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

by Astolphe De Custine

  One day, near the end of the winter of 1840, I was informed that a stranger was at my door, and wished to speak with me. I desired that he would give his name : he replied that he would give it to me only. I refused to see him ; he persisted ; I again refused. At last, renewing his entreaties, he sent up a line of writing without any signature, to say that I could not refuse listening to a man who owed to me his life, and who only wished to thank me.

  This language appeared extraordinary. I ordered the stranger to be introduced. On entering the room he said —

  0Г M. PERNET.

  283

  " Sir, it was only yesterday I learnt your address : my name is Pernet; and I come to express to you my gratitude ; for I was told at Petersburg that it is to yon I owe my liberty, and consequently my life."

  After the first surprise which such an address caused me, I began to notiee the person of M. Pernet. He is one of that numerous class of young Frenchmen who have the appearance and the temperament of the men of southern lands; his eyes and hair are blaek, his cheeks hollow, his eountenanee every where equally pale ; he is short and slight in figure ; and he appeared to be suffering, though rather morally than physieally. He discovered that I knew some members of his family settled in Savoy, who are among the most respectable people of that land of honest men. He told me that he was an advocate; and he related that he had been detained in the prison of Moseow for three weeks, four days of which time he was placed in the eells. We shall see by his recital the way in whieh a prisoner is treated in this abode. My imagination had not approached the reality.

  Tln>, two first days he was left without food! No one came near him ; and he believed for forty-eight hours that it was determined to starve him to death in his prison. The only sound that he heard was that of the strokes of the rod, which, from five o'eloek in the morning until night, were inflicted upon the unhappy slaves who were sent by their masters to this place, to receive correction. Add to that frightful sound, the sobs, the tears, the sereams of the victims, mingled with the menaces and imprecations of the tormentors, and you will form some faint idea of the moral as well as physical sufferings of our unhappy countryman during four weary days, and while still remaining ignorant of his crime.

  After having thus penetrated against his will into the profound mystery of a Russian prison, he believed, not without reason, that he was destined to end his days thei`e; for he said to himself, " If there had been any intention to release me, it is not here that I should be confined by men who fear nothing so mueh as to have their seeret barbarity divulged."

  A slight partition alone separated his narrow eell from the inner court, where these executions were perpetrated.

  284

  INTERIOR OF

  The rod, which, since the amelioration of manners, usually replaces the knout of Mongolic memory, is formed of a cane split into three pieces, an instrument which fetches off the skin at every stroke; at the fifth, the victim loses nearly all power to cry, his weakened voice can then only utter a prolonged, sobbing groan. This horrible rattle in the throat of the tortured creatures pierced the heart of the prisoner, and presaged to him a fate which he dared not look in the face.

  M. Pernet understands Eussian; he was therefore present, without seeing any thing, at many private tortures; among others, at those of two young girls, who worked under a fashionable milliner in Moscow. These unfortunate creatures were flogged before the eyes even of their mistress, who reproached them with having lovers, and with having so far forgotten themselves as to bring them into her house — the house of a milliner ! — what an enormity! Meanwhile this virago exhorted the executioners to strike harder : one of the girls begged for mercy: they said that she was nearly killed, that she was covered with blood. No matter ! She had carried her audacity so far as to say that she was less culpable than her mistress ; and the latter redoubled her severity. M. Pernet assured me, observing that he thought I might doubt his assertion, that each of the unhappy girls received, at different intervals, a hundred and eighty blows. " I suffered too much in counting them," he added, " to be deceived in the number."

  A man feels the approach of insanity when present at such horrors, and yet unable to succour the victims.

  Afterwards, serfs and servants were brought by stewards, or sent by their masters, with the request that they might be punished : there was nothing, in short, but scenes of atrocious vengeance and frightful despair, all hidden from the public eye.* The unhappy prisoner longed for the obscurity of night, because the darkness brought with it silence ; and though his thoughts then terrified him, he preferred the evils of imagination to those of reality. This is always the case with real sufferers. It is

  * See, in Dickens's American Journey, extracts from the United States' papers, concerning the treatment of the slaves ; presenting a remarkable resemblance between the excesses of despotism and the abuses of democracy.

  A MOSCOW PRISON.

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  only the dreamers, who have comfortable beds and good tables, that pretend the evils we fancy exceed those that we feel.

  At last, after four times twenty-four hours of a torment which would, I think, surpass all our efforts to picture, M. Pernet was taken from his dungeon, still without any explanation, and transferred to another part of the prison.

  From thence he wrote to M. de Barante, by General,

  on whose good offices he thought he could reckon.

  The letter did not reach its address ; and when afterwards the writer demanded an explanation of this circumstance, the Cíe-neral excused himself by subterfuges, and concluded by swearing to M. Pernet, on the gospel, that the letter had not been put in the hands of the minister of police, and never would be! This was the utmost extent of devotion that the prisoner could obtain from his friend: and this is the fate of human affections when they pass under the yoke of despotism.

  At the end of three weeks — which had been an eternity to M. Pernet — he was released without any form of process, and without even being able to learn the cause of his imprisonment.

  His reiterated questions, addressed to the director of police in Moscow, procured for him no explanations : he was merely told that his ambassador had claimed him; and this was accompanied with an order to leave Russia. He asked, and obtained permission to take the route of Petersburg.

  He wished to thank the French ambassador for the liberty which he owed to him ; and also to obtain some information as to the cause of the treatment he had undergone. M. deBarante endeavoured, but in vain, to divert him from the project of addressing M. de Benkendorf, the minister of the Imperial police. The liberated man demanded an audience : it was granted him. He said to the minister that, being ignorant of the cause of the punishment that he had received, he wished to know his crime before leaving Russia.

  The statesman briefly answered, that he would do well to carry his inquiries on the subject no further, and dismissed him, repeating the order that he should, without delay, leave the empire.

  Such is all the information that I could obtain from M. Pernet. This young man, like every one else who has lived some time in Russia, has acquired a mysterious and reserved

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  A VISIT

  tone of language, to which foreigners are as liable as the native inhabitants. One would say that in that empire, a secret weighs. upon all minds.

  On my continuing my inquiries, M. Pernet further stated, that on his first journey to the country, they had given him, in his passport, the title of merchant, and on the second, that of advocate. He added a more serious circumstance, namely, that before reaching Petersburg, while in a steam-boat on the Baltic, he had freely expressed his opinion of Russian despotism before several individuals whom he did not know.

  He assured me, on leaving, that his memory could recall no other circumstance that could account for the treatment he had received at Moscow. I have never seen him since ; though, by a singular chance, I met, two years after, a member of his family, who said he knew of the services
I had rendered to his young relative, and thanked me for them. This family, I repeat, are respected by all who know them in the kingdom of Sardinia.

  The last moments of my stay in Petersburg were employed in inspecting various establishments that I had not seen on my visit to that city.

  Princeshowed me, among other curiosities,

  the immense works of Colpina, the arsenal of the Russian arsenals, which is situated some leagues from the capital. In this manufactory are prepared all the articles required for the Imperial marine. Colpina is reached by a road seven leagues in length, the last half of which is execrable. The establishment is directed by an Englishman, M. "Wilson, who is honoured with the rank of General (all Russia is converted into an army). He exhibited to us his machines, like a true Russian engineer, not permitting us to overlook a nail or a screw: under his escort we surveyed about twenty workshops, of enormous size. The extreme

  TO COLPINA.

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  complaisance of the director deserved much gratitude, though I expressed but little, and that little was more than I felt: fatigue renders a man almost as ungrateful as ennui.

  The object that we most admired in this tedious inspection was a machine of Bramah's, invented to prove the strength of the largest chain-cables : the enormous links that can resist the force of this machine may hold the mightiest vessels of war at anchor in the highest seas. An ingenious application of water-pressure, to measure the strength of iron, is the invention which appeared to me so marvellous.

  We also examined sluices destined to serve in extraordinary floods of water. It is especially in springtime that they are useful. Without them, the stream which moves the various machines would cause incalculable damage. The canals of these sluices are lined with thick sheets of copper, because that metal is found to resist the winters better than granite. I was told that I should see nothing like them elsewhere.

  When we entered the carriage to return to Petersburg, it was already night, and very cold. The length of the road was lightened by a charrning conversation, of which I have retained one anecdote. It will serve to prove to what extent the creative power of an absolute sovereign can be carried. Hitherto I had only seen it exercised upon buildings, upon the dead, upon historic facts, upon prisoners, — in short, upon all things that could not protest against an abuse of power : this time we shall see a Russian emperor imposing upon one of the most illustrious families of France, a relative of whom it knew nothing.

  Under the reign of Paul I. a Frenchman of the

  288ORIGIN OF THE LAVAL FAMILY.

  name of Lovel, young and agreeable in person, gained the affections of a very wealthy and high-born maiden. Her family were hostile to the union, on account of the foreigner's possessing neither name nor fortune. The two lovers, reduced to despair, had recourse to a romantic expedient. They stood in wait for the emperor, in some street by which he was to pass, threw themselves at his feet, and besought his protection. Paul, who was good-natured when he was not mad, promised the consent of the family, which he doubtless procured by more than one means, and among others, by this : " Mademoiselle Kaminska shall marry," said the emperor, "M. the Count de Laval, a young French emigre of illustrious family, and the possessor of a considerable fortune."

  Thus endowed, the young Frenchman was united to the object of his affections.

  To prove the words of the sovereign, M. de Laval caused his escutcheon to be proudly sculptured over the door of his mansion.

  Unfortunately, fifteen years afterwards, a M. de Montmorency Laval journeyed into Russia; and seeing, by chance, his arms above a door, he made inquiries, and learnt the history of M. Lovel.

  On his representations, the Emperor Alexander caused the escutcheon of the Lavals to be taken down, and the door of M. Lovel remained stripped of its glory; which has not, however, prevented him up to this day from doing the honours of an excellent house in Petersburg, which will be always called the Hotel de Laval, out of respect for the memory of the Emperor Paul, to whom an expiatory veneration is indeed owing.

  THE ACADEMY OF PAINTING.289

  The day after my journey to Colpina, I visited the Academy of Painting, a superb and stately edifice, which up to the present time contains but few good works. How can they be expected in a land where the young artists wear uniform? I found all the pupils of the Academy enrolled, dressed, and commanded like marine cadets. This fact alone denotes a profound contempt for the object pretended to be patronised, or rather a great ignorance of the nature and the mysteries of art; professed indifference would be less indicative of barbarism. There is nothing free in Russia except objects for which the government does not care ; it cares only too much for the arts; but it is ignorant that they cannot dispense with liberty, and that this sympathy between the works of genius and the independence of man would alone attest the nobleness of the artist's profession.

  I went over numerous studios, and found there distinguished landscape-painters : their compositions display imagination and even colour. I particularly admired a picture representing St. Petersburg on a summer's night, by M. YorobiefF: it is beautiful as nature, poetical as truth. This picture reminded me of my first arrival in Russia, when the summer nights consisted of no more than two twilights : the effect of such perpetual day, which pierces through obscurity like a bright lamp through a gauze veil, could not be better rendered. I saw again the polar light, so different from the colouring of other scenes, which I had first beheld on the Baltic. To be able thus exactly to characterise the special phenomena of nature, proves a high degree of merit.

  There is much talk in Russia of the talent of

  VOL. III.О

  290INFLUENCE OP THE NORTH

  Brulow. His Last Day of Pompeii produced, it is said, some sensation even in Italy. This enormous . piece of canvass is now the glory of the Russian school: let not the reader ridicule the designation : I saw a saloon, on the door of which these words were inscribed—"The Russian School/" The colouring of Brulow's painting appeared to me to be false, though certainly the subject is calculated to conceal this fault: for who knows the shade of the tints that clad the structures of Pompeii on their last day ? The painter has a hard, dry touch, but he exhibits power : his conceptions lack neither imagination nor originality. His heads display truth and variety : if he understood the management of the ehiaro oscuro, he might some day deserve the reputation that is given to him here : at present he is deficient in natural style, in colouring, in lightness, and in grace: there is no want of a species of wild poetry in his compositions, but their general effect is disagreeable. His style, which is stiff, without being devoid of a certain nobleness, reminds one of the imitators of the school of David. In a painting of the Assumption, which we are obliged to admire at Petersburg, because it is the work of the famous Brulow, I observed clouds so heavy that they might have been sent to represent rocks at the Opera.

  There are heads, however, in the Pompeii picture which discover real talent. The painting, notwithstanding its faults as a composition, would gain in celebrity by being engraved; for it is in the colouring that its chief defects lie.

  It is said that since his return to Russia, the painter has lost much of bis enthusiasm for the art. How

  UPON THE ARTS.

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  I pity him for having seen Italy, since he was obliged to return to the north ! He does not work hard ; and unfortunately his rapid facility, which is here viewed as a merit, appears but too plainly in his pieces. It is only by assiduous pains and labour that he could succeed in conquering the stiffness of his design, and the crudeness of his colouring. Great painters know the difficulty of learning to design without the pencil, to paint by the intershading and blending of colours, to efface from the canvass, lines which exist nowhere in nature, to show the air, which exists everywhere, to conceal art,—in short, faithfully to depict the real, yet at the same time to ennoble it.

  I am told that he passes much more of his time in drinkin2; than in working: I blame him less th
an I pity him. Here, every thing is good if it only tend to impart a glow : wine is the sun of Russia. If to the misery of being a Russian is added the circumstance of being a painter, the individual ought to expatriate himself. Must not the land, where there is night for three months of the year, and where the snow sheds brighter radiance than the sun, be a land of exile to the painter ?

  By endeavouring to reproduce the singularities of nature under these latitudes, a few character-painters may win for themselves the honour of a place on the steps of the temple of arts ; but an historical painter ought to fly this climate. Peter the Great laboured in vain; nature will always place bounds to the fancies of men, were they justified by the ukases of twenty czars.

  I have seen one work of M. Brulow's which is truly о 2

  292MADEMOISELLE TAGLIOXI.

  admirable : it is unquestionably the best of all the modern paintings in Petersburg ; though, indeed, it is a copy of an ancient chef-d'oeuvre, the School of Athens, and is full as large as the original. When an individual knows how thus to reproduce one, perhaps, of Raphael's most inimitable works after his Madonnas, he ought to return to Rome, there to learn to do something better than "The Last Day of Pompeii" and " The Assumption of the Virgin."*

  The vicinity of the Pole is unfavourable to the arts, with the exception of poetry, which' can sometimes dispense with all material except the human soul; it is then the volcano under the ice. But for the inhabitants of these dreadful climates, music, painting, the dance — all those pleasures of sensation which are partially independent of mind — lose their charms in losing their organs. What are Rembrandt, Corregio, Michael Angelo, and Raphael, in a dark room ? The north has doubtless its own kind of beauty, but it is still a palace without light : all the attractive train of youth, with their pastimes, their smiles, their graces, and their dances, confine themselves to those blest regions where the rays of the sun, not content with gliding over the surface of the earth, warm and fertilise its bosom by piercing it from on high.