As I have said, the Emperor at this time, that is to say on the first of January, 1825, though ailing and gloomy, had recovered, if not all his former serenity, at least his old energy; he marched through all the rooms as usual, holding a kind of procession and followed by his court as I have already described. I allowed myself to be caught up in the crowd, which got back to its starting place about nine o’clock, after having accomplished the round of the palace.

  At ten o’clock, as the illumination of the Hermitage was over, people who had tickets for the special performance there were invited to enter.

  As I was among the number of privileged guests, I disengaged myself with difficulty from the crowd. A dozen negroes clad in rich oriental costumes, guarded the door leading to the theatre, to keep back the crowd and check the tickets.

  I must confess that on entering the Hermitage theatre, at the end of which was displayed the Royal supper in a long gallery facing the main hall, I fancied myself in some palace of the fairies. Imagine an immense room with walls and ceiling covered with crystal tubes as large as the glass peashooters used by children for shooting sparrows with putty bullets. All these tubes are shaped, twisted and bent to fit their various positions to the best advantage and are held together by invisible silver threads. They form a screen in front of from eight to ten thousand lamps, reflecting and doubling the light. These coloured lamps illuminate landscapes, gardens, flowers, glades, which emit ethereal and invisible music, cascades and lakes, which glitter as if spangled with countless thousands of diamonds, and viewed thus through a curtain of dazzling light afford a spectacle of fantastic and poetic magnificence. The installation of this illumination alone costs twelve thousand roubles and occupies two months to complete.

  At eleven o’clock a fanfare of trumpets announces the entry of the Emperor. He comes in surrounded by his family and followed by the Court. As soon as the Grand Dukes and Duchesses, the Ambassadors and their wives, the gentlemen and ladies in waiting, have taken their seats at the centre table, the rest of the guests consisting of nearly six hundred people, all of whom belong to the aristocracy, sit down. The Emperor alone remains standing, strolling from table to table, and occasionally talking to one of his guests, who replies without rising according to the established rules of etiquette.

  I cannot tell what effect was produced upon the other witnesses of this marvellous display, Emperor, Grand Dukes, Grand Duchesses, gentlemen and ladies, the former covered with gold and embroidery, the latter streaming with diamonds, seen thus in the midst of a crystal palace; but as far as I am concerned, I have never experienced either before or since such an overpowering sense of grandeur. I have seen since some of our Royal fêtes; but in spite of my patriotism I must acknowledge the superiority of the former.

  The banquet over, the Court left the Hermitage, and returned to St. George’s Hall. At one o’clock the music struck up for the second Polonaise, which like the previous one was led by the Emperor. This was his farewell to the entertainment, for as soon as the Polonaise was ended, he retired.

  I am bound to say I was pleased when I knew he had left; the whole evening my heart was oppressed with fear, thinking that at any moment this magnificent spectacle might end in bloodshed, though seeing the immense trust displayed by the Sovereign towards his people or rather by the father towards his children, it seemed to me impossible that the dagger would not fall from the hand of the murderer, whoever he might be.

  After the Emperor’s departure the crowd gradually melted away; though the thermometer registered forty degrees of heat inside the palace, there were twenty degrees of frost outside. This is a difference of sixty degrees. In France, we should have learnt a week later how many people had fallen victims to this abrupt and violent transition, and the opportunity would have been taken to lay the blame on the Emperor, or his Ministers, or the Police; then would the philanthropists of the Press have indulged in a wonderful polemic. At St. Petersburg nothing is ever reported, and thanks to this silence, their festivities are spoilt by no sad consequences.

  For myself, thanks to my servant, who wonderful to relate, actually remained where I had told him to wait, and thanks to a triple cloak of furs and a well boxed in sleigh, I got back to the Catherine Canal without any misfortune.

  The other fête, the Blessing of the Waters, acquired an additional solemnity this year from the terrible disaster which the recent inundation of the Neva had brought about. So for nearly a fortnight the preparations for the ceremony were carried out with a pomp and an activity evidently quickened by religious and superstitious apprehension in a way inconceivable to us unbelieving Westerns. These preparations consisted in the erection on the Neva of a large building, circular in shape, pierced with eight openings, adorned with four large pictures and surmounted with a cross; access was afforded by a jetty opposite the Hermitage and in the middle of the ice flooring of the building, a large hole would be bored on the morning of the fete to allow the priest to get at the water or rather to enable the water to reach the priest.

  The day destined to appease the anger of the river at length arrived. In spite of the cold, which was at least twenty degrees, at nine o’clock in the morning, the quays were thronged with spectators; as for the river, it altogether disappeared from view beneath the multitude of sightseers. I must admit that I did not dare to take up a position among them, fearful lest the ice in spite of its strength and thickness should give way beneath the strain. I crept along as well as I could, and after three quarters of an hour’s exertion, during which I was warned two or three times that my nose was freezing, I reached the granite parapet, which lined the quay. A vast circular space had been cleared round the pavilion, At half-past eleven the Empress and the Grand Duchesses, by appearing on the glazed balconies of the palace, informed the concourse that the Te Deum was over.

  Then the whole of the Imperial Guard, to the number of nearly forty thousand men came into view; debouching from the Champ de Mars and marching to the sound of their regimental bands, they formed in review order along the river, stretching in a triple line from the French Embassy to the fortress.

  Meanwhile the palace gates were opened, banners, holy images and choristers from the chapel issued forth, going in advance of the clergy and headed by the Pontiff; then came pages and the flags of the various regiments of the guard, carried by the non-commissioned officers; and finally the Emperor, having on his right hand the Grand Duke Nicholas and on his left the Grand Duke Michael, and followed by the chief officers of state, aides-de-camp and generals.

  As soon as the Emperor arrived at the door of the pavilion, which by this time was almost filled with clergy and standard bearers, the Primate gave a signal, and at the same moment the sacred chants, intoned by a hundred men and boys, without any instrumental accompaniment, resounded so harmoniously, that I do not remember having ever heard such marvellous notes. During the whole of the service, that is for nearly twenty minutes, the Emperor wearing no furs, but in his uniform only, remained standing, motionless and bareheaded, braving a climate more powerful than all the emperors in the world, and running a danger more real than if he found himself in front of a hundred muzzles in the foremost line of battle. This rashness in the cause of religion was all the more terrifying to the spectators, wrapped in their mantles and with their heads protected by fur caps, insomuch that the Emperor, though still young was almost bald.

  Immediately the second Te Deum was finished, the Metropolitan took a silver cross from the hands of a choir boy, and in the midst of the kneeling crowd, blessed the river in a loud voice, and plunged the cross through the opening made in the ice, which allowed the water to reach him. He took a vessel which he filled with the water he had just blessed and presented it to the Emperor. After this ceremony came the turn of the flags.

  Precisely at the moment when the standards were lowered to receive the benediction, a mortar was discharged from the pavilion and a jet of white smoke rose in the air; at the same moment a terrific report was heard; the whole of the artillery of the Fortress, with its brazen voice, was chanting the Te Deum.

  The salvoes were repeated three times during the Benediction. After the third the Emperor replaced his headgear and set out for the palace. On the way he passed within a few paces of me. On this occasion he looked more melancholy than I had ever seen him; he knew that in the midst of a religious festival he ran no danger and he was himself once more.

  Scarcely had he departed before the people, in their turn, hurried into the pavilion; some of them dipping their hands into the opening and making the sign of the cross with the recently blessed water, while others carried away vessels full of it, and some of them even dipped in their children bodily, convinced that on that particular day the contact with the water would be without danger.

  On the same day an identical ceremony takes place at Constantinople; only there, where in winter there are no gales and the sea is free from ice, the Patriarch embarks on a boat and throws into the blue water of the Bosphorus the holy cross, which a diver recovers before it is lost in the depths. Following on the religious ceremonies come the secular sports, for which the wintry surface of the river should likewise serve as the arena, only the latter are entirely dependent on the caprice of the weather. Often when all the booths are fitted up, all the preparations made, and the race courses ready, except for the horses, and the “Montagnes Russes “are only waiting for the sliders, the shifting weathercock veers suddenly to the west; puffs of damp wind are blown in from the Gulf of Finland, the ice melts and the police interfere; immediately to the despair of the inhabitants of St. Petersburg, the booths are taken down and conveyed to the Champ de Mars. But, though everything is exactly the same and the crowd finds exactly the same amusements there, no matter, the carnival is spoilt. The Russian has the same regard for his Neva as the Neapolitan for his Vesuvius; if it ceases to smoke, they are fearful lest it should become extinct, and the Lazzaroni would rather see it destroying life than dead.

  Happily it was not so during the glorious winter of 1825, and not for one moment was there any fear of a thaw; so while a few balls given by the aristocracy anticipated the popular festivities, numerous booths began to make their appearance in front of the French Embassy, stretching almost from one quay to the other, that is to say for a distance of more than two thousand yards. The erections known a “Montagnes Russes “were well advanced and to my great astonishment appeared to be less elegant than the imitations in Paris; they are simply an inclined plane a hundred feet high and four hundred feet long, made of planks, on to which water and snow are thrown alternately until it is coated with ice nearly six inches thick. The sleighs are fashioned from a plank turned up at one end, and in shape exactly resemble the crooks used by our porters to assist them in carrying their burdens. The attendants come among the crowd with the little sleighs under their arms seeking for customers. When they have found one, they climb up the staircase which leads to the top, and is built on the side opposite the slope; the slider, male or female, sits in front, with feet resting against the turned up edge; the conductor crouches in the rear, and guides the sleigh skilfully, as is very necessary, seeing that the sides of the mountains have no railings and the least deviation would precipitate the plank to the ground. Each trip costs a kopek, or rather less than a halfpenny in our coinage.

  The other amusements resemble those customary at our fêtes in the Champs Elysées on days of popular rejoicing; there were marvels from every country, wax works, giants and dwarfs, all of them advertised by blaring music and blazing lights.

  So far as I could judge by their gestures and attitudes with which they appealed to customers, they bore a great resemblance to our own; though each was distinguished by details peculiar to each several country. One of the jokes which met with the most success is that in which an honest father of a family is anxiously waiting to see his last born who is expected to arrive that day from the village whither he had been sent. Presently the nurse appears holding the infant so completely swathed that nothing can be seen but the end of a little black nose. The father delighted at the sight of his offspring, who utters loud grunts, considers that in physique it resembles himself, and in disposition its mother. At these words the mother comes on the scene and hears the compliment; the compliment leads to a dispute, the dispute to a quarrel; the youngster, hauled about in all directions, is divested of its clothing; a little bear comes to light amid the frantic applause of the spectators and it dawns upon the father that a changeling has been foisted upon him.

  During the last week of the carnival masqueraders stroll through the streets of St. Petersburg by night, calling from house to house, bent on intrigues, as is the custom in our provincial towns. One of the favourite disguises is that of a Parisian. It consists of a tight-fitting coat with long skirts, with an excessively starched shirt collar, reaching three or four inches beyond the cravat; a curly wig, an enormous frill and a little straw-hat complete the caricature, while an immense quantity of charms and chains are suspended from the neck and dangle at the waist. Unfortunately as soon as the masqueraders are recognised, etiquette claims her rights, the pierrot is transformed into the gentleman and all the spice is eliminated from the intrigue.

  The lower classes as if to make up beforehand for the privations of Lent are busy in stuffing themselves with as much food and drink as they can hold; but as soon as the clock strikes twelve on midnight of Sunday to usher in Shrove Monday, the orgy gives way to fasting, and so strict are they, that the remainder of the meal, which is interrupted by the first stroke of the clock, has already been thrown to the dogs before the last stroke. The change is marvellous, lascivious gestures are converted into signs of the Cross, drunken ditties give place to prayers. Candles are lighted before the patron saint of the house and the churches, deserted hitherto and apparently totally forgotten, are for the next day or two too small for the thronging congregations.

  Yet these fêtes in spite of their brilliancy at the present time, have greatly degenerated by comparison with those of former days. For example in 1740 the Empress Anna Ivanovna decided to surpass everything that had been done up till then in this direction and wanted to present a spectacle such as a Russian Empress alone can give. For this purpose she arranged the wedding of her jester for the last few days of the carnival and sent an order to all Provincial Governors to send her, in order to appear at the ceremony, a sample pair of every tribe in his district, wearing their native costumes, and with their own peculiar means of transport. The Empress’s orders were literally obeyed and on the appointed day, the mighty sovereign witnessed the arrival of a hundred different peoples, some of whom she scarcely knew by name. There were natives from Kamtchatka and from Lapland drawn in sledges, the former by dogs and the latter by reindeer. There were Calmucks astride their cows, Buchars on their camels, Indians on their elephants and Ostiaks on their skates. Then for the first time were to be seen face to face, brought from the extremities of the Empire, the red-haired Finns and the Circassians with jet black locks, the giants of the Ukraine and the Samoyede dwarfs, and finally, the degraded Baschkir, nicknamed by their neighbours the Kirghis Tartars Istaki, that is Dirty, and the grandly built and nobly featured inhabitants of Georgia and Jaroslav, whose daughters queen it in the harems of Constantinople and Tunis.

  As soon as they arrived, the representatives of each nation, were arranged, according to the country they inhabited, under four banners, which were in readiness; the first represented Spring, the second Summer, the third Autumn and the fourth Winter. Then when all were at their quarters, one morning this strange cortège began to thread its way through the streets of St. Petersburg, and though for a solid week this daily procession was held the public curiosity could not be satisfied. At length the day fixed for the nuptials arrived. The newly wed pair, after attending mass at the Castle chapel, repaired in company with their burlesque escort to the palace prepared for them by the commands of the Empress, and in its grotesqueness quite on a par with the rest of the show. This palace was constructed of nothing but ice, it was fifty-two feet long and twenty wide, with decorations both inside and out, with chairs, chandeliers, seats, statues and a bed, all of them transparent, likewise balconies on the roof and a pediment over the door, the whole of them to imitate green marble. It was protected by six cannons made of ice, one of which was loaded with a pound and a half of powder and a cannon ball, and saluted the guests on their arrival, sending its projectiles seventy paces and piercing a ten-inch plank. But the most curious feature of this winter palace was a colossal elephant, on which rode a Persian armed to the teeth, with two slaves as attendants; happier than his confrèr at the Bastille the creature was both fountain and beacon, for by day he emitted a jet of water from his trunk and one of fire at night time; and as is the custom of these creatures, he uttered terrible trumpetings, which were heard from one end of St. Petersburg to the other, thanks to eight or ten men who made their way into the vacant interior by means of the legs, which were hollow.

  Unluckily such fêtes, even in Russia, are ephemeral. The exigencies of Lent caused the return home of the hundred strangers, and the thaw melted the palace. Since then, there has been no such spectacle, and at each subsequent year the carnival appears to lose some of its éclat.

  That of 1825 was less gay than usual, and seemed to be but a shadow of its former glories; the ever growing sadness of the Emperor Alexander had by now spread to the courtiers, who were fearful of displeasing him, and to the people, who shared his griefs without understanding them.

 

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