Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

by Astolphe De Custine

  One may ride a league in the imperial park of PeterhofF without passing twice under the same avenue : imagine, then, such a park all on fire. In this icy and gloomy land the illuminations are perfect conflagrations; it might be said that the night was to make amends for the day. The trees disappear under a decoration of diamonds, in each alley there are as many lamps as leaves ; it is Asia, not the real modern Asia, but the fabulous Bagdad of the Arabian Nights, or the more fabulous Babylon of Semi-ram is.

  It is said that on the empress's birth-day, six thou-

  FETE IN ГАЕК OF PETERHOFF.25

  sand carriages, thirty thousand pedestrians, and an innumerable quantity of boats leave Petersburg to proceed to, and form encampments around, Peterhoff.

  It is the only day on which I have seen a real crowd in Russia. A bivouac of citizens in a country altogether military, is a rarity. Not that the army was wanting at the fete, for a body of guards and the corps of cadets were both cantonned round the residence of the sovereign. All the multitude of officers, soldiers, tradesmen, serfs, lords and masters wandered together among the woods, where night was chased away by two hundred and fifty thousand lamps. Such was the number named to me; and though I do not know whether it was correct or not, I do know that the mass of fire shed an artificial light far exceeding in clearness that of the northern day. In Russia, the emperor easts the sun into the shade. At this period, of the summer, the nights recommence and rapidly increase in length; so that, without the illumination, it would have been dark for several hours under the avenues in the park of Peterhoff.

  It is said, also, that in thirty-five minutes all the lamps of the illuminations in the park were lighted by eighteen hundred men. Opposite the front of the palace, and proceeding from it in a straight line towards the sea, is a canal, the surface of whose waters was so covered with the reflection of the lights upon its borders, as to produce a perspective that was magical: it might have been taken for a sheet of fire. Ariosto would perhaps have had imagination brilliant enough to describe all the wonders of this illumination : to the various groups of lamps, which

  VOL. II.С

  2ОГЕТЕ IN PARK OP PETEFJIOFF.

  л*еге disposed with much taste and fancy, луеге given numerous original forms ; flowers as large as trees, suns, vases, bowers of vine leaves, obelisks, pillars, walls chased with arabesque work; in short, a world of fantastic imagery passed before the eye, and one gorgeous device succeeded another with inexpressible rapidity.

  At the extremity of the canal, on an enormous pyramid of fire (it was, I believe, 70 feet high), stood the figure of the Empress, shining in brilliant white above all the red, blue, and green lights which surrounded it. It was like an aigrette of diamonds circled with gems of all hues. Every thing was on so large a scale that the .mind doubted the reality which the eye beheld. Such efforts for an annual festival appeared incredible. There was something as extraordinary in the episodes to which it gave rise, as in the fete itself. During two or three nights, all the crowd of which I have spoken encamped around the village. Many women slept in their carriages, and the female peasants in their earts. These conveyances, crowded together by hundreds, formed camps which Avcre very amusing to survey, and which presented scenes worthy of the pencil of an artist.

  The Russian has a genius for the picturesque; and the cities of a day which he raises for his festal occasions, are more amusing, and have a much more national character than the real cities built in Russia by foreigners. The painful impression I have received since living among the Russians, is increased as I discover the true value of this oppressed people. The idea of what they could do if they were free, heightens the anger which I feel in seeing them as

  a night's lodging.27

  they now are. The ambassadors with their families and suites, as well as the strangers who have been presented, are boarded and lodged at the expence of the emperor. For this object a large and charming edifice, called the English palace, is reserved. The building is a quarter of a league from the imperial palace, in a beautiful park, laid out in the English taste, and so picturesque that it appears natural. The beauty of the waters, and the irregularities of the surface, an irregularity rarely seen in the environs of Petersburg, render it very pleasant. This year, the number of foreigners being greater than usual, there is not room for them in the English palace. I do not therefore sleep there, but I dine there daily with the diplomatic corps and seven or eight hundred other individuals, at a perfectly well-served table. This is certainly magnificent hospitality. In lodging at the village, it is necessary, after dressing in uniform, to proceed in my carriage, in order to dine at this table, at which presides one of the great officers of the empire.

  For the night, the director general of the theatres of the court has placed at my disposal two actor's boxes in the theatre of Peterhoff, and this l0d2;ino· is the envy of every one.* It lacks nothing except a bed ; and fortunately I brought my little iron couch from Petersburg. It is an indispensable necessary for an European travelling in Russia, who does not wish to pass the night on a seat, or on the floor. TVe carry our beds here as we woidd our cloaks in Spain.

  * In the village there are only a small number ol` dirty houses, in which the rooms are let at the rate of 200 to 500 roubles per night.

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  GRAVITY OF ТПЕ PEOPLE.

  For want of straw, which is a rare thing in a region that grows no wheat, my mattrass is filled with hay.

  In any other country, so great an assemblage of people would produce overwhelming noise and disturbance. In Russia every thing passes with gravity, every thing takes the character of a ceremony ; to see so many young persons united together for their pleasure, or for that of others, not daring either to laugh, to sing, to quarrel, to play, or to dance, one might imagine them a troop of prisoners about to proceed to their destination. That which is wanted in all I see here is not, assuredly, grandeur or magnificence, nor even taste and elegance : it is gaiety. Gaiety cannot be compelled; on the contrary, com-pulsion makes it fly, just as the line and the level destroy the picturesque in scenery. I see only in Russia that which is symmetrically correct, which carries with it an air of command and regulation ; but that which would give a value to this order, variety, from whence springs harmony, is here unknown.

  The soldiers at their bivouac are subjected to a more severe discipline than in their barracks. Such rigour, in time of peace, in the open field, and on a day of festival, reminds me of the remark of the Grand Duke Constantine. " I do not like war," he said ; " it spoils the soldiers, dirts their uniforms, and destroys discipline."

  The prince did not give all his reasons for disliking war, as is proved by his conduct in Poland.

  On the day of the ball and the illumination, Ave repaired to the imperial palace at seven o'clock. The courtiers, the ambassadors, the invited foreigners, and the soi-disa?it pop;ilaee, entered the state apart-

  BALL AT THE IMPERIAL PALACE. 29

  ments without any prescribed order. All the men, except the mugics, who wore their national costume, and the citizens who were robed in the cafetan, carried the tabarro, or Venetian mantle above their uniform, which wTas a strictly enforced regulation, this fete being called a masked ball.

  We remained a considerable time, much pressed by the crowd, waiting for the appearance of the emperor and his family. As soon as this sun of the palace began to rise, the space opened before him, and, followed by his splendid cortege, he proceeded, without being even incommoded by the crowd, through the halls into which the moment before you mia`ht have supposed another person could not have penetrated. Wherever his majesty passed, the waves of peasant,? rolled back, closing instantly behind him like waters in a vessel's track.

  The noble aspect of the monarch, whose head rose above all heads, awed this agitated sea into respect. It reminded me of the Xeptune of Virgil; — he could not be more an emperor than he is. He danced, during two or three successive hours, polonaises with the ladies
of his family and court. This dance was on former occasions no more than a cadenced and ceremonious march, but on the present, it was a real movement to the sound of music.

  The emperor and his cortege wound, in a surprising manner, through the crowd, which, without foreseeing the direction he was about to take, always gave way in time, so as never to incommode the progress of the monarch.

  He spoke to several of the men robed and bearded a laRusse: at length, towards ten o'clock, at which hour С 3

  30A DISASTER AT THE FETE.

  it became dark, the illuminations, of which I have already spoken, commenced.

  We had expected, during a great part of the day, that, owing to the weather, they would not have taken place. About three o'clock, while at dinner in the English palace, a squall of wind passed over Peterhoff, violently agitated the trees, and strewed the park with their branches. While coolly watching the storm, we little thought that the sisters, mothers, and friends of crowds seated at the same table with us were perishing on the water, under its terrible agency. Our thoughtless curiosity was approaching to gaiety at the very time that a great number of small vessels, which had left Petersburg for Peterhoff, were foundering in the gulf. It is now admitted that two hundred persons were drowned ; others say fifteen hundred or two thousand : no one knows the truth, and the journals will not speak of the occurrence ; this would be to distress the empress, and to accuse the emperor.

  The disaster was kept a secret during the entire evening, nothing transpired until after the fete ; and this morning the court neither appears more nor less sad than usual. There, etiquette forbids to speak of that which occupies the thoughts of all; and even beyond the palace, little is said. The life of man in this country is such as to be deemed of trifling importance even by themselves. Each one feels his existence to hang upon a thread.

  Every year accidents, similar, although less extensive, cast a gloom over the fete of Peterhoff, which would change into an act of deep mourning, a solemn funeral, if others, like me, thought upon all that this

  THE EMPRESS.

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  magnificence costs. But here, I am the only one who reflects. Yesterday, superstitious minds were presented with more than one gloomy prognostic. The weather, which had been fine for three weeks, changed upon the birthday of the empress. The image of that princess would not light up. The man charged with superintending this essential part of the illumination, ascended to the summit of the pyramid, but the wind extinguished his lamps as quickly as he lighted them. He reascended several times ; at length his foot slipped, and he fell from a height of seventy feet, and was killed on the spot.

  The shocking thinness of the empress, her air of languor, the diminished lustre of her eye, rendered these presages more ominous. Her life, like n disease, may be said to be mortal: fetes and balls every evening ! There is no choice here but that of dying of amusement, or of ennui.

  For the empress as well as the zealous courtiers, the spectacle of parades and reviews commences early in the morning. These are always followed by some receptions ; the empress then retires for a quarter of an hour, after which she rides out in her carriage for two hours. She next takes a bath before again going out on horseback. Returned a second time, she has some more visiters to receive : this over, she proceeds to inspect certain useful institutions superintended by herself, or by some of those honoured with her intimacy. From thence she follows the emperor to the camp : there being always one somewhere near. They return to dance; and thus her days, her years, and her life arc consumed.

  Those who have not the courage or the strength С 4

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  THE EMPRESS.

  necessary to pursue this dreadful life, are not in favour.

  The empress said to me the other day, in speaking of a very distinguished but delicate woman, " She is always ill!" The tone and manner in which this was spoken convinced me that the fate of a family was decided. In a sphere where good intentions are not sufficient, an indisposition is equivalent to a disgrace.

  The empress does not consider herself more excused than others from paying her personal court. She cannot for a moment bear that the emperor should leave her. Princes are made of iron ! This high-minded woman wishes, and at moments believes, herself free from human infirmities; but the total privation of physical and mental repose, the want of a continuous occupation, the absence of all solid conversation, the acquired necessity of excitement, all tend to nurse a fever which is sapping life. And this dreadful mode of existence has become as indispensable as it is fatal. She cannot now either abandon it or sustain it. Atrophy is feared, and, above all, the winter of Petersburg is dreaded; but nothing can induce her to pass six months away from the emperor.*

  in observing her interesting though emaciated figure wandering like a spectre through a scene of festivity celebrated in her honour, and which she will perhaps never witness again, my heart sunk within me, and, dazzled as I may have been with human pomp and grandeur, I turned to reflect on

  * The following year, the waters of Ems restored the health of the empress.

  THE ILLUMINATIONS.

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  the miseries to which our nature is exposed. Alas ! the loftier the height from which we fall, the severer is the shock. The great expiate in one day, even in this world, all the privations of the poor during a long life.

  The inequality of conditions disappears under the levelling pressure of suffering. Time is but an illusion, which passion disperses. The intensity of the feeling, whether of joy or of grief, is the measure of the reality.

  Persons, even of the highest elevation, act unwisely when they pretend to amuse themselves on any fixed day. An anniversary regularly celebrated only aids in more deeply impressing the mind with the progress of time, by suggesting comparison between the present and the past. The memories of the past, celebrated with rejoicings, always inspire us with a crowd of melancholy ideas, visions of vanished early youth, and prospects of declining life. At the return of each yearly fete we have ever some fewer joys, some increased sorrows, to contemplate. The change being so sad, were it not better to let the days fly past in silence ? Anniversaries are the plaintive voices of the tomb, the solemn echoes of time.

  Yesterday, at the close of the ball, we supped: then almost melted, for the heat of the apartments in which the crowd was gathered was insupportable, we entered certain carriages belonging to the court, called lignes, and made the tour of the illuminations ; beyond the influence of which the night was very dark and cool. The incredible profusion of lights spread over the enchanted forest produced, however, within с 5

  34

  EUSSIAN WOMEN.

  its shades an extraordinary heat, and we were warmed as well as dazzled.

  The lignes are a species of carriage with double seats, on which eight persons can conveniently sit, back to back. Their shape, gilding, and the antkµie trappings of the horses impart to them an air of grandeur and originality.

  Objects of luxury impressed with a really royal character are now rarely seen in Europe.

  The number of these equipages is considerable. They form one of the magnificent displays of the fete of Peterhoff. There was room in them for all invited, except the serfs and citizens.

  A master of the ceremonies had pointed out to me the ligne in which I was to ride, but in the disorder of the departure no one kept his place. I could neither find my servant nor my cloak, and at length was obliged to mount one of the last of the lignes, where I seated myself by the side of a Russian lady who had not been to the ball, but who had come from Petersburg to show the illumination to her daughters. The conversation of these ladies, who appeared to know all the families of the court, was frank, in which respect it differed from that of those connected with the palace. The mother immediately commenced conversing with me: her manner had that facility and good taste about it which discovered the woman of rank. I recognised in her conversation, as I had already done elsewhere, that when the Russian women are natural, mildness and
indulgence towards others is not a prominent trait in their character. She named to me all the persons we saw passing us; for in this procession

  A NIGHT RIDE IN THE FAKE.35

  the train of lignes often divided and filed before each other at the crossings of the alleys.

  If I were not afraid of wearying the reader, 1 should exhaust all the formulæ of admiration in repeating that I have never seen any thing so extraordinary as this illuminated park, traversed in solemn silence by the carriages of the court, in the midst of a crowd as dense as was that of the peasants in the saloons of the palace a few minutes before.

  We rode for about an hour among enchanted groves, and made the tom` of a lake situated at the extremity of the park, and called the lake of Marly. Versailles and all the magical creations of Louis XIV. haunted the imagination of the princes of Europe for more than a hundred years. It was at this lake of Marly that the illuminations appeared to me the most extraordinary. At the extremity of the piece of water, — I was going to say the piece of gold, so luminous and brilliant did it appear, — stands a house which was the residence of Peter the Great, and which was illuminated like the others. The water and the trees added singularly to the effect of the lights. We passed before grottoes, whose radiant interior was seen through a cascade of water falling over the mouth of the brilliant cavern. The imperial palace only was not illuminated, but its white walls became brilliant by the immense masses of light reflected upon them from all parts of the park.