THE FENCING MASTER, page 6
“Wait here and I will send you your fare.”
“Ah!” said the driver, “I was expecting that.”
“What’s that?” demanded the astonished Emperor.
“Oh! I know what I’m saying.”
“Well, what is it you say?”
“I say that everyone, whom I drive to a house with two doors, and who gets out without paying me, is a swindle and I never see him again.”
“What! even in front of the Emperor’s Palace?”
“More often there than anywhere. Gentlemen have very short memories.”
“Why don’t you lodge a complaint and have the thieves arrested?” said Alexander, who was greatly amused at the conversation.
“Arrest a nobleman! Your Excellency knows it is quite impossible. With one of us it would be a simple matter,” added the coachman pointing to his head, “for we can be easily identified, but with you clean shaved gentlemen it is simply impossible. Now, Sir, search in your pockets and I am sure you will find the wherewithal to pay me.”
“Listen,” said the Emperor, “here is my cloak, it is well worth the fare, is it not? Keep it and give it back to the person who brings you the money.”
“Oh! all right,” said the driver, “that’s a bargain anyhow.”
A few minutes later the Emperor redeemed his pledge by sending out a note for a hundred roubles.
Thus did he settle the account of himself and his guests.
As such an act of liberality was beyond my means, I contented myself with handing my driver five roubles or a day’s wages, only too glad to prove that I had more confidence in him than he in me. It is true I knew his number and he did not know my name.
The Crimean Palace, with its magnificent furniture, marble statues, and lakes of gold and silver fish, was a gift of the favourite Potemkin to his powerful and famous sovereign Catherine II., to celebrate the conquest of the country whose name it bears; but the curious part of it is not so much the ostentation of the donor as the marvellous way in which he kept his secret. A prodigy was erected in her capital and she knew nothing about it, so that one evening when the Minister invited the Empress to a fête, which he intended to give in her honour, in some damp meadows, which she knew very well, she found a Palace, resplendent with lights, resounding with music, and embellished with flowers, a Palace which might well have been built by the fairies.
This same Potemkin was the typical upstart Prince, just as Catherine II. was the model for all women suddenly called to the throne; the one was simply a non-commissioned officer, the other an insignificant German princess, and yet if all the hereditary princes and all the kings of this epoch are drawn up in review, these two will stand out as conspicuously great even among the great ones.
A strange fate or perhaps we should say the designs of providence drew them together.
Catherine was a beautiful woman of thirty-three, beloved for her graciousness and respected for her piety, when she suddenly heard that Peter III. wished to divorce her and marry the Countess Voronsov, and as an excuse for such an act, he intended to declare that Paul Petrovitch was illegitimate. She realizes that not a moment must be lost; leaves the Peterhoff Castle at eleven o’clock at night, clambers into a country cart, without betraying her identity to the driver, reaches St. Petersburg at daybreak, collects her most trustworthy friends, puts herself at their head, and parades in front of the troops garrisoned at the capital, who have been assembled in ignorance of the event. Catherine addresses them, appealing to their gallantry as men and their loyalty as soldiers, then taking immediate advantage of the effect produced by her harangue, she draws a sword, throwing away the scabbard, and asking a dragoon to tie it to her arm. A young non-commissioned officer steps out of the ranks, approaches her and offers her his own; Catherine accepts the gift with the sweet smile befitting one in search of a kingdom. The young officer then attempts to regain the ranks, but his horse, accustomed to the squadron refuses to obey, rears, prances, and persists in remaining by the side of the Empress’s charger. Then the Empress looks at the young man who is pressing against her and in his unavailing efforts to withdraw from her presence she sees the hand of Providence pointing out a protector. She immediately promotes him and a week later when Peter III. has been captured and resigned the crown he wished to wrest from her, while she reigns in his stead, Potemkin is remembered and appointed gentleman of the Bedchamber in the Imperial Palace.
From that day the favourite’s good luck increased by leaps and bounds. Many attacks were made upon it only to meet with defeat. One individual thought he had succeeded; a certain young Servian called Zoritsch, a protégé of Potemkin himself, and admitted by him into Catherine’s household, took advantage of his benefactor’s absence to bring about his ruin by slandering him. Thereupon Potemkin, who had got wind of the affair, hurries back, repairs to his old room in the palace, and there learns that he is utterly disgraced and exiled. Potemkin in an instant and without waiting to brush his soiled travelling dress, rushes to the Empress’s quarter.
At the door of her apartment a young orderly attempts to stop him, Poteinkin seizes hold of him, lifts him from the floor and flings him to the other end of the room, enters Catherine’s boudoir and a quarter of an hour later emerges with a paper in his hand.
“Here, sir,” said he to the young lieutenant, “is a Captain’s commission which I have just obtained for you from her Majesty.”
On the morrow Zoritsch was exiled to the town of Shklov, over which his generous rival appointed him in supreme command.
As for Potemkin, he dreamed one moment of the Duchy of Courland and the next of the throne of Poland, then he wearied of all such ideas and contented himself with providing fêtes for kings and palaces for queens. Besides, could a crown have made him more powerful or more magnificent than he was already? Did not the courtiers adore him as an Emperor? Had he not on his left hand (for his right he kept bare the better to grasp his sword) as many diamonds as adorned the crown. Had he not agents to supply him with sturgeon from the Volga, water melons from Astrakan, grapes from the Crimea, bouquets from every region where beautiful flowers grew, and did he not present to his royal Mistress, among other gifts each of them the earliest crop of the season, a dish of cherries said to have cost ten thousand roubles.
Potemkin had in his employ an officer called Faucher, who spent his whole existence in posting from one end of the kingdom to the other on such errands. Foreseeing that he would probably break his neck on one of these expeditions he had composed in advance the following epitaph on himself.
“Ci-gît, Faucher, (Here lies Fauchee!)
Fouette, Cocher!” (Whip up, Coachee.)
At one moment an angel, at another a demon, Potemkin was for ever creating or destroying, and when he was doing neither, he threw everything into confusion only to put it straight again; no one could make any show except when he was absent and when he reappeared all faded into insignificance before him. The Prince de Ligne used to describe him as a conglomeration of the gigantic, the romantic and the barbaric, and the Prince was right.
His death was as strange as his life and the end as unexpected as the beginning. He had just spent a year at St. Petersburg in the midst of fêtes and orgies, considering that he had acquired enough glory for himself and Catherine by extending the boundaries of Russia as far as the Caucasus, when he suddenly learns that old Reptnin, taking advantage of his absence to beat the Turks and force them to petition for peace, has accomplished more in two months than he himself in three years.
From that moment all is confusion; he is ill, it is true, but no matter he must set out at once. He will fight against disease and master it. He reaches Jassy his capital and starts for Otchakov the scene of his triumphs. After travelling for a few versts he feels suffocated in his carriage; his cloak is spread out on the turf and he lies down, only to breath his last by the roadside.
Catherine nearly died at the news. Everything, almost life itself, appeared to be shared in common by these two great souls; she fainted three times, wept copiously and ever afterwards mourned for him.
The Crimean Palace, the residence at the time of my visit of the Grand Duke Michael, was occupied for a short visit by Queen Louise, the Modern Amazon, who dreamt for one moment of subduing her conqueror.
For Napoleon, the first time he saw her, exclaimed, “Madam, I had often heard that you were the most beautiful of queens, but I did not expect to find you! the most beautiful of women.” Unfortunately the gallantry of the Corsican hero was not of long duration.
One day Queen Louise was toying with a rose:
“Give me that rose,” said Napoleon.
“Give me Magdeburg,” answered the queen.
“My faith no,” replied the Emperor, “it would be too dear at the price.”
The queen, greatly piqued, threw away the rose; but she did not get Magdeburg.
After leaving the Crimean Palace, I continued my walk, crossing the Troitskoï bridge, to inspect Peter the Great’s hut, that rough Imperial jewel, whose casket only had I seen the previous evening.
The veneration of a nation has preserved this monument in all its original simplicity, the dining-room, saloon, and bedroom appear to be awaiting the return of the Czar. In the yard is the little boat entirely built by the carpenter of Saardam in which he was wont to row over the Neva to the various parts of the new born city which required his presence.
Near this abode of a few days is his eternal resting place. His mortal remains, like those of his descendants, repose in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul situated within the Fortress. His Church, though its golden spire gives one a false idea of its height, is in reality quite small, very irregular in shape and in bad taste; it is in nowise noteworthy, its sole claim to distinction lying in the monument it guards. The Czar’s tomb is near the door on the right side; from the roof hang more than seven hundred flags captured from the Turks, Swedes and Persians.
I crossed the Tiutchkov bridge to the Island of Vasilievskooï. The chief objects of interest in this quarter are the Exchange and the Academies. I merely passed along in front of them and taking the Isaac bridge and the Street of the Resurrection, I found my way to the Fontalka Canal and traversed the quay as far as the Catholic Church; there I halted, as I wanted to see Moreau’s tomb. It is a plain slab in front of the altar in the middle of the chancel.
As I was in the neighbourhood I thought I would visit the Kasan Church, which is the Notre Dame of St. Petersburg. I entered by the double colonnade modelled on Saint Peter’s, Rome. Here I was disappointed and my expectations were not realised. The exterior is nothing but brick and plaster; while the inside is a medley of bronze, marble and granite; the doors are of brass or solid silver, the floors of jasper and the walls of marble.
I was surfeited with my day’s sight seeing, so directed my steps to the famous Madame Xavier’s, that I might deliver the letter entrusted to me to my fair fellow country woman. I found she had left the establishment six months ago, and was informed by her late employer in a very stiff manner that she had set up for herself between the Moika Canal and the Orgelot Bazaar. I had no difficulty in finding the place, for Orgelot’s is the Bon Marché of St. Petersburg.
Ten minutes later I was at the shop door. I decided that I would dine at a restaurant opposite, as I noticed it was kept by a Frenchman; so dismissing the drosky I entered the establishment and asked for Mademoiselle Louise Dupuy.
One of the shop girls enquired if I wished to make a purchase or had come on private business. On my answering that I should like to have a personal interview, the girl at once conducted me to Mademoiselle’s apartment.
CHAPTER IV
I WAS shown into a boudoir hung all round with Oriental tapestry and there I found my fellow country woman, stretched at her ease and reading a novel. At sight of me she sprang up with the exclamation: — ” Ah! you are a Frenchman!”
I excused myself for interrupting her siesta, but as I had reached the capital only the evening before, perhaps she would excuse my ignorance of the universal custom; then I handed her the letter.
“It’s from my sister,” she cried; “darling Rose, how delighted I am to hear from her. Do you know her? is she still in good spirits and pretty?”
“I can answer for her prettiness and I trust she is in good spirits, but I have only seen her once, the letter was forwarded to me by one of my friends.”
“M. Auguste, was it not?”
“Yes.”
“My poor little sister must be very happy now; I recently sent her some splendid dress materials and something else besides. I invited her to come and live with me, but...”
“But, what?”
“It meant leaving M. Auguste and she refused. Won’t you sit down?”
I was about to take a chair when she beckoned to me to come and sit by her. I accepted the invitation very readily and while she was reading the letter I took the opportunity of examining her.
Women possess the marvellous faculty which is not shared by any other creature, of being able to transform themselves, so to say. I was contemplating a simple grisette from the Rue de la Harpe; four years ago, no doubt, this grisette spent her Sundays in dancing at the Prado or the Chaumière. Well now the girl is taken and just transported like a plant to a fresh country, and lo! here she I is flourishing in the midst of luxury and fashion as if it were her native soil! Yet familiar though I am with the manners and customs of that stratum of the amiable if not very refined class of society to which she originally belonged I cannot find the smallest trace of her humble origin or defective education. The change was so complete, that at sight of this pretty girl, with her hair arranged in the English fashion, her simple wrapper of white muslin, and her little Turkish slippers, reclining in just the elegant attitude an artist painting her portrait would have posed her in, I might have fancied myself in some smart boudoir of the aristocratic Faubourg Saint Germain, while in reality I was only in the private room behind a modiste’s shop.
“Well, what’s the matter?” said Louise, who had finished perusing the letter, and felt somewhat embarrassed at my close scrutiny.
“I am looking at you and thinking.”
“What are your thoughts.”
“I am thinking that if Rose had come, instead of remaining faithful to Monsieur Auguste; if she could have been suddenly transported by some magic power into the middle of this charming boudoir; if she could find herself before you now as I am, instead of throwing herself into the arms of her sister, she would fall on her knees as if in the presence of a queen.”
“Your praise is too extravagant,” replied Louise with a smile, “yet there is some truth in it; yes,” she added with a sigh, “yes, I am greatly changed.”
“Madam,” said a shop girl coming in, “the Gossudarina wants a hat like the one you sold yesterday to the Princess Dolgorouki.”
“Has she come herself?”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Take her to the showroom, I will be there in a moment.”
The girl left us.
“This would remind Rose,” continued Louise, “that after all I am nothing but a poor dressmaker. But if you would like to see a transformation still more remarkable than mine,” she added, “lift this curtain and watch through the glass door.”
With these words, she entered the showroom, leaving me alone. Taking advantage of the permission accorded me, I raised the curtain and glued my eyes to a corner of the window pane.
The lady who had been announced as the Gossudarina was a fine looking woman of twenty-two or twenty-three, evidently of Asiatic origin, and with her neck, ears and fingers loaded with ornaments, diamonds and rings. She came in leaning on a young serf’s shoulder, apparently unable to endure the fatigue of walking across the soft carpets which covered the floor, dropped into the sofa nearest the door, while the girl revived her by waving a fan. On seeing Louise she beckoned her to approach with a most nonchalant air, and in atrocious French ordered her to submit for her inspection the smartest and especially the most expensive hats in the shop. Louise hastened to bring in the very best of her stock; the Gossudarina tried on all the hats in turn, looking at herself in a mirror which her attendant on her knees held before her, but none of them would satisfy her, for not one exactly resembled the hat bought by the Princess Dolgorouki. So it was necessary to promise that one should be trimmed to the identical pattern. Unfortunately the haughty beauty wanted the hat that very day and with this expectation she had taken all this trouble. So, in spite of all protestations, she insisted that it should be sent to her early the next morning though this was only possible by working at it all night.
Satisfied by this promise, which Louise could be relied on to keep, the Gossudarina rose, and slowly walked out with the assistance of her attendant, warning Louise that if the hat did not make its appearance, she would die of vexation. Louise conducted her to the door and then came back to look for me.
“Well!” said she with a smile, “What do you think of the woman? Eh!”
“She is certainly very pretty.”
“That is not what I mean; I want to know what station in life you think she holds.’; “Well, if I saw her in Paris, with her ultra-fashionable clothes and her upstart manners, I should imagine her to be a retired ballet dancer and mistress of some English Lord.”
“That is not bad for a beginner,” said Louise, “and you have almost guessed the truth. The beautiful lady whose feet are almost too tender to tread upon a Persian carpet, was formerly a Georgian slave and is now the mistress of M. Naravitchev, the favourite Minister of the Emperor. This transformation took place barely four years ago and already poor Machinka has forgotten her former condition or rather she recalls it so well, that, except for the hours she devotes to her toilet the rest of her time is spent in tormenting her former comrades, to whom she has become a veritable terror. The other slaves, not daring to call her by her old name Machinka, have named her the Gossudarina, which is practically the same as Madam. You heard her announced as such to me. In conclusion I will mention an instance of this upstart creature’s cruelty. It happened lately that not being able to find a pin-cushion in which to put a pin while she was undressing, she drove it into the breast of a wretched serf girl, who was doing duty as lady’s maid. Fortunately the affair made so much stir that it reached the Emperor’s ears.”
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