GENERAL HITROFF WAS AN AIDE-DE-CAMP TO ALEXANDER. MORE than once he had pulled silk stockings over his aging Russian feet, tightened his shoe buckles, and stepped into fur-lined outer boots to depart for a formal event. As was the custom, he threw a shoop, a fur outer garment worn only when riding in a carriage, on top of his formal military coat. Like everyone else, when he arrived at the Winter Palace for a ball, he would remove his shoop and outer boots and toss them to his footman.
Caulaincourt entertained in a similar style, providing a Swiss porter dressed in gold lace and embroidery to greet guests after they disembarked from their carriages. The Swiss porter opened the folding doors leading to the stairs, where Hitroff and other guests would pass twenty more footmen, who lined the steps like statues, until reaching the top to enter the upper level for the formal ball. Such was the ritual. Hitroff knew the routine well. After all, he had attended many events at the French ambassador’s mansion. He had become good friends with the French legation—particularly good.
One winter night in 1811, as Hitroff headed to a party, the uniformed Russian police hailed his carriage. Did they know the truth? Yes. And they arrested him for it.
What was his crime? Treason. Hitroff had furnished the French with information about Russia’s military forces. As John understatedly relayed to the US secretary of state in a letter, the material Hitroff had conveyed was too detailed to be considered “consistent with his duty.”
Hitroff was lucky. Alexander was mild compared to the madness of previous czars. He banished the traitor to a Siberian prison, not to a gallows or a firing squad. John observed that the incident excited “an extraordinary degree of attention.” Indeed it did.
Treason was not the only news lingering on whispering lips. In response to France’s New Year’s annexation of the Hanseatic towns, the Russian government moved 120,000 additional troops to the Polish border.
February 3, 1811, began as usual for John. He read a few chapters in the French translation of his Bible and ate breakfast. A messenger from Caulaincourt soon arrived with an inquiry. Was Monsieur Adams at home today? Yes. Could the French ambassador come by for a visit? Of course.
Caulaincourt wasted no time when he arrived. He talked in general terms about trade and then observed that an increased number of US merchants had entered Russian ports the previous trading season.
“I told him that it had been very considerable, greater than any former year,” John stated clearly, noting that they also faced more interruptions along the Baltic than ever before.
“And then, your vessels have done a great deal of business here on English account,” Caulaincourt accused in a fencing-match tone of voice.
“That was a mistake; that the American vessels which came here were directly from America and returned directly to thither,” Adams defended with equal force.
“But how happens it, then,” he said, “that several of them have been sequestered, or a least that their admission has been suspended?”
“Why,” Adams accused, “the credit of that is attributed to you.” It was the most direct accusation he had ever made toward the French ambassador.
“That is to say, that we are supposed to have required that a strict examination should be had,” Caulaincourt said, spinning John’s charge.
Adams was sure his opponent had tried every maneuver to push the czar into excluding all American commerce from the convoy. Though the Russian government promised to admit the US vessels, the paperwork was absent, a sign that Caulaincourt had so far succeeded. He had to make his case, allowing justice to provide the fair wind.
“I had sent to the government here a list of the vessels which I knew to be American, and the cargoes which I had no doubt were American property,” John explained, adding that he personally knew some of the captains and had received reference letters for the others.
“Where [could] the American vessels get such large quantities of sugar as these had brought?” the Frenchman accused, implying that only the British could supply such great amounts.
“Our own country produced sugar, particularly Louisiana and the state of Georgia,” Adams replied, reminding him of the territory that Napoleon had sold to the United States.
“The desire of the French government manifestly was to harmonize,” he assured before abruptly changing the subject and inviting John and Louisa to a children’s ball. With his diplomatic sword withdrawn, Caulaincourt departed. The debate abated, for now.
“Sick as usual after these fatigues which I cannot learn to support à la Rousse—And now I am more delicate than ever,” Louisa wrote on February 8.
The next day was no better: “I still confined to my chamber—I must have been a strong woman or I could not have borne such climates and so much anxiety and suffering.”
While her husband traded jabs with Caulaincourt, Louisa battled the physical stresses of pregnancy against the social demands placed upon her as the only minister plenipotentiary’s wife residing in St. Petersburg. Unlike the previous February when she was ill and could not attend social obligations, she had a new resource. The imperial family’s implicit acceptance of her sister into their court now allowed Kitty to attend dinners in her place. Rest was a commodity she tapped as willingly as chocolate to alleviate her cravings.
By February 11, Louisa decided she was strong enough to go out in public again. She attended a party hosted by a prominent Frenchwoman. The best evidence of her improved health was her Abigail Adams–like propriety, which poured from her pen after she returned home.
“Madame Lesseps is a very sensible woman—Sensible women [are] not always the most agreeable though the most valuable—The maxim of men ‘that pretty is better than good’ is almost universally adopted by them where money does not bias the taste,” she wrote with Jane Austen–like astuteness.
Louisa’s pregnancy seemed to be bringing out a suppressed side of her personality. While her belly expanded, she also grew more outspoken about female virtues and more conscious of social changes.
“The French were a little down,” she detected after one event. Another recent party “was so cold and heartless that it was different altogether from anything that we had seen before.”
“Rumors of war between Russia and France—a new anxiety.”
The winds from Paris to St. Petersburg were blowing a cold gust.
Adams called on Caulaincourt by appointment at noon on February 15. The pair resumed their diplomatic duel. John brought up a crucial point: the French government refused to acknowledge licenses that French consuls legitimately gave to ship captains at US ports before their departure.
“Some of our American vessels, though not of this last list, had met with objections for having been provided with certificates of origin given by the French consuls in America,” he asserted.
“The French consuls in the United States gave no such certificates,” Caulaincourt replied just as sharply, saying that the measure was not mere newspaper speculation. His government had sent him a formal declaration of the change.
“This was certainly a mistake,” John declared, revealing a new weapon—tangible evidence. He handed the ambassador a copy of a certificate signed by the French consul in Boston only a few months earlier on October 31, 1810—long after the announcement by France’s government-run newspaper in July 1810.
Adams prodded him further. The French government “when informed of its mistake” should take measures to correct it and protect the honor of its public officers.
“But, supposing our consuls have given these certificates in disobedience of their orders?” Caulaincourt countered.
“It [was] more probable,” John replied, “. . . that if such orders had been dispatched to them, they had not been received.”
The slowness of ship travel was most likely the cause. Even if the French consuls had directly disobeyed their government, it “became a question between the officer and his government.” The matter certainly should not “affect the rights, reputation or property of persons who had received their certificates.”
Caulaincourt listened silently while Adams continued his monologue.
“If they had violated their duty, their government might say so to the world—might recall and punish them—might disavow their acts and discredit them after due notice,” John said with polite but clear force.
“But this was a very different thing from declaring their real signatures to be forgeries. It was merely a question of fact: Did they or did they not give the certificates?” he continued.
Then he used his best logic against the ambassador. “If they did, and you declare they did not, it is precisely the case that an individual should deny his own handwriting to a promissory note.”
Caulaincourt agreed with the comparison.
“The dishonor of such a procedure must fall ultimately upon the officer himself whose government falsified his acts or upon the government which thus gratuitously discredits the officers,” Adams said, adding a forceful blow: “I could not suppose such an intention in the government of France.”
The Frenchman studied the paper. Clearly the son of John Adams knew how to fight honorably—how to accuse a man’s government of dishonesty in a way that did not dishonor the man himself. Though he fenced him into a corner, by suggesting noble motives, Adams also gave the French ambassador a way to retain personal dignity.
“To be sure, there could not be two opinions upon a case so clear, considered as a question of law or of morality,” Caulaincourt responded.
John had not forgotten how much honor mattered to his counterpart. When the Russian nobility questioned his role in the killing of the Duke d’Enghien, whom Napoleon had ordered Caulaincourt to capture, the ambassador had worked tirelessly to clear his name with Alexander. Despite the French government’s recent orders, one value still mattered to Caulaincourt.
“Consider it, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, as a question of honor—as a question between men of honor—what would be the answer then?” John posed with emphasis.
“Precisely the same,” he agreed, as if resting his saber. “By the late measures in France, it appeared that the government was inclined to come upon good terms with the United States.”
Adams raised another crucial point. If the French government knew that one of its officers had falsified a signature, then France would disdain such an act of injustice because it reflected dishonor on the government. Caulaincourt agreed with the theory, but couldn’t say anything further. The French government would willingly avert its eyes away from legitimate licenses if it meant that other governments would confiscate American cargo.
“But, it seems, you are great favorites here. You have found powerful protection, for most of your vessels have been admitted,” the ambassador jabbed.
“They had, but after a delay of three months, and after their papers had been taken from the commission of neutral navigation and had undergone a very strict examination before the imperial council,” John responded, not knowing the final outcome of the US ships belonging to the convoy. He was hopeful Campenhausen would bring him good news soon.
John told Caulaincourt that in his first meeting with the emperor, Alexander had professed a strong desire to trade with the United States while also declaring a strong alliance with France. The two were not mutually exclusive.
Caulaincourt disagreed. From Napoleon’s perspective, Russia could not be an ally to both America and France. “I hope they will be more reconcilable still as France and the United States will come to a better understanding with each other. But, after all, you have had a very advantageous commerce this last year,” Caulaincourt replied. “I am told you have had more than a hundred vessels at Archangel.”
John fired back: “But, you are to consider, that, thanks to you, we have had scarcely any part of the continent of Europe open to us. We have had only the ports of Spain and Portugal, where you are not the masters, and Russia. For you made Denmark and Prussia shut their doors against us, without a shadow of a reason for it.”
“You could not, however, have much commerce with Denmark.”
“It was considerable.”
Cornered, Caulaincourt put down his proverbial sword and ended the conversation. What neither realized at the time was that this would be their last duel of words. Soon everything would change.