The French Embassy welcomed me in the most charming way, and I retain
the best remembrances of the moments spent in its _salons_. The Russians
considered the Bompards bourgeois after the Montebellos, who had lived
there _en grands seigneurs_, spending their large fortune, and dipping
into it also a little. The Russians would have liked France to send them
a marquis, a duke, a prince--considering that more flattering--but at
least a “handle.” And, as the people who made this remark to me were
considered to have advanced ideas, I answered: “But that is democracy;
what else do you make of it?” Upon which there was silence.
One evening Madame Bompard told us as a great secret that we must all
say how we liked the quality of the tea served that evening, for it had
been sent her by the Chinese Minister, who would be there. We therefore
all exclaimed on the merits of the liquid--very pale, very scentless,
very insipid--which was served to us; the most perfect mixture possible,
as it appears, and into which is introduced a great quantity of rose
leaves. And the little yellow man was all smiles, swinging more than
ever his long pigtail, the antics of which testified to his gratitude.
All the winter that same pigtail, a sort of bell-rope, inspired me with
a wild desire to pull it; a desire that I repressed, as one of the
secretaries, to whom I had confided my temptation, exclaimed
breathlessly: “On no account do that, it would be a _casus belli_!”
This same little Minister always arrived dressed in the most beautifully
embroidered robes imaginable. I have never considered the yellow race
outwardly beautiful, but I grant one point of beauty to the Chinese
soul, since this same little man told me that the Chinese always wore
embroidered on their garments a flower of the season. A pretty idea, and
I congratulate them on having retained the custom; it seems to belong to
another age.
Among the Russians who attended assiduously at the Mondays of our
Ambassadress was Princess X... She would never have discovered
gunpowder, and her husband even less; but he at least was only to be
seen when he dined there, and then he took his departure very early, to
go no doubt to more amusing resorts. She, dark, tall and stout in
proportion, immensely amused the men by her heavy stupidity, which
caused her to say the silliest things. One evening, speaking in a
mincing voice, and assuming the _air ingenu_ which she particularly
affected, she asked them in a foolish way what it meant to say to some
one: “Vous êtes une tourte.” The little circle began to laugh and wink
at each other. She particularly addressed herself at the moment to a
certain tall, young secretary of the Embassy, M. de C..., who
confessed, laughing a trifle nervously, though really delighted, the
unflattering suggestion concealed in this word--stupid--for no one
doubted that she herself had been thus described; and she was rather
sensitive, the dear Princess. He sauntered along gracefully to tell me
what had passed, and we chuckled mischievously about it.
This evening, like all others, came at length to an end. Towards
midnight every one dispersed like a long and elegant chaplet on the wide
red-carpeted steps of the Embassy grand staircase.
At the foot of the last flight C..., all muffled up in his thick fur
coat, his face half concealed behind his high turned-up collar, his eyes
almost buried under his fur cap, found himself face to face with our
Princess, still displaying her shoulders, which were always exposed to
the fullest advantage.
“What are you carrying, C...? What a bundle!” she said in her loud
drawling voice, displaying her pretty teeth and at the same time
pointing to a voluminous parcel which the bearer was trying in vain to
hide from the general gaze; and, so saying, she wriggled her back
caressingly.
“C’est la tourte, c’est la tourte,” he said with a feeble smile, and
casting a significant glance at us as he disappeared.
In her subsequent conversations she never again referred to “tourtes.”
That evening, in the privacy of her sanctum, she must have reflected
that there were really too many “tourtes” in this world.
I had a feeling of well-being when from the great _salons_ of the French
Embassy, and from beneath their gilded panelling, I threw a glance from
the great bay windows with double panes on the Quai Français and on that
wide and beautiful Neva, so calm, so silent under its double mantle of
snow and ice.
The soft warm temperature and the pretty rosy light, the cold whiteness
down below formed the most delicious contrast.
Having read Jules Verne’s descriptions of floating icebergs in the
Arctic regions, for some reason or other one imagines that all very
frozen water in very cold countries must convey icebergs, but I was
cruelly disappointed at not having my expectations realized to the full
on that point at the time of the _débâcle_ in Russia and by seeing only
huge agglomerations of ice being carried along, all as flat as vulgar
pancakes. It seemed an interminable flow as it passed, as not only the
Neva freed itself thus of its winter coat, but also the great lake
Ladoga; and, watching, one could not help associating all this
apparently aimless rush of the ice towards the great salt sea with the
passage of life, with all its hurry and scurry--here to-day, gone
to-morrow!
At Petrograd the water is--or rather was--undrinkable, and my aunts
recommended me never to touch a drop; consequently one is obliged to
buy the drinking water at the chemists, who get it at a certain special
place.
A most virulent form of typhoid fever is rampant there, especially
during the spring at the time of the melting of the ice, when all this
frozen mass of winter snow has to be broken up by axes in many places,
and on the removal of which many microbes are set in motion. Russia then
becomes a veritable sea of mud, which state, however, is almost
immediately succeeded by the sudden bursting forth of spring with all
that season’s richness and loveliness. I felt I actually saw the grass
growing, so forcibly does Nature revenge herself. Very few diplomats
really liked Petrograd, the cold climate, the expensive life, the
absence of light in winter, the light nights in summer, were so many
subjects of complaint. It is no doubt _plus chic_ to show oneself
dissatisfied; but I who found all delightful, thought this attitude of
mind very tiresome.
Among the discontented ones was one of my friends, Marquis de M...,
Secretary at the Embassy. His father had been in the army under the
command of my grandfather. He had brought from France an old family
dagger which had formerly been the weapon of a not less valiant
ancestor, a Crusader, who had reddened it with the blood of infidels,
and his dream was to hunt bears with it, being anxious himself to plunge
it into the heart of so stout and dangerous an adversary; almost a
profanation, it seemed to me. I tried, but in vain, to curb this
dangerous ardour, being without confidence that my little Marquis, with
his small stature and his somewhat flabby air, would emerge victorious
from a hand-to-hand struggle with a majestic bear as ferocious as
hungry. He stamped with rage and anxiety when explaining that he might,
perhaps, not have the luck to find one even if he went to the enchanted
spots from which others returned crowned with laurels.
I informed him then that there was a very flourishing industry where a
victim was supplied you at the indicated time and place, out there in
_le pays des ours_, and he could very easily acquire a skin for a rug;
but my Marquis listened with horror to the suggestion of this
subterfuge, asking only for the simple glory which he could honourably
accept. How many there are less honest who supply themselves with the
white skins so easy to achieve.
Nevertheless he dreamt delightful dreams, of hunting Bruin throughout
the winter, which were never realized, for very soon he packed up his
ancestral dagger and returned to his beautiful country. I saw him again
a last time on the eve of his departure, dapper and spruce. “My servants
have started, my horses also,” he said, laughing, for he possessed
neither. “To-morrow it is my turn.”
I often teased him about his political opinions, and it was a real joy
to see him pose as a republican fanatic.
At one of Madame Bompard’s Wednesdays some of the ladies took it into
their heads to ask the Marquis his Christian name, and each of us played
at guessing it. The one who teased him the most was a young and pretty
Rumanian--Madame Z... Impossible to obtain an answer; very strange, it
must have been that name! The most extravagant names of saints flew
about. “I know, I know,” suddenly cried the young Rumanian lady in her
fresh, gay voice. “His name is Joseph.” And of course we all yelled out
in unison, calling him Joseph. The more he protested, the more we
insisted. It seemed to pain him singularly, when suddenly a defender
arose. “Joseph, and why?” protested the Dutch Minister from behind his
eyeglass. “He has nothing in common with him.” None of the ladies dared
to continue the subject.
Lord Hardinge, afterwards Viceroy of India, was then British Ambassador
at Petrograd. I very much admired Lady Hardinge, who is now no more. His
counsellor was Sir Cecil Spring Rice, now our Ambassador at
Washington.[B]
The Dutch Minister was a shrewd, distinguished man; he always teased me
very much. He had a biting wit and did not lack brains. One day when two
of the gentlemen were telling in my hearing a story to which I preferred
not to listen, he said to me: “You play the _ingénue’s_ part charmingly,
you ought to be in the Comédie française. I shall remember that in
thirty years’ time. The conclusion one comes to is that one may tell
you a little more,” he said to me mischievously. And another time when I
was going to skate, and his secretary had instituted himself my
professor, he said: “You are on slippery ground, very slippery,
Mademoiselle.” This with a glance which he launched above his eyeglass,
of which he seemed to have no need, as nothing ever escaped him even
without its aid.
He was a good raconteur and I enjoyed talking with him. His wife, also,
was charming.
An agreeable couple were Count and Countess Ruggieri-Laderchi, the
Italian Military Attaché and his wife. They often entertained and were
very pleasant. She was a Russian, _née_ Staël-Holstein. She told
complacently how a fortune teller had predicted that she would be an
Ambassadress. May that happen to her if it is still her wish, as then
she would be quite in her rôle; but on leaving Russia she settled down
in a provincial town in Italy.
The evenings at General Gelinsky’s were also charming; he was a friend
of my aunt’s, and one met at his house many officers of the Guards and
some diplomats.
During nearly the whole of that winter, the German Ambassadress used to
display on her head, and nearly as big as it, planted well in the middle
of her coiffure, a yellow flower resembling an immense dandelion, the
flower commonly called by us in France _pissenlit_. I told myself that
this conception of the fashions must have originated on the banks of the
Spree; but yet this headgear did not seem to clash with the rest of her
tasteless get-up, for all bore the stamp of Berlin. The Embassy was not
beautiful and not well arranged, a succession of little drawing-rooms,
which I thought ugly.
My friend Mademoiselle Thecla de Grelle did the honours for her father
at the Belgian Legation, and in a very charming manner too. I had some
very good times there. She still sends me news of herself from
Copenhagen, where she lives now with her brother, Secretary to the
Legation.
At Petrograd the _corps diplomatique_ formed one large family who met
constantly, which was quite delightful.
A charming couple were the Count and Countess Wrangel, who succeeded the
Gyldenstolpes at the Swedish Legation. The Count was the Minister; she
was French by birth and very amiable. I have met them since in London,
where they are still, and where I have always been touched by their kind
welcome.
A great meeting place for our set was on the opposite side of the Neva,
at the house of a certain lady of foreign nationality, who was very rich
and who used to receive a great deal; but I heard lately that she had
left her husband and her home for Germany in company with a young Hun
who might easily be her son, as she was by no means a young woman
twelve years ago, although a very well preserved one and always
beautifully dressed. She could have easily been a grandmother even in
those days. As in the fable, the deserted husband mounts to the tower to
see if there is a cloud of dust on the road; but in vain! If there is
any dust, the wind of the Neva is the only cause of it.
The Bulgarian Minister was then Monsieur Stancioff; his wife, French by
birth, had been Maid of Honour of the Princess Clémentine, mother of
King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, and a daughter of Louis-Philippe, King of
the French, who had been married to the Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha as
far back as 1843. Ferdinand of Bulgaria, thus being partly French and
partly German, had always been considered to have adopted his mother’s
nationality in preference to his father’s, but owing to his second
marriage with a German Princess--Eleonora de Reuss--and the promise of
great things from the Kaiser, the head of this mushroom Tzar was
completely turned in the wrong direction.
Madame Stancioff was a very intelligent woman and certainly without any
_préjugés_. One had heard that the Prince had taken a great fancy to
her, and after her marriage with a cavalry officer he put him into the
Diplomatic service, and so settled him in life. After Petrograd they
came to Paris, where the Legation was maintained on a great scale by
Ferdinand, who evidently remained faithful to his friends. About the
beginning of the war they were appointed to Rome, and I saw in the
papers that, being suspected of Francophile tendencies, the Kaiser had
asked the renegade Ferdinand not to let them occupy that post any
longer. At their house I also received a charming welcome.