The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 22, August, 1859

Russia in its most civilized parts was half barbarous in the days of Catharine's youth, and society at the Court of St. Petersburg seems to have been distinguished from that in the other circles of the empire only by an addition of the vices of civilization to those of barbarism. The women blended the manners and tastes of Indian squaws and French marquises of the period; the men modelled themselves on Peter the Great, and succeeded in imitating him in everything except his wisdom and patriotism. The business of life was, first, to avoid being sent to Siberia or Astracan,—next and last, to get other people sent thither; its pleasure, an alternation of gambling and orgies. Catharine makes some excuse for her unrestrained sexual license, which shows that she wrote for posterity. For what need of extenuation in this regard for a woman whose immediate predecessors were Catharine I., and. Anne and Elizabeth, and who lived in a court where, on the simultaneous marriage of three of its ladies, a bet was made between the Hetman Count Rasoumowsky and the Minister of Denmark,—not which of the brides would be false to her marriage vows,—that was taken for granted with regard to all,—but which would be so first! It turned out that he who bet on the Countess Anne Voronzoff, daughter of the Vice-Chancellor of the Empire, and bride to Count Strogonoff, who was the plainest of the three and at the time the most innocent and childlike, won the wager. The bet was wisely laid; for she was likely to be soonest neglected by her husband.

What semblance of courtesy these highborn gamblers, adulterers, and selfish intriguers showed in their daily life appears in their behavior to a M. Brockdorf, against whom Catharine had ill feelings, more or less justifiable. This M. Brockdorf, who was high in favor with the Grand Duke, was unfortunately ugly—having a long neck, a broad, flat head, red hair, small, dull, sunken eyes, and the corners of his mouth hanging down to his chin. So, among those court-bred people, "whenever M. Brockdorf passed through the apartments, every one called out after him 'Pelican,'" because "this bird was the most hideous we knew of." But what regard for the feelings of a person of inferior rank could be expected from his enemies, in a court where the dearest ties and the tenderest sorrows were dashed aside with the formal brutality recorded by Catharine in the following remarkable paragraph?—

"A few days afterwards, the death of my father was announced to me. It greatly afflicted me. For a week I was allowed to weep as much as I pleased; but at the end of that time, Madame Tchoglokoff came to tell me that I had wept enough,—that the Empress ordered me to leave off,—that my father was not a king. I told her, I knew that he was not a king; and she replied, that it was not suitable for a Grand Duchess to mourn for a longer period a father who had not been a king. In fine, it was arranged that I should go out on the following Sunday, and wear mourning for six weeks."

It is worthy of especial note that these people, though they led this sensual, selfish, heartless life, trampling on natural affection and doing as they would not be done by, prided themselves very much on the orthodoxy of their faith, were sorely afraid of going to hell, and were consequently very regular and rigid in the performance of their religious duties. Catharine was no whit behind the rest in this respect. Though bred a Lutheran, she was most exemplary in her observance of all the requirements of the Greek Church; and even carried her hypocrisy so far, that, when, on occasion of a dangerous and probably fatal illness, it was proposed that she should see a Lutheran clergyman, she replied by asking for Simon Theodorsky, a prelate of the Greek Church, who came and had an edifying interview with her. And all this was done, as she says, for effect, chiefly with the soldiers and common people, among whom it made a sensation and was much talked of. This, by the way, is the only reference which occurs in the Memoirs to any interest below that of the highest nobility. As for the people of Russia, the right to draw their blood with the knout and make them sweat roubles into the royal treasury was taken as much for granted as the light and the air, by those who, either through fraud or force, could sit in the seat of Peter the Great. They regarded it as no less an appanage or perquisite of that seat than the jewels in the imperial diadem, and would as soon have thought of defending a title to the one as to the other. And the possession of the throne, with the necessary consent of the dominant party of the high nobility, seems to have been, and still to be, the only requisite for the unquestioned exercise of this power; for, as to legitimacy and divine dynastic right, was not Catharine I. a Livoman peasant? Catharine II. a German princess, who dethroned and put to death the grandson of Peter the Great? and does she not confess in these Memoirs that her son, the Emperor Paul, was not the son of Peter's grandson, but of Sergius Soltikoff? so that in the reigning house of Russia there is not a drop of the blood of Romanoff. And Catharine's confession, which M. Herzen emphasizes so strongly, conveys to the Russian nobles no new knowledge on this subject; for an eminent Russian publicist being asked, on the appearance of this book, if it were generally known in Russia that Paul was the son of Soltikoff, replied,—"No one who knew anything ever doubted it." And perhaps the descendants of the Boiards are quite content that their sovereign should have illegally sprung from the loins of a member of one of the oldest and noblest of the purely Russian families, rather than from those of a prince of the petty house of Holstein Gottorp. But then what is this principle of Czarism, which is not a submission to divine right, but which causes one man to sustain, perhaps to place, another in a position which puts his own life at the mercy of the other's mere caprice?

Catharine tells many trifling, but interesting incidents, of various nature, in these Memoirs: of how, after the birth of her first child, she was left utterly alone and neglected, so that she famished with thirst for the lack of some one to bring her water; how her child was taken from her at its birth, and kept from her, she hardly being allowed even to see it; how it was always wrapped in fox-skins and seal-skins, till it lay in a continual bath of perspiration; how the members of the royal family itself were so badly accommodated, that sometimes they were made ill by walking through passages open to wind and rain, and sometimes stifled by over-crowded rooms; how at the imperial masquerades, during one season, the men were ordered to appear in women's dresses, and the women in the propria quae maribus,—the former hideous in large whaleboned petticoats and high feathered head-dresses, the latter looking like scrubby little boys with very thick legs,—and all that the Empress Elizabeth might show her tall and graceful figure and what beautiful things she used to walk with, which Catharine says were the handsomest that she ever saw; how in this court, where marriage was the mere shadow of a bond, it was yet deemed a matter of the first nuptial importance that a lady of the court should have her head dressed for the wedding by the hands of the Empress herself, or, if she were too ill, by those of the Grand Duchess; how Catharine used, at Oranienbaum, to dress herself from head to foot in male attire, and go out in a skiff, accompanied only by an old huntsman, to shoot ducks and snipe, sometimes doubling the Cape of Oranienbaum, which extends two versts into the sea,—and how thus the fortunes of the Russian Empire, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, were at the mercy of a spring-tide, a gust of wind, or the tipping of a shallop. There is even a recipe for removing tan and sunburn, which the beautiful Grand Duchess used at the instance of the beautiful Empress; and, as both the imperial belles testify to its great efficacy, it would be cruel not to give all possible publicity to the fact that it was composed of white of egg, lemon juice, and French brandy; but, alas! the proportion in which these constituents are to be mixed is not recorded.

Of the authenticity of these Memoirs there appears to be no reasonable doubt, and we believe that none has been expressed. They were found, after the death of Catharine, in a sealed envelope addressed to her son Paul, in whose lifetime no one saw them but the friend of his childhood, Prince Kourakine. He copied them; and, about twenty years after the death of Paul, three or four copies were made from the Kourakine copy. The Emperor Nicholas caused all these to be seized by the secret police, and it is only since his death that one or two copies have again made their appearance at Moscow (where the original is kept) and St. Petersburg. From one of these M. Herzen made his transcript. They fail to palliate any of Catharine's crimes, or in the least to brighten her reputation, and add nothing to our knowledge of her sagacity and her administrative talents; but they are yet not without very considerable personal interest and historical value.

Milch Cows and Dairy Farming; comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and other Stock; the Selection of Milch Cows, with a full Explanation of Guenon's Method; the Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: embodying the most recent Improvements, and adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces, with a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; to which is added Horsfall's System of Dairy Management. By CHARLES L. FLINT, Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture; Author of a Treatise on Grasses and Forage Plants. Liberally illustrated. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, & Co. pp. 416.

This very useful treatise contains a full account of the best breeds of cattle and of the most approved methods of crossing so as to develop qualities particularly desirable; directions for choosing good milkers by means of certain natural signs; a description of the most useful grasses and other varieties of fodder; and very minute instructions for the making of good butter and the proper arrangement and care of dairies. The author has had the advantage of practical experience as a dairyman, while his position as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture has afforded him more than common opportunity of learning the experience of others.

A volume of this kind cannot fail to commend itself to farmers and graziers, and will be found valuable also by those who are lucky enough to own a single cow. The production of good milk, butter, and meat is a matter of interest to all classes in the community alike; and Mr. Flint's book, by pointing out frankly the mistakes and deficiencies in the present methods of our farmers and dairymen, and the best means of remedying them, will do a good and much-needed service to the public. He shows the folly of the false system of economy which thinks it good farming to get the greatest quantity of milk with the least expenditure of fodder, and which regards poor stock as cheaper because it costs less money in the original outlay.

If Dean Swift was right in saying that he who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before is of more service to mankind than he who takes a city, we should be inclined to rank him hardly second as a benefactor of his race who causes one pound of good butter to be made where two pounds of bad were made before. We believe that more unsavory and unwholesome grease is consumed in the United States under the alias of butter than in any other civilized country, and we trust that a wide circulation of Mr. Flint's thoroughly executed treatise will tend to reform a great and growing evil. The tendency in America has always been to make a shift with what will do, rather than to insist on having what is best; and we welcome this book as likely to act as a corrective in one department, and that one of the most important. The value of the volume is increased by numerous illustrations and a good index.

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