Dresden—St. Petersburg—The Empress Catherine
II.—Orloff—Potemkin—Russian hospitality—Magnificence of society
at St. Petersburg—Mme. Le Brun is robbed—Slanders against her—The
Russian Imperial family—Popularity and success of Mme. Le
Brun—Death of the Empress Catherine.
Two years and a half had passed and Mme. Le Brun had no desire
to leave Vienna, when the Russian Ambassador and several of his
compatriots urged her strongly to go to St. Petersburg, where they
said the Empress Catherine II. would be extremely pleased to have her.
She had a great wish to see this Empress, whose strange and commanding
personality impressed her, besides which she was convinced that in
Russia she would soon gain enough to complete the fortune she had
resolved to make before returning to France.
On Sunday, April 19, 1795, therefore, she left Vienna and went by
Prague to Dresden, where she was of course enraptured with the
world-famed gallery, and above all with the _chef d’œuvre_ of
Raffaelle, the Madonna di San Sisto—that vision of beauty before
which every other seems dim and pale. She spent five days at Berlin,
stayed a few days more at the castle of her old friend Prince Henry
of Prussia, and arrived at St. Petersburg late in July, very tired and
exhausted with the journey in an uncomfortable carriage over roads
so bad that she was jolted and flung about from one great stone to
another from Riga to St. Petersburg, until her only longing was to be
quiet and rest.
But she had not been more than twenty-four hours in the Russian
capital when the French Ambassador was announced; his visit was
succeeded by others, and that evening the Empress sent to say that she
would receive Mme. Le Brun at Czarskoiesolo[42] the next day at one
o’clock.
The French Ambassador, Count d’Esterhazy, said that he would come at
ten and take her to _déjeuner_ with his wife, who was just then living
at Czarskoiesolo. For the first time during her wandering life from
court to court, Lisette felt intimidated, and trembled. This was so
different from any of her former experiences. At every other court
she had been _en pays de connaissance_. Austrian society was very
like Parisian, Rome was the centre of Christendom, the sovereigns of
the lesser Italian states were the near relations of her own King and
Queen, their religion was the same.
But here, in this half-barbarous country, at an immense distance
from everywhere she had ever been before, with a different church,
a language incomprehensible to her and a sovereign mysterious,
powerful, autocratic, whose reputation was sinister, and to whose
private character were attached the darkest suspicions, an additional
uneasiness was added to her reflections owing entirely to her habitual
careless absence of mind in not having provided herself with a proper
_toilette_ for the occasion.
Accustomed all her life to be surrounded by friends, to be made much
of and allowed to do as she liked wherever she went, she had followed
her own fashion of wearing a certain style of dress, artistic,
characteristic, but inexpensive. Nobody had objected to the simple
_toilettes_ of soft muslin, gracefully arranged, nor to the scarves
and handkerchiefs she twisted in her hair. But she became suddenly
conscious that they were by no means suitable to appear before the
formidable personage, whom she pictured to herself as tall, dark,
gloomy, and terrible, moreover the Countess Esterhazy looked at her in
astonishment, and with much hesitation said—
“Madame, have you not brought any other dress?”
With much confusion she replied that she had not had time to have
a proper dress made, but she was aware of the impossibility of
explaining why, coming straight from Vienna, she had not brought one
with her; and the dissatisfied looks of the Ambassadress increased her
alarm when it was time to go to the Empress.
The Ambassador gave her his arm, told her to be sure to kiss the
hand of the Empress, and they walked across the park to the palace,
where, through a window on the ground floor, they saw a girl of about
seventeen watering a pot of pinks. Slight and delicate, with an oval
face, regular features, pale complexion, and fair hair curling
round her forehead and neck, she wore a loose white tunic tied with a
sash round her waist, and against the background of marble columns and
hangings of pink and silver, looked like a fairy.
It was the Grand-Duchess Elizabeth, wife of Alexander, eldest grandson
of Catherine II., and as Mme. Le Brun muttered, “It is Psyche!” she
came to meet her, and with the most charming courtesy said that
she had so longed to see her that she had even dreamed of her, and
detained her talking for some time. A few moments afterwards Lisette
found herself alone with the Empress Catherine.
[Illustration: CATHERINE II., EMPRESS OF RUSSIA]
The Semiramis of the North, as she was called, received her so
graciously, that all her fears and embarrassments disappeared.
She took no notice of her _toilette_, expressed her deep satisfaction
at her arrival in Russia, hoped she would be happy and stay there a
long time, and ordered an apartment in the palace to be prepared for
her during the rest of the summer.
This, however, was not done, owing to some palace intrigue, and
greatly to the relief of Mme. Le Brun, who much preferred to live by
herself in her own way.
The Empress was not in the least like what she had imagined. Short
and stout, though exceedingly dignified, her white hair was raised
high above her forehead, her face, still handsome, expressed the power
and genius which characterised her commanding personality, her eyes
and her voice were gentle, and her hands extremely beautiful. She had
taken off one of her gloves, expecting the usual salute, but Lisette
had forgotten all about it till afterwards when the Ambassador asked,
to her dismay, if she had remembered to kiss the hand of the Empress.
Whatever might be her private character, Catherine II. was a great
sovereign, a wise ruler, and beloved by the Russian people. In her
reign Tartary, Lithuania, the Caucasus, Courland, and part of Poland
were added to the vast Muscovite Empire; the Russian share of Poland
alone added six millions to her subjects. Every branch of the service,
every corner of the empire, canals, mines, agriculture, commerce,
received her consideration and supervision; art and literature were
encouraged and advanced; the progress made by Russia under her rule
was enormous.
Catherine was the daughter of Prince Christian of Anhalt-Zerbst,
and was sixteen years old when she was brought from the old castle
among the lakes and forests of Germany to be married to Peter, son of
Charles Frederic, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and Anne, eldest daughter
of Peter the Great;[43] who had been adopted as heir by the Empress
Elizabeth, his aunt, youngest daughter of Peter the Great, with whose
grandson, Peter II.,[44] the male line had ended.
Peter of Holstein-Gottorp was seventeen; and was no attractive
husband for a young girl with an impetuous nature, strong passions,
and an enthusiastic love of pleasure and magnificence. He was sullen,
tyrannical, violent-tempered, brutal, often intoxicated, and besides
terribly disfigured by the small-pox.
He carried on an open _liaison_ with the Countess Woronsoff, while
Catherine, who regarded him with dislike and repugnance, consoled
herself with Prince Soltikoff, the hero of Russia from his victory
over Frederic the Great, King of Prussia, and then with Prince
Stanislas Poniatowski.
The Empress Elizabeth, whose own life was a constant succession of
love intrigues, disapproved nevertheless of this open and public
scandal, particularly when her nephew was reported to be about to
divorce his wife in order to marry his mistress.
She sent the Countess Woronsoff to her father’s estates in the
country, dismissed Poniatowski from St. Petersburg, and tried
to reconcile the ill-matched couple; but in vain. She died soon
afterwards, and Peter III., a German at heart, proceeded on his
accession to make himself hated in Russia by his infatuation for
everything Prussian; Prussia being the nation of all others disliked
by his subjects. He discarded the French and Austrian alliance,
attached himself to Frederic, King of Prussia, and besides all the
unpopular changes he made in his own army, accepted the rank of an
officer in that of Prussia, wore the Prussian uniform, and declared
that he preferred the title of a Prussian Major-General to any other
he possessed!
He quarrelled with the clergy and the nobles, and tried to re-model
everything after the German fashion. Even such changes as were
beneficial he carried out in a manner so intolerable that very soon a
powerful party was formed against him, of which Catherine was the head.
For she was as much loved as he was detested. German though she was
she identified herself with the nation whose crown she wore, she
carried on the traditions of Peter the Great and Elizabeth; made
friends of the church, the army, and the nobles, and yet had prudence
enough to avoid by any open defiance hastening the vengeance of Peter,
who, in spite of the warnings of the King of Prussia, despised his
enemies, disbelieved in his unpopularity, and occupied himself with
projects for adopting as his heir the unfortunate Ivan VI., whom
Elizabeth had dethroned and imprisoned, disowning his son, divorcing
his wife, and marrying the Countess Woronsoff. Whilst he loitered
away his time with the latter at Oranienbaum, the conspiracy broke
forth; headed by the brothers Orloff, five men of gigantic stature,
powerful and capable in mind and body. They were all in the Guards,
and succeeded in bringing over that and six other regiments. Catherine
and one of her ladies left the palace in a cart disguised as peasants,
then, changing into officers’ uniforms, arrived at the barracks, where
Catherine was hailed with enthusiasm by soldiers, clergy, and people
as Catherine II., Empress of all the Russias.[45]
The troops marched to Oranienbaum, the Emperor fled and proposed to
abdicate and retire to Holstein with the Countess Woronsoff, but
he was persuaded to go to Peterhoff in order to make arrangements,
was seized by the conspirators, thrown into prison, where six days
afterwards he was murdered by the Orloff, who held the supreme power
in their hands.[46] Whether or not Catherine was consenting to this is
not certain, though very probable. She hated Peter, by whom she had
been oppressed, threatened, and ill-treated, and who had purposed to
divorce her and disinherit her son.
Gregory Orloff became her all-powerful favourite, and although she
would never agree to his preposterous ambition and allow him to be
married to her and crowned Emperor, she loaded the Orloff family with
riches and honours, which they retained after other favourites had
succeeded the gigantic guardsman in her affections.
Of all of them the greatest was Potemkin, a Polish officer, to whom
it was rumoured that she was secretly married, and whom she made
Generalissimo of the Armies of Russia, Grand Admiral of the Fleet, and
supreme Hetman of the Cossacks.
Potemkin cannot be judged as a commonplace favourite, exalted or
destroyed by a caprice; he represented the ambition of Russia in the
eighteenth century; after his death Catherine could never replace that
splendid and supple intelligence.[47]
He had been dead about four years when Mme. Le Brun arrived in Russia,
but was still talked of as a sort of magician. His niece, the Countess
Scawronska, said to her—
“If my uncle had known you, he would have overwhelmed you with honours
and riches.”
Amongst Lisette’s new Russian friends was the beautiful Princesse
Dolgorouki, with whom Count Cobentzel was hopelessly in love; but as
Lisette observed, her indifference was not to be wondered at, for
Cobentzel was fifty and very ugly; and Potemkin had been in love
with her. Besides all his other gifts he was extremely handsome and
charming, and his generosity and magnificence were unparalleled.
When on the _fête_ Sainte Catherine he gave a great banquet supposed
to be in honour of the Empress, crystal cups full of diamonds were
brought in at dessert, the diamonds being served in spoonsful to the
ladies.
The Princess remarking on this extravagance, he said in a low voice—
“_Puisque c’est vous que je fête, comment vous étonnez-vous de quelque
chose?_”[48]
For her name also was Catherine.
Another time, hearing that the Princess wanted some shoes for a ball,
he sent an express which travelled night and day to Paris to get them.
And it was well-known that he had ordered the assault upon the
fortress of Otshakoff to be prematurely made because she wished to see
it.
The lavish, almost barbaric hospitality of the great Russian nobles
both at St. Petersburg and Moscow astonished Mme. Le Brun. Many
of them possessed colossal fortunes and kept open house. Prince
Narischkin, Grand Equerry, had always a table to sit five-and-twenty
or thirty guests.
Mme. Le Brun found society at the Russian capital extremely amusing,
and was, if possible, received with even more enthusiasm than in
the other countries in which she had sojourned. She went to balls,
dinners, suppers, or theatricals every night, and when she could
manage to spare the time from the numerous portraits she painted, she
went to stay in the country houses and palaces near, where in addition
to other festivities they had _fêtes_ on the Neva by night, in
gorgeously fitted up boats with crimson and gold curtains, accompanied
by musicians.
Financially, in spite of the large sums she gained, Lisette was at
first unfortunate. She placed 45,000 francs in a bank which broke
immediately afterwards.
Returning at one o’clock one morning from some theatricals at the
Princess Menzikoff, she was met by Mme. Charot in consternation
announcing that she had been robbed by her German servant of 35,000
francs, that the lad had tried to throw suspicion upon a Russian,
but the money having been found upon him he had been arrested by the
police, who had taken all the money as a proof, having first counted
the gold pieces.
Mme. Le Brun blamed her for having let the gold go, and just as she
said, she never got its value again, for although the same number of
pieces were returned, instead of the Austrian gold coins they only
gave her ducats, worth so much less that she lost 15,000 francs by
them. Then she heard that the boy was sentenced to be hanged, and as
he was the son of a _concièrge_ and his wife belonging to the Prince
de Ligne, excellent people who had served her in Vienna with attention
and civility, she was in despair, hurried to the governor to obtain
his pardon, and with much difficulty succeeded in getting him sent
away by sea; for the Empress had heard of it, and was very angry.
To her joy she met her old friend Doyen, the painter. He had emigrated
two years after her, and arrived at St. Petersburg with no money.
The Empress came to his assistance and offered him the directorship
of the Academy of Arts. He settled in the Russian capital, where he
got plenty of employment, painting both pictures and ceilings for the
Empress, who liked him, and for the Russian nobles. The Empress gave
him a place near her own box at the theatre, and used often to talk to
him.
While she was still in Vienna, Lisette had been told by the Baronne de
Strogonoff of the Greek supper at Paris, which she said she knew cost
80,000 francs.
“You astonish me!” said the Baronne, when the affair was explained
to her; “for at St. Petersburg we were told about it by one of your
countrymen, M. L——, who said he knew you very well, and was present at
the supper.”
To which Lisette replied that she did not know M. L—— at all except by
name; and the matter ended.
A few days after her arrival at St. Petersburg, where M. L—— did
not suppose she would ever come, Mme. Le Brun went to see Mme. de
Strogonoff, and as she was not well, went into her bedroom and sat
down by the bed.
Presently M. L—— was announced, and Mme. Le Brun having hidden herself
behind the curtains, Mme. de Strogonoff ordered him to be shown in,
and said to him—
“Well, you must be very glad, for Mme. Le Brun has just arrived.”
M. L—— began to hesitate and stammer, while his hostess continued to
question him; and Mme. Le Brun, coming out from behind the curtain,
said—
“Then you know Mme. Le Brun very well, Monsieur?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Well, that is very strange,” she observed; “because I am Mme. Le
Brun, whom you have calumniated, and I now see you for the first time
in my life.”
At this he rose, his legs seeming to tremble under him, and taking his
hat he left the room and was seen no more, for in consequence of this
he was excluded from all the best houses.
When the Empress returned from Czarskoiesolo she desired Mme. Le Brun
to paint the portraits of the Grand Duchesses Alexandrine and Helena,
daughters of the Tsarevitch, then fourteen and thirteen years old, and
afterwards that of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, wife of Alexander,
eldest grandson of the Empress, the young girl she had seen on her
first visit to Czarskoiesolo, by whom she was completely fascinated.
The Imperial family, with whom she soon became well acquainted,
consisted of the Tsarevitch, afterwards Paul I., his wife, Marie of
Wurtemburg, a tall, fair, noble-looking woman, whom every one liked
and respected, their sons, the wives of the two elder ones, and their
daughters.
They were all entirely under the domination of the Empress, against
whose will nobody dared to rebel, though Paul as a child used to ask
his tutor why his father had been killed and why his mother wore the
crown which ought to have been his.
He was the only one of the Imperial family Lisette was at all afraid
of, for the Empress was unceasingly good to her, and the princes and
princesses were all very young.
Alexander, afterwards Alexander I., resembled his mother in beauty
and charm of character; but Constantine was like his father, whose
eccentric, gloomy disposition seemed to foreshadow the fate which lay
before him. His strange, unbalanced nature alternated between good
and evil; capricious and violent, he was yet capable of kindness and
generosity.
Constantine, although very young, was married to the Princess Anne of
Coburg, of whom Mme. Le Brun remarked that without being so lovely as
the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, she was still very pretty, very lively,
and only sixteen years old. She was not happy with Constantine, from
whom she separated after a time and went back to her own family.
Neither of the young wives were altogether fortunate, for some years
later two beautiful Polish girls, whose father had been killed in
the Polish war, were brought by their mother to the Russian court.
The eldest and prettiest was only sixteen, and was married to Prince
Narischkin, but the overpowering passion which she inspired in the
Emperor Alexander is well known; whilst her sister captivated the
terrible Constantine.
Mme. Le Brun saw Mme. de Narischkin and her sister before she left
Russia, for though she only intended to be there for a short time,
she remained for six years, making an immense number of friends, and
apparently no enemy but Zuboff, the last favourite of the Empress
Catherine, an arrogant, conceited young man of two-and-twenty,
whom she supposed she had offended by not paying court to him; and
therefore he tried all he could to injure her with the Empress.
She lived opposite the palace, and could see the Empress open a window
and throw food to flocks of crows that always came for it; and in the
evenings when the _salons_ were lighted up she could watch her playing
hide-and-seek and other games with her grandchildren and some of the
court.
For she adored her grandchildren, whom she kept entirely under her own
control, allowing their parents to have no voice in their education,
which she certainly directed with great care and wisdom.
Every one crowded to the studio of Mme. Le Brun on Sundays to see
the portraits of the Grand Duchesses. Zuboff, seeing the crowd of
carriages which, after leaving the palace, stopped before her house,
remarked to the Empress—
“See Madame, people go also to pay their court to Mme. Le Brun. They
must certainly be _rendezvous_ which they have at her house.”
But his insinuations made no impression upon the Empress. She liked
Mme. Le Brun and paid no attention to him.
The climate of Russia Lisette became gradually accustomed to. The
absence of spring and autumn, the short, hot summer, not beginning
until June and ending in August, were at first very strange to her.
The first May she spent there the half-melted snow was on the ground
and the windows still closed up, while enormous blocks of ice came
crashing down the Neva with a noise like thunder.
The splendid ceremony of the benediction of the Neva by the
Archimandrite, in the presence of the Empress, the Imperial family,
and all the great dignitaries, deeply impressed her.
One day at the end of May when she and her daughter were walking in
the summer gardens, they noticed that all the shrubs were covered only
with buds. Taking a long walk round the gardens and returning to the
same place, they found all the buds had burst into leaf.
The cold of the long winters she found, as every one says, much more
supportable than in other countries whilst indoors, the heating of the
houses being so perfect. And sledging parties were added to the other
amusements of her life.
The hot weather she used to spend at some house she took or had lent
to her in the country near St. Petersburg.
One Sunday in October, 1796, Lisette went, after mass, to the palace
to present the portrait she had just finished of the Grand Duchess
Elizabeth.
After expressing her satisfaction, the Empress said—
“They are absolutely resolved that you shall do my portrait. I am very
old, but still, as they all wish it, I will give you the first sitting
this day week.”
The following Thursday morning the Empress did not ring as usual at
nine o’clock. They waited till after ten, and then the first _femme de
chambre_ went in and found her lying on the floor struck by apoplexy.
Lisette was at home with her daughter, who was just recovering from an
illness, when the news was brought to her.
Filled with alarm and sorrow, she hurried to the Princess Dolgorouki,
where Count Cobentzel brought them constant news from the palace,
where desperate but fruitless efforts were being made to revive the
Empress.
Everywhere was nothing but consternation, grief, and alarm; for all
ranks and classes not only adored Catherine, but were terrified at the
advent of Paul.
In the evening Catherine II. died and Paul arrived. Lisette hardly
dared leave the Princess Dolgorouki’s, to go home, as every one was
saying there would be a revolution against Paul. The streets were
filled with people, but there was no disorder. The crowds reassembled
next day before the palace of Catherine, calling her their mother,
with cries and tears.
For six weeks she lay in state in a great room in the palace, which
was illuminated day and night. The Emperor had his father, Peter III.,
brought from the convent where he was buried to be taken at the same
time as Catherine to the fortress where all the Russian monarchs are
interred. He obliged the assassins of his father to carry the corners
of the funeral pall, and himself, bareheaded, with the Empress and all
the ladies of the court, with long trains and veils, walked through
the snow and fearful cold in the procession from the palace to the
fortress.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] So spelt in the “Mémoires de Mme. Le Brun.”
[43] It has been, however, confidently asserted that Peter was not and
could not have been the son of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, but of a
Swedish Colonel named Bruhmer, with whom by the advice of her mother
(Catherine I.), the Duchess carried on an intrigue.—“Catherine II.”
(Castera).
[44] Son of Alexis the Tsarevitch, who was put to death by his father,
Peter the Great.
[45] Catherine II. was adored by the army and knew how to appreciate
the prowess of her soldiers. After a great victory of General
Souvaroff she sent him a _courrier_ with simply an empty envelope on
which was written “_Au Maréchal Souvaroff_.”
[46] “Catherine II.” (J. Castera).
[47] “La Grande Catherine” (Capefigue).
[48] Since it is in your honour, why should anything surprise you?