The Memoirs of Madame Vigée Lebrun

by Louise-Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

DEPARTURE FROM MOSCOW — NEWS OF THE DEATH OF PAUL — PARTICULARS OF HIS ASSASSINATION — ET TU BRUTE? — PAUL'S PRESENTIMENTS OF PERIL — HIS SUCCESSOR NOT AN ACCOMPLICE IN THE CRIME — ALEXANDER I. A POPULAR MONARCH — AN ORDER FROM AN IMPERIAL CUSTOMER AND MODEL — FAREWELLS TO FRIENDS — AMONG THEM, CZAR AND CZARINA.

When I was sufficiently restored I announced my departure and made my adieus. Everything was done to induce me to stay. People offered to pay more for my portraits than I had received in St. Petersburg—to allow me all the time I required to finish them without fatiguing myself. I call to mind now, the very day prior to my leaving, while I was engaged in packing up on the ground floor of my house, there suddenly appeared before me, unannounced, a man of colossal stature in a white cloak, at whose sight I was nearly frightened to death. In Moscow one continually saw people banished to Siberia by Paul, and although but two French had been exiled—both authors of infamous libels against Russia—I forthwith judged this stranger to be an emissary of Paul. I breathed freely only when I heard him beseeching me not to leave Moscow, and begging me to do a large likeness of his whole family. Upon my refusal, which I made as polite as possible, the good gentleman asked me fervently at least to give my own portrait to the town. I acknowledge that this last request so touched my heart as to leave me an enduring regret that my affairs and the state of my health prevented me from complying.

HUBERT ROBERT
A French Painter of Repute. Born 1733. Died 1808. One of Mme. Lebrun's Contemporaries.

Several persons who, I doubt not, were initiated into the revolutionary conspiracy under progress urged me to defer my departure for a few days, promising they would go to St. Petersburg with me. But in my complete ignorance of the plot, I persisted in starting—in which I made a great mistake. For by waiting a little I might have avoided the hardships I underwent on those abominable roads, again rendered well-nigh impracticable by a thaw.

It was on the 12th of March, 1801, when I was half-way between Moscow and St. Petersburg, that I heard the news of Paul's death. I found in front of the posthouse a number of couriers, who were about to spread the news in the different towns of the empire, and, since they took all the horses, I could obtain none for myself. I was obliged to remain in my carriage, which had been put by the roadside on the bank of a river; such a bitter wind was blowing that it froze me. Nevertheless, I was compelled to pass the night there. At last I contrived to hire some horses, and I reached St. Petersburg only at eight or nine on the morning of the following day.

I found that city in a delirium of joy; people were singing and dancing and kissing one another in the streets; acquaintances of mine ran up to my carriage and squeezed my hands, exclaiming "What a blessing!" They told me that the houses had been illuminated the evening before. In short, the death of the unhappy Prince gave rise to general rejoicings.

None of the particulars of the dreadful occurrence were secret from anybody, and I can aver that the accounts given me that day all agreed. Palhen, one of the conspirators, had taken every means to frighten Paul with a plot he alleged to have been hatched by the Empress and her children for the purpose of seizing the throne. Paul's habitually suspicious mind incited him only too strongly to credit these false confidences, which enraged him to the degree of ordering his wife and the Grand Dukes to be shut up in the fortress. Palhen declined to obey without the Emperor's signed authority. Paul gave his signature, and Palhen at once went to Alexander with the document. "You see," he said, "that your father is mad, and that you are all lost unless we forestall him by locking him up first." Alexander, though believing his life and his family's in jeopardy, did nothing but consent through silence to this idea, which seemed merely to propose putting a lunatic out of harm's way. But Palhen and his accomplices thought it necessary to go further. Five of the conspirators undertook the assassination, one of them being Plato Zuboff, a former pet of Catherine, whom Paul had loaded with favours after recalling him from exile. The five penetrated into Paul's sleeping apartment after he had gone to bed. The two guards at the door defended it valiantly, but their resistance was fruitless, and one of them was killed. At the sight of the infuriated men rushing in upon him, Paul rose from his couch. As he was very powerful he made a long fight against his murderers, who finally managed to strangle him in an armchair. The unhappy man's last words were, "You, too, Zuboff! I thought you were my friend!"

It seems that chance had contributed in every way to the success of the plot. A regiment of soldiers had been brought to surround the palace, and the Colonel, far from being in the counsels of the conspirators, fully believed that an attempt upon the Emperor's life was to be frustrated. A portion of the regiment went through the garden to post themselves under Paul's window. Unfortunately, the marching of the soldiers did not awaken him; nor did the noise of a flock of crows, which were in the habit of sleeping on the roof, and which burst out cawing. Had it been otherwise, the ill-fated ruler would have had time to reach a secret staircase next to his room, by which he could have descended to that of one Mme. Narischkin, in whom he had full confidence. Having got thus far, nothing would have been easier for him than to make off in a little boat always moored on the canal beside the palace. Besides, the distrust he harboured against his wife had caused him to double-lock the door dividing his apartments from the Empress's. When he tried to escape through that door it was too late, the assassins having taken the precaution to withdraw the key. To crown all, Kutaisoff, his faithful valet, the very day the murder was committed received a letter revealing the conspiracy; but this man had for some time been neglecting most of his duties, and did not open his letters punctually. Kutaisoff left the letter disclosing the conspiracy on the table. On opening the missive next day the unhappy man fell into such a desperate state that he nearly died of it. The same was the case with the Colonel who had placed his troops about the palace. This young officer, Talesin by name, learning of the crime that had been perpetrated, felt such grief at his deception that he went home with a raging fever, which nearly put an end to him. I believe, in fact, that he did not long survive the blow, all innocent that he was. But what I am sure of is that Alexander I. went to see him every day during his illness, and interdicted some firing exercises too near the patient's house.