At the expiration of a quarter of an hour, Antonio was seated quietly by my side in the calèche; in
260
RETURN TO MOSCOW.
another ten minutes, he was as fast asleep as if he had not been the means of savins; all our lives.
While they put the harness in order, I approached the cause of all this mischief. The groom of the elephant had prudently led him into the wood adjoining one of the side-alleys of the road. The formidable beast appeared to me yet larger after the peril to which he had exposed me. His trunk, busy in the top of the bireh-trees, reminded me of a boa twisted among the palms. I began to make excuses for my horses, and left him, giving thanks to God for having escaped a death which at one moment appeared to me inevitable.
I am now at Moscow. An excessive heat has not ceased to reign there for several months; I find again the same temperature that I left: the summer is indeed quite extraordinary. The drought sends up into the air, above the most populous quarters of the city, a reddish dust, which, towards evening, produces effects as fantastical as the Bengal lights. This even-ing, at sunset, I contemplated the spectacle from the Kremlin, the survey of which I have made with as much admiration, and almost as much surprise, as I did at first.
The city of men was separated from the palace of giants, by a glory like one of Corregio's: the whole was a sublime union of the marvels of painting and poetry.
The Kremlin, as the loftiest point in the picture, received on its breast the last streaks of day, while the mists of night had already enveloped the rest of
A FAREAVELL TO THE KUEMLIN.2G1
the city. The imagination owned no bounds; the universe, the infinite Deity itself, seemed to be grasped by the witness of the majestic spectacle. It was the living model of Martin's most extraordinary paintings. My heart beat with fear and admiration: I saw the whole cohort of the supernatural inmates of the fortress; their forms shone like demons painted on a ground of gold ; they moved glittering towards the regions of night, from which they seemed about to tear off the veil; I expected to hear the thunder: it was fearfully beautiful.
The white and irregular masses of the palace reflected unequally the oblicµiely-borne beams of a flickering twilight. This variety of shades was the effect of the different degrees of inclination of different walls, and of the projections and recesses which constitute the beauty of the barbaric architecture, whose bold caprices, if they do not charm the taste, speak impressively to the imagination. It was so astonishing, so beautiful, that I have not been able to resist once more naming the Kremlin.
But let not the reader be alarmed —this is an adieu.
The plaintive song of some workmen, echoing from vault to vault, from battlement to battlement, from precipice to precipice — precipices built by man — penetrated to my heart, which was absorbed in inexpressible melancholy. "Wandering lights appeared in the depths of the royal edifice; and along the deserted galleries, and empty barbicans, came the voice of man, which I was astonished to hear at that hour among these solitary palaces ; as was likewise the bird of night, who, disturbed in his mysterious loves, fled from the light of the torches, and, seeking refuge
262 EFFECT OF THE EMPEROR'S PRESENCE.
among the highest steeples and towers, there spread the news of the unusual disorder.
That disorder was the consequence of the works commanded by the emperor to welcome his own approaching arrival: he fetes himself, and illuminates his Kremlin when he comes to Moscow. Meantime, as the darkness increased, the city brightened: its illuminated streets, shops, coffee-houses, and theatres, rose out of the dark like magic. The day was also the anniversary of the emperor's coronation—another motive for illuminating. The Russians have so many joyful days to celebrate that, were I in their place, I should never put out my lamps.
The approach of the magician has already begun to be felt. Three weeks ago Moscow was only inhabited by merchants, who proceeded about their business in drowskas: now, noble coursers, splendid equipages, gilded uniforms, great lords, and numerous valets, enliven the streets and obstruct the porticos. " The emperor is thirty leagues off: who knows if he will not be here to-morrow, or perhaps to-night ? It is said he was here yesterday, incognito: who can prove that he is not here now ? " And this doubt, this hope, animates all hearts; it changes the faces and languages of all persons, and the aspect of every thing. Moscow, the merchant-city, is now as much troubled and agitated as a citizen's wife expecting the visit of a great nobleman. Deserted palaces and gardens are re-opened; flowers and torches vie with each other in brilliancy ; flattering speeches begin to murmur through the crowd: I fear lest I myself should catch the influence of the illusion, if not
MILITARY FETE AT BORODINO.263
through selfish motives, at least from a love of the marvellous.
An Emperor of Russia at Moscow, is a king of Assyria in Babylon.
His presence is at this moment, they say, working miracles at Borodino. An entire city is there created — a city just sprung out of the desert, and destined to endure for a week : even gardens have been planted there round a palace; the trees, destined soon to die, have been brought from a distance at great expense, and are so placed as to represent anticpie shades. The llussians, though they have no past, are, like all enlightened parvenus, who well know what is thought of their sudden fortunes, more particularly fond of imitating the effects of time. In this world of fairy work, all that speaks of duration is imitated by things the most ephemeral. Several theatres are also raised on the plain of Borodino; and the drama serves as an interlude between the warlike pantomimes.
The programme of the fete is the exact repetition of the battle, which we called Moskowa, and which the Russians have christened Borodino. Wishing to approach as nearly as possible to the reality, they have convoked from the most distant parts of the empire, all the surviving veterans of 1812 who were in the action. The reader may imagine the astonishment and distress of these brave men, suddenly torn from their repose, and obliged to repair from the extremities of Siberia, Kamtschatka, Lapland, the Caspian, or the Caucasus, to a theatre which they are told was the theatre of their glory — not their fortune, but their renown, a miserable recompence for a superhuman devotion. Why revive these questions and
264 author's motive for not attending.
recollections ? Why this bold evocation of so many mute and forgotten spectres ? It is the last judgment of the conscripts of 1812. If they wished to make a satire upon military life, they could not take a better course: it лгав thus that Holbein, iu his Dance of Death, caricatured human life. Numbers of these men, awakened out of their sleep on the brink of their graves, have not mounted a horse for many years ; and here they are obliged, in order to please a master whom they have never seen, again to play over their long-forgotten parts. They have so much dread of not satisfying the expectations of the capricious sovereign who thus troubles their old age, that they say the representation of the battle is more terrible to them than was the reality. This useless ceremony, this fanciful war, will make an end of the soldiers whom the real event spared : it is a cruel pleasure, worthy of one of the successors of the czar who caused living bears to be introdiiced in the masquerade that he gave on the nuptials of his buffoon : that czar was Peter the Great. All these diversions have their source in the same feeling — contempt for human life.
The emperor had permitted me — which means to say that he commanded me — to be present at Borodino. It is a favour of which I feci myself to have become unworthy. I did not at the time reflect upon the extreme difficulty of the part a Frenchman would have to perform in this historical comedy; and I also had not seen the monstrous work of the Kremlin, which he wTould expect me to praise; above all, I was then ignorant of the history of the Princess Troubctzkoï, which I have the greater difficulty in
author's motives for not attending. 265
banishing from my mind, because I may not speak of it. These reasons united have induced me to decide upon remaining in obli
vion. It is an easy resolve; for the contrary would give me trouble, if I may judge by the useless efforts of a crowd of Frenchmen and foreigners of all countries, who in vain solicit permission to be present at Borodino.
All at once the police of the camp has assumed extreme severity: these new precautions are attributed to unpleasant revelations that have been recently made. The sparks of revolt are every where feeding under the ashes of liberty. I do not know even whether, under actual circumstances, it would be possible for me to avail myself of the invitation the emperor gave me, both at Petersburg and, afterwards when I took leave of him, at Peterhoff. " I shall be very glad if you will attend the ceremony at Borodino, where we lay the first stone of a monument in honour of General Bagration." These were his last words. *
I see here persons who were invited, yet are not able to approach the camp. Permissions are refused to every body, except a few privileged Englishmen and some members of the diplomatic corps. All the rest, young and old, military men and diplomatists, foreigners and Russians, have returned to Moscow, mortified by their unavailing efforts. I have written to a person connected with the emperor's household, regretting my inability to avail myself of the favour his Majesty had accorded in permitting me to witness
* I learnt afterwards, at Petersburg, that orders had been
given to permit my reaching Borodino, where I was expected.
VOL. III.N
266
PEINCE WITGENSTEIN.
the manœuvres, and pleading as an excuse the state of my eyes, which are not yet cured.
The dust of the camp is, I am told, insupportable to every body; it might cost me the loss of my sight. The Duke of Leuchtenberg must be endowed with an unusual quantum of indifference to be able coolly to witness the spectacle prepared for him. They assure me that in the representation of the battle, the emperor will command the corps of Prince Eugene, father of the young duke.
I should regret not seeing a spectacle so curious in its moral aspect, if I could be present as a disinterested spectator; but, without having the renown of a father to maintain, I am a son of France, and I feel it is not for me to find any pleasure in witnessing a representation of war, made at great cost, solely with the view of exalting the national pride of the Russians, on the occasion of our disasters. As to the sight itself, I can picture it very easily ; I have seen plenty of straight lines in Russia. Besides, in reviews and moek fights, the eye never gets beyond a great cloud of dust.
The Russians have reason to pride themselves on the issue of the campaign of 1812 ; but the general who laid its plan, he who first advised the gradual retreat of the Russian army towards the centre of the empire, with the view of enticing the exhausted French after it, — the man, in fact, to whose genius Russia owed her deliverance—Prince Witgenstein, is not represented in this grand repetition ; because, unfortunately for him, he is living, half disgraced: he resides on his estates; his name will not be pronounced at Borodino, though an eternal monument is
HISTORICAL TRAVESTY.267
to be raised 'to the glory of General Bagration, who fell on the field of battle.
Under despotic governments, dead warriors are great favourites: here, behold one decreed to be the hero of a campaign in which he bravely fell, but which he never directed.
This absence of historical probity, this abuse of the will of one man, who imposes his views upon all, who dictates to the people Mdiatever they are to think on events of national interest, appears to me the most revolting of all the impieties of arbitrary government. Strike, torture bodies, but do not crush minds : let man judge of things according to the intimations of Providence, according to his conscience and his reason. The people must be called impious who devoutly submit to this continual violation of the respect due to all that is most holy in the sight of God and man, — the sanctity of truth.
I have received an account of the manoeuvres at Borodino, which is not calculated to cahn my wrath.
Every body has read a description of the battle of Moskowa, and history has viewed it as one of those that we have won; for it was hazarded by the Emperor Alexander against the advice of his generals, as a last effort to save his capital, which capital was taken four days later; though a heroic conflagration, combined with a deadly frost, and with the improvidence of our chieftain, blinded on this occasion by an excess of confidence in his lucky star, decided our disaster. Thus favoured by the issue of the campaign, here is N 2
268
HISTORICAL
the Emperor of Russia flattering himself with treating as a victory, a battle lost by his army within four days' journey of his capital: he has distorted a military scene which he professes to reproduce with scrupulous exactitude. The following is the lie which he has given to history in the eyes of all Europe.
AVhen they came to the moment in which the French, who had been dreadfully galled by the Russian artillery, charged and carried the batteries that decimated them with the daring that is so well known, the Emperor Nicholas, instead of suffering, as both his justice and dignity demanded, that the celebrated manoeuvre should be executed, became the flatterer of the lowest of his people, and caused the corps which represented the division of our army to which we owed the defeat of the Russians and the capture of Moscow, to fall back a distance of three leagues, Imagine my gratitude to God for having given me grace to refuse being present at this lying pantomime !
The military comedy is followed by an order of the day, which will be considered outrageous in Europe, if it be published there in the shape that it is here. According to this singular expose of the ideas of an individual — not the events of a campaign — " It was voluntarily that the Russians retired beyond Moscow, which proves that they did not lose the battle of Borodino; (why then did they decline continuing it?) and the bones of their presumptuous enemies," adds the order of the day, "scattered from the holy city to Niemen, attest the triumph of the defenders of the country."
Without waiting for the solemn entry of the em-
TRAVE¾TY.269
peror into Moscow, I shall leave in two days' time for Petersburg.
Here end the chapters that were written by the traveller in the form of letters to his friends: the relation which follows completes his recollections: it was written at various places, commencing at Petersburg, in 1839, afterwards being continued in Germany, and more recently at Paris.
N 3
270
ARREST OF M. PERNET.
CHAR XXXVI
RETURN FROM MOSCOW TO PETERSBURG.—HISTORY OF M. PERNET, A FRENCH PRISONER IN RUSSIA. —HIS ARREST. —CONDUCT OF
HIS FELLOW TRAVELLER.THE FRENCH CONSUL AT MOSCOW.
EFFECTS OF IMAGINATION. ADVICE OF A RUSSIANGREAT
NOVGOROD.SOUVENIRS OF IVAN IV. ARRIVAL AT PETERS
BURG.— M. DE BARANTE. — SEQUEL OF THE HISTORY OF M.
PERNET. INTERIOR OF A MOSCOW PRISON. A VISIT TO COL-
PINA. — ORIGIN OF THE LAVAL FAMILY IN RUSSIA. — THF. ACADEMY OF PAINTING. —THE ARTS IN RUSSIA.—M. BRÜLOW. — INFLUENCE OF THE NORTH UPON THE ARTS. —MADEMOISELLE
TAGLIONI AT PETERSBURG. — ABOLITION OF THE UNIATES.
SUPERIORITY OF A REPRESENTATIVE FORM OF GOVERNMENT.
DEPARTURE FROM RUSSIA. THE FEELINGS OF THE AUTHOR.
—A SINCERE LETTER.— REASONS FOR NOT RETURNING THROUGH POLAND.
At the moment I was about to quit Moscow, a singular circumstance attracted all my attention, and obliged me to delay my departure.
I had ordered post-horses at seven o'clock in the morning: to my great surprise my valet-de-chambre awoke me at four, and on my asking the cause of this unnecessary hurry, he answered that he did not like to delay informing me of a fact which he had just learnt, and which appeared to him veiy serious. The following is the sum of what he related.
A Frenchman, whose name is M. Louis Pernet, and who arrived a few days ago in Moscow, where he lodged at a public hotel, has been arrested in the middle of the night — this very night, — and,
after being deprived of his papers, has been taken to the
ARREST OF M. PERNET.271
city prison, and there placed in a cell. Such is the
account which the waiter at our inn gave to my ser
vant, who, after many questions, further learnt that
M. Pernet is a young man about twenty-six years
old, and of feeble frame, which redoubles the fears
that are entertained for him ; that he passed through
Moscow last year, when he stayed at the house of a
Russian friend, who afterwards took him into the
country. This Riissian is now absent, and the unfor
tunate prisoner has no other acquaintance here except
another Frenchman, a M. R, in whose com
pany, it is said, he has been travelling from the north
of Russia, This M. Rlodged in the same hotel
with the prisoner. His name struck me the moment
I heard it, for it is the same as that of the dark man
with whom I dined a few days before at the house of
Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia Page 85
