by Jane Cook
He compared his feeble salary of $9,000, which he still had not received from the US government, with Caulaincourt’s $300,000. Even the ministers of “petty principalities whose names are scarcely known” earned $20,000 a year. Referring to himself in third person, his tirade to Thomas continued unabashed: “He therefore limits his expenditures to his allowance from his country, shines as much as he can in those circles of society with whose splendor he cannot vie, and lives almost entirely retired within the bosom of his own family.”
These vicious newspaper critiques and accusations combined with the delay in receiving his salary weighed heavily on him. Such fresh reminders of his failures and foes reinforced his decision to stay in St. Petersburg. What would he do if he resigned and returned to Boston? Had anything truly changed? No. He needed an honorable way home, a place to go and position to hold. Although General Armstrong had recently resigned as US minister to France, Adams did not want to replace him in Paris. John was too sly to play fox to the hunter Napoleon.
Though outwardly reserved, he was not cold or indifferent to a longer separation from his oldest boys. He wrote a letter to George that clearly expressed love and fatherly concern.
“We are, my dear child, indeed very far distant from each other; but we love you and your brother John as much we could if we were all together—We hope that your brother Charles and you will still grow up together enough to love one another with the tenderest brotherly affection. He enjoys, we thank God, very good health, and grows very fast.”
The realization that he was succeeding in Russia gave him hope and induced him to stay.
“Ever since the 4th of July, 1809, I have had upon file a letter from you of the preceding 29th of June,” he began in a letter to his former colleague Ezekiel Bacon. “It was one of the earliest notices which I received of my exile, as you termed it, to this place.”
Though France was a thorn, trade was starting to thrive: “Notwithstanding all the vexations and depredations to which our commerce during the present year has been exposed, I presume it will upon the whole prove profitable, even to our merchants.”
He might not have been able to compete financially with his counterparts, but he was winning their respect, especially Alexander’s. Trade with Russia was still open, as he explained to his mother: “From that day to this the emperor has treated me with the same kindness and attentions, and, what is much more important, he still gives a welcome reception to my countrymen, while all his neighbors have excluded them from their ports.”
Adams’s appointment to Russia was giving him a rebirth, a new start to make a difference for his beloved country. He was not quite ready to let go of his strengthening relationship with the czar. Only to Thomas did he hint at his greatest fear for America’s future trade success: Napoleon.
“But at this moment you may be assured that the only object of my concern is, that circumstances which I cannot control may occasion us to lose some of the favor in which we now stand. This may be unavoidable.”
As both John and Louisa wrote these last letters home before the ports froze, he expressed delight over the emperor’s favor while she confessed anguish at staying in Russia. Whereas his Eve had everything to gain by returning home—reuniting with her oldest boys, mother, and other sisters—Adams had little else in Boston besides his immediate family and a few fair-minded friends.
By November 7, 1810, the Neva River was completely frozen. Their fate was sealed. On that day the emperor’s master of ceremonies sent John and Louisa an invitation to visit the Anichkov Palace, which Alexander renovated in grand style for his sister. Louisa sadly declined.
“I was too unwell to go,” she wrote succinctly in her diary. While not recording what ailed her, a temporary ailment, such as a female condition too delicate to put in writing, likely kept her from seeing the palace that day.
Three days later a second invitation to visit Anichkov arrived. Louisa felt better and eagerly embraced the opportunity to tour the palace. Together she and John paid homage to their host country’s culture by visiting the newly decorated and expanded imperial mansion. Completed in 1754, this baroque building faces the river and takes its name from the adjacent Anichkov Bridge near the Fontanka Canal. After ordering the construction of a new neoclassical addition along the Nevsky Prospective side of the mansion, the emperor gave the palace to his sister, the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna.
“It contains every luxury that can be conceived with a refined delicacy under the immediate inspection of Alexander himself,” Louisa noted of his intimate involvement.
She admired the estate’s rose-colored décor and impressive collection of Chinese vases and Russian bronze works. Her keen sense could not help noticing one flaw, a crack in the otherwise perfect palace plaster. The chapel was so new that its most intimate worship area was not yet sanctified, which was to Louisa’s advantage the day she visited it. Otherwise she could not have seen the inner sanctuary for one simple reason. She was a woman.
“As the chapel was not consecrated, we ladies were permitted to go into the sanctuary—A place forbidden to women we were told by the priest in a very coarse mode of speech.”
She knew her mother-in-law would have taken as much offense to the cleric as she did. Years earlier, in March 1776, Abigail had asked her husband to remember the ladies as he contemplated the idea of declaring independence at the Continental Congress. Louisa also favored fairness for the female sex.
“On our return home found letters announcing the birth of another son to Mrs. T. B. Adams,” Louisa wrote in her journal after visiting Anichkov. They received letters from one of the last ships to arrive from America.
For a woman longing for a baby, the news was likely joyful and wistful at the same time. Life in Boston had moved on without them. She could not nuzzle her nephew’s tiny nose to her face or smell his soft skin as she kissed his forehead. How happy she would have been just to hear the heartiness of one of her nephew’s burps. Had they been living in America, they might have witnessed his christening service, stood as godparents, and rejoiced with the rest of the Adams clan as they listened to the reverent, prayerful tones of the clergy’s blessing over this new life.
No matter their joy in discovering “new beauties in every direction” at the Anichkov Palace, nothing could erase the truth. They had arrived in St. Petersburg a little more than a year ago. Nothing could bring back the lost time with her sons. The news of her nephew’s birth delighted her, but she felt anguish too. She could not go home, but neither could she add to her family there. Had she not miscarried in February and again in July, she, too, would be welcoming a child soon. Louisa longed to find a key to unlock her prison so she could freely run and embrace George and John again. At the same time she also wanted to welcome another wee one.
“In fact we all pined for home and I could scarcely endure a longer separation from my loved children,” she later wrote mournfully in her diary.
Diversions took her mind off such depressing thoughts, but only for a short time. She soon attended an opera at the French ambassador’s and enjoyed the ballet at the theater, “an amusement in which I delight.” One invitation, though, put her face-to-face with the sight of an infant. Their butler delivered his good news. His wife had recently given birth. Would the Adamses host a christening service in their residence? And would they do the honor of standing as sponsors for his child?
No matter her personal heartache, she could not say no. Louisa immediately stepped into the dual role of both hostess and godmother to her butler’s child. Believing this new baby deserved a full audience for his baptism, she arranged for all her husband’s aides to attend.
The event took place on November 15 under the practices of the Lutheran Church, which were less familiar to the Adamses. As soon as the priest arrived at their home, he explained that a husband and a wife could not serve as dual sponsors. Only one of them could be a godparent. Feeling anxious over holding another baby while longing for one of her own, Louisa wa
s relieved to pass her sponsorship to Kitty.
“We all met in the drawing room at two o clock. . . . Catherine was substituted for me,” she explained. “Mr. Adams held the child as he was a boy.”
The ceremony was short. The priest repeated the Lord’s Prayer, recited the Apostles’ Creed, and baptized the infant’s forehead with water. “Mr. Adams gave fifty rubles to the father and five to the nurse.” Such a moment couldn’t help reviving emotions and memories. George, their oldest son, was christened in the English Church; their two younger boys at their Congregational Church in Boston. The evidence that followed suggests that the christening—or something else about this time—stirred John and Louisa quite a bit.
32
The Snub
TWO WEEKS AFTER THE CHRISTENING SERVICE, LOUISA AND KITTY walked along the quay by the frozen Neva River to get some fresh air. Snow in St. Petersburg was now falling daily, though not heavily, and settling into a cakey substance. Predicted to rise to four feet by March, the “snow cake” was about a foot above ground by the end of November.
For some reason walking over this snow soufflé was extra tiring to Louisa that day. Soon another problem quickly overtook her physical exhaustion. As she glanced behind, she saw Emperor Alexander walking in the distance. His gait seemed to quicken with each step as if he was trying to catch up with them. Maternal alarm immediately took over.
“Being quite fatigued, I saw the emperor behind us hastening on with great strides; and not intending to do anything rude, and far from supposing that His Majesty would notice it, I beckoned to my servants to drive up and with my sister got into the carriage and drove on.”
Louisa feared that the sight of her sister publicly conversing with the emperor would further loosen the lips of Russia’s nobility. Smoky fireworks might have concluded their Cinderella-like visit to the Hermitage theater in October, but the haze of gossip had lingered ever since. She couldn’t let Kitty become a king’s conquest.
“The great distinction shown to my sister, at the invitation to the Hermitage had occasioned so much talk, I thought it was injudicious to encourage it.”
Seeing them board their coach, Alexander responded with coolness when they turned around and passed him.
“On returning up the street, we met the emperor but His Majesty turned his head away and looked at the river and took no notice of us at all.”
Louisa had just snubbed the czar. Worse, he'd had noticed it, as she emphasized in her diary: “I was very sorry but had no idea that he would be offended.”
How great was the rupture? She did not know but feared the imperial glare nonetheless. Nearly a year earlier, the empress mother had threatened to remove Louisa’s name from future guest lists after she missed the emperor’s birthday ball. Now she had committed another social sin of omission, this time to prevent one of commission.
Would this slight affect her husband’s rising success? With the Neva now frozen, they were stuck in St. Petersburg until May, when the river broke. Though a Russian winter brought the “dissipation” of parties as John derisively called them, a social season snubbed by the imperial family was a fatal freeze. If their names were dropped from the palace invitation list, they might as well move to Siberia. Direct contact with Romanzoff alone was not enough to strengthen America’s trade relationship with Russia. They needed to woo Alexander more than ever.
As her carriage returned to her hotel, all Louisa could do was hope that the incident would blow over and the emperor would not hold it against her or her husband.
John, however, was worried about a different rupture. Once again the practices of Russian customs officials and the French government’s anti-English antics threatened US trade.
When he visited Romanzoff on November 30, he succinctly presented the latest problem. Sixty-seven American ships arrived with a large convoy at Russian ports just as they closed for winter. At first Russian customs officials freely admitted several of these ships. Then suddenly they forbade the captains from unloading their goods to sell at market. Next they refused to admit the remaining US ships in the convoy. All these vessels were now stalled in Russia for the winter. The American captains appealed to Adams for assistance. If they were unable to sell their cargo, they would lose an entire year’s earnings. Their plight was perilous, similar to the stalled merchant ships that John had seen in Denmark the previous year on his voyage to Russia. His reaction was just as passionate; his plea just as bold.
“The persons interested in these vessels and cargoes were alarmed and uneasy under these difficulties, and some of them had applied to me for my interposition in their favor,” he explained to Romanzoff.
The count countered. Suspicion arose because these ships “belonged to the great convoy of 600 sail, which had been so long signalized by the Emperor Napoleon, and which it was said had entered the Baltic, coming from Göteborg [Sweden].”
John acknowledged that the sixty-seven US ships came from Sweden and probably belonged to the convoy of mostly English ships, which were officially forbidden in Russia’s ports because of Alexander’s alliance with Napoleon. However, Adams was confident that the ships on his list were American, not British vessels disguising themselves by hoisting US flags and presenting fraudulent paperwork.
“But I trusted he would not suspect me of attempting to shelter under the American name any traffic or property prohibited by the laws of this country,” he responded, relying on his honor and reputation to make his case.
Though evasive, the count reassured John of his good standing.
“[Romanzoff] said he could hardly express to my face what he thought upon this subject; but it was certainly nothing distrustful of me.”
Confident these ships “were bona fide American,” Adams gave the foreign minister his list documenting the sixty-seven US vessels. “The owners of almost all were personally known to me as citizens of the United States.”
The count promised to present the matter to the emperor. The pair then agreed to put aside their official roles so they could discuss French and British politics as easily as two old friends. They spoke off the record.
Adams openly shared his opinion about Napoleon’s recent offer to repeal his Berlin and Milan decrees. Instead of declaring victory over the suggestion, the British should have revoked their policies or issued a major gesture toward peace. An insulted Napoleon instead flew into a rage and released the Fontainebleau Decrees in October 1810. These new ordinances authorized officials to burn all English merchandise found in warehouses in French Empire states and territories, such as Italy, Holland, and Spain. The measure increased unofficial pressure on allies, such as Russia, to show hostility to England by destroying English cargo.
Napoleon’s offer to repeal his decrees was a response to changes in US government policy, as the French emperor’s emissary had hinted to General Armstrong in Paris in August, before Armstrong’s departure. Months earlier, in May 1810, the US Congress had revoked the 1809 Non-Intercourse Act and implemented a new law, Macon’s Bill No. 2. This measure officially restored trade with England and France. However, if either England or France revoked its trade policies and the other failed to do the same within three months, then President Madison had the power to reinstate the embargo against the remaining uncooperative nation. Though he knew the bill was flawed, Madison hoped the new law would motivate Napoleon to rescind his Berlin and Milan decrees. His goal was also to pressure Britain to revoke its Orders in Council and cease its piratical policies against America.
Napoleon’s latest overture appeared to be “new modifications of the system of French decrees, favorable to the commerce of the United States,” but John doubted Napoleon’s sincerity. He was correct. By merely offering to rescind his Berlin and Milan decrees, Napoleon believed he was committing himself to nothing, no change at all. He put forward the suggestion without implementation. His public proclamation did not match the latest practices of his customs officials. French courts continued to confiscate US ships.
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br /> As Adams wrote: “[W]hile France is holding to us now the language of friendship and conciliation, she is playing us all the sly tricks in her power elsewhere.”
What neither John nor Romanzoff knew at the time was the latest news: a month earlier President Madison had reinstated the US embargo against Britain, which is exactly what Napoleon hoped would happen through his offer. By suggesting one practice and continuing another, Bonaparte deceived Madison and got what he wanted out of the US government: an embargo against England but not France. Had Madison waited a week, he would have received communication from Armstrong that French officials were refusing to release captured American vessels and that Napoleon intended to continue restricting US trade through his Continental System’s licensing practices.
However, it was too late for an embarrassed Madison to revoke the new embargo against England. At least Napoleon’s offer gave Madison an official reason to cross France off America’s potential war list. England was the worse foe. While Napoleon hated America’s government because it was a living repudiation of his, the English hated America more because they believed the United States stole their prosperity when it declared independence. Revenge, not jealousy, was a greater threat to American sovereignty.
On December 5, Louisa longed to breathe fresh air again. Because it was too cold to walk, she decided to ride in her carriage. However, as soon as the horses began shuffling over the snow-packed road, she became ill. “I could not bear the fatigue of the motion of a carriage and four over the stone pavements.”
Within a few days she found a solution to her motion sickness: a sleigh, which slid over St. Petersburg’s snow-souffléd streets as easily as a baker frosts a cake.
“The winter being bitter to very mild I rode in a sleigh with my sister and child or with Mr. Adams,” she recorded with renewed joy. “We rode every day wrapped in furs and this exercise was smooth and delightful.”
