American Phoenix

by Jane Cook

  “Much of all this is undoubtedly commercial speculation. There is every appearance that during the present year the shackles and the oppressions upon commerce will be still greater than they have been during the two last.”

  By the first of February, Louisa needed help. “Mrs. Krehmer sent for Charles and she kept him until after ten at night—This lady is particularly kind and we are under great obligations to her.”

  How would this pregnancy end? She had been pregnant at least eight times by that point in her life, with only three successful outcomes. Why was she so prone to miscarriage? Why was she not as hearty as other women, such as her mother-in-law? Such thoughts possibly echoed in her mind while contractions tightened nooselike around her belly.

  Just as the frozen water trapped her, so her body held her prisoner. The slightest cramping sent a shock wave of fear through her heart. All she could do was wait, wondering if the tremors would fade or erupt into an earthquake.

  “This mode of life is dreadful to me and the trial is beyond my strength.”

  Had she the advantage of modern medical science to explain her condition, she would have known that 15 percent of confirmed pregnancies end in miscarriage. Most losses occur within the first trimester, before week ten of pregnancy. She might have learned that women suffering from endometriosis, an infertility condition where tissue inside the uterus escapes and latches onto tissue outside the uterus, are more prone to “repetitive miscarriages” and “migraine headaches” than other women. Louisa did not know why she miscarried so often, but she knew the signs all too well.

  “My illness increased very rapidly and again I was afflicted by suffering and disappointment,” Louisa wrote on February 3, 1810.

  She miscarried. Another Adams child lost. As she grieved, how she wished to be able to embrace all her children again. Yet Russia’s frozen water held her captive.

  21

  Winter Woes

  WHILE LOUISA RECOVERED, JOHN RANTED. THE BURDENS OF HIS meager annual salary of nine thousand dollars—which he had not hitherto received from the US government—exploded through the writings of his pen. Many winter woes, such as the need to stay warm, cost him plenty.

  “You are acquainted with the difficulty and the expense of forming a suitable domestic establishment for an American minister in other parts of Europe,” John complained in a letter to his mother, who had lived in London in diplomatic quarters years earlier.

  “Here they are greater than anywhere else. We are still indifferently lodged at a public house, and very expensively.”

  Some rental fees were as much as two thousand dollars a year. In addition, as the leader of a diplomatic delegation, he was expected to keep three times as many servants as he did in Boston.

  “These are burdens from which no resolution can escape. . . . The tone of society among us is almost universally marked by an excess of expenses over income.”

  While the diplomats around him spent lavishly, many were also deep in debt and living beyond their means. His inability to compete with their extravagance was enough to make him quit or at least find some honorable way out of his assignment. How he longed to keep his bank ledger intact.

  “You will readily conceive the embarrassment in which I find myself, and of the desire which I feel to get out of a situation irksome beyond expression,” he wrote, reasoning that his mother would understand.

  Forgetting her weakness for meddling, he would later regret sharing that particular rant with her.

  The Adamses didn’t mind showing their quarters to the soiled-shirted American merchants and expatriates who came to their hotel. John had also grown comfortable welcoming fellow diplomats, those who came for good conversation, not pretension, such as Mr. Pardo, the Spanish minister.

  Pardo often called on John because he enjoyed their intellectual chats about classical literature and scientific discoveries. Louisa had become so comfortable with the cheery-cheeked Mrs. Krehmer that she eagerly welcomed the woman’s spur-of-the-moment arrivals.

  Thus, the sound of a driver signaling his two horses to stop was as common outside their hotel windows as the howling winter wind. On one particular February day in 1810, the whinnying of horses was much louder. A peek through the window sent a shock through Louisa, who was still recovering from her miscarriage.

  “Count Romanzoff came in state to visit me,” Louisa wrote in her journal as if telling her best friend. “He was in his state coach with six horses, outriders, three footmen with flambeaus all in full dress.”

  What should she do? Her house dress reflected Boston plainness, not a Russian princess. Their hotel quarters could not compare to Romanzoff’s imperial mansion. Embarrassment gripped her heart. Pride got the best of her.

  “Not being aware of the intended honor and our apartments very mean, I did not receive, which was as great an oversight as that of politeness as could have been committed,” she wrote of another social sin against the law of custom.

  Why did Romanzoff want to visit her? The surprising attention lingered in her mind like an unsolved mystery.

  Within three weeks of miscarrying, Louisa regained her strength. No sooner had she felt well enough to resume a normal life—whatever that meant for an American trapped in St. Petersburg—than John became sick. “Just getting about when Mr. Adams was seized with a violent cold and was quite ill—Sent for Dr. Galloway who ordered him to bed and to keep very quiet.”

  Ignoring his doctor’s orders, Adams would not be still. He wrote letters, this time complaining to his brother. Unlike Thomas’s comfy spot of dirt in Boston, St. Petersburg felt like a trap to John. He bellowed that because of the “thick ribbed ice” they were “imprisoned almost constantly from the time of our arrival and still for six months.”

  Next he complained about France and England: “Unhappily for mankind the present state of the world exhibits the singular phenomenon of two great powers, oppressing the whole species under the color of a war against each other.”

  John realized that a huge change had taken place since Thomas joined him in Berlin a decade ago: “When we were last in Europe a sort of republican or democratic spirit was prevalent, not only in the official pretensions and varying constitutions of France, but in the political and literary character of the times.”

  Napoleon’s empire was a mere mask for a monarchy. The French emperor was a kingmaker, not a liberator. European power players cared more for their individual wealth than the God-given rights of the individuals they ruled.

  The evidence was all around him—in the conversations he heard with other diplomats on the ice hills or playing cards during Mardi Gras. Which woman would bear Napoleon’s heir was of greater concern than how the French people would overcome their grain shortage.

  “There is not a republic left in Europe,” John sadly concluded.

  As soon as she saw the commotion outside their window, Louisa felt déjà vu. An elegant coach pulled by six horses and footmen signaled the arrival of another unexpected imperial guest. Had Romanzoff come to call again? No. This passenger was a woman. The empress mother? No, thank goodness. The lady through the glass window was much younger.

  “Princess Amalia, the sister of the reigning empress, came to take tea and spend the evening with me,” Louisa wrote on March 3. “And the same blunder occurred—neither my husband or myself ever having expected such distinctions.”

  No matter how kind they viewed the German princess’s gesture or how easily they could have conversed about Berlin, the Adamses remained ashamed of their fig leaves. Their hotel was no garden of Eden. Louisa put on a proper pretense. As gently and respectfully as she could, she turned down the princess’s visit.

  Princess Amalia’s call was as unusual to these exiled Americans as seeing the sun set by 3:00 p.m. each arctic winter afternoon. Why were members of the imperial family and the czar’s right-hand man trying to socialize with them?

  The princess’s gesture gave Louisa at least some satisfaction. Her decision to decline
the last imperial ball had not been fatal. Far from having her name omitted from royal guest lists, she was obviously receiving favorable treatment.

  What had she done to deserve such attention? Surely they could tell by her wardrobe that she did not have the purse strings to entertain in kind? Louisa must do something. She asked a reliable source.

  Madame de Bray gave her perspective. She explained that Louisa’s presentation to the court was “of the usual line.” However, because John was leading the first US mission accepted by the Russian emperor, Louisa was receiving increased attention too.

  Alexander’s desire to develop a relationship with the United States seemed sincere. He was using his inner circle to reach out to them. In addition, because the river was frozen, members of the imperial family, such as Princess Amalia, spent more time at the Winter Palace in winter. In the summer, they fled St. Petersburg and retreated to countryside palaces. Winter was the best time to socialize in St. Petersburg. Such was the effect of the frozen Neva River.

  Although John believed that serving as a diplomat in Russia was a waste of time, the opposite was emerging, even if he could not see it. The visits of Romanzoff and Princess Amelia were high honors. These modest Bostonians may have despised staying up until the wee hours of the morning at a ball, but by doing so, they were building their personal relationships and thus strengthening the relationship of the United States with Russia—and perhaps all Europe—as a result.

  “I presume these honors were offered as compliments to the country this being the first regular mission from America,” Louisa concluded in her journal.

  The palace imperials proved as persistent as they were crafty. They tried again, this time through a back channel.

  “Received a notification through Mrs. Krehmer to send my boy to the Princess Amalia’s room in the palace to see the emperor and empress, who would be there on Monday morning at twelve o clock,” Louisa wrote.

  Why did they want to see her two-and-a-half-year-old son and her chambermaid?

  “Thus I was obliged to make him [Charles] a suitable dress,” Louisa wrote.

  What does a toddler wear to meet royalty? White was the most angelic and stately color imaginable. Louisa took advantage of its appropriateness.

  “[His clothes] consisted of a white satin frock,” she wrote of his sleeveless top. His “pantelets” were made of the same material. Satin ribbon tied the frock to his shoulders, while a white satin sash fastened his waist. His slippers were white satin too.

  Mrs. Krehmer also explained that Louisa was not to accompany Charles.

  “Martha Godfrey attended him. They [the imperial family] were all anxious to see her,” Louisa noted, wondering why they were interested in meeting a German chambermaid.

  The moment gave her satisfaction. She may not have been able to host Romanzoff or Princess Amalia, but she could at least please the imperial family by sending Charles to the palace, no matter how strange their request to see Martha seemed. Though Empress Elizabeth and Martha shared the same country of origin—Germanic Prussia—they couldn’t be farther apart in social status.

  The visit was a success. The imperial majesties played with Charles for nearly an hour. The empress even got on her knees and showed him some pictures. Louisa later bragged to Abigail that Charles was the “admiration of Petersburg” and a most charming child. He was tall for his age too.

  Though Adams recovered from his cold, he soon came down with a severe illness. “Mr. Adams . . . was confined by a violent Erysipelas in one of his legs,” Louisa wrote of the painful skin infection on March 7.

  Also called St. Anthony’s fire, erysipelas is an inflammation of the skin caused by group A Streptococcus bacteria, the same chain bacteria behind scarlet fever and strep throat. Erysipelas patients suffered from painful, deep red skin lesions and blisters. In John’s day, the disease could be life-threatening or, if in the legs, lead to gangrene, requiring amputation.

  Once the initial fright passed, John assessed his situation. He wasn’t going to die or lose his limbs, but he was too ill to fulfill his most pressing obligation: attend a ball hosted by the British. Though the British government did not have a minister in Russia, the local English elite were giving a gala honoring Emperor Alexander anyway.

  Adams discussed the dilemma with his wife. International politics were involved. The French ambassador was also hosting a ball. With America now officially recognized by the Russians, someone from the US legation needed to attend both events. They could not go to one and snub the other. The fear of America not being represented at these parties was so strong in him that he made an unusual decision. He couldn’t trust his nephew or Mr. Harris to replace him.

  “[John] insisted that I should go to a ball given by the English Club to the emperor and empresses,” Louisa wrote.

  No, she didn’t want to go.

  Yes, she must.

  The more she protested, the more he insisted.

  Yes. No. Yes. No. The tug-of-war ensued. Louisa bowed to reality, agreeing to lead the American delegation at both events. After twice declining imperial invitations, she owed it to her husband to attend in his place.

  “But no excuse could be offered and I went with my sister and the gentlemen of the legation and we could not return home until two in the morning.”

  She may not have realized it at the time, but by asking her to go in his place, John was showing his increasing confidence in her social and political savvy, a compliment to her abilities.

  “The imperial family received me with the usual distinction and expressed their regret at Mr. Adams’s indisposition—It was an elegant ball.”

  The next night Louisa went sans John to Caulaincourt’s soirée. “Obliged to go to a ball at the French Ambassador’s, escorted by the gentlemen of the legation.” The event was “brilliant as usual.” Suddenly Louisa was the top diplomat in the family.

  As soon as he could, a recovered John visited Romanzoff by appointment. He needed to make amends for his wife’s rejecting the man’s social call at their hotel. More than that, he owed him a huge thank-you.

  “I again returned him my thanks for the care of my packets forwarded by his courier to Paris, and of those which had come by his courier and he had sent me,” John wrote of their conversation.

  With water travel frozen, the Russian government relied on private couriers to travel by land to cities throughout Europe to conduct business in winter. Romanzoff had suggested earlier that John send his letters through the czar’s courier to Paris. The messenger took Adams’s letters, both official and personal, to General Armstrong, the American minister to France. Armstrong then forwarded their letters to America by ship. Romanzoff’s offer expanded to anyone affiliated with the US ministry in St. Petersburg, from William Smith to Martha Godfrey. The courier, in kind, forwarded letters that came to them by way of the American legation in Paris.

  Unable to refuse an offer that filled such a great need, Adams considered the gesture as “one of the numerous marks of attention” from the Russians. He also updated the count on America’s problems with Denmark. The captive sailors and captains there had received their merchandise and were free to go. “I had also letters . . . expressing the gratitude of my countrymen there for the interposition of the emperor with the court of Denmark, and the effect which many of them had already experienced from it, in the liberation of their property.”

  The count was glad that the emperor was able to show his friendship for the United States. Nonetheless, until England made peace and ceased its forgeries, American commerce was at risk. Intimately aware of the British penchant for fraudulently hoisting US flags, Adams agreed.

  John’s extended illness presented a bit of a social quandary, at least in the eyes of protocol-prone Harris, who escorted Louisa to many functions in place of her husband.

  “Nothing amused me so much as the instructions of our Consul Levett Harris,” Louisa observed in her diary as if whispering gossip to her best girlfriend.


  “He would favor me with instructions as to my conduct and deportment.” When he escorted her into a room at a party, Harris said she could “take his arm on the stairway where nobody could see it . . . lest our acquaintance should seem too familiar.”

  The rules continued. “That a lady must not go to the theater with a gentleman but only under the protection of her footmen.”

  Most of all Harris hoped he would not have to wait with her for their carriage too long at the end of a ball “lest it should [appear] that we had an improper liaison!!”

  Louisa could not hold back her amusement in her diary: “This was quite too much for my gravity and I laughed in his face, assuring him that whatever fears he might have for his reputation, I had none whatever for my own and this entretien put an end to such discourse.”

  A romantic entanglement with Harris was the last thought on her mind. Yet he could see what she couldn’t. Louisa was not only the wife of the American minister but also the attractive woman who spoke French fluently and could converse with kings as easily as servants. He feared the damage that could come from gossiping lips.

  22

  Contradictions

  THOUGH THE RIVER REMAINED FROZEN, THE ROADS WERE MORE easily traveled by April 1810. A fully recovered John took advantage of winter’s loosening chains. With mixed motives, he decided to make a few field trips. Part of him wanted to escape the Russian high life and see how the other side lived. The other part wanted to see Russian manufacturing, particularly factories using steam machines. If US merchants wanted to trade with Russian distributors, then he needed to see Russia’s best exports.

  The US economic system was colonial, not industrial. Because most Americans held unfavorable opinions about manufacturing and industrialization, President Madison and Congress strategically leveraged the 1810 US census to gather better information about what products Americans were making and where. The resulting data revealed much about the US economy in 1810. For example, only two of twelve counties in Massachusetts could boast of grist- and sawmills. Though not a surprise, absent from Adams’s mercantile hometown were iron forgeries, naileries, and mills. Southerners, however, were producing more raw cotton than ever but mostly without the benefit of machines. Spinning wheels and carding machines were run by hand at fulling mills, which spun, cleaned, and thickened cotton.