to burn and destroy every paper and letter that passed between my beloved wife and myself during occasional separations that took place in the forty-two years of our matrimonial life. It is like going through the painful ceremony of the funeral a second time, and is most harrassing to heart and mind. Nevertheless, it would be a pity not to reveal to posterity the singular occurrences of the Emperor Paul's short reign of four years; a reign that presents so many contradictory features, which it is the interest of so many criminal men of that day and of their descendants to misrepresent and distort, for the purpose of extricating their own reputations from just condemnation, and white-washing their families. And thus the reign and tragical death of Paul I., which should for ever remain a warning example to monarchs, to governments, to the nobility and the people, will be misunderstood or misrepresented. All these considerations compel me, little as I feel inclined to undertake the task, to make a violent effort and continue this work. At the end of the first part (written during my dear Julia's lifetime), I expressed my intention of endeavoring "to relate in chronological order the various occurrences of Paul's reign." This I am now not able to do. I have no heart for it; and, besides, I have not at hand my own notes and papers, or such historical records as would enable me to observe strict chronological order in my narrative. Therefore I shall not attempt it, and the reader must be satisfied with the perusal of detached anecdotes related by an eye-witness, and set down without order or method, just as I recollect them. Let us return for a moment to Gachina, that terrific place from whence was issued the thundering rescript of my father's dismissal and banishment, and which had been the cradle of Paul's army and navy, their organization, institution, drill, and discipline. Gachina was his favorite autumnal residence, at which he held his annual military manœuvres. For a northern country residence it is superb. The palace, or rather chateau, is large and substantially built with hewn stone, in excellent taste; the park is very extensive and contains many fine old oaks. A limpid stream meanders through the park and pleasuregrounds, spreading itself out in several places into large pieces of water, which might be almost called lakes; the water is so perfectly pure and transparent that one may count the pebbles at a depth of twelve or fifteen feet, and one sees large trout and sterlets swimming about. Paul was of a very romantic disposition, and delighted in everything that was chevaleresque. To this he united a taste for magnificence and luxury which he had acquired during his residence at Paris and Berlin. At Gachina we had, as I have mentioned, great reviews and manœuvres, and whilst these were going on great gaieties-concerts, Balls, theatrical performances-succeeded each other every night without intermission; and it seemed as if the pleasures of Versailles and Sansouci were concentrated at Gachina. But alas! these solemnities were but too often marred by severities of different kinds, such as officers being placed under arrest, or banished to distant regiments without a moment's warn ing. Accidents, too, such as frequently occur at great cavalry manœuvres, occasionally happened and provoked the Emperor very much; but although always made angry by such occurrences, he invariably gave proofs of great humanity when any one was seriously injured. One day that I mounted guard at the palace a funny scene took place. I have already mentioned that the cavalry officers' guard-room was next to the Emperor's private cabinet, in which I often heard him at prayer. Next to the officers' room was a large anteroom, where the guard stood, and from this anteroom a long narrow corridor led into the interior of the palace, and a sentry was posted here to call to arms whenever the Emperor came that way. All of a sudden I heard the sentry shout Guard, turn out!' I rushed out of my room, and the men had scarcely time to take up their carabines, and I to draw my sabre, when the door of the corridor flew open, and the Emperor, in shoes and silk stockings, with his sword and hat, entered in a great hurry, and at the same moment a lady's shoe, with a very high heel, flew over his Majesty's head, and just missed it. The Emperor went through my room into his cabinet, and Mademoi 6 selle Nelidoff came out of the corridor, picked up her shoe quietly, put it on, and returned to where she came from. The next day, as I was marching off the guard, his Majesty came and whispered to me "Mon cher, nous avons eu du grabuge hier." "Oui, sire!" I replied. I was much amused with this occurrence, and did not mention it to any one, expecting it to be followed by something equally amusing, and in this I was not disappointed. That very evening, at the ball, the Emperor came up to me, as he might have done to a familiar friend or confidant, or like a Don Quixote to his Sancho Panza, and said, "Mon cher! faites danser quelque chose de joli." I immediately guessed that his Majesty wished me to make Mademoiselle Neli doff dance. What could she dance but a minuet, or gavotte de l'an '40? I asked the leader of the orchestra if he could play a minuet, and being answered in the affirmative, I ordered them to begin playing, and immediately engaged Mademoiselle Nelidoff, who, the reader will recollect, had distinguished herself as a dancer at the Convent des Demoiselles. We began to dance. What grace she displayed, how beautifully she performed the "pas" and turned the corners, and how elastic the little creature was in all her movements, in despite of her highheeled shoes, just like the famous Lantini, who had taught her. Nor did I forget the instructions of Mons. Canziani, my dancing master: and dressed as I was, in a coat à la Frederick le Grand, we must have looked very like old pictures. The Emperor was in ecstacies, and followed me through the whole minuet, encouraging me by such exclamations as, "C'est charmant, c'est superbe, c'est délicieux." This first dance having happily terminated, the Emperor desired me to get up another, and bring a second pair into action. The question now was, who to take, or who would pass muster on such a trying cccasion? We had an officer in our regiment, named Hitroff; I recollected that he had also taken lessons of Canziani, when a lad of thirteen, along with myself; and as he always then wore red heels to his shoes, I used to call him the Chamberlain. No one could be better suited for my purpose. I therefore informed him of his Imperial Majesty's de sire. At first Hitroff hesitated, although he appeared evidently glad of an opportunity of stepping forward; he consented after a moment's thought, and asked me what lady he should select. "Take old Mademoiselle C. Valoneff," I said, and he did so; of course I again engaged Mademoiselle Nelidoff myself, and the dance went off most successfully, and to his Majesty's very great delight and satisfaction. I had for my share of recompense nothing but the amusement; but to Alexis Hitroff this minuet was of great use. Being not a very good officer, he was made a Chamberlain at Court, which introduced him into the civil service, and being obsequious in his manners to powerful ministers, he at length becaine a minister himself, and is now a very indulgent Comptroller of the Empire, and on the whole, a very good man. The Emperor Paul is usually spoken of as a man divested of every amiable quality, always morose, always touchy, very suspicious, and resentful. This was not at all his character: He could understand and enjoy a joke as well as any one, provided it did not proceed from ill-will towards him, or any similar motive. The following anecdote will, I think, show this. Opposite to one of the windows of the officers' guard-room above mentioned, grew a very old oak, I believe it is still there. This tree was covered with curious excrescences, out of which a few twigs grew. One of these excrescences was so perfect a likeness of Paul I., with his pigtail, that I could not resist making a drawing of it. On my return to the barracks my sketch was so much admired, that every one wished to have a copy of it, and the next day at parade I had scores of applications for this caricature from officers of the Foot-guards. These were easily made, and I distributed not less than thirty or forty of them. Spied over as were all our movements, by the Gachina officers incorporated into our regiments, there can be no doubt that my caricature and its distribution were duly reported to the Emperor. The next time I mounted guard, that is, five days later-we had three fine squadrons in the Horse Guards, and I was the only officer in our squadron who stood his ground-I amused myself copying two fine busts that stood before a looking- to hear the truth was to recognize and glass in the guard-room. I had finished remember it, and to respect the person drawing Henri IV., and was very busy from whom it proceeded. In Paul's copying Sully, when the Emperor him- time there certainly was some favoritself entered the room without my per- ism in the distribution of presents and ceiving it, and placed himself behind me, gratifications, but never in the promotion he tapped me gently on the shoulder, of officers; and there was always a perand asked me, "What are you doing?" fectly equal administration of justice be"Drawing, sire," I replied. "Come, tween superiors and inferiors. A cornet let me see. Well done, Henri IV., is might safely demand a court-martial very like, let me look at Sully. Come, against his commanding officer, with perthis will be like, too, when it is finished. fect reliance on the impartial administraI see you can make good likenesses. tion of justice, and this was the shield Have you ever made mine?" "Many a by means of which I kept at bay the time, your Majesty." Upon this he burst Grand Duke Constantine all the time he out laughing, looked at himself in the commanded our regiment, and effectually glass, and said, "A pretty phiz (horocha resisted his violence and despotism. The kaia) to draw," slapped me again good- very mention of demanding a court-marhumouredly on the shoulder, and return- tial was a Medusa's head which petrified ed to his cabinet, laughing heartily. his Imperial Highness with terror, as I Surely there could not be a greater in- have frequently experienced. It is right stance of indulgence towards a gay that I should here record that after young man, in whom he did not dis- many years' estrangement from Constancover any malicious intention, for draw- tine, when I called upon him at Dresden ing his caricature. There was genuine in December, 1829, he received me with noblesse and high breeding in Paul's char- open arms, and in the presence of his acter, and although he was jealous of natural son, Alexandroff, related all power, he despised all those persons who the quarrels I had had with him, noshowed themselves too subservient to his bly confessing that he had always been will at the expense of their rectitude and in the wrong, and doing full justice to truth, whilst he respected those who, in the correctness of my conduct towards order to protect the innocent, fearlessly him. It gives me great pleasure to write resisted his bursts of violence. It was these lines, and record here on earth that on this account that the Emperor Paul this Prince, although guilty of many ershowed to the last day of his life, the rors, and very severely judged, was not, as highest respect and regard for Sergey has been represented, devoid of all virtue, Ilitch Mouchanoff, the Grand Master of and above all, of humility and charity. the Horse. But enough of Gachina, the autumnal residence of the court, its grand raanœuvres, its splendid entertainments, and the dancing on the slippery and highlypolished inlaid floors of the palace. Although many afflicting occurrences were occasioned by Paul's irascible disposition (particularly in connection with Gachina), we can not but regret that so honest, so clever, and so patriotic a sovereign, and one so regardless of persons, should not have been allowed to reign longer, and weed a few more unworthy members from among the aristocracy and placemen. His ears were always open to hear the truth,* and with him, *Those best likely to be informed on the subject, assert that Paul heard the truth even when To show the respect which Paul entertained for courts-martial, and his impartiality in matters of justice, I will relate the following anecdote. In the first year of his reign Count Sumailoff was Procureur-General of the Senate, and was connected with General Lavroff, who was married to a sister of the wellknown rich Demidoff. Lavroff was a profligate fellow, a great gambler, and deeply in debt. His wife was very gay and very rich, and had liaisons with three officers of our regiment, the Horse Guards. She was so much pleased with their attentions, zeal, and love, that she gave each of them a bill at sight for 30,000 roubles. Lavroff, furious at so large unpalatable, from no one more frequently than Malle. Nelidoff.-Editor of Article. a sum escaping him, petitioned the Senate, representing his better half to be an idiot, and unable to read the sum written in the body of the bills; that she had only seen the figures at the top of the bill, which was originally 3000, and that an additional O had been added by the happy lovers, whom he accused of forgery. The Senate, under Sumailoff's direction, found the officers guilty of the foul act, and sentenced them to be degraded. This was sent up to his Majesty for confirmation; but the Emperor, instead of confirming the sentence of the Senate; ordered a court-martial in our regiment. I was the junior member of the court, and as such, of course, the first to vote. I moved, that Madame Lavroff be asked "whether there was any fraud in the three bills?" she replied in writing, "that there was no fraud; that she loved the three officers, and wished to make them a present, and that her husband was a liar." I then voted that the three officers should be acquitted of the forgery and fraud, but should be dismissed the regiment, as having been guilty of ungentlemanlike conduct. The court agreed to this unanimously, and the sentence was presented to the Emperor, who confirmed it, annulling the decision of the Senate, and giving them a fierce reprimand. The three officers were dismissed, and in after life they frequently testified their gratitude to me. Paul was, as I have said before, from his youth up a sincere Christian, and had in truth the fear of God. To such a man his coronation oath was indeed a sacred pledge. At our coronations the various privileges granted by charter to certain classes of the nation, as the noblesse, burgesses, merchants, or to certain communities, as the Cossacks, or to conquered provinces, or those annexed by treaty, particularly the Baltic Provinces, are all recorded; and the Sovereign swears to maintain them, as well as to protect private property and the various religions of the realm. Paul always did faithfully keep his coronation oath, except, alas! in three cases. He struck three officers on parade with his cane-and dearly he paid for this at the hour of his death. I served during the whole of his reign, and never missed a drill or parade, and I can positively declare that although he was often excited, I never heard an insulting oath proceed from his mouth. The fact is, Paul was himself a gentleman; knew what was due to a gentleman, and behaved accordingly. There was, as I have already observed, much chivalry in his general character, even to an excess. There can be no better proof than his having proposed, and that in good earnest, to meet Bonaparte in single combat at Hamburg, each to be attended by only two seconds, and there to terminate by a duel the wars that were devastating Europe. The Emperor's seconds were to have been Count Pahlen and Count Kutaizoff. It must be confessed that there was a great deal of eccentricity in such a proposal; but nevertheless full justice was done by the world, and by Bonaparte himself in particular, to the humane and heroic motives which induced the Emperor to make so chevaleresque a proposal, which he offered with sincerity and earnestness. Apropos of chivalry, I must describe some of the occurrences at Pavloffsky, the summer residence of the Imperial family. It was particularly in the spring, or the early part of the summer, that their majesties resided there, for during the great heat of July, Peterhof, on the Gulf of Finnland, being a cooler place, was generally preferred. Pavloffsky, the personal property of the Empress Mary, was most elegantly adorned, and every spot of ground there, which was at all capable of it, had been marked most impressively with the stamp of her feelings, her tastes, and her reminiscences of her travels abroad. There was a Pavillion des Roses, like that at Trianon; chalets like those she had seen in Switzerland; a mill and several dairies in imitation of the Tyrol, and also reminiscences of gardens and terraces from Italy. A theatre and long avenues copied from Fontainebleau, and artificial ruins in various places. Every evening there were rural parties, drives, collations, theatricals, impromptus, surprises of various kinds, balls or concerts, and the Empress, her beautiful daughters and daughters-in-law, by their affability and elegance of manner, gave to these fêtes a most delightful character. Paul himself enjoyed them very much, and his Once, during a tour in the interior, the Emperor, at a public ball at Moscow in 1798, was thus impressed with the lively black eyes of a Mademoiselle Anne Lapouchine. Of this impression Kutaizoff became immediately the confidant, and without delay he gave notice of it to the lady's father, with whom a plan was concocted to ensnare his Majesty's heart. admiration of female beauty often in- fit of tears, and begged to be left unmoduced him to point out a Dulcinea, lested, confessing at the same time her whom his Figaro or Sancho, Kutaizoff, love for Gagarin. At once Paul's noble never failed to book, and exert himself spirit burst forth; his chivalrous feelings to the utmost to convert into a liaison were aroused; he would no more dream and bring to maturity. of love for the damsel, but be her friend, and assist in marrying her to the man she loved so faithfully. Orders were immediately despatched to Souvaroff to send back Major Prince Gagarin. Just as this order arrived the Prince had distinguished himself in some affair, and was therefore made the bearer of the report of that victory. I was present when Gagarin arrived at court. He was a very good-looking little man. Paul decorated him instantly, and introduced him himself to his belle. That day the Emperor was frantic with joy, and quite proud of his heroic self-sacrifice. He moved about as if he was only feather weight, and in the evening at a petit bal at the palace, he really looked quite happy, spoke with admiration of his handsoine and happy rival, and introduced him to several of us with perfect good humor. I, for my part, have not the slightest doubt that Paul was sincere in feeling the triumph of virtue in his heart; and were it not that Kutaizoff and Lapouchine, who were all this time making their choux gras, subsequently worked up Paul's evil passions and stimulated his foible-on this occasion had not Gagarin himself lent his hand to their accursed plot, the Princess Anna Gagarin, née Lapouchine, would not have been Paul's maîtresse en titre the day on which he was murdered. "La troupe dorée," as the Emperor called us, the officers of the Horse Guards, on account of our general smartness and the color of our uniforms, red "tirant sur l'orange," being the crack men at the Pavloffsky parties, were very soon informed of this love affair, and debated the subject pretty freely. This came to his Majesty's ears, and put the regiment out of favor for a time; but this did not last long, for Mademoiselle Lapouchine liked us herself, and she had sisters who had set their eyes on some of us. So that as soon as she rose in favor herself we also regained our former position. Before long Mademoiselle Lapouchine was made Demoiselle d'Honneur, and invited to live at Pavloffsky. A separate house, a sort of little garden villa, was allotted to her, and to this Paul could easily pass unseen from the "Pavillon des Roses." He went there every evening, as he imagined at first, merely for Platonic admiration; but the barber and the papa knew human nature better, and judged more soundly of the consequences. They succeeded in riveting Paul's affections to the girl by means of her obstinate resistance to his Majesty's desires, and indeed she resisted the Imperial amorous attacks without much effort on her part, because she had previously contracted at Moscow a very decided attachment for a Prince Gagarin, major in the army, and at that time with Souvaroff in Italy. One evening that Paul's attack was more fierce than usual, Mademoiselle Lapouchine burst into a One of her sisters married a Demidoff, an officer in our regiment, the other a son of Count Kutaizoff. Contemporaneous with this love affair, great public events were taking placefor instance, the treaty of alliance between Russia and England, and the whole Continent against revolutionary France, was signed. Souvaroff was recalled from his exile and appointed generalissimo of the allied Austro-Russian army acting in Italy.February, 1799. A Russian army, under General Hermann, was sent to Holland to co-operate with that acting under the Duke of York, and thus attack France from the north; and last of all, but not the least important event, was the nomination of the Emperor Paul to be Grand Master of Malta, and the placing of that island under his protection. Paul was in ecstasies with this title-to |