'Will you undertake to hand to the Tsar a letter from me ? On that condition, I will order a pass to be made out for you and all your family.'
'I would accept Your Majesty's proposal,' said my father, 'but it is difficult for me to guarantee success.'
'Will you give me your word of honour, that you will use all possible means to deliver my letter with your own hands ?'
'I pledge you my honour, Sir.'
'That is enough. I shall send for you. Is there anything you need ? '
'Nothing, except a roof t o shelter m y family till w e leave.'
'The Duke of Treviso will do what he can.' Mortier did in fact provide a room in the Governor's palace, and ordered that we should be supplied with provisions; and his maitre d'hotel sent us wine as well. After several days Mortier summoned my father at four in the morning, and sent him off to the Kremlin.
By this time the conflagration had spread to a frightful extent; the atmosphere, heated red-hot and darkened by smoke, was intolerable. Napoleon was dressed already and walking about the room, angry and uneasy; he was beginning to realise that his withered laurels would soon be frozen, and that a jest would not serve, as it had in Egypt, to get him out of this embarrassment.
His plan of campaign was ill-conceived, and all except Napoleon 3· The Russian commander-in-chief.
8
C H I L D H O O D, Y O U T H A N D E X I L E
knew it - Ney, Narbonne, Berthier, and even officers o f n o mark or position; to all criticisms his reply was the magic word 'Moscow' ; and, when he reached Moscow, he too discovered the truth.
When my father entered the room, Napoleon took a sealed letter from a table, gave it to him, and said by way of dismissal, 'I rely upon your word of honour.' The address of the envelope ran thus : A mon frere l'empereur Alexandre.
The safe conduct given to my father is preserved to this day : it is signed by the Duke of Treviso and countersigned below by lesseps, chief of police at Moscow. Some strangers, hearing of our good fortune, begged my father to take them with him, under the pretext that they were servants or relations ; and they joined our party. An open carriage was provided for my mother and nurse, and for my wounded uncle ; the rest walked. A party of cavalry escorted us ; when the rear of the Russian Army carne in sight, they wished us good fortune and galloped back again to Moscow.
The strange party of refugees was surrounded a moment later by Cossacks, who took us to headquarters. The generals in command were Wintsengerode and llovaysky.
When the former was told of the letter, he told my father that he would send him at once, with two dragoons, to see the Tsar at Petersburg.
'What is to become of your party ?' asked the Cossack general, llovaysky. 'They can't possibly stay here, within rifle-shot of the troops ; there may be some hot fighting any day.' My father asked that we might be sent, if possible, to his Yaroslavl estate; and he added that he was abiolutely penniless at the time.
'That does not matter : we can settle accounts later,' said the General ; 'and don't be uneasy : I give you my promise that they shall be sent.'
While my father was sent off to Petersburg on a courier's cart, llovaysky procured an old rattle-trap of a carriage for us, and sent us and a party of French prisoners to the next town, under an escort of Cossacks ; he provided us with money for posting as far as Yaroslavl, and, in general� did all that he could for us in a time of war and confusion.
This was my first long journey in Russia; my second was not attended by either French cavalry or Ural Cossacks or prisoners of war ; the whole party consisted of myself and a drunk police-officer sitting beside me in the carriage.
N U R S E R Y A N D U N I V E R S I T Y
9
3
My father was taken straight to Arakcheyev's4 house and detained there. When the Minister asked for the letter, my father said that he had given his word of honour to deliver it in person. The Minister then promised to consult the Tsar, and informed him next day in writing, that he himself was commissioned by the Tsar to receive the letter and present it at once. For the letter he gave a receipt, which also has been preserved. For about a month my father was under arrest in Arakcheyev's house; no friend might see him, and his only visitor was S. Shishkov, whom the Tsar sent to ask for details about the burning of Moscow, the entry of the French, and the interview with Napoleon. No eye-witness of these events had reached Petersburg except my father. At last he was told that the Tsar ordered him to be set at liberty ; he was exCUlied, on the ground of necessity, for having accepted a safe-conduct from the French authorities ; but he was ordered to leave Petersburg at once, without having communication with anyone, except that he was allowed to say goodbye to his elder brother.
When he reached at nightfall the little village where we were, my father found us in a peasant's cottage ; there was no manorhouse on that estate. I was sleeping on a settle near the window; the window would not shut tight, and the snow, drifting through the crack, had covered part of a stool, and lay, without melting, on the window-sill.
All were in great distress and confusion, and especially my mother. One morning, some days before my father arrived, the head man of the village came hurriedly into the cottage where she was living, and made signs to her that she was to follow him. My mother could not speak a word of Russian at that time ; she could only make out that the man was speaking of my uncle Pavel ; she did not know what to think; it came into her head that the people had murdered him or wished to murder first him and then her.
She took me in her arms and followed the head man, more dead than alive, and shaking all over. She entered the cottage occupied by my uncle ; he was actually dead, and his body lay near a table at which he had begun to shave; a stroke of paralysis had killed him instantly.
4· This minister was the real ruler of Russia till the death of Alexander in 1825.
10
C H I L D H O O D, YOUTH AND E X I L E
My mother was only seventeen then, and her feelings may be imagined. She was surrounded by half-savage bearded men, dressed in sheepskins and speaking a language to her utterly incomprehensible ; she was living in a small, smoke-grimed peasant's cottage ; and it was the month of November in the terrible winter of 18 1 2. My uncle had been her one support, and she spent days and night in tears for his loss. But those 'savages' pitied her with all their heart ; their simple kindness never failed her, and their head man sent his son again and again to the town, to fetch raisins and gingerbreads, apples and biscuits, to tempt her to eat.
Fifteen years later, this man was still living and sometimes paid us a visit at Moscow. The little hair he had left was then white as snow. My mother used to give him tea and talk over that winter of 181 2 ; she reminded him how frightened she was of him, and how the pair of them, entirely unintelligible to one another, made the arrangements about my uncle's funeral. The old man continued to call my mother Yuliza Ivanovna (her name was Luiza) ; and he always boasted that I was quite willing to go to him and not in the least afraid of his long beard.
We travelled by stages to Tver and finally to Moscow, which we reached after about a year. At the same time, a brother of my father's returned from Sweden and settled down in the same house with us. Formerly ambassador in Westphalia, he had been sent on some mission to the court of Bemadotte.