I HAD EARNESTLY begged Madame ——— to procure for me admission to the English cottage of the Imperial family. It is a small house which they have built in the midst of the noble park of Peterhof, in the new Gothic style so much in vogue in England. “Nothing is more difficult than to enter the cottage,” replied Madame ———, “during the time that Their Majesties remain here, and nothing would be more easy in their absence. However, I will try.”
I therefore prolonged my stay at Peterhof, waiting, with some impatience, but without much hope, for the answer of Madame ———. Yesterday morning early, I received a little note from her, thus worded, “Come to my house at a quarter before eleven. I am permitted, as a very particular favor, to show you the cottage at the hour when the emperor and empress take their walk; that is at eleven o’clock precisely. You know their punctuality.”
I did not fail to keep the appointment. Madame ——— resides in a very pretty mansion, built in a corner of the park. She follows the empress everywhere, but she occupies, when possible, some separate house, although in the immediate vicinity of the different Imperial residences. I was with her at half past ten. At a quarter before eleven, we entered a carriage-and-four, crossed the park rapidly, and in a few minutes arrived at the gate of the cottage.
It is, as I have said, quite an English residence, surrounded with flowers, shaded with trees, and built in the style of the prettiest places that may be seen near London, about Twickenham, on the borders of the Thames. We crossed a rather small vestibule raised a few steps, and had just stopped to examine a room, the furniture of which struck me as a little too recherché for the general character of the building, when a valet de chambre 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!”
“We are betrayed!” I exclaimed: “I shall not have time to see anything.”
“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 movements 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 face, 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 endured the fête of the day before yesterday, the review and the soiree of yesterday, and to appear today so well and beautiful.
“I have shortened my promenade,” she said, “because I knew that you were here.”
“I was far, madame, from expecting so much kindness.”
“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 splendor and elegance.”
“The residence at Peterhof is unendurable 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, and that my sons pursue their studies elsewhere, it has become too large for us.”
I smiled, without replying: I was under a charm: it seemed to me, that this woman, so different from her in whose honor was given the sumptuous fête 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 public magnificence, and she now feels that she is worthy of something better. I compared the flowers of the cottage with the chandeliers 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 fleeing 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 splendor 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 will 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, but in Russia, 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 fourteen 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 was waiting for the empress to give me my congé, 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 that subject might spoil everything.
The grand duke came to my aid with an affability 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 compromise 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 test his fidelity; and if, at length, they came to the conclusion 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.
On a sign from the empress, the grand duke, Madame ———, her daughter, and myself re-entered the cottage. I could have wished to have found less luxurious furniture in this house, and a greater number of objets d’art. The ground floor resembled that of all the houses of rich and elegant English people, but not one picture of a high order, not one fragment of marble, or of terra-cotta, announced that the owners of the place had a love for the arts. It is not the being able to draw more or less skillfully, but it is the taste for chefs d’oeuvre that proves a love for, and a judgment in the arts. I always regret to see the absence of this passion in those with whom it could be so easily gratified.
It may be said that statues and pictures of great value would be out of place in a cottage; but this house is the chosen and favorite resort of its possessors; and when people form for themselves an abode according to their fancy, if they have much love for the arts, that love will betray itself, at the risk even of some incongruity of style, some fault of harmony: besides, a little anomaly is allowable in an Imperial cottage. Over the distribution of the ornaments of the cottage, and the general arrangements of its interior, it could be easily discovered that family affections and habits had chiefly presided; and these are worth even yet more than an appreciation of the beautiful in the works of genius. Only one thing really displeased me in the furniture and the arrangements of this elegant retreat, and that was a too servile adherence to English fashions.
We looked over the ground floor very hastily, for fear of wearying our guide. The presence of so august a cicerone embarrassed me. I know that nothing so annoys princes as our timidity; at least, unless it be affected in order to flatter them. They love to be put at their ease, and we cannot do that without being at ease ourselves. With a grave prince, I could have hoped to save myself by conversation, but with a gay and youthful prince, I was left without resource.
A staircase, very narrow, but adorned with an English carpet, conducted us to the upper floor. We there saw the room where the Grand Duchess Marie passed a part of her childhood; it is empty: that of the Grand Duchess Olga will probably not remain long occupied. The empress might truly say that the cottage was becoming too large. These two very similar rooms are furnished with a charming simplicity.
The grand duke stopped at the top of the stairs, and said, with that perfect politeness of which (notwithstanding his extreme youth) he possesses the secret,—“I am sure that you would rather see everything here without me; and I have seen it all so often, that I would, I confess, as willingly leave you to finish your survey with Madame ———. I will therefore join my mother, and wait for you with her.”
Whereupon he saluted us gracefully, and left me, charmed with the flattering ease of his manners. It is a great advantage to a prince to be really well-bred. I had not, then, this time, produced the effect that I anticipated; the constraint that I felt had not been communicated. If he had sympathized with my uneasiness, he would have remained, for timidity can do nothing but submit to its torture; it knows not how to free itself; no elevation is safe from its attacks; the victim whom it paralyzes, in whatever rank he may be placed, cannot find strength either to confront or to fly from that which produces his discomfort.
At the moment when the grand duke left us, Mademoiselle ——— was standing behind her mother. The prince, as he passed her, stopped, and in a very grave but rather humorous manner, made her a deep curtsey, without speaking a word. The young lady, perceiving that the salutation was ironical, remained in a respectful attitude, but without returning the obeisance. I admired this little expression of feeling, which appeared to me to exhibit an exquisite delicacy. I doubt whether at the Russian court, any woman of twenty-five would have distinguished herself by an act of so much courage; it was dictated only by that innocence, which to the regard due to social prerogatives knows how to join a just sentiment of its own dignity. The exhibition of tact did not pass unperceived.
“Always the same!” said the grand duke, as he turned away.
They had been children together; a difference of five years in age had not prevented them from often playing at the same games. Such familiarity is not forgotten, even at court. The silent scene which they now enacted together much amused me.
My peep into the interior of the Imperial family has interested me extremely. These princes must be viewed up close in order to be appreciated. They are made to be at the head of their country; for they are in every respect superior to their people. The Imperial family is the object the most worthy of exciting the admiration and the envy of foreigners that I have seen in Russia.
At the top of the house we found the cabinet of the emperor. It is a tolerably large and very simply ornamented library, opening on a balcony which overlooks the sea. Without leaving this watchtower, the emperor can give his orders to his fleet. For this purpose he has a spyglass, a speaking trumpet, and a little telegraph which he can work himself.
After leaving the cottage I proceeded to pay a hasty visit to Oranienbaum, the celebrated residence of Catherine II, built by Menshikov. That unfortunate man was sent to Siberia before he had completed the wonders of a palace deemed too royal for a minister.
It now belongs to the Grand Duchess Helena, sister-in-law of the present emperor. Situated two or three leagues from Peterhof, in sight of the sea, and on a continuation of the same ridge upon which is built the Imperial Palace, the castle of Oranienbaum, although constructed of wood, is an imposing edifice. Notwithstanding the imprudent luxury of the builder, and the greatness of the personages who have, after him, inhabited it, it is not remarkable for extent. Terraces, flights of steps, and balconies covered with orange trees and flowering plants, connect the house with the park, and embellish both the one and the other; but the architecture itself is anything but magnificent. The Grand Duchess Helena has shown here the taste which presides throughout all her arrangements, and which has made Oranienbaum a charming residence, notwithstanding the dullness of the landscape, and the besetting memories of the scenes formerly enacted there.
On leaving the palace I asked permission to see the remains of the small but strong fortress from whence they obliged Peter III to come forth, and then carried him to Ropscha, where he was assassinated. I was conducted to a retired hamlet, where are to be seen dry ditches, broken mounds, and heaps of stones, a modern ruin, in the production of which policy has had more to do than time. But the enforced silence, the purposely created solitude, which reign around these accursed remains, summon up before the mind precisely what is sought to be concealed: the official lie is annulled by the historic fact. History is a magical mirror, in which the people see, after the death of men who were influential in public affairs, the real, unmasked reflection of their faces. Those faces have passed away, but their images remain engraved on this inexorable crystal. Truth cannot be buried with the dead. It rises triumphant above the fear of princes and the flattery of people, always powerless when they endeavor to stifle the cry of blood; and it finds its way through prisons, and even through the tomb, especially the tomb of the great, for obscure persons succeed better than princes in concealing the crimes which stain their memory. If I had not known that the fortress of Peter III had been demolished, I should have guessed it; but what astonishes me, in seeing the wish here exhibited to create oblivion of the past, is that anything connected with it should be preserved. The names ought to be destroyed as well as the walls. It was not sufficient to demolish the fortress, they should have also razed the palace, which is only a quarter of a league distant. Whoever visits Oranienbaum inquires, with anxiety, for the vestiges of the prison where Peter III was compelled to sign the voluntary abdication, which became his death warrant,—for the sacrifice once obtained, it was necessary to prevent his revoking it.
In looking over the park of Oranienbaum, which is large and beautiful, I visited several of the summerhouses which were the scenes of the empress’s amorous assignations. Some of them were splendid pavilions, others exhibited bad taste. In general, their architecture lacked purity of style, though certainly pure enough for the uses to which the goddess of the place destined them.
I returned to Peterhof, and slept, for the third night, in the theater. This morning, in returning to Petersburg, I took the road by Krasnoye Selo, where a large camp is formed. Forty thousand men of the Imperial guard are, it is said, lodged there, under tents, or dispersed in the neighboring villages. Others say the number is seventy thousand. In Russia everyone imposes upon me his own estimate, to which I pay little attention, for nothing is more deceptive than these statements. They serve to show, however, the importance that is attached to leading people astray. Nations rise above such childish stratagems when they pass from infancy to a state of manhood.
I was much amused with viewing the variety of uniforms, and with comparing the expressive and savage faces of these soldiers, who are brought from every part of the empire. Long lines of white tents glistened in the sun, on a surface broken into small undulations in a manner that produced a picturesque effect.
I am constantly regretting the insufficiency of words to describe certain scenes in the North, and, above all, certain effects of light. A few strokes of the pencil would give a better idea of the original aspect of this melancholy and singular land, than whole volumes of description.