Successful as he was, however, in effecting a bodily cure, even Wylie, with all his expertise, could not heal Alexander’s mind. At the end of June he went to Krasnoe Selo, about sixteen miles from St Petersburg, where, in Elizabeth’s words, the small palace was so dominated by the army that she felt inclined to head her letters, ‘From General Headquarters’.77 On this occasion Alexander, true to form, had gone to watch army manoeuvres. As he mounted his horse he realized that his aides-de-camps were whispering among themselves and guessed they were trying to hide something from him. Turning in his saddle to Wylie, who was standing near him, he asked him bluntly what was happening and Wylie found himself forced to tell him that Sophia, the elder of the two daughters borne him by his Polish mistress Maria Naryshkin, had died of tuberculosis.
The girl had been educated in Paris, purportedly to save Elizabeth the embarrassment of seeing her husband’s illegitimate child in the same city where she lived. However, although she was known to be delicate, her ambitious mother insisted on her being brought to Russia to marry Count Shuvalov, one of the tsar’s aides-de-camps. Elizabeth, walking one day in the garden at Krasnoe Selo, met her in the company of the Shuvalovs. Recognizing her immediately she gave her a kiss, saying, ‘I cannot help loving you for the likeness you bear; it is impossible to mistake it.’ Tragically, it was only a short time afterwards that the girl, who was only eighteen, died of a haemorrhage in her lungs.
As the news was brought to Alexander, the officers standing near him thought for a moment that he was ill. Tears streamed down his face and he sat astride his horse in dumb misery throughout the rest of the parade. Convinced that the death of his daughter was God’s punishment for his sins, he was devastated with feelings of guilt and remorse. The affair with Maria was long over and now, in his misery, he turned to his wife for comfort and to his doctor for support.
The year 1817 had seen the reintroduction of a great annual event in the form of a ball or fête at the Winter Palace, with a supper at the Hermitage, an event unique to Russia. All and sundry were invited, peasants and princes alike. Once, according to De Maistre, the guests had even included a Serbian chief, who had murdered both his father and his brother by hanging them with his own hands.78
On 13 January 1824 Alexander insisted on being present at this grand annual event. Ignoring a warning that an attempt would be made to assassinate him, he allowed no special precautions to be taken and was reported to be looking more cheerful than usual while a vast concourse of people roamed through the rooms of the Winter Palace.
Nonetheless, despite his apparent nonchalance towards the ever-present threats to his life, none knew better than his doctor the secret and all-pervading anxiety which so constantly obsessed his mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Great Flood
In the autumn Elizabeth returned from visiting her mother in Baden. She wrote how the smell of Russia, ‘that dear country’, gladdened her heart, but that the sight of the Winter Palace plunged her into depression, as she thought of the tedium of court protocol and more particularly of the dominance of her mother-in-law, behind whom, thanks to a law of Tsar Paul’s which gave precedence to the dowager empress, she was still forced to walk on all ceremonial occasions.
Only two days after his return to St Petersburg, Alexander and Elizabeth were together in the Winter Palace when, on the night of 18 November 1824, the wind from the south-west began to rise. By daylight the following day it was blowing a hurricane. The River Neva, running higher than anyone could remember, and combined with an incoming tide which pushed back the water, soon flooded much of the city. Within the palace itself the occupants shivered with cold and fear. Elizabeth, writing to her mother, described how they dared not light the fires in case the chimneys caught alight in the force of the high wind.
A doctor then living in St Petersburg described what had happened in a letter to his friend Doctor Robert Lee:
I attempted to cross the Voskresensky Bridge of boats, on my way to the General Naval Hospital on the Wybor side, but was unable owing to the great elevation [of the water]. I then paid some professional visits; and at eleven o’clock called on Prince Naryshkin [gentleman-in-waiting to the Empress Elizabeth], who had already given orders to remove the furniture from his lower apartments, the water then being above the level of the Fontanka Canal, opposite to his residence. From this time the rise was rapid; and at half-past eleven, when I returned to my house, in the great Millione, the water was gushing upwards through the gratings of the sewers, filling the streets and courtyards with which every house is provided. A servant took me on his back from the droshky, my horses at that time being above their knees, and conveyed me to the landing of the staircase. The wind now blew in awful gusts; and the noise of the tempest with the cries of the people in the streets was terrific. It was not long before boats were seen in the streets, with vast quantities of firewood and other articles floating about . . . Now and then a horse was seen swimming across from one pavement to another. The number of rats drowned on this occasion was inconceivable; and of dogs and cats not a few. The crisis seemed to be from one to three in the afternoon, at which hour the wind having veered round a couple of points to the northward, the water began to abate; and by four o’clock the tops of the iron posts, three feet in height, by the sides of the pavement, made their appearance.
From the commencement of the report the signal cannon, fired first at the Galleyhaven at the entrance of the river, then at the Admiralty dockyard, and lastly at the fortress, was continued at intervals as a warning to the inhabitants, and added not a little to the horror of the scene.
The depth of water in the different parts of the city varied from four to nine and ten feet, but along the border of the Gulf of Finland, and especially in the low suburb of the Galleyhaven, the depth was from fourteen to eighteen feet, and many of the small wooden houses built on piles were carried away, inmates and all. A few were floated up the Neva, rocking about with poor creatures clinging on to the roof. Some of these perished; others were taken off at great risk, by boats from the Admiralty yard, which had been ordered out by the express command of his Imperial Majesty, who stood during the greatest part of the day on the balcony of the Winter Palace, giving the necessary orders.
On the 20th, the Emperor Alexander, ever benevolent and humane, visited those parts of the city and suburbs most afflicted by this catastrophe. In person he bestowed alms and consolation to the sufferers, for the most part of the lower classes, and in every way afforded such relief, both then and afterwards, as won for him the still greater love and admiration of his people and of the foreign residents in St Petersburg.
Over 600 people in all are said to have perished in the flood. Hospitals and prisons were evacuated, and according to another account the Winter Palace and other public buildings were opened on the emperor’s orders so that people could be saved from the flood. Alexander’s youngest sister, the Grand Duchess Anna, now married to William of Orange (William II of the Netherlands) who was visiting her brother, described how ‘the square in front of the Winter Palace, the boulevard and the streets which lead to the Palace showed a terrible sight of a raging sea’.
The tsar’s sister continued to describe how the next morning he insisted on going out to supervise the relief work. Wading through the mud of the devastated streets – elsewhere it is claimed that he went about rescuing people in a boat – from one of the ruined hovels a voice cried out, ‘It is a punishment from God Almighty for our sins!’ But Alexander was heard to reply, ‘No; it is a punishment for my sin.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Taganrog
Alexander was by now visibly unwell. At Epiphany, at the beginning of January in 1824, he stood for hours bareheaded as a hole was bored through the ice and the blessing of the Neva took place. Shivering, he returned to the Winter Palace, where during the evening’s festivities he was plainly seen to be ill. Nonetheless he insisted in going to Tsarskoe Selo, driving through drifts of snow.<
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Then even as the floods subsided, people in St Petersburg began to fall ill. Among them the Empress Elizabeth developed rheumatic fever, which badly affected her heart. Her own physician, Doctor Stoffregen, consulted Wylie who diagnosed her illness as firstly angina pectoris and later tuberculosis, which worsened her already weakened heart.79 The two physicians, greatly concerned for her, suggested to Alexander that, to escape the cold of St Petersburg, he should take his wife to recuperate in a warmer climate. He then put forward the idea of their going to Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov.
This caused great speculation. Why, the courtiers demanded, had Taganrog, of all places, been chosen as a suitable place for the empress, now known by everyone to be in a delicate state of health, to spend the winter? Taganrog was a small seaside port, built originally by Peter the Great on a site near the mouth of the River Don. It was not thought particularly healthy, there being river mashes nearby, and moreover it was well known to be prone to gales sweeping northwards across the Sea of Azov. Why, people asked, did they not go to the Crimea? There were some beautiful villas in Yalta, greatly superior to the Tartar houses in Taganrog. Why did the emperor not rent one of them? Moreover the climate there was warmer, so mild in fact that palms and semi-tropical plants flourished in profusion on the shores. No one, it seems, remembered that Crimean fever was endemic, although at the time it had yet to be discovered that mosquitoes were the carriers of the disease.
Whatever the arguments against Taganrog, the tsar would not be moved. His decision to go there has since prompted much conjecture that the real reason for choosing Taganrog was that it was a port where it would be easy to find a ship on which to slip out to sea unseen. At the time it was merely presumed that the tsar, who was known to be preoccupied with mysticism, was seeking a remote area where, for a time at least, he and the Empress Elizabeth, also known to hate public events, could live in seclusion, undisturbed.
The decision now reached, couriers were despatched immediately to find a suitable house in Taganrog. The little town, which then had about 8,000 or 9,000 inhabitants, stands on a promontory, from where, in the distance, the mountains of the Caucasus rear against the sky. To the east lies a bay, some distance from the mouth of the Don.
A house with eleven bedrooms, some of them with views over the sea, was found, and although rather small, it was considered suitable for the royal couple to rent. A visitor in 1890, calling it ‘the palace in Taganrog’ described it as it was then, apparently little changed from the time of Alexander and Elizabeth’s occupation sixty-five years before:
The palace in Taganrog consists of a small one-storey building. It has 13 windows facing the street; on the right is the gate which leads into the courtyard with a porch and an outhouse; there is a small garden on the left-hand side. The façade is painted in yellow ochre, its decorations are painted white; the roof supposedly was green. In general, the quite modest appearance of the building does not make it look like a palace.80
A string of wagons left St Petersburg for Taganrog, all of them loaded according to lists drawn up by Alexander himself. Curtains, carpets, beds and furniture, even the accoutrements of a chapel, china, silver, glass and ornaments were trundled down the length of Russia to the Sea of Azov in the south. Over and above this, every single stage of his wife’s journey was provided for by her husband including special pillow cases, candle shades, and even Dresden china for her breakfast and her tea. Elizabeth wrote to her mother, saying she was deeply touched by Alexander’s solicitude for her comfort. So worried was he, in fact, that no fewer than five doctors travelled with them, but it was only Wylie who, together with two aides-de camps, went on ahead of the empress with Alexander himself.
Before leaving St Petersburg Alexander interviewed all his ministers and wound up the affairs of state with the thoroughness for which he was renowned. On the evening of his departure he dined with his two brothers, Nicholas and Michael. ‘It was here,’ wrote Nicholas afterwards, ‘that he bade farewell to him for whom he ever cherished a sentiment of the deepest and most affectionate gratitude, and also to the Empress Elizabeth.’
Again with his extraordinary energy, Alexander was up at four o’clock the next morning to go alone, in the dark, to a service for the dead in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Afterwards he was closeted for some time in the cell of a celebrated hermit who had recently arrived in St Petersburg.
Leaving the church, and joined by Doctor Wylie and the two aides-de-camps who were to travel with him, he headed for Tsarskoye Selo to say goodbye to his mother and sisters. Day had now dawned and on a piece of high ground he ordered his coachmen to rein in the horses. Through gaps in the trees, as he looked back at St Petersburg, he could see the familiar view of the gilded spires and domes rising above the Neva, before the distant rim of the sea, shining clear in the morning light. Afterwards his faithful driver was to say that it had seemed as though he was committing to memory the great city of his realm.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Doctor’s Diaries
First-hand accounts of the calamitous and historic incidents which took place in Russia from the autumn of 1825 until the following spring, are revealed by the diary kept by Sir James Wylie, and the journal of his fellow physician Doctor Robert Lee.
Wylie was mostly concerned with the state of the emperor’s health. Lee, on the other hand, wrote a vivid description of the Crimea, through which he was travelling just before and after Alexander and Wylie arrived at Taganrog.
Lee, after graduating at Edinburgh University, had led a varied and in many ways strange career. After working for one year in a country practice and two in Edinburgh hospitals he had, through the influence of the famous Sir Gilbert Blane, gone down to England to look after the epileptic son of William Lamb and his notoriously eccentric wife, Lady Caroline. After five unhappy years in that disordered household, he had managed to escape to Paris, where, after spending some time in improving his knowledge of anatomy in the dissecting rooms and clinics of the city, he had become doctor to the Bessborough family. Then, in 1824, when he was still only thirty-one, he had become personal physician to no less a person than Count Michael Vorontzov, Governor General of South Russia. Travelling across Europe from Paris he had finally reached the Ukrainian capital Odessa. The city, founded by Prince Potemkin, uncrowned emperor of South Russia, remained in a state of development. The palace of the Vorontzovs was not yet even finished, which meant that Lee had to live with the family in a house nearby.
Arriving in Odessa he had at first got the impression that society there was as free and easy as in London. But after some time, becoming suspicious, he had discovered that a plot was afoot to destroy the Emperor Alexander and subvert the government of the country. Intrigued, and slightly apprehensive, he had then been made aware of the powerful network of detection, organized to counteract subversion when, at a public ball, after he had been talking to Count de Witt, Prince Serge Volkonsky had tapped him on the shoulder and whispered in his ear ‘take care what you say, he is the emperor’s spy’.
Lee claimed that ‘the army is rotten to the core. Many of the officers detest the present system of government . . . and long to see the slaves educated and gradually emancipated.’ He then forecast, with remarkable accuracy, that the revolution, which he rightly believed to be inevitable, would begin in the ranks of the army.
That Alexander himself was aware of the unrest within Russia is clear from all contemporary accounts. It is also known, from his own words, that the weight of the responsibility that had been his since the death of his father twenty-four years before, was becoming almost more than he could endure. A main reason for going to Taganrog, in addition to Elizabeth’s frail health, must have been to escape for a time the constant demands put upon him in St Petersburg, if not perhaps forever.
Wylie, perhaps secretly, did keep a diary, jotting down the details of his visit with Alexander to Taganrog in that fateful autumn of 1825. His dates are those of the Julian calendar rather than t
he Gregorian, which although by then commonly used in Britain, was not to be accepted in Russia until 1918.
From what he writes it would seem that Alexander made a diversion into Poland before heading south. Historians have since considered it significant that Wylie describes their arrival at Taganrog as the end of ‘the first part of their journey’. Presumably it can be taken that by then he knew of Alexander’s intention to visit the Crimea – or can it be surmised that he was already party to a plot by which, in this remote location, the tsar meant to stage his disappearance? Wylie begins his diary on 1 September 1825.
The leaves have started fading and falling, the grass has grown yellow; the morning was cold, the weather was beautiful. Like migrating birds we set off on our flight – the time has come for us to depart, in order to find a warmer climate. His Majesty approved of the list of medicines.
As was usual with Alexander, he travelled at a hectic speed. Details of the journey from the edge of the Baltic to the shore of the Sea of Azov, which drains into the Black Sea, noted by Wylie in his diary, show how it affected them both.
September 5th. We arrived at Dorogobuzh [about 50 m. E. of Smolensk] quite late; my ill health still persists; good weather holds; the roads are dry and wonderful. His Majesty assured me yesterday that he did not feel the slightest pain in his leg. This town trades mostly with Riga.
6th. Everything goes perfectly: the weather, the road. The horses agree with our wishes. Conversation today turned around political economy. Here we are entering the domain of Repnin.
7th. The weather has changed: it has become foggy and rainy. On my arrival I found 12 patients left in the hospital of the Sixth Division, they are very ill but on the other hand well kept. Doctor Korbov (22nd Infantry) is good.
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