonds and aquamarines—not the pale green stones we associate with the name, but immense stones of that bright blue tint, so highly prized in Russia—and especially the great Orloff diamond. The "corsage" was big enough to make a very ample cuirass for the most stalwart of lifeguardsmen, and the Orloff diamond formed the head of the Russian Imperial sceptre. The history of the Orloff, or Lazareff, diamond is quite interesting. Though by no means the largest, it is considered the most perfect diamond in the world, albeit it has a slight flaw in it. Originally stolen from India, it came into the hands of an Armenian called Lazareff in some unknown manner about A.D. 1750. Lazareff, so the story goes, devised a novel hiding-place for the great stone. Making a deep incision into the calf of his leg, he placed the diamond in the cavity, and lay in bed for three months till the wound was completely healed over. He then started for Amsterdam, and though stripped and searched several times during his journey, for he was strongly suspected of having the stone concealed about his person, its hiding-place was never discovered. At Amsterdam Lazareff had the wound reopened by a surgeon, and the diamond extracted. He then sold it to Count Orloff for 450,000 roubles, or roughly £45,000, and Orloff in his turn made a present of the great stone to Catherine the Great. The diamond is set under a jewelled Russian eagle at the extremity of the sceptre, where it probably shows to greater advantage than it did when concealed for six months in the calf of an Armenian's leg.

The accommodation provided for the suites of the Imperial family is hardly on a par with the magnificence of the rest of the palace. The Duchess of Edinburgh, daughter of Alexander II, made a yearly visit to Petrograd, as long as her mother the Empress was alive. As the Duchess's lady-in-waiting happened to be one of my oldest friends, during her stay I was at the palace at least three days a week, and I retain vivid recollections of the dreary, bare, whitewashed vault assigned to her as a sitting-room. The only redeeming feature of this room was a five-storied glass tray packed with some fifty varieties of the most delicious bon-bons the mind of man could conceive. These were all fresh-baked every day by the palace confectioner, and the tray was renewed every morning. There were some sixty of these trays prepared daily, and their arrangement was always absolutely identical, precisely the same number of caramels and fondants being placed on each shelf of the tray. Everyone knew that the palace confectioner owned a fashionable sweet shop on the Nevsky, where he traded under a French name, and I imagine that his shop was entirely stocked from the remains of the palace trays.

In the spring of 1880 an attempt was made on Alexander's II's life by a bomb which completely wrecked the white marble private dining-room. The Emperor's dinner hour was 7, and the bomb was timed to explode at 7.20 p.m. The Emperor happened at the time to be overwhelmed with work, and at the last moment he postponed dinner until 7.30. The bomb exploded at the minute it had been timed for, killing many of the servants. My poor friend the lady-in-waiting was passing along the corridor as the explosion occurred. She fell unhurt amongst the wreckage, but the shock and the sight of the horribly mangled bodies of the servants were too much for her. She never recovered from their effects, and died in England within a year. After this crime, the Winter Palace was thoroughly searched from cellars to attics, and some curious discoveries were made.

Some of the countless moujiks employed in the palace had vast unauthorized colonies of their relatives living with them on the top floor of the building. In one bedroom a full-grown cow was found, placidly chewing the cud. One of the moujiks had smuggled it in as a new-born calf, had brought it up by hand, and afterwards fed it on hay purloined from the stables. Though it may have kept his family well provided with milk, stabling a cow in a bedroom unprovided with proper drainage, on the top floor of a building, is not a proceeding to be unduly encouraged; nor does it tend to add to the sanitary amenities of a palace.

Russians are fond of calling the Nevsky "the street of toleration," for within a third of a mile of its length a Dutch Calvinist, a German Lutheran, a Roman Catholic, and an Armenian church rise almost side by side. "Nevsky" is, of course, only the adjective of "Neva," and the street is termed "Perspective" in French and "Prospect" in Russian.

Close to the Armenian church lived M. Delyanoff, who was the Minister of Education in those days. Both M. and Madame Delyanoff were exceedingly hospitable and kind to the Diplomatic Body, so, when M. Delyanoff died, most of the diplomats attended his funeral, appearing, according to Russian custom, in full uniform. The Delyanoffs being Armenians, the funeral took place in the Armenian church, and none of us had had any previous experience of the extraordinary noises which pass for singing amongst Armenians. When six individuals appeared and began bleating like sheep, and followed this by an excellent imitation of hungry wolves howling, it was too much for us. We hastily composed our features into the decorum the occasion demanded, amid furtive little snorts of semi-suppressed laughter. After three grey-bearded priests had stepped from behind the ikonostas, and, putting their chins up in the air, proceeded to yelp together in unison, exactly like dogs baying the moon, the entire Corps Diplomatique broke down utterly. Never have I seen men laugh so unrestrainedly. As we had each been given a large lighted candle, the movements of our swaying bodies were communicated to the tapers, and showers of melted wax began flying in all directions. With the prudence of the land of my birth, I placed myself against a pillar, so as to have no one behind me, but each time the three grey-beards recommenced their comical howling, I must have scattered perfect Niagaras of wax on to the embroidered coat-tails and extensive back of the Swedish Minister in front of me. I should think that I must have expended the combined labours of several hives of bees on his garments, congratulating myself the while that that genial personage, not being a peacock, did not enjoy the advantage of having eyes in his tail. The Swedish Minister, M. Dué, his massive frame quivering with laughter, was meanwhile engaged in performing a like kindly office on to the back of his Roumanian colleague, Prince Ghika, who in his turn was anointing the uniform of M. van der Hooven, the Netherlands Minister. Providentially, the Delyanoff family were all grouped together before the altar, and the farmyard imitations of the Armenian choir so effectually drowned our unseemly merriment that any faint echoes which reached the family were ascribed by them to our very natural emotions in the circumstances. I heard, indeed, afterwards that the family were much touched by our attendance and by our sympathetic behaviour, but never, before or since, have I attended so hilarious a funeral.