The rebellion of the Princess

by Mary Imlay Taylor

LEFT alone with the trinket, I forgot it in my meditation on the two girls, or rather, if the truth be told, on the one—the Princess Daria. Such beauty, such spirit, such dignity; the combination was rare, and in a Russian, brought up no doubt under the iron rule of some old Russian dragon of propriety, it was little short of a miracle. How came this perfect flower to bloom in a waste of snow? And how came she and the merry one on this strange expedition? There was some mischief afoot, but I could not fathom it, cudgel my brains as I would. They both seemed too young and too artless to be engaged in any very profound intrigue, and yet the portrait of the czarevna was an unusual possession to cast lightly and publicly aside; publicly, I say, because I was a stranger to them and might be, for all they knew, quite unworthy of trust. And how did they escape the vigilant watchfulness of a Russian household, where the women were kept in almost Oriental seclusion? It was true that the Czar Alexis the Débonair had modified the customs of the court in this respect, by the freedom he had allowed his young wife, Natalia Naryshkin, the mother of the newly elected Czar Peter. Yet it was undoubtedly an escapade for two Russian girls to visit the workshop of a stranger and a Frenchman, for the nation had no love for the French, and indeed a deep distrust of all foreigners.

But what of it, after all? I reflected, was it not better to remember the two pretty faces, the slender hands, the soft voices, the ripple of merry laughter? Saint Denis! ’twas worth something to have seen them! And I would see them again unless Jéhan de Cernay had assumed a coat of quite another colour from the one he had worn in France. As for Daria, she might well be a princess; she looked it, and no queen was ever more worthy a crown.

How she had graced even Maître le Bastien’s workshop, and transformed the old room into an enchanted palace! I looked about it now with a shrug; since she had left it, it had returned to its usual aspect, and was a workshop again and no more.

The house that Prince Galitsyn had given to Maître le Bastien stood in the Kitai-gorod, with the bazaars on one side, humming with life, like so many beehives, and on the other the palaces of the boyars, the official nobility of Moscow; and yonder were the golden domes and minarets of the Kremlin. The house itself was much like the others in Moscow—built of logs, the interstices stuffed with tow, and the roof also of wood; it was no marvel that there had been great fires, leaping from town to town, within the walls, and carrying terror and destruction with smoke and flame. Underground we had cellars for storing liquors and ice; and above these, on the ground floor, were the kitchen, refectory, and offices, while on the second floor were always the living rooms; the Chamber of the Cross, or private chapel, being in the centre, and a narrow stair led to the apartments above, usually set aside for the women, in a separate story of the house, and called the terem.

It was on the second floor that Maître le Bastien had his workshop, in a long room that had served as a nursery and playroom for the children of the Russian family who had previously occupied the dwelling. The windows faced north, and the room was well lighted and spacious, but very different from the goldsmith’s famous workshop on the Pont-au-Change, where all the lovers of his art in Paris flocked. I have seen Louvois there, and Luxemburg himself, with his hump and his pale face, and Monseigneur, dull and pompous, and the little Duchess of Burgundy with Mme. de Maintenon, then called the widow of Scarron, and the court ladies, Mme. de Mazarin and Mme. de Richelieu, and hundreds of others, and sometimes the great king himself. It was Le Bastien who made the famous bracelet for Mme. de Montespan, and Le Bastien who designed the great candelabra for the king’s table. It was the silver vase that he had made for Louis that he was to copy now for Prince Galitsyn to give, so it was whispered, to the Czarevna Sophia, she whose portrait lay on the folds of the old taffety cloak. The goldsmith had received other orders in Moscow, and had been making some models, too, that he purposed carrying back to France, so the workshop was not without its objects of interest, though bare enough compared with the marvels of that room on the Pont-au-Change.

Here in one corner was a candelabrum that was nearly finished for the Czar Feodor, when his majesty died so suddenly. It was a graceful piece, a full cubit in height, the figure of Hecate bearing a torch; it was to have been in solid silver, ornamented with gold. Near it was a bracelet of Russian amethysts, set in a design of clusters of grapes, the leaves of gold, studded with emeralds—so closely that they sparkled with green. Beyond was a salt-cellar, undertaken also for Prince Galitsyn, a shell upheld by two mermaids—in gold; but the most conspicuous object was the great vase, three cubits in height, of silver, with bas-reliefs of gold; on one side Venus and Mars, on the other Pluto and Persephone, and below a group of sirens formed the pedestal, their uplifted arms holding the vase, while around the top of it—which opened like the petals of a flower—was a marvellously fine design of Cupids at play. Though it was before my eyes all day, I often examined it and watched the work grow under the master’s skilful fingers, and I doubt not I should have been staring at it when Maître le Bastien returned, if it had not been for the fascination of that jewelled pear that I could not put out of my mind. And I was back at the table again, with the thing in my fingers, when the goldsmith entered the room.

Le Bastien was a man past middle age, with a noble head and fine face, which wore habitually an expression of calm reflection worthy a great philosopher. The man was indeed an artist and a sculptor of no mean order, who yet carried on his trade of goldsmith, and was reported rich in Paris. His dress became his reputation, being rich though simple in style, of dark velvet with rare lace at his throat and wrists, and a chain of gold about his neck, a marvel of his own workmanship, and I noticed that he wore on it to-day the icon that Prince Galitsyn had given him. He entered with his usual dignified and composed demeanour, greeting me pleasantly.

“I fear you have had a dull day, M. le Marquis,” he said, with his accustomed formality, for in private he always gave me my title, though in public I was “Raoul,” the apprentice; I think it would have hurt the good man to infringe on a single rule of courtesy, even in the privacy of his own closet.

“Far from it, Maître le Bastien,” I replied with a smile; “I have been receiving your fair visitors, and hold here a hostage for their return,” and I held up the pear.

The goldsmith looked at me in some surprise, and taking the locket turned it over in his hand, examining it curiously.