A NATION’S TRANSPORT.
“Take thy banner, and beneath
The battle-cloud’s encircling wreath,
Guard it till our homes are free--
Guard it, God will prosper thee!
In the dark and stormy hour,
In the breaking forth of power,
In the rush of steeds and men,
His right hand will guard thee then.”
About three weeks later all Moscow was in a frenzy of excitement. The
Czar was coming. Ten thousand bells, from those of the world-famous
“Ivan Veliki,” that looked down from its giddy height upon the domes
of the Kremlin, to that of the most obscure of her fifteen hundred
churches, were clamouring their sonorous welcome. Cannon were ready to
thunder a greeting yet more deafening, though far less musical; and
the nobles and clergy were preparing a grand procession to meet their
sovereign at the Smolensko gate. Meanwhile the people poured forth in a
dense, tumultuous crowd to watch for his approach. Long and patiently
did they wait; and the shades had fallen deep over the city, in which
that night there were but few sleepers, when at last continued shouts
and “houras” announced his appearance. Happy was he who could catch,
through the darkness, even a glimpse of the unpretending open carriage,
drawn by four unbroken horses from the steppes of Tartary, in which the
Czar was wont to travel.
It had been a bitter sacrifice to Alexander to forsake his armies, now
face to face with the enemy, and retrace his steps to the centre of his
dominions. But his generals had said to him, “Sire, your presence here
paralyzes the army; it takes fifty thousand men to guard you;” and he
was forced to acknowledge the justice of their remonstrances: a chance
bullet--perhaps a bullet which was _not_ a chance one; for Napoleon
was no chivalrous antagonist--might at any moment leave Russia a prey
to untold confusion.[15] On the other hand, a new army was urgently
needed, and none but the sovereign could raise it; men’s hearts
everywhere were failing them for fear, and none but the sovereign could
inspire them with hope and confidence. So “the great heart” returned
“to the midst of the great body.”[16] For the present.
On the morning after the arrival of the Czar in Moscow, Ivan was
walking in a fashionable street called the Arbatskaya, not far from the
Kremlin. Adrian Wertsch and two or three other young noblemen were with
him. Like all the crowd amongst which they were moving, they had donned
their richest and gayest dresses. Every one wore a festive air, and
seemed to be making holiday in honour of the presence of the sovereign.
“Come, Adrian Nicoläitch,” said young Kanikoff, the very person to whom
Ivan had lost so many of Petrovitch’s hard-earned roubles--“come, tell
us how much of the show _you_ saw last night.”
“As much as you did,” was the laughing answer; “or as our friend here,
Ivan Ivanovitch.”
“Oh, as for me,” said Ivan, “_I_ am born under an unlucky star. I am
destined never to see his Imperial Majesty. During one of his visits
to the city I was ill; during two I was absent; and last night, all I
could contrive to see was the head of one of his horses.”
“Better luck another time. Stay, I really think we are going to have it
now. Hark! listen to those shouts. What a throng there is though--all
the ‘black people’ in Moscow pressing about us!--Come, come, good
people; if it is the Czar, still you need not crowd us in this way.
There is room enough in the world for all. Stand back, I say!--Ivan,
take care of your purse!”
“No need,” laughed Ivan; “there is nothing in it.”
“Hush! he is coming. Off with hats and caps.--Yakovlef, of what are you
thinking? Do not kneel, man; he has strictly forbidden it.”
“Great St. Michael!” exclaimed Wertsch in another moment, “what
a disappointment, and what fools we have all been making of
ourselves!--Be quiet there, good people, and save your throats until
you have something to shout for. That is not his Imperial Majesty; it
is only one of his aides-de-camp, with some other person belonging to
the suite.”
“Eh bien!” said Kanikoff. “It is no wonder the servant was taken
for the master. He is handsome enough for that.” And he gazed
in undisguised admiration at the splendid figure of the young
aide-de-camp, with his plumed cap in his hand, and a galaxy of jewelled
orders glittering on his breast, as he bowed gracefully to right and
left in acknowledgment of the salutations of the crowd.
“That is Prince Ouvarov,” said Yakovlef. “You seem to admire him.”
“Who could help it?”
“Not the ladies of St. Petersburg, at all events. It is said he breaks
a score of hearts every season. Once the Czar himself read him a
lecture; and I am told he answered, with the utmost _sang-froid_, ‘How
can I help it, your Imperial Majesty? The ladies are such fools about
me.’ But would you believe it?--in war he is the Archangel Michael
himself. He led the hussars at Austerlitz; and at Erfurt Napoleon
asked, ‘Which is the brave general who punished my infantry so
sorely?’ This young gallant, as beautiful as a girl, and as daintily
curled and perfumed, stepped forward and said quietly, ‘Je, sire.’ ‘You
may not speak very good French, but you are a very brave officer,’ said
Napoleon, taking his hand kindly.”
“Have a care, Yakovlef. If the people hear us talking of Napoleon, ten
to one they will tear us to pieces.”
“Not they, while the Czar is here.--Ivan Ivanovitch, what ails you? You
seem lost in a dream. Wake up, my friend.”
Ivan started.
“True enough,” he said; “I feel in a dream. I am perplexed, haunted, by
the face of that man.”
“Of Ouvarov?”
“No; of the other who rode beside him. That tall, gaunt,
foreign-looking man. I have seen him before; I am sure of it. But
where? when?”
“I should think,” said Kanikoff, “that you would care very little to
see him again. He must ride out with Ouvarov on purpose to illustrate
Beauty and the Beast.”
“Ivan would like well enough to see him if he were ill,” Yakovlef
interposed. “That is the Czar’s physician--Dr. Wylie, a Scotchman, very
clever, but very ready with his lancet, they say. He has been accused
of cutting off a man’s head to cure him of a headache.”
“The head of the man who allowed him to do it could have been little
loss to its owner,” laughed Ivan. Then he repeated thoughtfully, “His
lancet! I am sure I have seen him with a lancet. Of what can I be
thinking?”
He was interrupted by Feodor, the grandson of Petrovitch, who pushed
his way through the crowd to the group of young nobles. The handsome,
dark-eyed lad, in his blue caftan and crimson sash, looked to no
disadvantage amongst them. They all knew him, and greeted him with
kindness, if also with a little condescension.
“I am so glad I have found you, Prince Ivan,” said the boy
breathlessly. “My grandfather thought you would like to see the
benediction of the Czar with the holy picture. His friend, Pope Yefim,
is to take part in the ceremony, and he says he can secure you a good
place.”
Ivan gladly accepted the offer; and in the short conversation that
followed, the merchant’s son was able to contribute materially to the
information of his social superiors.
“Pope Yefim has seen a copy of the letter which the Patriarch wrote
to the Czar,” he said. “He was not able to come himself--for you
know, gentlemen, he is nearly a hundred years old, much older than my
grandfather--but he writes that it grieves him to the heart he cannot
see the face of his sovereign--that face which is to him ‘as the face
of Christ.’”
Neither speaker nor hearers were startled by the expression which to us
seems to border on the profane. But the profanity was unintentional,
and the passionate loyalty utterly sincere.
Feodor went on--“He has sent him the sacred picture of St. Sergius,
from the Troitza monastery. You know, gentlemen, that is the picture
which the Czar Alexis and the great Czar Peter carried into battle, and
it always gave them the victory. Though, my grandfather says, it is not
the holy picture that gives the victory, or even the holy saint, but
God himself.”
“Thy grandfather seems to be a wise man,” said Yakovlef. “But I wonder
what the Czar himself thinks of the matter. People used to call him
very enlightened, quite a philosopher, a disciple at heart of Voltaire
and Diderot. I warrant me they are right, and he believes little
enough.”
The last remark was intended for the nobles, but it reached the ear of
Feodor, who, to every one’s surprise, both understood and answered it.
“The Czar,” he said reverently, “must believe very much in God, for he
cares very much about the poor, whom God has made.”
“God give him the victory over his enemies!” said Kanikoff; and the
little group responded with a hearty “Amen!”--for, “beneath all the
foam and sputter” of their light and careless talk, it was true that
“the heart’s depths boiled in earnest.”
Such a benediction as the Czar was about to receive is often bestowed,
in the Greek Church, even upon private persons who have in view some
important enterprise, or wish to offer some particular supplication or
thanksgiving. It is called a Molében; and it would be a beautiful and
touching ceremony, but for the baneful influence of that superstition
which too often leads its votaries to worship and serve the creature
more than the Creator. Usually, most of the prayers are addressed to
the guardian angel, or to the saint with whose picture the votary is
blessed--the picture being then given to him as a kind of talisman.
The benediction was to take place on the 27th of July, and early in
the morning Ivan entered the Church of the Assumption, the sacred spot
where the holy anointing oil had been poured upon the head of the
Czar. Pope Yefim had found for him a quiet niche, from whence he could
witness the whole of the ceremony. He had room to stand or kneel: in
Russian churches the worshippers never sit, however protracted the
services may be. From his place of waiting he heard the tumult, the
shouts and cheering, which welcomed the Czar as he approached. He knew
that now he was ascending the “Red” or “Beautiful” Staircase, by which,
upon state occasions, the Czars were wont to enter the cathedral; but
he could not know that he was “followed by an immense crowd, who wept,
and blessed him, and swore to defend his empire with their lives.”[17]
He knew that now this Czar would take his stand, as other Czars had
done, upon the summit of the staircase, to allow the people beneath
“to see the light of his eyes;” but he could not know as yet how
profoundly the mighty heart of that people was moved, “as the trees of
the wood are shaken with the wind.”
Clear and sweet as the song of angels rose the ringing treble of the
boyish choristers, who welcomed the Czar as he entered--“Blessed is he
that cometh in the name of the Lord!” The violet robes of the bishop
and the assistant priests--the flash of innumerable jewels upon mitre,
pall, and crozier--the faint perfume of incense--the sparkling drops of
holy water flung from vessels worth the ransom of a king,--all these
held the senses of Ivan, and wholly filled for a time his imaginative
and impressible heart.
Meanwhile, the man who was the centre of all this pomp, and whose
manhood for Russia in that solemn hour was more than worth it all,
stood reverently in his place while the officiating bishop sprinkled
him with holy water, or touched his forehead, his lips, his breast with
the sacred picture. As the eyes of Ivan rested on that stately figure,
peerless in its grace and majesty, a kind of awe stole over him. All
the old superstitious reverence of the Russian for the Czar, who is
“God upon earth,” came upon him. It seemed almost an irreverence to
raise his eyes to the face of the monarch; he could scarcely dare to do
it.
But a “Gospodin Pomilvi” of exquisite sweetness from the choir drew
away his thoughts for a moment, and involuntarily he glanced towards
the spot whence the sound proceeded. Then, once again he looked where
all else were looking; and suddenly a strange thing happened to him. As
in a dream, he saw--instead of the gorgeous, dimly-lighted church, the
gleaming vestments, the drooping banners--a green bank beside a river,
a group of peasants, a cold and rigid form, a noble, compassionate face
bending over it. He heard a voice that said, in tones of courageous
hope, “My children, this is not death. We will save him yet.” For he
knew that his boyar and the Czar Alexander Paulovitch were the same.
Only, it seemed to him that now it was holy Russia that was lying numb
and prostrate, and that the Czar had pledged himself to save. He would
do it. From that moment Ivan never doubted it.
Besides the great ceremony of which the world was talking,[18] another,
known to one only, took place in the church that day. Ivan drew out the
piece of gold his boyar’s hand had given him, and which, ever since,
had hung round his neck. He kissed it, and made a solemn vow upon it,
“Faithfully to serve my Czar; to live for him all my days; and, if God
will, to die for him.”
Yet once more his eyes sought the face of his sovereign, and never
wandered from it until the service was concluded. But little could he
guess what was passing in the soul of which that expressive countenance
was sometimes the too faithful index.
Alexander’s own hand has sketched for us in a few slight touches the
conflicts of that period. Not then, nor ever, so far as we know, did
the thought of St. Sergius, or of any other human mediator, interpose
itself between his soul and the Divine Presence. But for some time past
he had been wrestling hard in secret with questions which go down to
the very roots of a man’s being. Was there a God in heaven whose ear
could be reached by that cry from human lips, “Gospodin Pomilvi”? And,
if so, was he the “invented God,” the “God afar off” of the deist and
the philosopher; or the God of the Bible, the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ? Already these questions were answered for him, almost with
assurance; but there still remained another. Would this God hear and
help a man who was kneeling before him on behalf of fifty millions of
other men whose destinies were committed to his keeping? Would he deign
to touch him with his hand, to strengthen him with his strength? In
those days the soul of Alexander was feeling after God, if haply he
might find him.
The service over, Ivan repaired to the Hall of Nobles, as one whose
rank entitled him to find entrance there. He had to content himself
with an obscure place in the crowded assembly, where he could not
see the Czar, although he could hear his voice. In a noble address,
Alexander laid before his subjects the full extent of the public
danger. He concealed nothing; the strength of the invaders, the
position of the army, its perils, its resources, its needs, all were
revealed with a large-minded candour which would have honoured the
constitutional monarch of a free people. In conclusion, he said that
he “regarded the zeal of the nobility as the firmest support of the
throne. In all times and on all occasions it has proved the faithful
defender of the integrity and glory of Russia.” Here his voice
thrilled, faltered with emotion, and he paused amidst a universal
cry that seemed to shake the massive roof and walls of the grand old
hall--“Ask what you please, sire; we offer you everything.”
One of the nobles proposed the gift of a serf in every twenty-five; but
a chorus of eager voices interrupted, “It is not half enough!” Finally,
one serf in every ten, ready armed and equipped, and provided for three
months, was unanimously voted for the service of the Czar.[19]
While all this went on, Ivan sat in his place, silent and sad at heart.
_He_ had nothing to give,--nothing but his life; yet that, perhaps,
might count for something hereafter.
In the meantime, a scene equally significant was taking place in the
adjacent Hall of Merchants. Old Petrovitch repaired thither with the
rest, leaning on the arm of his youthful guide Feodor, his eldest son,
who ought to have accompanied him, being absent at the time. “I cannot
see the face of the Lord’s anointed,” he said, “but I can hear his
voice.” This assembly, like the other, was densely crowded. Feodor
contrived to find standing room upon the edge of a seat; and from this
vantage-ground he was able to look over the heads of the throng of
grave, bearded merchants. “Grandfather,” he whispered, “the Czar is not
here; only the Governor.”
“God save his Excellency Count Rostopchine! Hearts of steel, such as
his, are sorely needed now,” the old man responded.
“But we can see _him_ any day we like. It is the Czar we want to see,”
grumbled Feodor.
“Patience, boy; he is coming,” said one of the merchants near them.
“And, while we wait for him, it is _his_ words the count is going to
give us, not his own.”
This was true. Amidst a hush of eager expectation, the Governor rose
and read aloud the address of the Czar “to our ancient city and
metropolis of Moscow.” It contained the same explanations and appeals
which at that moment in another place were falling from his own lips;
and concluded with an earnest exhortation to prepare for “that defence
which must now shield the babe at the mother’s breast, and guard from
sacrilege the tombs of our fathers. The very existence of our name in
the map of nations is menaced. The enemy denounces ‘Destruction to
Russia.’ The security of our holy Church, the safety of the throne
of the Czars, the independence of our ancient Muscovite Empire, all
call aloud that the object of this appeal may be received by our loyal
subjects as a sacred decree. May the filial ardour spread itself from
Moscow to the extremities of our dominions; and a force will then
assemble around the monarch that may defy the thousand legions of our
treacherous invader. The ills which he has prepared for us will then
fall upon his own head, and Europe, delivered from slavery, may then
celebrate the name of--”
“Alexander!” The words sprang from the lips of Feodor Petrovitch, the
youngest there, who spoke aloud the thought that thrilled in every
heart, and knew not that he spoke until he caught the reproving looks
of some of those around him. In the meantime Count Rostopchine calmly
completed the sentence as it had been written--“Europe, delivered from
slavery, may then celebrate the name of RUSSIA.”
Scarcely had he concluded, when the Czar himself stood amongst
them, and with a few eloquent words wound up to its highest pitch
the enthusiasm of the audience. Amidst the tears and acclamations
which followed, the venerable chief of the merchants[20] stood
up in his place and subscribed his name for the gift of fifty
thousand roubles--two-thirds of his fortune. Others gave in similar
proportion; and Petrovitch was surpassed by none in self-sacrificing
liberality. Feodor, under his directions, wrote his name upon
the list of subscribers. When he had done so, he turned to his
grandfather--“Dädushka, I think you must give the Czar something more
even yet.”
“Even sons and grandsons?” said the old man, with a smile that had in
it a little sadness and a great deal of resignation; “well, I shall not
refuse.”
“_Even me?_” said Feodor, nestling close to him and putting his arm
caressingly about his neck. But Petrovitch did not answer.
“The people were willing,” even beyond their power, so that three days
afterwards the Czar published a ukase, not to ask for gifts, but to
limit their amount. “The nobles literally gave him Russia,” wrote the
Sardinian ambassador to his sovereign. “They melted into tears; in
short, sire, there never was anything like it. The merchants have given
him ten million roubles, and lent him fifty or sixty million.”
But the mass of the people--peasants, mujiks, serfs, who tilled the
soil--what part had they in this splendid outburst of loyal and
patriotic enthusiasm? Napoleon expected that these “oppressed and
degraded slaves” would hail him as a deliverer--would rise everywhere
in revolt, and massacre their tyrants. Very different was the fact.
When the time came for the serfs voted by the nobles to be levied from
their estates, and when the vast crown lands had also to contribute
their proportion of recruits, there was weeping and wailing in the
izbas of every village from the Neva to the steppes of Tartary. But
it was not, as in other days, the conscript who mourned his hard lot,
and his mother, his sister, his betrothed who made sore lamentation
over a separation probably life-long. It was the one _not_ chosen who
mingled his tears with those of his friends and parents, because he
might not go and shed his blood for the Czar and holy Russia. Glad
was the young recruit as he donned his simple uniform--a gray caftan,
with loose trousers and a crimson sash; and proudly did he wear on the
front of his gray cap the imperial badge, “a brazen cross surmounting
a crown over the letter _A_.” First and highest the cross, symbol of
the Christian faith; beneath that, the imperial crown of Russia; again
beneath that--Alexander.
But although putting himself, as he was wont to do, in the lowest
place, and when possible out of sight altogether, the strong personal
love with which Alexander had inspired his subjects counted for more,
in that hour of a nation’s conflict and agony, than the traditional
religious veneration of the Russian for his country and his Czar. Well
was it for Russia, and for Europe also, that the Czar God had given
her was Alexander Paulovitch. It was not only that he had been, since
the beginning of his reign, “perfectly just as emperor, singularly
generous as man;”[21] not only that he was richly endowed with all
those brilliant and fascinating qualities which take the eye and win
the suffrage of the multitude. The secret of his influence lay deeper.
God had given him a gift more precious still. He had touched his heart
with “the enthusiasm of humanity.” This autocrat of fifty millions
“loved his brother whom he had seen,” even when as yet he knew not the
divine Father “whom he had not seen.” The hand that toiled so hard to
bring back the perishing mujik from his death-like swoon was well used
to deeds of beneficence. Of these a hundred stories might be told: at
that time they _were_ told, not only in the salons of St. Petersburg,
but beside the stove in the izbas of many a country village. Everywhere
the mujiks said, “Our lord the Czar loves us.” And everywhere, as long
as the world lasts, love will win love.