American Phoenix

by Jane Cook

  Census analysts concluded: “The prosperity of the cotton manufacture” was taking place “with little assistance from labor-saving machinery.” That needed to change, according to the government report. “To neglect, in our country, the due use of such an advantage, would evince a destitution of common sense.” Labor-saving machines would also improve the manufacture of many Northern-produced products, such as shoes, hats, and candles.

  British blockades and Napoleon’s trade abuses largely confined American crops to domestic consumption. For this reason many farmers and tradesmen saw no need to move to machine labor. In contrast, some in the US government believed that machine manufacturing would improve American textiles, lessening the country’s dependence on Europe for manufactured products. Others realized that machinery would lead to better American exports, far beyond raw cotton, sugar, and indigo. If America could secure free trade, foreign commerce would also greatly promote the “wealth of the United States” by bringing cheap products to US ports and selling additional US goods to other markets.

  In contrast Russia produced few raw materials to sell to anyone. Manufactured goods were its best assets. Adams was determined to find out what Russian factories could offer his countrymen. He visited Alexandrofsk, a yarn- and fabric-making manufactory five miles from St. Petersburg along the Neva River.

  The factory boasted four hundred carding, spinning, and winding machines. They were powered by the latest technology—three steam engines, “[a]ccording to the recent improvements on that great invention,” he noted in his diary.

  The factory was under the empress mother’s patronage. Yarn- and fabric-making was her business. Patronage was merely a nice-sounding word for employing child laborers. About five hundred boys and girls—all orphans—worked there. The youngest workers were eight years old. The boys remained at the factory until age twenty-one; the girls, age twenty-five. The only way to escape any earlier was to get married. The factory also provided quarters for twenty-five married couples who chose to stay.

  “In two of the family apartments, I saw Russian cradles, which are a sort of hammock suspended by four small cords from the end of an elastic pole, fastened by the other end near the head of the bed,” he observed of the devices, which hung four feet from the floor. The contraptions allowed mothers to reach their hands to the poles and rock the cradles from their beds.

  “It is a very clumsy contrivance, and the child must always be in danger of falling to the floor, an accident which four times in five must prove fatal.”

  Adams inquired about the infant mortality rate. “Of the earliest, almost all the children died, and even now a small portion of those that are born are likely to live. . . . This mortality is attributed to the ignorance of the parents.”

  He then visited the dining hall, where the girls “looked for the most part wretchedly and very unwholesome.”

  They were taking their dinner at long, wooden tables with benches. Hanging on the wall in front of them was a picture of the Virgin Mary. In unison they chanted grace before eating. Adams noted the tiniest details. The girls ate off wooden plates, while the boys ate from pewter plates. Despite the dinnerware disparity, both ate thin turnip soup, boiled buckwheat, and rye bread. They also drank quas, a kind of beer.

  “I scarcely saw one that could be called handsome, and very few not positively ugly.”

  When he visited the children’s bedchambers, Adams could scarcely breathe. His guide explained that their quarters were not ventilated during winter because of the cold. No wonder they looked so unhealthy.

  “But the confinement of the chambers allowed to the families, their extreme poverty, the want of cleanliness, and the almost pestilential air which I found in them, sufficiently accounted in my mind for the fact [high child mortality].”

  The contradiction was enough to make any liberty lover vomit. The empress mother complained over trivial matters, such as when guests wore the same silk gown several times to court functions. Yet this same woman was a patron over a factory employing orphaned children laboring twelve hours a day only to enjoy the privilege of breathing unventilated air while sleeping. Was she aware of their conditions? If she was, she chose to ignore them.

  The visit sobered him. His tour guide boasted that no accident had occurred with the machines in the factory. An unimpressed Adams sarcastically questioned in his diary which of these miseries had led to such a perfect track record. Was it the continuous cold, hard labor, extreme poverty, or “perfection of subserviency?” Though not as bad off as slaves—a practice Adams detested—these Russian child laborers faced poorer prospects than America’s indentured servants, who worked under contracts for a specified number of years until freed from their debt and allowed to start a new life.

  How could Adams complain about his own fleeting finances while these children gnawed on buckwheat, with little chance of experiencing a better way of life? As much as he admired Alexander, visiting the factory underscored the revelation he shared with his brother Thomas in a letter. Republicanism was dead in Europe. The hope for liberty, so vibrant a decade earlier in Europe, was as frozen as the Arctic Circle.

  John made more field trips that April to see the other side of St. Petersburg. He attended a Russian service at St. Nicolas Church on Good Friday. As customary in Orthodox churches, the interior formed the shape of an equal-sided cross. The resulting worship area was smaller than longer Latin-style churches. Though in church, he felt he was at a theater.

  “The multitude of self-crossings, the profound and constantly repeated bows, the prostrations upon the earth and kissing of the floor,” he noted of why the room was empty of chairs and benches.

  With the span of an eagle’s wing, worshippers fully extended their arms wide while bending completely over the cold stone floors. Compared to the reserved manner of US Episcopal and Congregational churches, these theatrics seemed almost superstitious to Adams. He also noticed that several trophies from Russia’s enemies hung in the center of the city’s churches. Among the trinkets were captured English flags, a sign that imperial Russia equated religion with political power.

  “In the meantime beggars are circulating through the crowd to catch the critical moment of charitable feeling and receive the donation of his copeck.”

  Churches were also filled with the begging lower class, called mujiks. “I saw one this day of the most squalid appearance, in tatters which scarcely hung together upon his body, but with a leather bag half full of the alms he was receiving, and giving single copecks in exchange for two copeck pieces.” This beggar was doing so well that he was able to make change.

  “But the donors themselves appeared as much objects for charity as those to whom they gave it.”

  Even on the happiest occasions, Adams couldn’t help noticing Russia’s contradictions: “Easter Sunday; the greatest holiday of the Russian calendar. It celebrates the resurrection of Christ. The ceremonies, as at Christmas, begin at midnight.”

  While the impoverished masses crowded the city’s churches, the imperial family comfortably attended a private midnight service at the palace chapel.

  “Everyone of the people has a right to kiss the emperor’s hand on this sacred day. It is a privilege, however, mostly claimed by the [men of the] court, which sometimes keeps him up until a very late hour of the night,” Louisa wrote of the contradiction, while noting that women were not allowed.

  Visiting these rugged Russian places in the season of Easter forced John to come face-to-face with one of his most deeply held principles. He must decide what to do about the holiday’s preponderance of gift giving. All Russians, from the poorest paupers to the princesses at the palace, gave eggs at Easter. The mujiks boiled eggs, painted them red, and expected rubles in return. Members of the diplomatic corps left cards, paid visits, and of course, exchanged glamorous eggs.

  “Persons of higher standing,” John observed, “present eggs of sugar, glass, gilt wood, porcelain, marble and almost every other substance. . . . Some of t
hese eggs are made to cost a hundred rubles or upwards.”

  He could not ignore the expense and practice. Everyone was giving and receiving eggs. What was a principled republican to do? Was accepting an egg the same as receiving a bribe? He fretted at the possibility. Advocating above-board diplomacy, he wanted to avoid any suspicion, not to mention the expense.

  “Easter Sunday is a great day at St. Petersburg, and we received presents from some of our friends of painted and cut glass eggs without paying the fee generally asked for the compliment—as a religious ceremony and were obliged to accept them,” Louisa wrote of one reason for her husband’s sudden compliance.

  Why did John accept the eggs? Seeing the factory’s hazardous hammocks holding infants and smelling the stench of half-clad beggars prostrating themselves at church altars altered Adams. Sometimes seeing someone in worse circumstances than yours makes your own life seem not so bad. He may have been exiled from his country and family, but he was still free—free to return on the next boat to America once the ice broke. He was not begging on the streets or so poor that the only egg he could give was one he stole from a henhouse.

  Easter nudged Adams to budge. After all, the occasion celebrated the resurrection of Christ, whose spilled water and blood made him the greatest of equalizers, the atoner of both peasants and kings. Whether rich or poor, everyone in St. Petersburg shared the same fate. All were trapped by both the frozen river in winter and the chains of humanity’s sins. Though their customs and languages were different, he shared the faith of these Russians—their core belief in redemption from a God of grace.

  John accepted the eggs, his only exception to gift exchanges. Meanwhile Easter gave Louisa something else. Hope. Summer would soon arrive and break nature’s shackles, perhaps freeing her from exile for good.

  John was not a betting man, but many mujiks in St. Petersburg were. The date of summer’s arrival was the most talked-about topic and the main object of gambling. “It is a subject of so much interest here. . . . It furnishes a continual fund of conversation and innumerable wagers.”

  While some probably guessed the date—May 10, 1810—no one guessed the hour. Though usually breaking in daylight, winter escaped that year under the dark of night.

  “The ice on the river at length broke up at two or three o’clock this morning. This circumstance is said to be unusual. The most ordinary time of the day when this event occurs is between two and six in the afternoon.”

  Louisa described the thrill this way: “A handsome sight but perfectly delightful to us poor exotics.”

  John was so excited that he rushed to see it with his own eyes. He spent two hours walking along the river’s stone quay. He made it all the way to the factory. It was as if Mother Nature had taken an ice pick and chiseled along the edges of both sides of the river. The result was a giant floating mass of ice that melted as it drifted away from town toward the gulf.

  “The river was entirely open, nearly to where the bridge had been. Below that, although in motion, it [the ice] was slowly passing, and in solid mass, extending from bank to bank,” Louisa observed.

  By 3:00 p.m., guns fired from the angel-spired Peter and Paul Fortress.

  “When all the ice is gone, the chain bridge of boats is put across the river and the country is free to the Petersburg public,” Louisa explained.

  The fortress governor stepped into the first boat, crossed the river, and presented Alexander with a glass of river water. The emperor drank it and gave the governor money in response. Though less grand than the religious blessing of the water in January, the annual custom was just as symbolic.

  Returning at sunset, John again walked along on the quay. What a difference a few hours made! Instead of one moving, detached, solid block of ice, the river was running completely free. “The whole passage was then clear, and several boats were then crossing the river,” he noted.

  The entire town of St. Petersburg awakened from winter hibernation. No longer a foe but a friend, water was nature’s great equalizer. The Adamses joined in. John ordered their servants to remove their hotel room’s double-paned windows and put up single-paned panels for summer.

  As excited as he was, he was also worried. American ships, including the Horace, would soon depart St. Petersburg’s docks. Would they survive the Danish straits? Worse, would US ships trying to reach Russia make it through those waters, or be condemned?

  Neither John nor Louisa realized that the river’s loosening effect would also radically alter their mission, loosening the behavior of the emperor.

  23

  Pretense and Propriety

  MORE THAN ICE BROKE THE SUMMER OF 1810. PROPRIETY SWIFTLY followed.

  “My sister and myself were accustomed to walk out occasionally when the weather was not too cold on the Nevsky Perspective,” Louisa explained.

  Both John and Louisa believed exercise eased the climate’s effects on their health. The stone quay along the river was ideal for walking, as were the garden grounds near the palace. Sometimes they walked together, but often Adams walked alone for as long as two hours. As a result, Louisa and Kitty took shorter jaunts. The ladies soon discovered that they were not the only ones seeking fresh air.

  “The emperor would often stop and speak to us very politely.”

  In a little while, the attention became too great, leading Louisa to stop their walks. “As my sister was a great belle among our young gentlemen, this circumstance though customary with the emperor towards many ladies whom he met, gave umbrage to beaux and occasioned so much teasing and questions that we left off our promenades for some time.”

  Not long after the Horace left Boston the previous summer, Louisa realized that Kitty was the focus of romantic attention by the young men accompanying her husband to St. Petersburg. “Before we had been a fortnight at sea with three young men—Squabbles and jealousies commenced and the future was laid bare to my eyes as clearly as if it had passed,” she wrote in her diary in August 1809.

  The men serving as aides to John had been vying for Kitty’s affection ever since. Primal envy aside, Louisa missed their walks.

  “But the weather being now very fine, we resumed our walks.” She could not let flirting keep her from exercising. “[We] met his Imperial Majesty who again stopped us and inquired ‘why we had left off walking out.’”

  Not only had Alexander noticed their recent absence, but he also seemed to know quite a bit more about Louisa than she expected.

  “And without waiting for an answer; [he] turned to me and said ‘that it was good for my health and that he should expect to meet us every day (looking at my sister)’ that the weather was fine.”

  His Royal Flirtiness continued his pursuit. “This was a real imperial command in its tone and manner; and he gracefully touched his hat and walked on.”

  Well aware that the conversation would incite displeasure from the American men, Kitty repeated the incident that evening to Adams and his attachés.

  “When we met at [the] table, the usual question and sour looks greeted us from the young gentlemen and my sister answered ‘Yes!’ Repeating the order that we had received [from Alexander to walk every day] to vex them.”

  Except for the reserved Adams, the men were “all in a blaze.”

  Although she had attended some parties and balls, Kitty had not been officially presented to the imperial family. At palace events the imperial family spoke only to those who had been formally introduced to them and not the other guests. However, in a casual environment, such as strolling the streets, the emperor could talk to anyone he chose.

  “Adding nought in malice,” Louisa explained, emphasizing no harm was done. “The minister looked very grave but said nothing.”

  Louisa was ready to have a little fun. Too much weighed on her. In addition to suffering a miscarriage, she had received no letters from her children since arriving in St. Petersburg nearly eight months earlier in October. A little flirtation with the czar of Russia was just that: a harmless distrac
tion from her real woes. So she thought.

  “The young gentlemen disapproved and hoped that we should not do it [walk again].”

  Was Louisa aware of Alexander’s womanizing? If she knew, she did not record it in her diary as she had of Caulaincourt’s reputation for liaisons.

  Seven years before he became emperor in 1793, sixteen-year-old Alexander married fourteen-year-old Princess Louise of Baden, whose Russian name was Elizabeth Alexeyevna. His grandmother Catherine the Great chose the match. After losing two infant daughters to death, Alexander and Elizabeth were childless, leaving no legitimate heir to the throne. Unhappy with his arranged marriage, Alexander took the first of many mistresses in 1803. He was the father of several children outside his marriage.

  Regardless of whether she knew about these details, Louisa was cautious. One way to limit whispers of gossip was to bring Charles, who was nearly three years old, with her on walks. The boy became the buffer.

  “We continued our walks occasionally taking Charles with us who always had a kind greeting from His Majesty and a shake of the hand.”

  Children are great equalizers. Their candor can humble the greatest of sovereigns. Although Charles had met Alexander at the palace during his visit with Martha Godfrey weeks earlier, he still shrank at the sight of the imposing friendly man who greeted him on these walks. Not even the emperor’s oval face, long sideburns, and cheery apple cheeks could make Charles chat with the czar. The nearby uniformed guards who held foreboding swords at their sides probably didn’t help the little lad, either. Perhaps he detected that for some reason adults made a fuss over this man, which intimidated him all the more.