Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia
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INTERVIEW WITH THE EMPRESS.239
composition of Breughel's. The tints of the picture cannot be described by words. The domes of the church of Saint Nicholas stood in the relief of lapis lazuli against a sky of silver; the illuminated portico of the Exchange, whose lamps were partially quenched by the dawning day, still gleamed on the water of the river, and was reflected — a peristyle of gold: the rest of the city was of that blue which we see in the distances of the landscapes of the old painters. This fantastic picture, painted on a ground of ultramarine, and framed by a gilded window, contrasted, in a manner that was altogether supernatural, with the light and splendour of the interior of the palace. It might have been said that the city, the sky, the sea and the whole face of nature had joined in contributing to the magnificence of the fete given to his daughter by the sovereign of these immense regions.
I was absorbed in the contemplation of the scene, when a sweet and penetrating female voice suddenly aroused me with the question —" What are you doing here ? "
" Madame, I am indulging in admiration. I can do nothing else to-day.;'
It was the empress. She stood alone with me in the embrasure of the window, which was like a pavilion opening on the Neva.
í¢ As for me, I am suffocating," replied her majesty. "It is less poetical, I admit; but you are right in admiring this picture; it is magnificent!" Continuing to contemplate it, she added—" I am certain that you and I are the only persons here who have remarked this effect of light."
240INTERVIEW WITH ТПЕ EMriiESS.
"Every thing that I see is new to me, Madame; and I can never cease to regret that I did not come to Russia in my youth."
" The heart and the imagination are always young."
I ventured no answer; for the empress, as well as myself, had no longer any other youth but that of which she spake — of which fact I did not wish to remind her; she would not have given me the time, nor, indeed, should I have had the boldness to tell her how many indemnifications may be found to console us for the flight of years. On retiring she said, with a grace which is her distinguishing attribute — Cí I shall recollect having suffered and admired with you : " and she afterwards added, " I do not leave yet; we shall meet again this evening."
I am very intimate with a Polish family, which is that of the woman whom the empress loves best —=
the Baroness . This lady was brought up in
Prussia with the daughter of the king, has followed that princess to Russia, and has never quitted her. She has married in Petersburg, where she has no other office but that of friend to the empress. Such constancy is honourable to both. The baroness must have been speaking well of me to the emperor and empress, and my natural timidity—a flattery so much the more refined as it is involuntary—has completed my good fortune.
On leaving the supper saloon, to pass into the ball room, I again approached a window. It opened into the interior court of the palace. A spectacle was there presented to me very different, but quite as unexpected as the former. The grand court of the winter palace is square, like that of the Louvre. During
RUSSIAN CROWDS.241
the ball, this enclosure had been gradually filling with people. The light of the dawning day had become more distinct; and in looking on the multitude, mute with admiration, motionless, fascinated as it were by the splendours of its master's palace, and drinking in, with a sort of timid animal delight, the emanations of the royal festival, I experienced an impression of pleasure. At last, then, I had found a crowd in Russia : I saw nothing below me but men ; and so close was the press that not an inch of earth could be discovered. Nevertheless, in despotic lands, the diversions of the people, when they approach those of the prince, always appear to me suspicious. The fear and flattery of the low, and the pride and hypocritical generosity of the great, are the only sentiments which I can believe to be genuine among men who live under the regime of the Russian autocracy. In the midst of the fetes of Petersburg I cannot forget the journey of the Empress Catherine into the Crimea, and the facades of villages, made of planks or painted canvass, and set up in the distance at every quarter league of the route, in order to make the triumphant sovereign believe that the desert had become peopled under her reign. Л spirit similar to that which dictated these illusions still possesses the minds of the Russians; every one masks the evil, and obtrudes the good in the eyes of his imperial master. There is a permanent conspiracy of smiles, plotting against the truth, in favour of the mental satisfaction of him who is reputed to will and to act for the good of all. The emperor is the only man in the empire who lives; for eating and drinking is not living.
VOL, Г.M
242KEMABKS ON ТПЕ RUSSIANS.
It must be owned, however, that the people remained there voluntarily; nothing appeared to compel them to come under the windows of the emperor : they were amusing themselves, therefore, but it was only with the pleasures of their masters; and, as Froissart says, very sorrily. The head-dress of the women, and the Russian, that is to say, the Persian, costume of the men, in their long robes and brightly-coloured girdles, the variety of colours and the immovableness of each individual, created the illusion of an immense Turkey carpet, spread entirely over the court by the magician who presides here over every miracle :—a parterre of heads, — such was the most striking ornament of the palace of the emperor during the night of his daughter's nuptials. This pi`ince thought as I did, for he pointed out to the foreigners, with much complacency, the silent crowd, whose presence alone testified its participation in the happiness of its master. It was the vision of a people on their knees before the invisible gods. Their majesties are the divinities of this Elysium, where the inhabitants, trained to resignation, invent for themselves a felicity made up of privation and sacrifices.
I begin to perceive that I am here talking like the radicals in Paris. But, though a democrat in Eussia, I am not the less in France an obstinate aristocrat: it is because a peasant in the environs of Paris is freer than a Russian lord, that I thus feel and write. We must travel before we can learn the extent to which the human heart is influenced by optical effects. This experience confirms the observation of
REMARKS ON THE RUSSIANS.243
Madame de Staël, who said, that in France "every body is either Jacobin or ultra-something."
I returned to my lodgings overwhelmed with the grandeur and magnificence of the emperor, and yet more astonished at seeing the disinterested admiration of his people for the good things which they do not possess, nor ever will, and which they do not dare even to regret. If I did not daily see to how many ambitious egotists liberty gives birth, I should have difficulty in believing that despotism could make so many disinterested philosophers.
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244
NOTE.
CHAP. XII.
NOTE. EXCITEMENT OF A PETERSBURG LIFE. THE EMPEROR
TRULY A RUSSIAN. AFFABILITY OF THE EMPRESS. COM
PARISON BETWEEN PARIS AND PETERSBURG. DEFINITION OF
POLITENESS. — FETE AT THE MICHAEL PALACE. CONVERSATION
WITH THE GRAND DUCHESS HELENA.BEAUTIFUL ILLUMINA
TION. — A GROVE IN A BALL-ROOM. — JET d'eAU. — FUTURE
prospects of democracy. — interesting conversation with
the emperor. — russia explained.improvements in the
kremlinan english nobleman and his family.english
politeness. —anecdote in note.the french ambassador.
— the grand chamberlain. — severe reprimand of the emperor's.
NOTE.
The following chapter was forwarded, in the shape of a letter, from Petersburg to Paris, by a person whom I could depend upon ; and the friend to whom it was addressed has preserved it for me, as some of the details appeared to him curious. If its tone seem more eulogistic than that of those I have kept myself, it is because too great a sincerity might, under certain circumstances, have compromised the obliging party who had offered to take charge of my despatch. In this chapt
er, therefore, and only in this, I felt obliged to magnify the good, and to extenuate the evil. This is a confession : but the least disguise would be a fault in a work, the value of which depends upon the scrupulous fidelity of the writer.
I wish therefore that this chapter be read with rather more caution than the others ; and especially that the notes which serve to correct it may not be passed over.
Oxe ought to be a Russian, or even the Emperor himself, to bear the fatigue of a life at Petersburg
EXCITEMENT OF A PETERSBURG LIFE. 245
In the evening there are fetes, such as are only seen in Russia ; in the morning, court ceremonies and receptions, public solemnities, or reviews upon sea or land. A vessel of 120 guns has just been launched on the Neva before the whole court; but, though the largest vessel that the river has ever borne, it must not be supposed that there was any crowd at this naval spectacle. Space is that which the Russians least want, and through which they most suffer. The four or five hundred thousand men who inhabit Petersburg without peopling it, are lost in the vast enclosure of the immense city, the heart of which is composed of granite and brass, the body of plaster and of mortar, and the extremities of painted wood and rotten planks. These planks are raised in a solitary marsh like walls around the city, which resembles a colossal statue with feet of clay.* It is like none of the other capitals of the civilised world, even though in its construction all have been copied ; but man in vain seeks for models in distant lands : the soil and the climate are his masters, they oblige him to create novelties, when he desires only to revive the antique. I was present at the Congress of Vienna, but I do not recollect seeing any thing to be compared to the richness of the jewels and dresses, the gorgeous variety of the uniforms, or the grandeur and admirable ordering of the whole spectacle, in the fete given by the emperor, on the evening of the marriage of
* The quays of the Neva are composed of granite, the cupola of Saint Isaac of copper, the "Winter Palace and the column of Alexander of fine stone, marble and granite, ami the statue of Peter I. of brass.
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246THE EMPEROR TRULY A RUSSIAN.
his daughter, in this same winter palace — burnt down only я year ago.
Peter the Great is not dead ! His moral strength lives, and operates still. Nicholas is the only Eus-sian sovereign which Russia has had since the reign of the founder of its metropolis.
Towards the end of the soiree given at court to celebrate the nuptials of the Grand Duchess Marie, the empress sent some officers to look for me, who, after searching for a quarter of an hour, could not find me. I was standing apart, according to my frequent practice, still absorbed in contemplating the beauty of the heavens, and admiring the night, against the same window where the empress had left me. Since supper I had quitted this place only for an instant, to follow in the train of their majesties; but not having been observed I returned into the gallery, where I could contemplate at leisure the romantic spectacle of the sun rising over a great city durino-:i court ball. The officers at length discovered me in my hiding-place, and hastened to lead me to the empress, who was waiting for me. She had the goodness to say before all the court, " M. de Cystine, I have been inquiring for you for a long time — why did you avoid me ?"
" Madame, I twice placed myself before Your Majesty, but you did not observe me."
" It was your own fault, for I have been seeking for you ever since I entered the ball-room. I wish you to see every thing here in detail, in order that you may carry from Russia an opinion which may rectify that of the foolish and the mischievously disposed."
AFFABILITY OF THE EMPRESS.247
" jIadame, I am far from attributing to myself a power that could effect this; but if my impressions were communicable, France would imagine Eussia to be Fairy-land."
" You must not judge by appearances, you must look deeply into things, for you possess every thing that can enable you to do this. Adieu ! I only wished to say good evening — the heat fatigues me. Do not forget to inspect my new apartments ; they have been remodelled according to a plan of the emperor's. I will give orders for you to be shown every thing." On withdrawing, she left me the object of general curiosity, and of the apparent good-will of the courtiers.
This court life is so new that it amuses me. It is like a journey in the olden times : I could imagine myself at Versailles a century ago. Politeness and magnificence are here natural. It will be seen by this how different Petersburg is from our Paris of the present day. At Paris there is luxury, riches and even elegance; but there is neither grandeur nor courtesy. Ever since the first revolution, we have dwelt in a conquered country, where the spoilers and the spoiled consort together as well as they art-able. In order to be polite, it is necessary to have something to «;ive. Politeness is the art of doina` to others the honours of the advantages we possess, whether of our minds, our riches, our rank, our standing, or any other source of enjoyment. To be polite, is to know how to offer and to accept with grace; but when a person has nothing certain of his own, he cannot give any thing. In France at the present time nothing is exchanged through mutual 3i 4
248CONVERSATION WITH THE
good will ; every thing is snatched by means of interest, ambition, or fear. Conversation, even, becomes insipid, when the secret calculations of interest cease to animate it. Mind itself is only valued, when it can be turned to personal account.
A fixed security of position in society is the basis of courtesy in all its relations, and the source also of those sallies of wit that enliven conversation.
Scarcely had we rested from the fatigues of the court ball, when we had to attend, in the Michael Palace, another fete, given yesterday by the Grand Duchess Helena, sister-in-law of the emperor, wife of the Grand Duke Michael, and daughter of Prince Paul of Wirtemberg, who lives at Paris. She is spoken of as one of the most distinguished personages in Europe, and her conversation is extremely interesting. I had the honour of being presented to her before the ball commenced, when she only addressed a word to me, but during the evening she gave me several opportunities of conversing with her.
The following is, as far as I recollect, the summary of what was said : —
" I hear that, in Paris and its neighbourhood, you move in a very agreeable circle of society."
" It is true, madame, the conversation of persons of mind is my greatest pleasure, but I was far from venturing to suppose that your Imperial Highness would have been acquainted with this circumstance."
" We know Paris, and we arc aware that there are there some few who are conversant with things as they полу arc, and who at the same time do not forget the pn«t. These are, I doubt not, your friends.
GRAND DUCHESS HELENA. 249
"We admire, through their writings, several of the persons whom you see habitually, especially Madame Gay, and her daughter, Madame de Girardin."
" These ladies are very intellectual: I have the good fortune to be their friend."
" You possess in them friends of a superior character."
Nothing is so rare as to think ourselves obliged to feel modesty for others; it was however a sentiment which I, in a slight degree, experienced at this moment. It will be said, that of all modesty this costs the least in its manifestation. However much it may be ridiculed, it is not the less true, that I felt I should have wanted delicacy, had I endeavoured to excite for my friends an admiration, by which my own vanity might have profited. At Paris I should have said all that I thought; at Petersburg I was afraid of seeming to magnify myself, under the pretence of doing justice to others. The Grand Duchess persisted, saying, " We take great pleasure in reading the works of Madame Gay. What do you think of thorn ? "
" My opinion is, madame, that we may find in them a description of the society of former days written by one who understands it."
" Why does not Madame de Girardin continue to write ? "
" Madame de Girardin is a poetess, madame, and in a writer of poetry silence is the indication of labour."
&n
bsp; " I hope that this is the cause of her silence : for, with her observing mind and poetical talent, it would 31 5
250MAGIC FETES.
be a pity that she should confine herself to the production of mere ephemeral works." *
During this conversation, I made it a rule merely to listen and to reply ; but I expected to hear the Grand Duchess pronounce other names which might flatter my patriotic pride, and put my friendly reserve to new trials.
These expectations were deceived. The Grand Duchess, who passes her life in a country where society is remarkable for its tact, undoubtedly knew better than myself what to speak of, and Avhat to omit. Efjually fearing the significance of my Avords, and of my silence, she did not utter another syllable on the subject of our cotemporary literaüire.
There are certain names, whose sound alone would disturb the tranquillity of mind and the uniformity of thought, despotically imposed upon all who will live at the Russian court.
I must now describe some of the magic fetes at which I am present every evening. AVith us the balls are disfigured by the sombre attire of the men, whereas the varied and brilliant uniforms of the Russian officers give an extreme brilliancy to the saloons of Petersburg.
In Russia the magnificence of the women's apparel is found to accord with the gold of the military dress ; and the male dancers have not the appearance of being the clerks of attorneys, or the shopmen of their partners' apothecaries.