“Thus she not only had no taste for music, but she was destitute of ear to distinguish one tune from another, as she often frankly acknowledged; but nothing less would serve her than an Italian corps d’opera attached to her domestic establishment. She had no taste for painting, yet she purchased at a high price some beautiful collections, and in the gallery of her palace of the Hermitage hung some magnificent specimens of the Italian and Flemish schools, purchased in France and Italy.”
Fifteen miles from the capital of Russia is the beautiful palace of Czars-Koe-Selo, the Versailles of St. Petersburg. Catherine II. was very fond of this place, and spent enormous sums on its embellishment. Originally every ornament and statue upon the façade of the palace, which is no less than twelve hundred feet in length, was heavily plated with gold. After a few years the gilding wore off, and the contractors engaged to repair it offered the empress nearly half a million of dollars for the fragments which remained. But the extravagant Catherine answered them scornfully:—
“I am not in the habit, gentlemen,” she said, “of selling my old clothes.”
The main avenue leading to this palace of Czars-Koe-Selo is ornamented with several Chinese statues. One morning as the empress was taking her usual promenade along the avenue, she thought she detected a faint smile upon the face of one of the heathen images. She observed it more closely. Surely it was no fancy! the eyes returned her gaze, and that, too, with an expression remarkably human.
Catherine II. was not a woman to be afraid of anything. Accordingly, she walked straight towards the statue, determined to solve the mystery. She was startled for a moment, however, when all the figures leaped from their pedestals, and, hats in hand, begged her to pardon the little surprise with which they tried to enliven her morning walk; for her favorite Potemkin and three other courtiers had, in jest, exactly copied the dress and attitude of the Chinese figures.
When Prince Bismarck was Prussian ambassador at the court of Alexander II., he was one day standing with the Czar at a window of the Peterhof Palace, when he observed a sentinel in the centre of the lawn with apparently nothing whatever to guard. Out of curiosity he inquired of the Czar why the man was stationed there. Alexander turned to an aide-de-camp.
“Count ——,” said he, “why is that soldier stationed there?”
“I do not know, your Imperial Majesty.”
The Czar frowned. “Send me the officer in command,” he said.
The officer appeared. “Prince —— why is a sentinel stationed on that lawn?”