RUSSIA
One day in the month of November, 1863, I agreed to make an exchange
for six months with Mr. Locock, the second secretary of Embassy at St.
Petersburg—it would be an anachronism to speak of “Petrograd”—and by the
end of the month I was off.
* * * * *
November 30th.—St. Petersburg at last! To anyone who loves beautiful
scenery there could hardly be a duller, gloomier journey than that
across the eternal stretches of moor and marsh, broken up by forests
of sad-looking, stunted birch and fir trees. No human habitation to be
seen, no mankind, save at the railway stations a few peasants, their
limbs swathed in bandages of sackcloth, with bags of the same all over;
dirty, unkempt, poverty-stricken, and hungry as their fellow-subjects
the wolves. Soldiers everywhere, for the Polish insurrection was at
its height, and even our train had a military guard. Most of my fellow
passengers carried revolvers, picturesque but unprofitable furniture,
giving a slight flavour of adventurousness to the journey, though there
was really no cause for alarm, no reason to expect the least little
excitement in the way of danger. There were too many soldiers about for
that. Thirteen trains full of them passed into Lithuania the day before I
was there, adding to our impatience by delaying us for an hour and a half
when we were longing with our whole souls to reach our goal.
And yet, socially, it was a pleasant journey enough. I travelled with
William Harbord, Lord Suffield’s brother, whose first appearance it was
as a Queen’s Messenger. On board the Calais boat was the Crown Prince
of Denmark, going home from work at Oxford, who was most kind to us, and
invited us to travel in his carriage and to dine with him at Cologne.
We parted from him at Hanover when he branched off for Denmark. We were
very sorry to say good-bye, for he was most gracious and friendly. At
Berlin I had a few hours between trains, which I spent with that grand
old diplomatist Sir Andrew Buchanan, who was our Ambassador, a great
gentleman of the old school, and in the evening I dined with him before
starting for Russia. Here again I was in luck, for in the train I found
Prince Alexis Dolgorouky and at Kowno there were added to us General
Bechelemicheff and his wife. He was returning from a command in Poland,
and the first intimation that we had of his presence at the station was
an awful serenade of songs and brass instruments executed by the band of
one of his regiments. So we had quite a merry party and the time passed
cheerfully enough inside the carriage. Outside the prospect was dismal
to a degree, and we shut our eyes to it. The winter’s snow had not yet
arrived, and there was nothing but slosh and mud and misery. However:
“Be the day weary or be the day long,
At length it ringeth to evensong.”
What a crowd it was at the station! Railway officials, Custom House
officers, police, hotel touts, droschky drivers, indescribables of all
sorts; swearing, chaffing, abusing, howling; each one straining his own
lungs and the hearers’ ears as nearly to bursting point as possible,
until, official patience being exhausted, a police officer wielding a
stout cudgel, with a few blows indiscriminately administered about the
heads of the rabble, sent them all flying in various directions, and at
last the Embassy servant who had been sent to meet me was able to pilot
me to a carriage and I once more tasted freedom.
It was a lovely moonlit night, close upon ten o’clock, and the town
looked perfectly beautiful. The canals and palaces and streets ablaze
with light, the river reflecting a thousand lamps. The domes and spires
of the churches, gilt and silvered, all sparkling with frost as if
they had been sprinkled with diamonds and precious stones. Everything
different to anything that I had ever seen before, all new, fresh
and delightful—the delicious keen air driving away the last memory
of the train with its stuffiness and heat and dirty, oily smells—a
never-to-be-forgotten drive breathing new life into me and just putting
me into that frame of mind which fits one to receive the sharpest
enjoyment.
Before doing anything else, travel-stained, untidy and uncomfortable as
I was, I had to go to the Embassy to deliver the despatches which I was
carrying. For a wonder, Lord and Lady Napier were neither dining out nor
entertaining at home, and the Ambassador had given orders that I was to
be shown up at once. Rather an ordeal to have to face the great man, upon
whom a first impression may mean so much, without even casting off the
slough of four days and nights of travel! However, Lord and Lady Napier
put me at my ease at once. The diplomatist abroad is always hungry for
the last news, the latest piece of gossip, social or political, and my
chief kept me talking in the friendliest way. When at last it was time to
say good night, he called me back and said:
“By the by, tell your people at home to send you all letters in the
Foreign Office bag—none by the Post Office, where all our letters are
opened.”
“Surely,” I said, “they would not dream of opening the correspondence of
so humble a person as myself.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” broke in Lady Napier. “The other day my
children’s governess received two letters by the same post from different
parts of England. Each contained a photograph. The two letters came in
one envelope, the two photographs in the other!”
As I drove away from the Embassy I could think of nothing but the
great charm of my Chief and Chiefess. She was certainly one of the
most fascinating women I ever had the good fortune to meet. Handsome,
clever, agreeable, well read, very dignified, beautifully dressed, she
was delightful to look at, delightful to listen to; the type of what an
ambassadress should be, doing the honours of the Queen’s house on the
Neva like the great lady that she was. She had at that time not very good
health and the climate of Russia did not suit her; but she was none
the less a noble helpmeet to His Excellency; to all of us she was so
gracious and kind, so thoughtful and considerate, that we worshipped her.
I reverence her memory. As for Lord Napier, I don’t think that anybody
who ever served under him would say that it would be possible to have a
kinder or a better chief. He was undeniably a most astute diplomatist,
full of resource, a master of the art of ingratiating himself with those
who came into contact with him.
[Illustration: EMBASSY HOUSE, ST. PETERSBURG.
_From a water-colour drawing by Charlemagne, 1864._]
The Russians, from the Emperor downward, all liked him, and he was able
to put through, by the stern force of pleasing, many a tangled piece
of business which would have been perhaps an impossibility to others.
I shall cite one notable instance later on. In society he was popular
wherever he went. He was an admirable _raconteur_ and always a kindly
listener, possessing the art of drawing out men so as to make them show
at their best, and they were duly grateful. His ready wit and power of
repartee were enhanced by the most infectious twinkle of his eye; he was
one of those rare men who laugh with their eyes, and to me that quality
is irresistible. He was young for an ambassador (only forty-two years old
when he reached that rank in 1861), but looked older than his years, and
even in his earliest days could never have been anything but a _grand
seigneur_. Quite apart from the joy of living in intimacy with such a
man, any young diplomatist who might be attached to his Embassy had a
rare chance to learn his business under so able a chief.
It was a piece of good fortune to find my old friend John Lumley,
afterwards Ambassador at Rome, and created Lord Savile, established here
as First Secretary. He was very popular in Russian society, as he was
everywhere else, and it was a great advantage to have him as sponsor.
He was most kind and introduced me to many of the pleasantest people in
St. Petersburg. The day after my arrival he drove me about, and took me
to see several of his friends. Among others a lovely young widow—only
twenty-four years of age—Countess Koucheleff-Bezbarodko, who lived in a
palace the magnificence of which I have never seen surpassed. It would
have been difficult to determine which was the more beautiful, the
lady or her home. The casket was worthy of the jewel, and that is the
best that can be said. She afterwards married the eldest son of Prince
Suvoroff, the Governor-General of St. Petersburg. But it is idle to
expatiate upon the grandeur and luxury of these great palaces; they are a
matter of common knowledge, and I shall write no more about them, though
of the kindness and friendliness with which we were greeted in them one
would hardly weary of talking. The Russian noble has in perfection the
greatest of all the qualities which go to make up the character of a
_grand seigneur_, that of making his guests, however humble they may be,
feel at their ease. That is what makes society in this brilliant city so
pleasant.
To English people the familiarity of the Russians with English literature
has always made a great bond of sympathy. A new novel by Dickens or
Thackeray was looked forward to with almost as much excitement as it was
in London, and the English classics have become the common property of
all. I was not a little astonished when on my being presented to Count
Orloff Davidoff, one of the great nobles, he asked me what relation I was
to the historian of Greece. He had studied at Edinburgh University. When
poor Thackeray died at the end of the year the consternation and sorrow
were most touching. He was one of the last men with whom I spoke before
leaving home.
On the evening before I left London for St. Petersburg I was up in a
box at the Promenade Concert. Down below I saw Thackeray’s gigantic
figure, his white head towering above the crowd, and I ran down to bid
him farewell. He had always been very kind to me as he was to all young
people, and I was naturally greatly flattered and fascinated by his
charm—for he could be very charming when he chose, though, like his great
rival Dickens, and even Addison as Pope tells us, he resented anything
like being drawn out in the company of strangers. I several times met him
at dinner at Millais’, when he and I would be the only guests, making up
a quartette with the genial, handsome host and his no less handsome wife.
After dinner Mrs. Millais used to leave us, and we three men adjourned to
the great studio where we might smoke in armchair comfort.
Thackeray would have been very handsome but for the broken nose which he
himself so often caricatured, but which with his round face gave him a
sort of cherubic look, like one of Raphael’s winged heads, rather robbing
it of its masculine vigour and seeming almost absurdly in contrast with
his great size and strong nature. It was delightful to see him beaming
behind his spectacles with his long legs stretched out in front of him,
the picture of placid content, and to listen to his words, kindly, witty,
full of old-world anecdote, told in the English of Addison—the fruit
of his studies for Esmond and his lectures on the eighteenth century
Essayists—with just a little delightful spice of good-natured cynicism
which was as cayenne pepper animating the _olla podrida_ of his talk.
Sometimes he was so gay and so young that he seemed just what he must
have been when he called out “adsum” at the Charter House. Thackeray
was very fond of Millais. He admired his art, and the great painter’s
large, honest, bluff and rough nature, his innocence of all humbug or
affectation, which Thackeray loathed above all things, appealed to him.
The two were perfectly happy together, so in that studio Thackeray was at
his best. And what a best it was!
Less than a month after I reached St. Petersburg the news that Thackeray
was dead was flashed along the wires to a capital where he was almost as
well known by those who had never seen him as he was in his own familiar
Kensington. I had been greatly struck by his popularity in Russia, and
had looked forward to some day telling him how great was his greatness in
that land of cold snow and warm hearts. The fatal 24th of December robbed
me of that pleasure. It created a sad gap among his friends, who loved
him as dearly for himself as others did for his work.
The last time I saw Millais was in February, 1896, a few days after
Leighton’s funeral. He stopped me in St. James’s Street, and we had a
little talk, chiefly about the friend whom we had so recently lost. He
was looking well and hearty, but was closely muffled up. The terrible
disease in his throat made him almost inaudible. He spoke in a hoarse
whisper, and at the end of the summer one more President of the Royal
Academy was carried to St. Paul’s Cathedral. The careers of the two men
were a curious sequel to the prophecy which Thackeray wrote to Millais
from Rome in 1852: “I have seen in Rome a versatile young dog who will
run you hard for the Presidentship some day!”
* * * * *
A few days after my arrival I received a summons to the Winter Palace to
be presented to the Emperor. The ceremony was very different from the
march past of many hundred men, which constitutes a levée at home. It
was rather an ordeal, for I had to go by myself with no tutelary deity
in the shape of an ambassador to present me and show me the ropes, as is
done at most other courts. I found a batch of eleven other victims of all
nations, who had been summoned for the same purpose, and we were shown
into a rather shabbily-furnished room decorated with a few bad pictures
of reviews—altogether a violent contrast to the magnificence of the
staircase and corridors through which we were led by servants in gorgeous
apparel, with soldiers in splendid uniforms mounting guard. Presently the
Tsar came in, a tall, imposing figure with a very kindly face and genial
manner.
He called up each of us in turn, and when we had been presented by a
chamberlain he had something amiable and pleasant to greet us with.
Certainly the Emperor was a born king of men. His was a royalty about
which there could be no doubt. His smile was charming, but when he was
displeased he knew how to show it. I saw both smile and frown that
morning.
When it came to my turn to be named he asked me where I had been
educated. I told him at Eton and Oxford.
“Ah,” said His Majesty, “j’ai été à Oxford. L’orateur public a même
prononcé un discours en Latin en mon honneur.”
“Dont je suis sûr,” I answered, “que votre Majesté n’a pas compris un
traître mot——”
The clouds gathered on Jupiter’s brow and there was thunder in the air.
“Who,” they said as plainly as speech itself, “is this whipper-snapper
who dares to say that I, the Emperor of all the Russias, am an ignoramus
that does not understand Latin?”
—“A cause de notre prononciation barbare,” I continued. The clouds
were dispersed, the sun shone again—all was well with the world. The
Emperor laughed heartily at the expense of the public orator, and his
“prononciation barbare,” and kept me talking for some few minutes. He was
always very gracious afterwards when I met him at any entertainment, and
never failed to give me a friendly little nod or word of recognition.
The surroundings at the presentation to the Empress were far more
imposing. It took place at night in the great gilt drawing-room inside
the White ball-room where we assembled, about fifteen of us. The rooms
were lighted by innumerable candles, and no light gives such a look of
magnificence. The liveries and uniforms were, of course, brilliant,
and the Empress’ negroes in blue and gold jackets with wide oriental
trousers looked as if they might have been the personal attendants of
the Caliph Haroun Al Raschid himself. We had to wait some time before
we were wanted, for the wives of the Italian and Prussian Ministers had
to be received in audience before us. The Empress was a tall, graceful
lady with a sweet expression and most charming manners. She looked very
delicate and, indeed, had bad health, suffering, I fear, a great deal;
it is not everybody who can make a stand against the climate of St.
Petersburg; to her I was told that it was poisonous.
It must be rather a trial, even for an Empress who has gained experience
after years of such functions, to walk round a circle of men, seen for
the first time, and be so ready-witted as to say something pleasant to
each. But how well she did it! Every man present was under the charm. She
had heard of the letter which I brought from Countess Apponyi to Princess
Kotchoubey (it seemed as if everything was known to everybody in this
wonderful capital). She knew Countess Apponyi well and asked a great deal
after her; she also talked a good deal about the Prince and Princess of
Wales. Her grace made conversation quite easy, and after a few minutes
she made a pretty little bow and passed on to the next man.
The Empress Marie was a Princess of Hesse, daughter of Duke Louis II.,
and her marriage with the Emperor was a pure love-match. Indeed it was
an open secret that the Emperor Nicholas was not best pleased when he
heard of the engagement; he had looked for a more brilliant marriage for
his son and heir. My father, who was at Frankfort at the time, saw the
great, handsome Tsar arrive, and drive out to make acquaintance with his
future daughter-in-law; he was looking as stern and as dark as Erebus.
He came back from the visit, his face wreathed in smiles. The sweet
Princess, then in the heyday of her youth and beauty, had conquered. She
had caught the dreaded potentate in the network of a charm which was
irresistible, and which remained a precious possession to the end of
time, for it was something that the cruel climate which tarnished the
freshness of her beauty could not impair, much less destroy.
* * * * *
In writing these sketches I have no pretension to dabble in history;
for that I am neither fitted nor documented. All I desire is to place
on record some memories at first hand of certain remarkable people with
whom I have been brought in contact. In order, however, to understand
the state of feeling in Russia at the time with which I am dealing, it
is impossible not to allude, however briefly, to the Polish insurrection
of which the influence seemed to pervade everything. Poland was in the
mouths of all men—Poland and the attitude of England.
The year 1863 had opened grimly enough for Poland. The Tsar’s brother,
the Grand Duke Constantine Nicolaievitch, was Viceroy at Warsaw, and the
Government had intelligence to the effect that the city was a hotbed of
conspiracies and intrigues, and that an insurrection might be expected to
take place at any moment. To prevent this calamity drastic measures were
adopted. A good many years earlier the Emperor Nicholas had abolished
military conscription in Poland; it was now determined to revive it,
but under conditions which would enable the Government to throttle the
revolutionary movement by ridding the country of all dangerous men. The
old practice of drawing the conscripts by lot was abandoned, and the
authorities were invested with the power of arbitrarily choosing the men
who should be taken for service.
Nor was this the only hardship, for the conscription being limited to
the towns, Poland was to be robbed of its most capable men, trade and
business must be paralysed, and only the most ignorant and valueless
dregs of the population left behind. Who was responsible for this wicked
and cruel policy I never heard. It was universally condemned abroad,
and not a few Russians recognized the folly of it. Among the Poles, the
Marquis Wielopolski, a former governor-general, was the only man who
supported it. No man condemned the proceedings of the Government more
strongly than Lord Napier. In a despatch to the Foreign Office of January
the 26th he described them as in fact “a design to make a clean sweep
of the revolutionary youth of Poland; to shut up the most energetic and
dangerous spirits in the restraints of the Russian army; it was simply a
plan,” he said, “to kidnap the opposition and carry it off to Siberia or
the Caucasus.”
On the evening of the 14th of January the Grand Duke signed the decree,
and during that night houses were broken into and 2,500 men were carried
off by press-gangs of police and soldiers. Where the young men who had
been marked down were not forthcoming their parents were taken and held
as pledges.
Lord Napier’s appreciation of the decree exactly represented the feeling
with which it was received at Warsaw. The Poles were lashed to fury, and
the torch of revolution was lighted. A so-called Central Committee was
formed, which was neither more nor less than a secret society issuing
its orders for murder and arson, orders faithfully obeyed, with every
aggravation that the ingenuity of cruelty could suggest.
The mystery of this modern Vehmgericht was well kept. All the cunning
and vigilance of the Russian police was at fault. No man knew who were
its members, where they met, or what was the machinery with which they
worked. Death, swift and secret, followed upon their decisions. Their
blows fell in darkness, their vengeance was assured, and none could tell
who would be the next victim. Only the murderer was safe, and he only so
long as he continued to murder without question. To the peasants a big
bribe was held out—such a bribe as is not unknown in history elsewhere.
Here is the proclamation of the Central Committee:
Art. 1. Land held under any title whatsoever, corvée, rent
or otherwise, by small farmers, together with all buildings
thereon, becomes from this date the freehold property of the
holder, without any obligation of rent or otherwise, except the
duty of paying taxes and serving the country.
Art. 2. The former proprietors will receive compensation from
the national funds by means of Government stock.
Art. 3. The amount of compensation and the nature of the stock
will be settled by separate decrees.
Art. 4. All ukases, laws, etc., published by the usurping
Government on the subject of peasant leases are declared null
and void.
Art. 5. The present decree applies not only to private estates,
but also to Crown lands, lands bestowed by the Crown, Church
property, etc.[36]
Such an edict as this, taken in conjunction with the crimes and horrors
for which the Central Committee was responsible, led to reprisals which
were hardly less terrible than the deeds which they avenged. I do
not propose to go into any detail in regard to the insurrection. The
appointment of Langiewicz as dictator, his abandonment of the cause in
a way which suggested something very like cowardice, his submission to
the Austrians at Cracow, the rebel bands hiding in the forests, the
destruction of railways, the attempt to poison Wielopolski and his
family, all the incidents and tragedies of a great rebellion, make
picturesque reading, but it must be sought elsewhere.
It was a reign of terror in Poland, and above all in Lithuania, where
General Muravieff in his headquarters at Vilna ruled with a rod of
redhot iron. The indignation of Europe was aroused; but it was largely
an ignorant indignation, for whereas the English and French newspapers
were generally fed with stories against the Russians, there was complete
silence as to the provocation on the other side. Mr. Sutherland Edwards,
the _Times_ correspondent at Warsaw, a most competent and above all a
most just witness, told me that there was much exaggeration and much
invention about the information which was sold to the foreign press by
certain travelling Jews of the lower sort. News to be marketable must be
such as would tell against the Government. Edwards had no reason to take
sides with the Russians, for he had just been turned out of Warsaw, bag
and baggage, at twenty-four hours’ notice, but he was far too honest a
politician to allow any personal treatment of himself to influence him in
discussing a great question of national importance; it was a mistake to
deal with him in so ungenerous a fashion, but it was only one among many
mistakes.
There were many Russians, loyal subjects to the Tsar and enthusiastically
devoted to their own country, who recognized and deplored those mistakes.
Above all, these just men viewed with indignation the barbarous methods
of General Muravieff, the man who, above all others, was responsible
for the feeling aroused in the rest of Europe. Prince Suvoroff, the
Governor-General of St. Petersburg, a great friend and favourite of the
Emperor, spoke out bravely about this. A subscription had been set on
foot to present Muravieff with a statue of the Virgin Mary in silver, for
which the Metropolitan found the inscription, “Thy name is Victory.” The
subject was being discussed at Tsarskoe Selo at the Imperial table, when
Prince Suvoroff declared aloud that “he could not understand men giving
a blessed image to a hangman.” These bold words, uttered unrebuked in
the presence of the Tsar, created a great sensation, and induced many
men to speak their minds more openly than they had up to then dared to
do. It showed also that the Emperor—essentially a good and humane ruler,
as he proved to be over and over again—while determined to put down
the rebellion, abhorred the methods that were being adopted, otherwise
Prince Suvoroff’s speech would not have been passed over. The downfall of
Muravieff was considered to be imminent. He was not recalled, however,
until April, 1865, being raised to the rank of Count, and he died the
following year at his country place, Surez, near Luga. A bronze statue of
him was erected in Vilna in 1898.
Meanwhile Edwards, whose banishment from Warsaw had removed a man who was
truly desirous of sending home a fair and honest account of affairs,
thus giving a free hand to more unscrupulous writers, was being shadowed
by spies who took note of all his visitors. My Russian master, who also
gave him lessons—a mild, harmless little man, who had taught the great
Bismarck—was followed home one day as a very suspicious character. It
would have been laughable if it had not been so sad. All this trouble
taken to hinder and annoy a man whose sole object was to check the
prosperity of lies! These flourished accordingly.
Political crises are always fruitful in exaggeration and falsehood.
Never, perhaps, were they so rife as during the Polish insurrection;
the country was wild and inaccessible, information vague and uncertain,
chaffered as an article of trade by news-pedlars, carried from great
distances and losing nothing by the way; horrors were invented for hungry
listeners—and there was no one to contradict. Truth remained hiding at
the very lowest depths of her well. Take, for instance, the trial of
Count Zamoyski, about which the English newspapers were greatly excited,
one paper going as far as to say that he had been condemned to death on
the strength of confessions extracted from him by torture whilst he was
in prison. As a matter of fact no man could have had a fairer trial. He
was found guilty of rebellion—as to that there could be no denial. It was
abundantly proved that he had been a member of the Central Committee and
privy to all its so-called decrees and ordinances. He was sentenced to
banishment from Poland, took up his residence in France, and finally went
to Cracow, where he died in his bed at the good old age of seventy-four.
No milder sentence could well have been passed upon him.
As for the stories of torture which were freely put about, most searching
investigations on the spot proved that there was no shadow of foundation
for them. Great severities were practised, especially in Lithuania
under General Muravieff; floggings as judicial punishments in execution
of sentences officially pronounced were frequent; but no evidence was
ever produced to show that flogging had been used for the purpose of
extracting evidence, and as for instruments of torture they simply did
not exist.
The Poles were past-masters in the art of exciting dramatic emotion and
surrounding base crimes with a political halo. Some scoundrel would be
condemned to death for murder, rapine, arson or some other abomination.
Immediately he was glorified into a political hero and martyr. Such
canonizations are not unknown elsewhere. All Warsaw turned out in deep
mourning to do him honour, and witness the sacrifice. Ladies of the
highest rank, robed and veiled in crape, weeping bitterly, knelt on the
public place to offer up prayers for the soul of the victim. Impartial
men with strong nerves told me that they had been so affected by such a
scene that they forgot for the moment that they were witnessing the just
expiation of a hideous crime; half stupefied as in a dream, they saw the
death of a Christian martyr. The excellence of the stage management had
its effect. Popular resentment against the Government was stimulated,
and, what was still more important to the agitators, the kind hearts of
foreign correspondents were touched, so that the most harrowing stories
were launched out east and west, north and south, stirring animosities
and calling up political hatred in all its bitterness.
The excitement aroused in England and France amounted to intoxication;
but it was an uninformed excitement, for it is no exaggeration to say
that there was not one man in ten thousand who had taken the pains
to read up the causes that had led up to the insurrection and its
repression, and still fewer who had any knowledge of the complicated
history of the deadly feud between the two races, a feud which had lasted
for centuries.
The late Lord Salisbury was one of those few. In April, 1863, he
published an article on Poland, which he followed up in the same month
of the following year by another paper on Foreign Policy. Both were
republished in book form by Mr. Murray in 1905. The first article gives a
short and clear history of the whole question; the second is a scathing
condemnation of Lord Russell’s treatment of international affairs,
especially in the two cases of Poland and the Danish duchies. Considering
what has taken place since that time, the outcome of Lord Russell’s
policy, every student of foreign politics should make himself acquainted
with those two articles written by a great master.
I have shown how numbers of generously-minded Russians disavowed and
repudiated the methods of repression which had been adopted, especially
in Lithuania. None the less was all Russia of one mind as to the
imperative necessity of putting down the insurrection. Every thinking man
knew that it was a matter of life and death to his country; in a despatch
from which I shall quote presently Prince Gortchakoff showed that very
clearly. If the Poles were to become dominant there would be a repetition
in provinces largely inhabited by Russians of the horrors which took
place two centuries earlier when they were in possession of Moscow, and
of which a foretaste had already been given in the murders and attempts
to murder of the last few months. Austrian Poland and Prussian Poland
must be drawn into the furnace and a general conflagration ensue.
But Lord Russell “cared for none of these things.” Here was a rare
opportunity for him to give effect to his favourite policy of “meddle and
muddle” (I do not know who invented the phrase in his honour, but how
good it was!) and he availed himself of it freely.
The state of public feeling in England and France fully justified a
friendly intercession by the Governments of both countries, praying the
Tsar to exercise his clemency on behalf of the rebellious Poles. But it
did not justify Lord Russell in adopting the hectoring language which
he used, language not only reading Russia a lesson as to how she should
govern in her own dominions, but even conveying threats as to what might
happen if his advice were not followed. His conduct of the affair not
only infuriated the Russians, but also alienated the French Government,
who were greatly displeased at having been brought into a ridiculous
position.
On the 2nd of March, 1863, Lord Russell wrote a despatch to Lord Napier,
of course for presentation to Prince Gortchakoff, in which, on the
strength of the fact that “the Kingdom of Poland was constituted and
placed in connexion with the Russian Empire by the Treaty of 1815, to
which Great Britain was a contracting party,” he claimed the right of
Great Britain “to express its opinion upon the events now taking place,”
and in rather slipshod language, such as might be adopted by a schoolboy
mediating in a football squabble, went on to offer his amiable advice
to the Emperor: “Why should not His Imperial Majesty, whose benevolence
is generally and cheerfully acknowledged, put an end to this bloody
conflict,” etc., etc.
On the 10th of April he returned to the charge, in a despatch the
phraseology of which Lord Salisbury described as being “as menacing
as will often be found in despatches even of a professedly hostile
character,” once more insisting that the Emperor’s position as regards
the Poles was due to the grace and favour of the Treaty of Vienna, and
quite different to what it would have been had His Majesty held Poland as
part of the original dominions of the Crown, or if he had acquired it by
the unassisted success of his army and unsanctioned by the consent of any
other Power, etc., etc. The formal declaration that Russia had broken her
treaty engagements, the intimation that she had not fulfilled her duties
of comity as a member of the community of nations, the distinct statement
that the course she was pursuing was dangerous to the general peace of
Europe, “and might under possible circumstances produce complications of
the most serious nature—all these expressions, interpreted by diplomatic
usage, were simple threats of war.”[37]
These threats were accentuated by a conversation which Lord Russell
reported as having taken place between himself and Baron Brunnow, the
Russian Ambassador. Baron Brunnow said there was one question which
he felt entitled to ask, and that was whether the communication Her
Majesty’s Government were about to make at St. Petersburg was of a
pacific nature. I replied that it was, but that as I did not wish to
mislead him I must say something more. Her Majesty’s Government had no
intentions that were otherwise than pacific, still less any concert with
other Powers for any but pacific purposes.
“But the state of things might change. The present overture of Her
Majesty’s Government might be rejected as the representation of March 2nd
had been rejected by the Imperial Government. The insurrection in Poland
might continue and might assume larger proportions; the atrocities on
both sides might be aggravated, and extended to a wider range of country.
If in such a state of affairs the Emperor of Russia were to take no steps
of a conciliatory nature, dangers and complications might arise not at
present in contemplation.”
“If this was not a threat of war,” says Lord Salisbury, “language has no
meaning.” Every one of these _mights_ and _might be’s_ did occur, but the
threats remained mere gas. Prince Gortchakoff, cool, calm, and courteous,
refused with firmness to acknowledge any of Lord Russell’s pretensions.
In the meantime, in the month of April the Emperor made the offer of an
amnesty to Poland, granting “a free pardon to all those of our subjects
in the Kingdom implicated in the late troubles who have not incurred the
responsibility of other crimes or misdemeanours committed on service
in the ranks of our army, and who may before the 1st (13th) of May lay
down their arms and return to their allegiance.” This offer the Central
Committee, who now called themselves the Provisional Government, in
insulting terms contemptuously refused. They published a proclamation
which said:
“Poland is well aware what confidence she can place in this pretended
amnesty, and in the promises of the Russian Government. But to avoid
any mistake, we formally declare that we reject all these false
concessions. It was not with the intention of obtaining more or less
liberal concessions that we took up arms, but to get rid of the detested
yoke of a foreign government, and to reconquer our ancient and complete
independence.”
The treatment by the Poles of the Emperor’s magnanimous offer furnished
the answer to the officious advice given by Lord Russell.
There was one class of unfortunates who suffered by the Polish
insurrection of whom little or nothing has been said or written, and
whose troubles have therefore excited no commiseration out of Russia.
The landed proprietors of Poland, wishing to introduce into the country
improved agricultural methods, imported from Germany a number of
Protestant labourers. These men during the rebellion were persecuted with
all the animosity of bigoted Catholicism and conscious inferiority by the
Schliachta, or petty nobility, seconded by the jealousy of the peasants,
who naturally looked upon them as interlopers—“blacklegs” as men say
nowadays—and as having no right to cumber the country. Their dwellings
were destroyed, their families murdered, and the survivors dared not go
back to their homes.
The Imperial Government, having been compelled to take the case in
hand, resolved to send 1,800 of these poor fellows to the government of
Samatra, a rich province to which many of the exiled Poles had already
been sent. There is no doubt that if the Russians acted with severity,
the Poles outdid them in cruelty. The two were well matched, and between
them it is fearful to think what must have been the general average of
misery!
I have alluded above to what Prince Suvoroff said of General Muravieff.
A little later in the year another scheme was set on foot by certain
ultra-Russians to build a church at Vilna and dedicate it to St. Michael,
Muravieff’s patron saint, in honour of the glory of the General and to
celebrate his quelling of the insurrection in Lithuania. The plan met
with much opposition, and the Maréchal de la Noblesse of the district
of Tsarskoe Selo, on being invited to support the project, wrote an
indignant letter in reply, asking what conduct on his part could have led
the originators to suppose that he approved the actions of the General.
General Muravieff stood in a peculiar position for an officer holding a
high command under a despotic government. The authorities accepted his
services and so gave their moral support and countenance to his policy;
but they took no steps to defend him from the animadversions of his
enemies, nor did any Russian feel that he was committing an indiscretion
in openly canvassing the conduct of the tyrant of Vilna.
All this showed that the Russians were enjoying far greater liberty of
both press and speech than was believed abroad. In this respect there
was a marked change since the last reign. Speech was free enough,
sometimes startlingly so. There was a certain amount of censorship of
the journalistic press; but as regards literature in general, books were
openly sold which under Nicholas no bookseller would have dared to stock
upon his shelves.
* * * * *
With this arrow in his quiver Prince Gortchakoff wrote: “If Lord Russell
followed attentively the productions of the Press devoted to the
Polish rebellion, he must be aware that the insurgents demand neither
an amnesty, nor an autonomy, nor a representation either more or less
complete. The absolute independence of the Kingdom even would be for
them only a means for arriving at the final object of their aspirations.
This object is dominion over provinces where the immense majority are
Russians by race or by religion; in a word, it is Poland extended to
the two seas, which would inevitably bring about a claim to the Polish
provinces belonging to other neighbouring Powers.
“We desire to pronounce no judgment upon these aspirations. It suffices
for us to prove that they exist, and that the Polish insurgents do not
conceal them. The final result in which they would arrive cannot be
doubtful. It would be a general conflagration which the elements of
disorder scattered through all countries would be brought to complicate,
and which seek for an opportunity to subvert Europe.”
One would have imagined that the dignified and lofty tone adopted by the
Prince, combined with the avowed pretensions of the rebels, would have
convinced Lord Russell that his interference would not be accepted, and
could only end in the humiliation of England. Nothing could stop Lord
Russell.
On the 17th of June he again wrote a despatch to Lord Napier with
instructions to read it to Prince Gortchakoff, and leave a copy with him.
That despatch was perhaps one of the most insolent communications ever
addressed to a friendly Power; no government could admit the interference
of another country in dictating the measures which it should take for the
maintenance of law and order among its own people, which is the exclusive
right and duty of every independent Power, nor is it intelligible that
any such advice should be offered unless the candid friend should be
prepared to enforce it at the cannon’s mouth. The despatch in question
was the one which formulated the famous “six points.” This is what it
said:
“In present circumstances it appears to Her Majesty’s
Government that nothing less than the following outline of
measures should be adopted as the bases of pacification:
“1. Complete and general amnesty.
“2. National representation, with powers similar to
those which are fixed by the Charter of the 15th
(27th) of November, 1815.
“3. Poles to be named to public offices in such a
manner as to form a distinct national administration,
having the confidence of the country.
“4. Full and entire liberty of conscience; repeal of
the restrictions imposed on Catholic worship.
“5. The Polish language recognized in the kingdom
as the official language, and used as such in the
administration of the law and in education.
“6. The establishment of a regular and legal system
of recruiting.
“These six points might serve as the indications of measures to
be adopted, after calm and full deliberation.
“What Her Majesty’s Government propose, therefore, consists in
these three propositions:
“1st. The adoption of the six points enumerated as
bases of negotiation.
“2nd. A provisional suspension of arms to be
proclaimed by the Emperor of Russia.
“3rd. A conference of the eight Powers who signed the
Treaty of Vienna.”
Prince Gortchakoff’s answer was crushing, the more so as it was couched
in the most courteous language of diplomacy, and was based upon an
unanswerable chain of logical arguments. Lord Russell was very quietly
shown that he was dealing with matters which he did not understand and
with which he had no concern. Similar communications were addressed to
Baron Budberg, the Russian Ambassador at Paris, for the benefit of M.
Drouyn de Lhuys, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had the
mortification of finding himself compelled to share in a humiliation
which was odious to him.
A despatch to Baron Budberg contained the following words: “As regards
the responsibility which His Majesty may assume in his international
relations, those relations are regulated by international law. The
violation of those principles may alone lead to a responsibility. Our
august Master has always respected and observed these principles towards
other States. His Majesty has the right to expect and to demand the same
respect on the part of the other Powers.” M. Drouyn de Lhuys was furious,
and it was not long, as we shall see, before he had the opportunity to
make Lord Russell feel it.
Lord Russell climbed down not handsomely. In a despatch to Lord Napier of
the 11th of August he said: “If Russia does not perform all that depends
upon her to further the moderate and conciliatory views of the three
Powers” [Great Britain, Austria and France] “if she does not enter upon
the path which is opened to her by friendly counsels, she makes herself
responsible for the serious consequences which the prolongation of the
troubles of Poland may produce.”
And that was the lame and impotent conclusion of a game of brag and
insolent bluster which had been carried on for many months. The fizzling
out of a damp squib!
But there is one story which Mr. Hennessy, Conservative member for King’s
County, told in the House of Commons, _and was never contradicted_, which
is too good and too characteristic to be omitted—I take it verbatim from
Lord Salisbury’s essay on Foreign Politics, p. 202.
“When Prince Gortchakoff’s last defiance had arrived, and the
Government had made up their minds to practise the better part
of valour, Lord Russell made a speech at Blairgowrie, and being
somewhat encouraged and cheered by the various circumstances of
consolation which are administered by an entertainment of that
kind, he recovered after dinner somewhat of his wonted courage,
and under the influence of the valour so acquired he proclaimed
that, in his opinion, Russia had sacrificed her treaty right
to Poland. Having made the statement thus publicly, he felt
that he could not do less than insert it into the despatch to
Prince Gortchakoff, with whom it was proposed to terminate
the inglorious correspondence. He flattered himself, indeed,
that so hostile an announcement, while not leading actually
to a war, might enable him to ride off with something like a
flourish, which his friends might construe into a triumph.
“And so the despatch was sent off, formally bringing the
correspondence to a close, and concluding with the grandiose
announcement that, in the opinion of the British Government,
Russia had forfeited the title to Poland which she had acquired
by the Treaty of Vienna. But even this modest attempt to escape
from disgrace was not destined to succeed. When the despatch
reached St. Petersburg, it was shown to Prince Gortchakoff
before being formally presented. ‘You had better not present
this concluding sentence to me,’ is reported to have been the
Prince’s brief but significant observation. The hint was taken,
the despatch was sent back to England and submitted anew to the
Foreign Secretary. Doubtless with disgust, but bowing to his
inexorable destiny, he executed this new act of self-abasement.
The offending sentence was erased by its author with the
resolution of a Christian martyr. In this form it was sent back
to Russia; and it still bears, as published to the world, in
the bald mutilation of the paragraph with which it concludes
and in the confusion of its dates, the marks of its enforced
and reluctant revision.”
The confusion of the dates is very significant. The despatch was
originally dated in September and refers to the despatch of August 11th,
as _of the 11th ultimo_. As accepted by the Prince it was dated _in
October_, but still refers to the August despatch as _of the 11th ultimo_.
The humiliation of England was complete. We had threatened and we had not
performed. We had encouraged the Poles to believe that they might count
upon our protection, and when we found that something more than brave
words would be needed, we deserted them. That was the view taken abroad
of Lord Russell’s policy. It was treated with derision and contempt.
In Russia there was at that time a very strong feeling of friendliness
towards the English. But it was a social friendship, not a political
appreciation, and I believe that was largely, perhaps one might say
entirely, due to the great personal charm and popularity of Lord and Lady
Napier. As a power to be reckoned with we had ceased to exist.
I remember upon one occasion my old friend, the Marquis de Montebello,
who was afterwards French Ambassador at St. Petersburg (as his father had
been before him) saying, “Autrefois lorsqu’il s’agissait d’une guerre en
Europe on vous consultait. Aujourd’hui on vous dit—zut!” My answer to him
was, “Don’t be too sure—Lord Russell is not England.”
* * * * *
General Cassius Clay was United States Minister in Russia at the time of
which I am writing. He was rather a notorious person whose name _Punch_
had, owing to his virulent abuse of England, translated into Brutus Mud.
One day General Clay came up to me and began speaking in the friendliest
way about England. After some generalities he turned the conversation on
to the Polish question, belauding Lord Russell’s despatches, which he
said had made “his old Anglo-Saxon blood boil in his veins when he saw
the magnanimous attitude of an English statesman.” I don’t think that
clinical thermometers had been invented in those days, but it would have
been interesting to have taken the temperature of the good General’s
“Anglo-Saxon blood” when he came to read the final collapse of all the
bluster.
The insurrection died a not altogether natural death in 1864. It had been
a hopeless affair from the first, and the moral influence of a secret
Treaty concluded between Prussia and Russia[38] extinguished the last
embers of the fire. Bands of peasants, undrilled, armed with scythes and
with such primitive weapons as might come to hand, lurking houseless,
half starved and miserably clothed in the frozen mazes of pathless
forests, could not for long resist the trained battalions of the Tsar and
the curse of the climate. Langiewicz saw that the last trick in the game
had been trumped, and the dictator left the poor wretches to their fate.
I have one more tale to tell of the Polish revolution. The race of
Bobadils is not extinct. For them proclamations of neutrality are things
of no account, at which they snap their fingers; so long as matters go
well with them they are as truculent as their own swords; but once let
them fall into difficulties and be taken prisoners, their cries are
piteous, and the Foreign Offices of their various countries are besieged
with prayers that their Ambassadors may be instructed to interfere on
their behalf.
One day, when the Polish insurrection was still ablaze, there came a
batch of telegrams to the Embassy directing Lord Napier to plead on
behalf of a certain English gentleman who, having been taken red-handed
in some murderous attack, would be tried by court martial and shot unless
some pressure could be brought to bear on his behalf. Lord Napier knew
that it would be useless to enter into a diplomatic correspondence on
the subject, so he at once asked for an audience of the Tsar, which was
immediately granted. It was not a pleasant duty.
On his return from the palace he told me that when he acquainted the
Emperor with the object of his visit, His Majesty looked very black and
deeply displeased; he said that he could have great sympathy with his own
misguided subjects who were persuaded by agitators into the belief that
they were suffering from grievous wrongs at his hands; but what excuse
could be made for the subject of a friendly Power who came to add fuel to
the flame? Lord Napier pointed out that there was just this excuse for
the gentleman, that his mother was a Pole, and he prayed earnestly for
mercy. In the end the Tsar, as a special favour to Lord Napier, granted
him a free pardon—of course on parole to leave Poland and not again to
take part in the rebellion. It was a generous and kingly act, a gracious
favour to Lord Napier, and a proof of the esteem in which my much-loved
chief was held.[39]
The Emperor Alexander was a most magnanimous ruler. Many and signal were
the proofs of the love which he bore his people. His liberation of the
serfs, a measure of humanity which has perhaps never been exceeded, and
which in 1864 he extended to Poland, in spite of all that had occurred,
bore eloquent testimony to his generosity. And at the time when I was in
Russia the people returned his love with interest. He was to them like a
divinity.
Many and many a time have I seen the _mujiks_ in the dead of winter
standing bareheaded, facing a cruel blast coming down the river from the
Ladoga Lake, until the Emperor’s sledge should be out of sight—a little,
simple one-horse sledge, without any guard, nor even an aide-de-camp. He
was better protected by the love of his people than he could have been by
all the myrmidons of his police. There were no Nihilists in those days;
the word had been coined by Dostoievski, the novelist, but in another
sense. Years afterwards, when the news came of the hideous murder of the
great Tsar, looking back upon those loyal times, I could not believe my
ears. It was incomprehensible. So barbarous did it seem—so barbarous and
withal so foolish.
Surely no man was ever more truly a prophet in his own country than
was Prince Gortchakoff at St. Petersburg in the autumn of 1863. His
popularity was something phenomenal, and for a great deal of it he had to
thank Lord Russell. Praise of the Russian answers was in all mouths, and
Prince Gortchakoff was the idol of the moment, so much so, indeed, that
there were some ill-natured persons who hinted rather loudly that the
Emperor was growing a little jealous of his Minister’s popularity, and
that there had been one or two evil quarters of hours. I am not sure that
I was not the witness of one myself. It was at a great party where the
Emperor was playing cards. The Prince went up to His Majesty with a very
low bow; the Emperor turned sharp round upon him, showing all his teeth,
literally, with the growl of an angry lion, and the poor old gentleman’s
discomfiture was not pleasant to behold. Many people, of course, saw the
affair, and it was much discussed in _salons_ and _chancelleries_.
The first time that I saw Prince Gortchakoff come into a drawing-room I
looked round for Mr. Winkle, Mr. Tracy Tupman and the poet Snodgrass, for
here was Mr. Pickwick in person. Barring the white kerseymere smalls and
the black gaiters, the likeness was complete. The round, good-humoured
face, very pink and white, thin grey hair, eyes beaming rays of human
kindness out of a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, a most genial smile,
the perfection of good manners, pleasant to everybody—altogether a most
engaging personality. Small wonder that St. Petersburg loved him not only
for his great qualities, but also for his small foibles, for did not
these give endless opportunities to Tutcheff, the Sydney Smith of Russia?
Vanity was always said to be the Prince’s strongest weakness. One night,
at a dinner at which I was present, the talk turned upon the three famous
despatches. Somebody said:
“Lorsque le Prince Gortchakoff veut se procurer un vrai plaisir il fait
venir un de ses secrétaires pour lui lire ses trois dépêches. Alors il
se jette dans un fauteuil, ferme les yeux, et a tout l’air d’un homme
qui——”
“Effectivement,” interrupted Tutcheff. “C’est le Narcisse qui se mire
dans son encrier.”
The fun of the thing was that everybody knew that, although of course the
despatches represented his policy, he had not written a word of them.
They were drafted by a certain M. Katakazy, a very clever writer, who was
afterwards Minister at Washington, whence, for some reason or other, he
was recalled, and so far as I know, disappeared. At all events we heard
no more of him.
On one occasion, before the Washington mission, the Prince, who, moved by
some caprice, had wished to get rid of Katakazy, sent for him and told
him that he thought the time had come when he should send him abroad.
Katakazy, who did not wish to go, and who could play upon his chief as
Paganini could upon a Stradivarius, thanked him warmly, and expressed his
joy at being given the opportunity of telling the world how great was the
man whom he had had the honour to serve so long as secretary. The Prince
chortled and said, in his purring way: “Well, perhaps I should miss your
cleverness, so you had better stay.”
There was another claim to renown which M. Katakazy possessed—one of
which he was perhaps even more proud than he was of that of being the
champion despatch writer and protocolist of the Russian Foreign Office.
All of us who knew our Paris in the late fifties and early sixties
(alas!) remember the famous waiter in the Café de la Rotonde whose
“_Boum!_” in answer to the cry of “_Garçon!_” rolled out in a deep bass
voice that made all the cups and saucers and spoons and glasses rattle on
the marble tables, made the fortune of the “patron” of the establishment.
His fame lives, for our beloved Du Maurier has celebrated him in his
masterpiece “Trilby.” M. Katakazy’s mimicry of this hero was the delight
of St. Petersburg. He had, moreover, a very handsome wife, and that is
always an asset for a diplomatist and private secretary.
Here is another of the Prince’s harmless little vainglorious speeches.
One day he called at the British Embassy with his son Michel, whom he
presented to Lady Napier in the following words:
“Permettez, Madame, que je vous présente le brûlot que je viens de lancer
dans le monde.”
Poor little _brûlot_! destined neither to set the Thames nor the Neva on
fire!
As the Prince was a widower, a lady who was a relation of his, used to do
the honours for him at his parties, and she had her private apartments
in his official residence. This lady had a great friend, an officer in
one of the Guards’ regiments. One evening, when Prince Gortchakoff had
a great official banquet, Tutcheff, who was one of the guests, as he
drove up to the grand entrance saw this officer being admitted at the
private door. As he reached the drawing-room, he heard the Prince making
the lady’s excuses for not being present. “Figurez-vous son désespoir!
Elle est retenue chez elle par une affreuse migraine.” “Ah, oui!” said
Tutcheff the cruel, “je l’ai vue, sa migraine, qui montait chez elle au
moment où je descendais de mon traineau.” Of course the story was all
over the town the next morning.
The pleasantest _salon_ of St. Petersburg in my day was that of Princess
Kotchoubey. Her palace, the Dom Belaselski, had what I should think
must be the finest staircase of any private house in the world. The
guest-rooms were furnished with a magnificence which made one open one’s
eyes very wide indeed. In one of the smaller and more intimate rooms the
Princess used to sit every evening, dispensing tea to a small _coterie_
of friends, essentially a political assemblage, hardly ever more than
a dozen. Prince Gortchakoff was almost always there; Lord Napier and
one or two of the ambassadors very often. Admission to this very choice
gathering was a privilege much coveted and rarely attained; I gained it
by the grace and favour of Countess Apponyi, the Austrian Ambassadress in
London, who was Princess Kotchoubey’s sister, and gave me a letter for
her, to which I have already alluded, and which stood me in good stead,
for it turned out to be a passport to all that was most distinguished in
Russian society.
One evening Prince Gortchakoff brought Khalil Bey (afterwards Khalil
Pasha), the Turkish Ambassador, to present him to the Princess. A great
lady present, who could be very haughty and, indeed, insolent when she
chose, put on her most Lady Disdain air, and said in her pretty sing-song
French:
“Je suppose, Monsieur l’Ambassadeur, que vous avez été bien frappé de
tout ce que vous avez vu ici.”
“Mais de quoi donc, Madame?”
“De notre belle ville, de nos quais, de nos palais, de toute notre
civilisation, enfin.”
“Mais non, Madame,” answered the witty Turk, who was Tutcheff’s rival
in repartee. “Vous savez qu’en Turquie nous sommes aussi excessivement
arriérés,” with the sweetest smile he sat down and drank a triumphant cup
of tea. But the lady was not so happy; she had attacked the wrong man.
Khalil Bey was always amusing, but sometimes his wit was apt to be
a little cruel. There was a certain Madame R. K., known as La Vénus
Tartare, an extraordinarily beautiful woman of the Kalmuck type, with the
figure of a Juno. She had brought out a book called “Un Hiver à Paris,”
which she had persuaded Théophile Gautier, Madame Georges Sand and one
other French man of letters (I think my old friend Octave Feuillet) to
write for her in collaboration, she publishing it as her own, though she
had not penned a word of it. Everybody knew this, but that did not raise
a blush in her, and it came out with, as a frontispiece, a photograph
of Madame R. K.’s back, _décolleté_ almost down to the waist. She was
good enough to send me a copy of it, and I went to thank her. As we were
sitting discussing the book, who should be announced but the Turkish
Ambassador.
“Ah,” said Madame R. K., “nous parlions justement de mon livre.
L’avez-vous lu?”
“Non, Madame!—et vous?” was Khalil Bey’s biting answer, uttered with the
demurest face of innocence; but the so-called Bulgarian atrocities of his
countrymen in later years were not more barbarously searching. I felt so
sorry for the poor beautiful Vénus Tartare.