Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VII, December 1850, Vol. II

Three German princesses came to the court of St. Petersburg, in order that Catharine might make choice of suitable brides for her grandsons. The empress thoughtfully expected the arrival of her guests, whose approach she watched from a window of her palace.

The empress, whose motions were dignified and graceful, attached great importance to deportment; she formed her opinions of young people by that standard. The destinies of these princesses were decided the instant they alighted from their traveling carriage. The first leaped down without availing herself of the step. The empress shook her head, "She will never be empress of Russia, she is too precipitate," was her internal remark. The second entangled her feet in her dress, and with difficulty escaped a fall. "She is not the empress, for she is too awkward," and Catharine again turned her eyes on the carriage with anxious curiosity. The third princess descended very gracefully; she was beautiful, majestic, and grave. "Behold the future Empress of Russia," said Catharine. This princess was Louisa of Baden.

Catharine introduced these ladies to her grandsons, as the children of the Duchess of Baden-Durlack, born Princess of Darmstadt, her early friend, whose education she wished to finish at her court, since the possession of their country by the French had left them without a home. The great dukes saw through this artifice, and upon their return to their own palace talked much of Catharine's élèves.

"I think the eldest very pretty," said Alexander.

"For my part," rejoined Constantine, "I consider them neither pretty nor plain. They ought to be sent to Riga to the princes of Courland; they are really quite good enough for them."

The Empress Catharine was informed, that very day, of the opinion of her grandsons. The admiration of Alexander for Louisa of Baden sympathized with her intentions. The Grand Duke Constantine had done the personal attractions of this young princess great injustice, for Louisa of Baden, besides the freshness of her youth, had lovely fair ringlets, hanging in rich profusion on her magnificent shoulders, a form light and flexible as that of a fairy, and large blue eyes full of sweetness and sensibility. The following day, the empress brought the princesses to the palace of Prince Potemkin, which she had appointed for their residence. While they were at their toilet, she sent them dresses, jewels, and the cordon of St. Catharine. After chatting with them upon the topics she considered suitable to their age, she asked to see their wardrobe, which she examined, article by article, with interest and curiosity. Having finished her scrutiny, she kissed the princesses, and remarked, with an emphatic smile,

"My friends, I was not so rich as you when I came to St. Petersburg." In fact, Catharine was very poor when she arrived in Russia, but she left her adopted country a heritage in Poland and the Crimea.

The predilection of Alexander for Louisa of Baden was responded to by that lovely princess. The grand duke at that time was a charming young man, full of benevolence and candor, with the best temper in the world, and the young German did not attempt to disguise her tenderness for him. Catharine, in announcing to them that they were destined for each other, believed she was rendering them perfectly happy.

The behavior of the bride was admirably adapted to the circumstances in which she was placed. She acquired the Russian language with grace and facility, and accepted a new name with the tenets of the Greek religion. She received those of Elizabeth Alexiowena, the same borne by the imperial daughter of Peter the Great.

Notwithstanding the fortunate presages of the Empress Catharine, this early marriage was not one of happiness. The inconstancy of Alexander, indeed, withered the nuptial garland while yet green on the brow of the bride, and made it for her a crown of thorns.

The tragedy that elevated Alexander to the throne, restored to the devoted wife the wandering affections of her husband. His profound grief made her sympathy necessary to him, and the young empress, almost a stranger to Paul, wept for him like a true daughter. The secret tears of Alexander were shed at night on the bosom of his consort, whose tender concern for him consoled him for the restraint he imposed upon his feelings during the day.

The regretful remembrance of Alexander for his father, outlasted the reviving affection he had during that dolorous period felt for his wife.

The empress, still a young woman, was an old spouse, and the emperor had inherited the passionate and inconstant temperament of Catharine. But, gracious and smiling as he always was with the ladies, or polite and friendly to the gentlemen, there crossed his brow from time to time a gloomy shadow, the mute but terrible memorial of that dreadful night, when he heard the death struggle of his father, and was conscious of his agony without the power to save him. His perpetual smile was the mask beneath which he disguised the anguish of his mind, and as he advanced in life, this profound melancholy threatened to deepen into malady. He did not yield, however, without maintaining a warfare with his remorse. He combated memory with action. His reforms, his long and laborious journeys, had but one aim. In the course of his reign, he is supposed to have traversed fifty thousand leagues. But, however rapidly he performed these journeys, he never deviated from the time he fixed for his setting off or return, even by an hour, and he undertook them without guards and without an escort. He, of course, met with many strange adventures, and was amused with rendering his personal assistance whenever he met with accidents or encountered difficulties by the wayside. In his journey to Finland in company with Prince Pierre Volkouski, the imperial carriage in traversing a sandy mountain rolled back, notwithstanding the efforts of the coachman, upon which the emperor jumped out, and literally lent his shoulder to the wheel, leaving his companion asleep.

The rough motion of the carriage disturbed the slumbers of the prince, who found himself at the bottom of the carriage and alone. He looked about him with astonishment, when he perceived the emperor, with his brow bedewed with perspiration, from the effects of his toil in assisting to drag him and the vehicle to the top of the mountain, the precise point at which he had awakened from his sleep.

At another time, while traversing Little Russia, while the horses were changing at a certain station, the emperor expressed his determination to travel on foot for a few miles, ordering his people not to hasten their arrangements, but to let him walk forward. Alone, with no mark of distinction, dressed in a military great-coat, that gave no clew to the rank of the wearer, the emperor traversed the town without attracting attention, till he arrived at two roads, and found himself obliged to inquire his way of an individual who was sitting before the door of the last house smoking a pipe. This personage, like the emperor wore a military great-coat, and by his pompous air seemed to entertain no small opinion of his own consequence.

"My friend, can you tell me which of these roads will bring me to – ?" asked the emperor.

The man of the pipe scanned him from head to foot, apparently surprised at the presumption of a pedestrian, in speaking to such a dignitary as himself, and between two puffs of smoke he growled out very disdainfully the ungracious reply, "The right."

"Thank you, sir," said the emperor, raising his hat with the respect this uncivil personage seemed by his manner to command. "Will you permit me to ask you another question?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Your rank in the army, if you please."

"Guess," returned he of the pipe.

"Lieutenant, perhaps?"

"Go higher."

"Captain?" rejoined the emperor.

"Much higher;" and the smoker gave a consequential puff.

"Major, I presume?"

"Go on," replied the officer.

"Lieutenant-colonel?"

"Yes, you have guessed it at last, but you have taken some trouble to discover my rank."

The low bow of the emperor made the man with the pipe conclude he was speaking to an inferior, so, without much ceremony, he said, "Pray, who are you? for I conclude you are in the army."

"Guess," replied the emperor, much amused with the adventure.

"Lieutenant?"

"Go on."

"Captain?"

"Much higher."

"Major?"

"You must still go on."

"Lieutenant-colonel?"

"You have not yet arrived at my rank in the army."

The officer took his pipe out of his mouth. "Colonel, I presume."

"You have not yet reached my grade."

The officer assumed a more respectful attitude. "Your Excellency is then Lieutenant-general?"

"You are getting nearer the mark."

The puzzled lieutenant-colonel kept his helmet in his hand, and looked stupid and alarmed.

"Then it appears to me that your Highness is Field-Marshal?"

"Make another attempt, and perhaps you will discover my real position."

"His Imperial Majesty!" exclaimed the officer, trembling with apprehension, and dropping the pipe upon the ground, which was broken into twenty pieces.

"The same, at your service," replied the emperor, laughing.

The poor lieutenant-colonel dropped upon his knees, uttering the words in a pitiful tone, "Ah! sire, pardon me."

"What pardon do you require?" replied the emperor. "I asked my way of you, and you pointed it out, and I thank you for that service. – Good day."

The good-tempered prince then took the road to the right, leaving the surly lieutenant-colonel ashamed and astonished at the colloquy he had held with his sovereign.

He gave a proof of intrepidity and presence of mind during a tempest which befell him on a lake near Archangel, when, perceiving the pilot overwhelmed with the responsibility his imperial rank laid upon him, he said, "My friend, more than eighteen hundred years have elapsed, since a Roman general, placed in similar circumstances, said to his pilot, 'Fear not, for thou hast with thee Cæsar and his fortunes.' I am, however, less bold than Cæsar; I therefore charge thee to think no more of the emperor than of thyself or any other man, and do thy best to save us both." The pilot took courage, and relieved from his burden by the wisdom of his sovereign, guided the helm with a firm hand, and brought the tempest-tossed skiff safely to the shore.

The Emperor Alexander was not always so fortunate. He met with several dangerous accidents, and his last journey to the provinces of the Don nearly cost him his life. A fall from his droski hurt his leg, and left him incurably lame. This misfortune was aggravated by his disregarding the advice of his medical attendant, who prescribed rest for some days; but Alexander, who was a strict disciplinarian, did not choose to delay his return to St. Petersburg an hour beyond the time he had fixed. Erysipelas attacked the limb, and the emperor was confined to his bed for many weeks, and never recovered his lameness. The sight of his wife, pale and melancholy, whom his infidelity had injured, increased his mental despondency. That princess watched over him with the conjugal tenderness which no neglect could extinguish, but her fair face had forever lost the smile which once lighted up, like a sunbeam, every beautiful feature, and he felt himself the cause of that secret sorrow which had banished the bloom from her cheek and the smile from her lips. Elizabeth had borne him two daughters, but her children had not survived their fifth and seventh years. A childless mother and forsaken wife, Elizabeth the Empress resembled no longer the bright Louisa of Baden, the object of Alexander's first love, the princess who had shed tears of happiness when the joyful start and impassioned look of her lover had assured the Empress Catharine how willingly he accepted the hand of the princess she had destined for him. The heart of the wife had never swerved from her devotion; her love had increased with time, but she knew not how to share his affections with a rival.

Alexander was solitary in his habits; repose was necessary to a man who loved privacy, and hated those prestiges of power which had surrounded him from infancy. He had inherited his imperial grandmother's love for Tzarsko Zelo, a palace situated between three and four leagues from St. Petersburg. This palace stood upon the site of a cottage formerly belonging to an old Dutch-woman named Sarah, a person well known to Peter the Great, with whom that mighty prince was accustomed to chat and drink milk.

The fruitful plains covered with grass and waving corn, lately redeemed by the plow from their native sterility, pleased the legislator who was an habitué at the abode of Sarah, and at the death of the old woman, he presented the cottage to the Empress Catharine, with the surrounding lands, as a suitable situation for a farm-house. Catharine, as simple in her tastes as her imperial consort, gave her architect proper directions respecting this grange. He, however, thought fit to build her a fine mansion. Her daughter, the Empress Elizabeth, found this house too costly for a farm-house, and too mean for an imperial residence. She pulled it down and built a magnificent palace after the design of Count Rastreti. This Russian had the barbarous taste to gild the building within and without. The bas-reliefs, statues, caryatides, roof and basement, glittered with a waste of this precious metal. The count wished to make this palace surpass Versailles, and so it did in wealth undoubtedly. The Empress Elizabeth invited the French embassador to the fête she gave at the inauguration of her golden house, which outshone even the celebrated one built by Nero. The palace of Tzarsko Zelo, was considered by the whole court the eighth wonder of the world.

The silence of the Marquis de Chetardie surprised her majesty, who with some pique requested his opinion, adding, he appeared to think something was wanting.

"I am seeking for the case of this jewel, Madam," dryly replied the embassador; a bon mot which ought to have gained him a sitting in the academy of St. Petersburg, where wit was a surer passport than learning.

The golden roof of Tzarsko Zelo was ill-calculated to stand the rigor of a Russian winter. The noble architect had built it for summer. Cold had been forgotten in his calculation. The expensive repairs every spring brought in its course, compelled Catharine the Great to sacrifice the gilding. She had scarcely issued her orders, before a customer appeared for the article she was excluding from her palace, for which a speculator offered her an immense sum. The empress thanked him for a liberal offer none but a Russian sovereign would have declined, assuring him with a smile, "that she never sold her old chattels."

This empress loved Tzarsko Zelo where she built the little palace for her grandson Alexander, and surrounded it with spacious gardens, which she was aware he loved. Bush, her architect, could discover no supply from whence he could obtain water in the immediate neighborhood, yet he prepared lakes, canals and fish-ponds, upon the responsibility of the empress, being sure that his reservoirs would not long be empty if she ordered water to come. His successor Baner did not leave the empress to discover its source. He cast his eyes upon the estate of Prince Demidoff, who possessed a super-abundant quantity of the precious fluid the imperial gardens wanted. He mentioned the aridity of Tzarsko Zelo, and the courteous subject dutifully bestowed his superfluous moisture upon the imperial gardens. In despite of nature, copious streams rushed forward, and at the bidding of the architect rose into cascades, ran into canals, filled fish-ponds, and spread in expansive lakes. The Empress Consort Elizabeth, upon beholding these wonders, playfully remarked, "We may fall out with all Europe, but we must take care not to quarrel with Prince Demidoff." In fact, that obliging noble could have killed the whole court with thirst, by stopping the supply of water he allowed to the imperial family.

Educated at Tzarsko Zelo, Alexander was attached to a place filled with the recollections of his infancy. He had learned there to walk; to speak, to ride, to sail, to row. He had passed there the brightest and happiest part of his life. He came with the first fine days, and only left his favorite residence when the snows of winter compelled him to take up his abode in the winter palace.

Even in this luxurious solitude, where the emperor wished to enjoy the repose which affords to princes the same pleasure amusement offers to persons of less exalted rank, Alexander found his privacy invaded and his attention claimed by those who had the temerity to break through the invisible circle with which Russian etiquette fenced round a despotic sovereign.

A foreigner at St. Petersburg, in the summer of 1823, ventured to seek the Emperor Alexander in the delicious gardens of Tzarsko Zelo, in order to present a petition, with which delicate commission he had been charged by a friend. He thus relates his adventure:

"After a bad breakfast at the Hotel de la Restauration, I entered the park, into which the sentinels permitted every body to walk without opposition. Respect alone prevented the Russian subject from entering the gardens, I knew, yet I was about to break this boundary and to intrude myself upon the emperor's notice. I was told he passed a great deal of his time in the shady walks, and I hoped chance would obtain for me the interview I sought. Wandering about the grounds, I discovered the Chinese town, a pretty group of five houses, each of which had its own ice-house and garden. In the centre of this town, which is in the form of a star, whose rays it terminates, stands a pavillion, which is used either for a ball or concert-room, which surrounds a green court, at the four corners of which are placed four mandarins, the size of life, smoking their pipes. This Chinese town is inhabited by the aid-de-camps of the sovereign. Catharine, attended by her court, was walking in this part of her garden, when she beheld, to her surprise, the mandarins puffing forth real smoke, while their eyes appeared to ogle her, and their heads to bow in the most familiar manner in the world. She approached in order to find out the cause of this sudden animation on the part of these statues. Immediately the loyal mandarins descended from their pedestals, and made Chinese prostrations at her feet, reciting some complimentary verses to the imperial lady, to please whom they had transformed themselves into the images of the men with pig-tails. She smiled, and quickly recognized them for the Prince de Ligne, Potemkin, Count Segur, and M. de Cobentzal.

"Leaving the Chinese town, I saw the huts of the lamas, where these inhabitants of the south are kept and acclimated to a temperature very different from that at the foot of the Cordilleras. These animals were presented to the emperor by the Viceroy of Mexico, and their original number of nine has been reduced, by the rigor of the Russian winters, to five; from which, however, a numerous race have succeeded, who bear the cold much better than the parent stock.

"In the middle of the French garden stands a pretty dining-room, containing the celebrated table of Olympus, imitated from a whim devised by the Regent Orleans; where the wishes of the guests are supplied by invisible hands from beneath. They have only to place a note in their plate expressive of their desire, when the plate disappears, and in five minutes after reappears with the article required. This magic originates in a forecast which anticipates every possible want. A beautiful lady finding her hair out of dress, wished for curling-irons, feeling assured that such an odd request would defy even the enchantment of the Olympian table to procure. She was astonished at finding her plate return with a dozen pair. I saw the curious monument raised to commemorate three favorite greyhounds, pets of the Empress Catharine. This pyramid, erected by the French ambassador, Count Segur, contains two epitaphs: one, by himself, is a sort of burlesque upon the old eulogistic style so prevalent in the last century; the other is by Catharine, and may be literally translated into English: —

"'Here lies the Duchess Anderson,

Who bit Mr. Rogerson.'

"I visited successively the column of Gregory Orloff, the pyramid erected in honor of the conqueror of Tchesma, and the grotto of Pausilippo, and passed four hours wandering along the borders of lakes, and traversing the plains and forests inclosed in these delicious gardens, when I met an officer in uniform, who courteously raised his hat. I asked a lad employed in taking a walk 'the name of this fine gentleman,' for such he appeared to me to be. 'It is the emperor,' was his reply. I immediately took a path which intersected that he had taken, yet, when I had advanced about twenty steps, I stopped upon perceiving him near me.

"He divined, apparently, that respect to his person prevented me from crossing his walk; he therefore kept on his way, while I awaited him in the side walk, holding my hat in my hand. I perceived he limped in his gait from the wound in his leg, which had lately re-opened; and I remarked as he advanced the change that had taken place in his appearance since I had seen him at Paris, nine years before. His countenance, then so open and smiling, bore the expression of that deep and devouring melancholy which it was said continually oppressed his mind, yet his sorrowful features still were impressed with a character of benevolence, which gave me courage to attempt the performance of my hazardous commission. 'Sire,' said I, advancing a single step toward him.

"'Put on your hat, sir,' was his kind and gracious reply; 'the air is too keen for you to remain uncovered.'

"'Will your majesty permit – '

"'Cover your head, sir, then; cover your head;' but, perceiving my respect rendered me disobedient to his commands, he took my hat from my hand, and with his own imperial one replaced it on my head. 'Now,' said he, 'what do you wish to say to me?'

"'Sire, this petition,' and I took the paper from my pocket, but the action disturbed him, and I saw him frown.

"'Sir, why do you pursue me here with petitions? do you know that I have left St. Petersburg to be free from such annoyances?'

"'Yes, sire, I am aware of it, nor dare I disguise the boldness of an attempt for which I can only expect pardon from your benevolence. This, however, seems to have some claim to your majesty's consideration, since it is franked.'

"'By whom?' inquired the emperor, with some quickness in his manner.

"'By his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Constantine, your majesty's august brother.'

"'Ah!' exclaimed the emperor, putting out his hand, but as quickly withdrawing it again.

"'I hope your majesty will for once infringe your custom, and will deign to accept this supplication.'

"'No, sir; I will not receive it; for to-morrow, I shall have a thousand, and shall be compelled to desert these gardens, where it seems I can no longer hope to enjoy privacy.' He perceived my disappointment in my countenance, and his natural kindness would not suffer him to dismiss me with a harsh refusal. Pointing with hand toward the church of St. Sophia, he said – 'Put that petition into the post-office in the city, and I shall see it to-morrow, and the day after, you will have an answer.'

"I expressed my gratitude in animated terms.

"'Prove it,' was his quick reply.

"I declared my willingness to do any thing he required, as the test of that feeling.

"'Well, tell nobody that you have presented me a petition and got off with impunity,' and he resumed his walk.

"I followed his advice, and posted my paper, and three days after received a favorable reply to my petition."

[From Eliza Cook's Journal.]

AN EMPTY HOUSE; OR, STRUGGLES OF THE POOR

Who has not seen at some time an empty house which has struck them as the picture of desolation? They may know a hundred uninhabited tenements, but they look as well kept and prosperous, as though they would soon be filled again. They do not impress the senses in the same way as that peculiar one, which appears to be condemned, like some outcast, to perpetual seclusion in the midst of happy neighbors, who mock, and flout, and taunt it with their bright windows and clean steps, and fresh paint and shining door knobs and knockers, just as Mr. Well-to-do, who is making money, and dresses well, and lodges luxuriously and feeds plentifully, may treat with scorn poor Do-nothing, who, unable to find employment of any sort, wears a patched threadbare coat, dwells in a leaky garret, and does not know where on earth to look for to-morrow's dinner. Indeed there is something more in this comparison than appears at first sight, for the world of the streets is apt to treat the empty house much as it does the poverty-stricken man. The ragged lads who play about the avenues of streets, and bask about the sunshiny nooks, draw back and cease their jokes and are decorous in the presence of Mr. Trim or Mr. Broadcloth, but they have a sarcasm or a coarse epithet for poor Patch, and for poorer Tatter possibly a sly pebble or a dab of mud.