INTERVIEW WITH THE EMPRESS.239
composition of Breughel's. The tints of the picture cannot be described by words. The domes of the church of Saint Nicholas stood in the relief of lapis lazuli against a sky of silver; the illuminated portico of the Exchange, whose lamps were partially quenched by the dawning day, still gleamed on the water of the river, and was reflected — a peristyle of gold: the rest of the city was of that blue which we see in the distances of the landscapes of the old painters. This fantastic picture, painted on a ground of ultramarine, and framed by a gilded window, contrasted, in a manner that was altogether supernatural, with the light and splendour of the interior of the palace. It might have been said that the city, the sky, the sea and the whole face of nature had joined in contributing to the magnificence of the fete given to his daughter by the sovereign of these immense regions.
I was absorbed in the contemplation of the scene, when a sweet and penetrating female voice suddenly aroused me with the question —" What are you doing here ? "
" Madame, I am indulging in admiration. I can do nothing else to-day.;'
It was the empress. She stood alone with me in the embrasure of the window, which was like a pavilion opening on the Neva.
í¢ As for me, I am suffocating," replied her majesty. "It is less poetical, I admit; but you are right in admiring this picture; it is magnificent!" Continuing to contemplate it, she added—" I am certain that you and I are the only persons here who have remarked this effect of light."
240INTERVIEW WITH ТПЕ EMriiESS.
"Every thing that I see is new to me, Madame; and I can never cease to regret that I did not come to Russia in my youth."
" The heart and the imagination are always young."
I ventured no answer; for the empress, as well as myself, had no longer any other youth but that of which she spake — of which fact I did not wish to remind her; she would not have given me the time, nor, indeed, should I have had the boldness to tell her how many indemnifications may be found to console us for the flight of years. On retiring she said, with a grace which is her distinguishing attribute — Cí I shall recollect having suffered and admired with you : " and she afterwards added, " I do not leave yet; we shall meet again this evening."
I am very intimate with a Polish family, which is that of the woman whom the empress loves best —=
the Baroness . This lady was brought up in
Prussia with the daughter of the king, has followed that princess to Russia, and has never quitted her. She has married in Petersburg, where she has no other office but that of friend to the empress. Such constancy is honourable to both. The baroness must have been speaking well of me to the emperor and empress, and my natural timidity—a flattery so much the more refined as it is involuntary—has completed my good fortune.
On leaving the supper saloon, to pass into the ball room, I again approached a window. It opened into the interior court of the palace. A spectacle was there presented to me very different, but quite as unexpected as the former. The grand court of the winter palace is square, like that of the Louvre. During
RUSSIAN CROWDS.241
the ball, this enclosure had been gradually filling with people. The light of the dawning day had become more distinct; and in looking on the multitude, mute with admiration, motionless, fascinated as it were by the splendours of its master's palace, and drinking in, with a sort of timid animal delight, the emanations of the royal festival, I experienced an impression of pleasure. At last, then, I had found a crowd in Russia : I saw nothing below me but men ; and so close was the press that not an inch of earth could be discovered. Nevertheless, in despotic lands, the diversions of the people, when they approach those of the prince, always appear to me suspicious. The fear and flattery of the low, and the pride and hypocritical generosity of the great, are the only sentiments which I can believe to be genuine among men who live under the regime of the Russian autocracy. In the midst of the fetes of Petersburg I cannot forget the journey of the Empress Catherine into the Crimea, and the facades of villages, made of planks or painted canvass, and set up in the distance at every quarter league of the route, in order to make the triumphant sovereign believe that the desert had become peopled under her reign. Л spirit similar to that which dictated these illusions still possesses the minds of the Russians; every one masks the evil, and obtrudes the good in the eyes of his imperial master. There is a permanent conspiracy of smiles, plotting against the truth, in favour of the mental satisfaction of him who is reputed to will and to act for the good of all. The emperor is the only man in the empire who lives; for eating and drinking is not living.
VOL, Г.M
242KEMABKS ON ТПЕ RUSSIANS.
It must be owned, however, that the people remained there voluntarily; nothing appeared to compel them to come under the windows of the emperor : they were amusing themselves, therefore, but it was only with the pleasures of their masters; and, as Froissart says, very sorrily. The head-dress of the women, and the Russian, that is to say, the Persian, costume of the men, in their long robes and brightly-coloured girdles, the variety of colours and the immovableness of each individual, created the illusion of an immense Turkey carpet, spread entirely over the court by the magician who presides here over every miracle :—a parterre of heads, — such was the most striking ornament of the palace of the emperor during the night of his daughter's nuptials. This pi`ince thought as I did, for he pointed out to the foreigners, with much complacency, the silent crowd, whose presence alone testified its participation in the happiness of its master. It was the vision of a people on their knees before the invisible gods. Their majesties are the divinities of this Elysium, where the inhabitants, trained to resignation, invent for themselves a felicity made up of privation and sacrifices.
I begin to perceive that I am here talking like the radicals in Paris. But, though a democrat in Eussia, I am not the less in France an obstinate aristocrat: it is because a peasant in the environs of Paris is freer than a Russian lord, that I thus feel and write. We must travel before we can learn the extent to which the human heart is influenced by optical effects. This experience confirms the observation of
REMARKS ON THE RUSSIANS.243
Madame de Staël, who said, that in France "every body is either Jacobin or ultra-something."
I returned to my lodgings overwhelmed with the grandeur and magnificence of the emperor, and yet more astonished at seeing the disinterested admiration of his people for the good things which they do not possess, nor ever will, and which they do not dare even to regret. If I did not daily see to how many ambitious egotists liberty gives birth, I should have difficulty in believing that despotism could make so many disinterested philosophers.
244
NOTE.
CHAP. XII.
NOTE. EXCITEMENT OF A PETERSBURG LIFE. THE EMPEROR
TRULY A RUSSIAN. AFFABILITY OF THE EMPRESS. COM
PARISON BETWEEN PARIS AND PETERSBURG. DEFINITION OF
POLITENESS. — FETE AT THE MICHAEL PALACE. CONVERSATION