A CZAR’S FUNERAL.
MY original errand in Moscow was a diplomatic one; it had been my
good fortune to be selected as the confidential agent of the French
government, empowered to look into and secure certain conditions of the
treaty with Russia made by Richelieu many years before. My father, who
was a cousin of the Duc de Bouillon and of the Vicomte de Turenne, had
been a trusted friend of Cardinal Mazarin, and was commended to King
Louis XIV. by the dying cardinal. The king had held my father in high
esteem, and at his death received me into his favor. I was a soldier
by instinct and profession, and had served with both Turenne and the
Prince de Condé, being with the latter at the bloody battle of Seneffe,
where the four squadrons of the king’s household stood under fire for
eight hours without a movement, save to close our ranks as men fell. I
followed Turenne in his campaign in the Palatinate, and was with him at
the time of his death before the village of Salzbach. The year before I
was sent to Moscow, I rendered a service at the surrender of Strasburg
which won the good opinion of Louvois, who was then towering above
the king’s other ministers. I was in command of one of the squadrons
posted to guard the passage over the Rhine, and it was through my
vigilance that the messengers from the burgesses were captured on their
way to ask aid from the emperor. Both Louis and Louvois believed that
their success was, in a measure, due to my zeal and activity; and from
that hour my fortune was assured, and I was promoted from one post of
confidence to another. Although diplomacy was not my natural vocation,
I was pleased at the novelty of a mission to Moscow; and becoming well
acquainted at court, I lingered on, after the successful accomplishment
of my mission. I saw the intrigues preceding the late czar’s death,
and learned a great deal about the undercurrent at the palace. I was
regarded as a disinterested spectator, having friends on both sides. My
rank as an agent of the French government gave me many privileges from
which others were excluded. It was on my intimacy with court intrigue
that I based my hope of rescuing Zénaïde from her murderous uncle;
and it was probably my unique position that won for me Von Gaden’s
confidence.
On the day of the Czar Feodor’s funeral, I was early at the palace,
and found it the scene of great confusion. The anterooms were
crowded with the dignitaries of the imperial household and with the
boyars. The funeral _cortége_ was to proceed to the Cathedral of
the Ascension for the obsequies; and I saw, at once, that there was
some unusual excitement, especially among the Miloslavskys and their
faction. As I crossed the anterooms beyond the banqueting hall, I
passed Ramodanofsky, who was in a window recess in deep converse with
Viatscheslav Naryshkin and the Streltsi colonel whom I had seen at his
house. For the first time, I encountered a keen glance from the old
boyar; it was evident to me that I had suddenly become an object of
interest to him, and yet I was at loss to explain the reason, being
confident that my visit to his house was unknown to him. I passed on,
and at the opposite door, I came upon Ivan Miloslavsky, a cousin of the
Czarevitch Ivan’s mother, the Princess Marie Illinitchna Miloslavsky,
the first wife of Alexis the Debonair.
Ivan Michaelovitch Miloslavsky was the most able of that family,
except his second cousin, the Czarevna Sophia Alexeievna. I had now a
desire to cultivate the good graces of this faction, for I felt that
the tide might turn at any hour in favor of the elder branch of the
imperial family. So it was that my salutation was cordial, and I was
well pleased at Miloslavsky’s ready response; he turned and walked with
me, and it was thus that I passed again before Ramodanofsky and his
friends, and observed that the three worthies ceased talking, to watch
us as we walked the length of the room, Miloslavsky leaning on my arm,
and talking confidentially. After we were out of earshot, I ventured to
make an inquiry.
“Can your excellency tell me anything of the boyar in the window
yonder?” I asked.
“It is Vladimir Sergheievitch Ramodanofsky,” replied Miloslavsky, with
a note of scorn in his voice; “an old villain, and an adherent of the
Naryshkins.”
“I have heard unfavorable reports of him,” I said, feeling my way with
caution.
“Nothing you have heard could be worse than the truth, I fancy,”
replied Ivan, indifferently. “Some day he will be called to his
account; meanwhile, he is enjoying his little hour of prosperity.”
“And who is the officer with him?” I inquired, pushing my advantage.
Miloslavsky glanced back and shrugged his shoulders.
“Another rascal, Colonel Pzykof, and he is likely to be called to an
early reckoning,” he added, a peculiar smile curving his full lips,--a
smile which suggested to me at once the triumph of some secret scheme.
“The funeral procession is forming now,” he continued, quickening his
step, “and they will be disturbed by an unusual occurrence.”
“I saw that there was some interest awake,” I said. “What is the new
development?”
Miloslavsky smiled again.
“The Czarevna Sophia goes in the procession,” he said quietly.
I started, knowing that this was contrary to every usage of the Russian
court, and that the Byzantine custom compelled the imperial princesses
to remain behind a canopy. Miloslavsky saw my surprise.
“It is an innovation,” he said; “but Sophia Alexeievna is overcome with
grief for her brother; and, after all, why should not a sister stand
beside her brother’s corpse?”
He seemed to challenge me to express an opinion.
“I am surprised only because I know that your customs are so
arbitrary,” I replied, smoothly. “In France, it would seem most natural
for the czarevna to follow her brother’s body to the grave.”
“Yet it has been the cause of much dispute,” said Miloslavsky,
bitterly, “and the Czarina Natalia is opposed to it. Naturally enough
she does not grieve much that the elder brother has passed away from
her son’s path to the throne,” he added in an undertone.
I was discreetly silent. We had passed through the anterooms out on to
the Red Staircase, and stood looking down upon the crowd. It reminded
me of the election of Peter, only that this was a silent throng,
impressed, no doubt, by the presence of death. The procession was
forming, and everywhere the black garb of mourning seemed to swallow
up the light. The Russian dress of that day was a strange contrast to
the French. The men wore robes and sleeves as long as those of the
women, and a man’s high cap was not unlike a woman’s head-gear. It was
seventeen years afterwards that Peter the Great inaugurated a change
of fashion by cutting off the sleeves of the boyars, with his own
hands, at a supper given by the Boyar Sheremétief. Verily, I have lived
to see great changes in Russia since that day, when I stood looking
down upon the Red Place, thronged with black-robed figures, and upon
the bier of the Czar Feodor. It was the darkest hour in that period of
history, and just before the dawn of a new reign; the star of the house
of Romanof was in the ascendant, but its light was not yet diffused.
It was a dull day; the sky was heavy, and the Kremlin wore its most
gloomy aspect; even the red pavement of the square was almost obscured
by the mass of people, and the voices of the multitude were hushed as
the deep notes of the great cathedral bells tolled solemnly, on every
hand, the mournful dirge of Russia’s mightiest, laid in the dust to
share at last the common fate of his humblest subject,--for how great a
leveller is Death!
Miloslavsky and I were parted when we took our places in the dreary
procession, and the slow march to the cathedral was begun. Every eye
was turned on the Czarevna Sophia Alexeievna, who walked beside the
bier of the late czar. I saw that the Miloslavskys were playing for
high stakes, for the unusual presence of one of the princesses and her
manifest grief were producing a strange effect upon the vast crowd
surging about the _cortége_. It seemed a long time before we stood at
last within the great cathedral, which was draped in black until it
looked like a huge sarcophagus, and the multitude, swayed by a new and
deep emotion, packed the immense edifice and filled the square without.
It was a scene of strange solemnity. Before the altar stood the bier,
covered with the imperial pall, and the tall tapers around it made a
blaze of light almost dazzling in its contrast to the gloom of the rest
of the great interior, except here and there, where a ray of light was
caught and reflected from the gold upon the pillars. By the dead czar
stood the patriarch and the archbishops in their rich robes, chanting
the service, while the multitude knelt in the silence beyond. Every
word that the priests chanted sounded clearly in that intense quiet,
and the awful solemnity of death brooded over us. A dead man, but for
that hour, czar of all the Russias still! It seemed to my imagination
that some secret emotion possessed the kneeling crowd, that every
breath was drawn with some new resolution, that even the atmosphere
was surcharged with foreboding. The blaze of gold and silver upon the
high altar flashed in the light of a hundred tapers, and every line
in the patriarch’s face was magnified in that clear blaze; but beyond
the circle of the tapers, not even the daylight seemed to penetrate to
where we knelt in the shadow, and the low chant of the clergy rose and
fell and sobbed in its monotonous refrain.
Suddenly, in the midst of that solemn ceremony, we heard a woman’s
voice raised in lamentation. I think that every man in that great
multitude caught his breath to listen, and every eye was fixed on
that circle of flame about the pall, as the Czarevna Sophia rose and
stretched out her hands in passionate supplication to Heaven. Her words
were incoherent, but we heard her voice, and we saw her as she flung
herself down beside the bier, clutching it in an agony of grief.
Was she acting? I asked myself the question even while I felt a scorn
of myself for being contemptuous in my judgment of a stricken woman;
for truly, in losing her elder brother, she had lost her chief stay and
hope. Yet I knew the great Sophia too well to be wholly sure that her
emotion was entirely without thought of its effect upon the people; I
knew her to be an astute politician and an adroit manager. Yet it was
a pathetic scene,--the strong woman’s abandon in her grief and despair.
The effect upon the multitude was at once apparent; there was a murmur
through the crowd, low but deep. And it was then that the Czarina
Natalia took that step which caused so much unfavorable comment. Taking
the little Czar Peter by the hand, she left the cathedral, and in a
few moments, by some mysterious agency, the news spread through the
crowd; and in that hour the czarina lost more prestige than she was
likely to regain for many a long day. The sharp contrast between the
agony of Sophia’s grief, and the absence of reverence for the dead in
the czarina’s conduct was too strikingly presented to the people. The
excuse that Natalia pleaded, that the child Peter was weary with the
long service, was insufficient, for the Miloslavskys were only too
eager to fan the flame of popular resentment against the young czar’s
mother.
It was when we were at last leaving the cathedral, pressed and
hemmed in by the crowd, that I was pushed almost against the Boyar
Ramodanofsky. As I glanced at him, I saw a curious look come over his
face; his features seemed to freeze with sudden horror, and his eyes
fixed themselves in a stare. Following the direction of his glance, I
saw in the crowd the tall figure of my acquaintance of election day,
Peter Lykof. He was apparently looking at the boyar, and there was a
smile on his lips; and was it the scar that so distorted it, and made
it horrible, mocking, revengeful? I watched them in keen surprise,
until the people surged between, and I saw Lykof no more. Ramodanofsky
walked before me like a man in a dream, and I kept him in sight as
long as it was possible; but presently, in the press and confusion,
I lost him also. Later, I heard that he had been taken suddenly ill,
and leaving the procession, had been driven home. All the way along
I looked eagerly for another sign of Lykof, but my vigilance was not
rewarded with success.
Meanwhile, the funeral _cortége_ took its slow course, returning across
the Grand Square of the Kremlin, and once more the figure of the
bereaved czarevna absorbed all attention, and she continued to give
way to her grief. We had almost reached the centre of the Red Place
when she made her appeal to the people. It was the climax of the scene,
and took the opposing faction completely by surprise. Pausing, and
facing the vast multitude, she stretched out her hands to them with
an eloquent gesture; in a moment there was a profound silence, and her
voice was distinctly heard at a long distance:--
“Our brother, the Czar Feodor, has departed from this life,” she said.
“His enemies have poisoned him. Be merciful unto us orphans, for we
are desolate. Our brother Ivan has not been elected czar, and we have
no one to protect us. We are innocent; but if you and the boyars wish
to be rid of us, let us go to other lands, where we can have the
protection of Christian kings.”