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

raised a few steps, and had just stopped to examine a

room, the furniture of which struck me as a little too

recherche for the general character of the building,

when a valet tie chamhre came to whisper a few words

in the ear of Madame, who seemed surprised.

' What is the matter?' I asked, when the man had disappeared.

' The empress is returned!'

ci How unfair ! ' I exclaimed, ' I shall not have time to see anything,'

Ci Perhaps not; go down into the garden by this terrace, and wait for me at the entrance of the house.'

I was scarcely there two minutes before I saw the empress rapidly descending the steps of the house and coming towards me. She was alone. Her tall and slender figure possesses a singular grace ; her walk is active, light, and yet noble; she has certain move-

THE EMPRESS, HER DRESS, AND MANNERS. 41

ments of the arms and hands, certain attitudes, a certain turn of the head, that it is impossible to forget. She was dressed in white; her nice, surrounded with a white calash appeared calm and composed ; her eyes had an expression of gentleness and melancholy: a veil, gracefully thrown back, shaded her features, a transparent scarf fell over her shoulders, and completed the most elegant of morning dresses. Never had I seen her to so much advantage. Before this apparition, the sinister omens of the ball disappeared : the empress seemed resuscitated, and I experienced in beholding her, that sense of security which, after a night of trouble and agitation, returns with the dawn of day. Her majesty must, I thought, be stronger than I, to have thus supported the fete of the day before yesterday, the review and the soiree of yesterday, and to appear to-day so well and beautiful.

' I have shortened my promenade,' she said, 'because I knew that you were here.'

' Ah! Madame, I was far from expecting so much goodness.'

' I said nothing of my project to Madame,

who has been scolding me for thus coming to surprise you ; she pretends that I shall disturb you in your survey. You expect then to discover all our secrets?'

' I should like, Madame; one could not but gain by acquaintance with the ideas of those who know so well how to choose between splendour and elegance.'

' The residence at Peterhoff is insupportable to me, and it is to relieve my eyes from the glare of all that massive gold, that I have begged a cottage of the emperor. I have never been so happy as in this house ; but now that one of my daughters is married,

42TASTE OF THE EMPRESS.

and that my sons pursue their studies elsewhere, it has become too large for us.'

I smiled, without replying : I was under u charm : it seemed to me that this woman, so different from her in whose honour was given the sumptuous fete that had just taken place, could share with me all my impressions ; she has felt like me, I thought, the weariness, the emptiness, the false brilliancy of this public magnificence, and she now feels that she is worthy of something better. I compared the flowers of the cottage with the lustres of the palace, the sun of a bright morning to the illuminations of a night of ceremony, the silence of a delicious retreat to the tumult of a palace crowd, the festival of nature to the festival of a court, the woman to the empress ; and I was enchanted with the good taste and the sense which this princess had shown in flying the satieties of public display, to surround herself with all that constitutes the charm of private life. It was a new fairy scene, the illusion of which captivated my imagination much more strongly than the magic of splendour and power.

' I would not explain myself to Madame,`'

continued the empress. ' You shall see all over the cottage, and my son shall show it you. Meanwhile, I will go and visit my flowers, and shall find you again before we allow you to leave.'

Such was the reception I met with from this lady, who is represented as haughty, not only in Europe, where she is scarcely known, 1mt in liussia where they see her constantly.

At this moment, the hereditary Grand-duke joined

his mother. He was accompanied by Madame,

and her eldest daughter, a young person about four-

AN EMBARASSING QUESTION.43

teen years of age, fresh as a rose, and pretty as they were in France, in the times of Boucher. This young lady is the living model of one of the most agreeable portraits of that painter.

I expected the empress to give me my conge, but she commenced walking backwards and forwards before the house. Her majesty knew the interest I

took in all the family of Madame, who is a Polish

lady. Her majesty knew also that for some years

past one of the brothers of Madame had lived

at Paris. She turned the conversation to this young man's mode of life; and questioned me for a long time, with marked interest, regarding his sentiments, opinions and general character. This gave me every facility for saying of him all that my attachment dictated. She listened to me very attentively. 'When I had ceased speaking, the Grand-duke addressing his mother, continued the same subject and said, ' I met him at Ems, and liked him very well.'

' And yet, it is a man thus distinguished whom they forbid to come here, because he retired into Germany after the revolution in Poland,' cried

Madame , moved by her sisterly affection, and

using that freedom of expression of which the habit of living at court from her infancy has not deprived her. ' But what has he done then ?' said the empress, addressing me, with an accent that was inimitable for the mixture of impatience and kindness which it expressed. I was embarrassed to find an answer to a question so direct, for it involved the delicate subject of politics, and to touch upon this subject might spoil everything.

The Grand-duke came to my aid with an affability

44THE HEREDITARY GRAND-DUKE.

and a kindness which I should be very ungrateful to forget; no doubt he thought I had too much to say to dare to answer; and anticipating some evasion which might have betrayed my embarrassment, and compromised the cause I desired to plead, ' My mother,' he said, with vivacity, 'who ever asked a child of fifteen years what he had done in politics ? '

This answer, full of sense and of good feeling, extricated me from the difficulty, but it put an end to the conversation. If I might dare to interpret the silence of the empress, I should say that this was her thought—'What could now be done, in Russia, with a pardoned Pole? He would always be an object of envy to the old Russians, and he would only inspire his new masters with distrust. His health and life would be lost in the trials to which he would have to be exposed in order to tc?t his fidelity : and if, at length, they came to the c<?·ii elusion that he might be trusted, they would only despise him. Besides, what could I do for this young man ? I have so little influence ! '

I do not believe I much deceive myself in saying, that such were the thoughts of the empress ; such were also pretty nearly mine. 'We tacitly agreed in concluding that of two evils, the least for a gentleman who had lost both his fellow citizens and his comrades in arms, was to remain far from the land which had given him birth ; the worst of all conditions would be that of a man who should live as a stranger in his own home.