PARIS, October, 1805.
MY LORD:--Though loudly complained of by the Cabinet of St. Cloud, the
Cabinet of St. Petersburg has conducted itself in these critical times
with prudence without weakness, and with firmness without obstinacy. In
its connections with our Government it has never lost sight of its own
dignity, and, therefore, never endured without resentment those
impertinent innovations in the etiquette of our Court, and in the manner
and language of our Emperor to the representatives of legitimate
Sovereigns. Had similar becoming sentiments directed the councils of all
other Princes and the behaviour of their Ambassadors here, spirited
remonstrances might have moderated the pretensions or passions of upstart
vanity, while a forbearance and silence, equally impolitic and shameful,
have augmented insolence by flattering the pride of an insupportable and
outrageous ambition.
The Emperor of Russia would not have been so well represented here, had
he not been so wisely served and advised in his council chamber at St.
Petersburg. Ignorance and folly commonly select fools for their agents,
while genius and capacity employ men of their own mould, and of their own
cast. It is a remarkable truth that, notwithstanding the frequent
revolutions in Russia, since the death of Peter the First the ministerial
helm has always been in able hands; the progressive and uninterrupted
increase of the real and relative power of the Russian Empire evinces the
reality of this assertion.
The Russian Chancellor, Count Alexander Woronzoff, may be justly called
the chief of political veterans, whether his talents or long services are
considered. Catherine II., though a voluptuous Princess, was a great
Sovereign, and a competent judge of merit; and it was her unbiased choice
that seated Count Woronzoff, while yet young, in her councils. Though
the intrigues of favourites have sometimes removed him, he always retired
with the esteem of his Sovereign, and was recalled without caballing or
cringing to return. He is admired by all who have the honour of
approaching him, as much for his obliging condescension as for his great
information. No petty views, no petty caprices, no petty vengeances find
room in his generous bosom. He is known to have conferred benefactions,
not only on his enemies, but on those who, at the very time, were
meditating his destruction. His opinion is that a patriotic Minister
should regard no others as his enemies but those conspiring against their
country, and acknowledge no friends or favourites incapable of well
serving the State. Prince de Z-------- waited on him one day, and, after
hesitating some time, began to compliment him on his liberal sentiments,
and concluded by asking the place of a governor for his cousin, with whom
he had reason to suppose the Count much offended. “I am happy,” said His
Excellency, “to oblige you, and to do my duty at the same time. Here is
a libel he wrote against me, and presented to the Empress, who graciously
has communicated it to me, in answer to my recommendation of him
yesterday to the place you ask for him to-day. Read what I have written
on the libel, and you will be convinced that it will not be my fault if
he is not to-day a governor.” In two hours afterwards the nomination was
announced to Prince de Z--------, who was himself at the head of a cabal
against the Minister. In any country such an act would have been
laudable, but where despotism rules with unopposed sway, it is both
honourable and praiseworthy.
Prince Adam Czartorinsky, the assistant of Count Woronzoff, and Minister
of the foreign department, unites, with the vigour of youth, the
experience of age. He has travelled in most countries of Europe, not
solely to figure at Courts, to dance at balls, to look at pictures, or to
collect curiosities, but to study the character of the people, the laws
by which they are governed, and their moral or social influence with
regard to their comforts or misery. He therefore brought back with him a
stock of knowledge not to be acquired from books, but only found in the
world by frequenting different and opposite societies with observation,
penetration, and genius. With manners as polished as his mind is well
informed, he not only, possesses the favour, but the friendship of his
Prince, and, what is still more rare, is worthy of both. All Sovereigns
have favourites, few ever had any friends; because it is more easy to
flatter vanity, than to display a liberal disinterestedness; to bow
meanly than to instruct or to guide with delicacy and dignity; to abuse
the confidence of the Prince than to use it to his honour, and to the
advantage of his Government.
That such a Monarch as an Alexander, and such Ministers as Count
Woronzoff and Prince Czartorinsky, should appoint a Count Markof to a
high and important post, was not unexpected by any one not ignorant of
his merit.
Count Markof was, early in the reign of Catherine II., employed in the
office of the foreign department at St. Petersburg, and was, whilst
young, entrusted with several important negotiations at the Courts of
Berlin and Vienna., when Prussia had proposed the first partition of
Poland. He afterward went on his travels, from which he was recalled to
fill the place of an Ambassador to the late King of Sweden, Gustavus III.
He was succeeded, in 1784, at Stockholm, by Count Muschin Puschin, after
being appointed a Secretary of State in his own country, a post he
occupied with distinction, until the death of Catherine II., when Paul
the First revenged upon him, as well as on most others of the faithful
servants of this Princess, his discontent with his mother. He was then
exiled to his estates, where he retired with the esteem of all those who
had known him. In 1801, immediately after his accession to the throne,
Alexander invited Count Markof to his Court and Council, and the trusty
but difficult task of representing a legitimate Sovereign at the Court of
our upstart usurper was conferred on him. I imagine that I see the great
surprise of this nobleman, when, for the first time, he entered the
audience-chamber of our little great man, and saw him fretting, staring,
swearing, abusing to right and to left, for one smile conferring twenty
frowns, and for one civil word making use of fifty hard expressions,
marching in the diplomatic audience as at the head of his troops, and
commanding foreign Ambassadors as his French soldiers. I have heard that
the report of Count Markof to his Court, describing this new and rare
show, is a chef-d’oeuvre of wit, equally amusing and instructive. He is
said to have requested of his Cabinet new and particular orders how to
act--whether as the representative of an independent Sovereign, or, as
most of the other members of the foreign diplomatic corps in France, like
a valet of the First Consul; and that, in the latter case, he implored as
a favour, an immediate recall; preferring, had he no other choice left,
sooner to work in the mines at Siberia than to wear, in France the
disgraceful fetters of a Bonaparte. His subsequent dignified conduct
proves the answer of his Court.
Talleyrand’s craft and dissimulation could not delude the sagacity of
Count Markof, who was, therefore, soon less liked by the Minister than by
the First Consul. All kind of low, vulgar, and revolutionary chicanery
was made use of to vex or to provoke the Russian Ambassador. Sometimes
he was reproached with having emigrants in his service; another time
protection was refused to one of his secretaries, under pretence that he
was a Sardinian subject. Russian travellers were insulted, and detained
on the most frivolous pretences. Two Russian noblemen were even arrested
on our side of the Rhine, because Talleyrand had forgotten to sign his
name to their passes, which were otherwise in order. The fact was that
our Minister suspected them of carrying some papers which he wanted to
see, and, therefore, wrote his name with an ink of such a composition
that, after a certain number of days, everything written with it
disappeared. Their effects and papers were strictly searched by an agent
preceding them from this capital, but nothing was found, our Minister
being misinformed by his spies.
When Count Markof left Sweden, he carried with him an actress of the
French theatre at Stockholm, Madame Hus, an Alsatian by birth, but who
had quitted her country twelve years before the Revolution, and could,
therefore, never be included among emigrants. She had continued as a
mistress with this nobleman, is the mother of several children by him,
and an agreeable companion to him, who has never been married. As I have
often said, Talleyrand is much obliged to any foreign diplomatic agent
who allows him to be the indirect provider or procurer of his mistresses.
After in vain tempting Count Markof with new objects, he introduced to
the acquaintance of Madame Hus some of his female emissaries. Their
manoeuvres, their insinuations, and even their presents were all thrown
away. The lady remained the faithful friend, and therefore refused with
indignation to degrade herself into a spy on her lover. Our Minister
then first discovered that, not only was Madame Hus an emigrant, but had
been a great benefactress and constant companion of emigrants at St.
Petersburg, and, of course, deserved to be watched, if not punished.
Count Markof is reported to have said to Talleyrand on this grave
subject, in the presence of two other foreign Ambassadors:
“Apropos! what shall I do to prevent my poor Madame Hus from being shot
as an emigrant, and my poor children from becoming prematurely orphans?”
“Monsieur,” said our diplomatic oracle, “she should have petitioned the
First Consul for a permission to return, to France before she entered it;
but out of regard for you, if she is prudent, she will not, I daresay, be
troubled by our Government.”
“I should be sorry if she was not,” replied the Count, with a significant
look; and here this grand affair ended, to the great entertainment of
those foreign agents who dared to smile or to laugh.