My injuries kept me a prisoner in my room during the weeks that followed. I was faithfully nursed by Mademoiselle Eudoxie and Pierrot. Zénaïde was under Sophia’s protection in the Kremlin. I saw nothing of the scenes of those exciting days,—the pacification of the Streltsi, the coronation of Peter and Ivan, and the declaration of the regency of Sophia Alexeievna. The new government was installed, and the city was comparatively quiet again, when I was well enough to return to France. I was anxious to claim the fulfillment of the regent’s promise before she had time to regret it, and pressed my affairs to an early settlement. One summer morning, a small party assembled in the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel to witness my marriage to Zénaïde Feodorovna, the czarevna and Prince Galitsyn representing the bride’s guardians. And I took my fair young wife back to her mother’s country, followed by faithful Mademoiselle Eudoxie, and by Pierrot, whose face was no longer stolid, but radiant with joy at the thought of returning to his own beloved land, where we all found happiness and repose. The flowers in the old garden of the Tour de Brousson bloomed with a new beauty to welcome the young mistress, who rejoiced in the tranquillity of the château with its terraces and its roses glorified by the sunshine of France.
Footnotes
[1] The czar’s son and heir. So also, Alexeivitch is the son of Alexis.
[2] An aristocratic order, next to the ruling princes. They held the highest military and civil offices. The title “boyar” was bestowed by the czar, and was not hereditary.
[3] Sophia, daughter of the Czar Alexis. All the daughters of the emperor except Sophia received only a rudimentary education, according to the old Russian custom; but for some reason she was allowed to share the studies of her brother Feodor. It is possible that the czar feared the failure of heirs male, and selected Sophia, as the most able of his daughters, to be trained for a not improbable elevation. The Empress Natalia had been educated in the house of the Chancellor Matveief, who was married to a Scotch lady; she was thus unaccustomed to the old Russian rules of seclusion and ignorance; and the introduction of her western ideas and customs into the imperial palace gave great offense to Sophia. Very soon this kindled a feud between the Naryshkins and the Miloslavskys, which grew more bitter when Alexis showered favors on his young wife and her brothers. Sophia began intriguing with the Streltsi, or National Guards, and ultimately gained them over, all but one regiment. These troops virtually composed the army of Russia, for the empire was then without military organization.
[4] A manual of household economy of the time of Ivan the Terrible.
[5] Public flogging or torture.
Transcriber’s Notes
Minor changes have been made to punctuation, and to regularize spelling and hyphenation.