Prince Lieven and M. Valouieff were also remarkable personalities of the time of which I am writing. The former fell into terrible disgrace under Alexander III., and was ordered to leave St. Petersburg. This event caused a great scandal at the time, for the Prince and Princess were both prominent in society. For the Princess the blow was a terrible one, and she did not scruple openly to attack the new Sovereign until it was made evident to her that she had better refrain.

M.—afterwards Count—Valouieff and M. Abaza had a better fate. The first of these gentlemen, who for a long time had held the portfolio of Home Affairs, exchanged it for that of the Imperial Domains, and though he lost his influence he retained his position. He had the common sense not to try to go against the tide, and to give up of his own accord the power which otherwise would have been snatched from him. He was a pleasant, quiet man, and generally liked.

M. Abaza for some time was a very considerable personage in St. Petersburg society. He was one of the intimate friends of the Grand Duchess Hélène and of Baroness Editha Rhaden, and it was their influence that brought him before the notice of Alexander II. He was supposed to be a great authority on all financial matters, and twice had the portfolio of that department entrusted to his care. He was one of those who had submitted to the influence of the Princess Dolgorouky; and when she became the Sovereign’s morganatic wife and received the title of Princess Yourievsky, Abaza tried to induce her to persuade the Emperor of the necessity of granting a Constitution to the nation. Ryssakoff’s bomb put an end to those dreams in the most shocking and unexpected manner. With the death of Alexander II. the duties of his Ministers came to an end. His successor never forgave M. Abaza, not only his Liberal principles, but also his friendship with the Princess Yourievsky; and though he continued to be a member of the Council of State, and presided over many commissions, though he was granted orders and dignities, and even often consulted in grave matters of State, yet the political career of M. Abaza was practically ended on that eventful March 1st, 1881. When he died, many years later, leaving an enormous fortune, the event was noticed by only the usual obituary in the newspapers, and a remark made by Alexander III., who, having been told that the Princess Ouroussoff, daughter and heiress of the deceased statesman, inherited seven millions, said, “Only that! I thought he had stolen much more!”

CHAPTER VI

THE ADLERBERGS AND THE SCHOUVALOFFS

The two most prominent families during the reign of Alexander II. were those of Count Adlerberg and Count Schouvaloff. The former, of German origin, did not boast of many ancestors, but had for two generations enjoyed the confidence of their Sovereigns. Old Count Vladimir Adlerberg, who received the title from Nicholas I., was not only Minister of the Imperial Household, but a personal friend of that monarch. His son Alexander was educated with the Emperor’s sons, and in his turn was entrusted with the same post as his father had occupied, after the latter’s death. No one could have filled that delicate position with more tact, more intelligence, and more kindness than he did. Admirably educated, he possessed a perfect knowledge of the French and German languages, and it was he who generally had the task of composing the letters which Alexander II. had occasion to address to other Sovereigns on important political matters. It was said that Count Alexander Adlerberg knew more secrets, both State and private, than any other man in Russia, and his discretion was beyond all praise. No lips were ever more securely sealed than his, and no man ever had his talent to forget what he had heard or seen. For the whole quarter of a century that the reign of Alexander II. lasted, that friend of his youth never left him; and although during the last months of the Emperor’s life their relations became strained through the influence of the Princess Yourievsky, yet the Emperor would not dispense with the Count’s services, so well did he appreciate the fact that nowhere would he find such a devoted and true friend. How devoted, the world perhaps did not guess. It could not have imagined that an occasion would arise when Count Adlerberg, who was supposed to have acquired his great position owing to flattery, would through his affection for his Sovereign risk his position in telling him the truth in a matter most near to his heart. Yet so it befell. When, after the death of the Empress Marie Alexandrovna, Alexander decided to unite himself in marriage to his mistress the Princess Dolgorouky, he asked Count Adlerberg to be present at the ceremony. The old statesman refused, and earnestly begged Alexander II. to abandon the idea. The Emperor was greatly incensed, and for a time it was thought that the Minister’s position was shaken. He was urged by the entourage of the Tsar to give way, and as he could prevent nothing, at least to acquiesce to what was about to become an accomplished fact; but he remained firm in his resolution, declaring that his duty as Minister of the Imperial Household made it imperative for him to maintain the dignity of the Crown, and that he believed this was going to be compromised by the step which the Emperor was about to take.

Alexander II. was very vindictive, as all know, yet whatever he might have thought, he did not, save by a certain new reserve of manner, express his displeasure at Adlerberg’s conduct. Perhaps even the reasons which the latter had given to him against the marriage had some weight, for when his valet asked him what uniform he wanted to wear for the ceremony, he told him to put out plain evening clothes, which he never wore save when he was abroad, adding that as his marriage was a private affair, he wanted to give it a private appearance. This incident was very differently commented upon at the time, and some saw in it a desire to reassure Count Adlerberg as to the intentions of the Sovereign and his determination not to put the Crown of the Romanoffs on the head of the woman for whom he had so deeply offended his first wife and all her children. But the shrewd Minister well knew that such a resolution, if really taken, would not be kept, and, as a matter of fact, it was only the intervention of death that prevented the justification of his opinion.

Count Adlerberg had married a lady of considerable culture, and one who never used her great position except to do good. She was by birth a Mademoiselle Poltawtsoff, the sister of Madame Skobeleff, the mother of the famous general. Countess Adlerberg at one time kept open house, and her parties were quite a feature of the St. Petersburg winter season. She was a great lover of music, and generally all the famous singers that visited the northern capital were to be heard at her Tuesday receptions. These were brilliant and animated, attended by all the wealth, beauty and fashion of the city. Invitations to them were eagerly sought, and as eagerly accepted. The hostess had for everybody a pleasant smile and word, and no one could have believed that the day would come when the very people who crowded her lofty rooms would desert them and would forget the many kindnesses which they had accepted at those receptions.

So it was, however, for Count Adlerberg’s preferment lasted only as long as Alexander II. lived. His successor had always hated the Minister of the Imperial Household with a bitter hatred. Well informed people ascribed it to an incident in the life of the Grand Duke, in which the young Princess Mestchersky had played a part. This lady—who was maid of honour to the Empress—had inspired a violent passion in the Grand Duke, who at the time had no prospect of ever ascending the Throne, and he proposed to marry her. The death of his brother, however, with the change in his position that it entailed, put an end to all these plans. Count Adlerberg was the first one to represent to the Emperor the necessity for his eventual successor to make a match in conformity with his rank, and strongly urged the accomplishment of the last desire of the dead Tsarevitch, to see his brother united to the Princess Dagmar of Denmark, whom he had been about to marry himself when his illness intervened and made havoc of all his plans. The Count did more. He induced a very rich man, well known in society, M. Paul Demidoff, to marry the Princess Mestchersky, to whom he also explained the necessity for sacrificing herself for the welfare of Russia and of the Imperial Family. The young lady understood, and in spite of the entreaties of the Grand Duke Alexander, allowed herself to be united to Demidoff. She died in child-birth the next year, and the Heir to the Throne consented at length to be married to the Princess Dagmar, whom later on he was to love so tenderly; but he never forgave Count Adlerberg his intervention at the time, and his first care when he became Emperor was to dismiss the old servant of his father and grandfather. Moreover, he did this with the utmost brutality.

It was quite unnecessary to send a messenger ordering the Count to return at once all the documents of State which he had in his possession; or, worse insult still, to appoint a Commission to inquire into the financial state of the Privy Purse of the late Emperor, which the Count had administered. Those who advised Alexander III. to this course were only covered with confusion, for affairs were found to be in perfect order; indeed, the late Minister of the Imperial Household had effected economies amounting to 380 millions of roubles. But the news that such an inquiry was about to take place was sufficient excuse for all those who had spent their lives in the Adlerbergs’ house to turn their backs upon them and never again to visit them. The Count, who knew human nature better than most men, was not affected by this change, and no one could have borne himself with greater dignity.

He lived six years or so after leaving the political arena, yet he was never heard to utter one single word of complaint as to the treatment which he had received. When he died his body was barely cold when a legal functionary from the Emperor arrived to seal up all the papers of the former Minister, and his widow was hardly given the necessary time to remove herself from the house where she had lived since her marriage. Under a clause in the will of Alexander II., the Count had been given the right to use the house during his lifetime, and people were of opinion that this right might have been continued to his widow. It is certain that Alexander III. was neither just nor generous in his treatment of one of the foremost among the statesmen of his father’s reign, and of one whose devotion to his Imperial master had never been questioned.

The Countess Adlerberg resented the treatment bitterly, and allowed herself to make remarks about the ingratitude of Sovereigns in general, and of Alexander III. in particular. She tried to gather around her all the elements of opposition to the new regime, but this did not succeed. She was aunt to General Skobeleff and to the Duchess of Leuchtenberg, who was a great favourite with the new Empress, and she thought that these alliances would give her back some of the importance she had lost. When the “White General” was recalled to St. Petersburg after his Paris speech, the Countess went to meet him at the station with an immense bouquet of flowers, and thereby made herself ridiculous, and added to the resentment which was cherished against her in Court circles. It was her last public manifestation. Very soon after that her nephew died suddenly in Moscow, and after Skobeleff’s disappearance the name of the Countess Adlerberg disappeared also from the public ken. She was one of the Dames à Portrait of the Empress, and took her place at Court when it was necessary, but she soon left off doing even that, and at last settled in Tsarskoye Selo, near St. Petersburg, where she died in 1910, utterly forgotten by the world over which she had queened it for so long.

The Schouvaloffs also played an important part, and had considerable influence, during the reign of Alexander II.—influence which, in the case of Count Paul at least, continued under his successor. They were nobles belonging to the proudest in Russia, who had always ranked among favourites of the Sovereign. In the latter part of last century this old family was represented by two brothers, Count Paul and Count Peter Schouvaloff, who were among the most influential personages of the Empire. Count Paul married, in his early youth, a Princess Belosselsky, the sister of the celebrated Princess Lison Troubetzkoy—so well known in Paris during the first years of the Third Republic, when she passed for being the “Egeria” of M. Thiers. He followed a military career, and was in command of the Corps de la Garde when the Turkish War broke out. Against the wish of the Emperor, who would have liked him to stay in St. Petersburg, where his corps remained, Count Paul volunteered for a command at the front, where soon he obtained immense popularity and won great distinction. He was an extremely pleasant and cultured person, a man of the world, full of tact, and gifted with singular diplomatic instincts.

When relations between Russia and Germany became strained after the Berlin Congress, and the two Ambassadors who had been sent there, M. d’Oubril and M. Sabouroff, had failed to improve them, Prince Orloff was asked to leave Paris in order to try to mend matters. He was well known to Prince Bismarck, who had expressed the desire to see him appointed to the German Court; but Prince Orloff, when he reached Berlin, was already attacked with the illness, to which he succumbed a few months later, and the post was vacant once more.

It was felt on all sides that upon the judicious choice of a successor to Prince Orloff depended the continuation of good relations between the two countries. The old Emperor William expressed the wish that a general should be appointed. The difficulty was to find one. It was then that Alexander III., with his usual common sense, said: “Let us send Paul Andrieievitch; he is a real soldier and a thorough gentleman.”

This choice was entirely successful, and Count Schouvaloff very soon made for himself quite an exceptional position in Berlin. He was a grand seigneur of that old school in which William I. had himself been brought up; he had tact, and he knew how to hold his own, as well as maintain the dignity of his Court and of his country. During the long years that he remained in Germany he made for himself many friends, and managed to come with honour out of many a difficult situation. He was generally respected and liked in all circles, military as well as diplomatic, and when he was recalled and appointed Governor-General of Warsaw and the Polish provinces there was general regret at the departure of Count and Countess Schouvaloff.

The latter, a Mademoiselle Komaroff, whom the Count had married as his second wife, is still alive, and Mistress of the Household of the widowed Grand Duchess Vladimir. As for the Count, very soon after his appointment in Warsaw he was struck with apoplexy, and thenceforward dragged out a sad existence, incapable of moving, and yet retaining all the clearness of his intelligence and all the vivacity of his mind. He died one year later, and was generally mourned as one of the last gentlemen of that apparently bygone time, when gentlemanly deportment was considered before everything else to be indispensable.

His eldest son, who had married a daughter of Count Worontzoff Dachkoff, the present Viceroy of the Caucasian provinces, fell a victim to the Nihilist movement, being murdered in Moscow, where he held the position of Governor. He was a charming young man, who promised to follow in his father’s footsteps, and his tragic end created a great sensation at the time.

Very much like his brother in appearance, and yet totally different in disposition, was Count Peter Andrieievitch Schouvaloff, whose career was even more brilliant. He was a very superior man, more of a statesman than Count Paul, and with larger views, a keener sense of the importance of events, and with more independent opinions. He had, moreover, a quality very rare in Russia, that of not hesitating to take the responsibility for his actions, and of caring nothing for the judgment passed upon them by the public. He had been for years at the head of the famous Third Section, or secret police of the Empire, and it so happened that during his administration of that department the Nihilist troubles began. Actually he had been accused of having caused them by his extreme severity and acute sense of autocracy. I do not think that this accusation was a just one. If Schouvaloff kept the flag of absolutism aloft in Russia it was because he sincerely believed that it was the only way to prevent all the forces, known or unknown, which the reforms of Alexander II. had let loose from bursting out in an unreasoned, wild revolt against Society in general. In his difficult position he had shown admirable tact, and on several occasions had been an efficacious intermediary between the Throne and the people. Many a delicate affair had been confided to him, and many a social scandal had been avoided or hushed up through his intervention, which had ever been tactful and wise. But when a wave of Liberal ideas apparently swept away the remnants that were left of common sense in the entourage of Alexander II., the days of Count Peter Schouvaloff became numbered. The Emperor had to yield to the public feeling that would have it that the Count had served his day and epoch, and that his removal from the post of head of the Third Section was a necessity. But as it was out of the question to deprive the State of the services of so useful a man, he was appointed Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, where a Russian Princess, the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, the only daughter of the Emperor, was about to take her place as the wife of the second son of Queen Victoria.

This was the turning point in Count Schouvaloff’s career. After he left England he filled the place of second Russian plenipotentiary at the Congress of Berlin, and then disappeared altogether from the political arena. He had allowed himself to be outwitted by Lord Beaconsfield upon the question of Cyprus, and in the opinion of the Russian public, as well as of the Russian press, had not upheld sufficiently Russian interests during the Congress. He was made by an unjust public the scapegoat for all the mistakes of others, which he could neither foresee nor repair. Gifted with an exceedingly keen perception, he had realised that Russia had not the means whereby to retain the advantages of the war; and when he yielded to the necessities of the situation, it was with the knowledge that this would not be forgiven to him, but as a real patriot he had the moral strength to accept the responsibility for evils which he had not personally brought about.

His position in Berlin had been most painful and difficult. He was, as it were, between two fires. On the one hand he had to fight against the quiet but firm determination of Lord Beaconsfield, who would have gone to war rather than allow Russia to occupy Bulgaria and annex that province, and, on the other, he had to follow the instructions of Prince Gortschakov, whose extreme vanity blinded him to the difficulties of the situation. No one knew better than Count Peter Schouvaloff the state of public opinion in Russia; no one understood more thoroughly that after he had signed his name at the foot of the Berlin Treaty, he would never more be called upon to serve his country, but would end his days in an undeserved ostracism. Yet he did not hesitate, and courageously assumed the responsibility of an act that no one deplored more thoroughly than he did himself.

After his return to Russia he lived in St. Petersburg, and there continued to see his numerous friends, but never again took part in public life. Even when he died attacks against him did not cease, and I never remember more bitter criticisms uttered over a newly opened grave than those that were showered upon him.

It would be difficult to find a pleasanter man socially than was Count Peter Schouvaloff; not only was he liked by all those who had the privilege of his acquaintance, but he had many successes with women, who were quickly won by his chivalrous manner and the courtly grace with which he approached them. He had married a widow, the Countess Orloff Denissoff, but the marriage did not turn out so successfully as the courtship that preceded it, and the Count and Countess lived as much apart as might be without a formal separation. Physically, Count Peter Schouvaloff was extremely handsome; he had most aristocratic features and a wonderful bearing. I shall never forget him during the Berlin Congress, when he certainly was the most picturesque figure there, with his allures de grand seigneur, and a certain regality of manner that made everyone step aside to allow him to pass whenever he entered a room. Altogether, though I have met more intelligent men than Count Schouvaloff in the course of my life, I have not seen a more remarkable one.

CHAPTER VII

ST. PETERSBURG BEFORE THE WAR OF 1877-8

This establishment of the zemstvos had been received with a general joy. Young men belonging to the best families of the Empire had expressed not only their willingness but even their earnest desire to be appointed members of these assemblies, in the hope that they would thus be allowed to participate in the administration of the country. For a short time everything had gone off brilliantly, just as the introduction of the juges de paix, or mirovoy soudias, as they are called in Russian, gave universal satisfaction. However, very soon the Administration became alarmed at the independence showed by these zemstvos, and began to try to eliminate the independent members, who worked not from necessity, but from conviction that by doing so they were making themselves useful to the country in general. Governors of the different provinces, who in Russia are always taken out of the class of the regular functionaries, or Tchinownikis, as one calls them, were given secret instructions, which they but too gladly followed, of watching the deliberations of the zemstvos and of hindering any attempt made by these assemblies to bring about local self-government, which was particularly dreaded in Court circles, where the system of centralisation of the Government in the hands of the few is to this present day strongly supported and established. But the upshot of it all was that these men—who in the enthusiasm of the first moment had eagerly embraced the opportunities which they imagined had been given to them to serve their country otherwise than by wearing a uniform—returned to St. Petersburg, and began to relate all that they had seen or heard, and thus their talk accustomed the public to hear discussion on questions that had slumbered before. Then the Universities began to move, and the Liberal papers abroad controlled by the Russian political refugees—who by an admirable feeling of patriotism had kept silent in order to allow the Emperor to have a free field for his projected reforms—began to get tired of waiting for a change that never came, though it had been pompously announced; and they once more assumed the task of enlightening the public as to what in their opinion ought to be done. In a word, it was felt that the new system had failed, because no one had been found to carry on loyally the experiment which might have led to something, had it only been tried long enough.

One satisfactory result accrued, however—that of accustoming people to talk and to discuss, and to give up the sleepiness under which Russia had suffered for the previous twenty-five years, although people who were experienced in the political conditions of other countries were soon aware of a certain incoherence of thought and aim in the discussions, which resulted more often than not in confusion and even in absurdities. But one fact was evident, and that was that conversation was no longer confined to Society gossip, but turned on what was being done, or would be done, by the Government.

This did not quite please the Emperor. He did not like to know that his actions were discussed. He could not well say so, but he made his Ministers feel that such was the case, and they, desirous of meeting with his approbation, attempted to bring about a return to the old order of things, and when they found this was no easy task, they looked about to see whether something else could not be found to engross public opinion and form the subject of its conversations.

It is to this cause, and to this alone, that the war with Turkey, which broke out in 1877, can be attributed. It was engaged upon against the wishes of the Sovereign and the desires of the country, simply because an outlet had to be found for the ebullitions of public opinion, weary of waiting for an indefinite something which did not materialise, something which all wanted, but which no one could explain beyond saying that “it had to come.” What was implied by this expression was precisely what nobody knew.

Just at this moment, by ill chance, broke out the insurrection in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Immediately a campaign, on purely religious lines, was begun in Russia against the Turks. The press began saying that Russia had a mission to perform in the Balkans, that it was her duty to help the Orthodox subjects of the Sultan, persecuted in their faith as well as in their nationality. The Slavophil party was started, and God alone knows the harm that it has done to the country.

At first it enjoyed high and even august protection in St. Petersburg. The Empress Marie Alexandrovna, very pious, almost inclined to fanaticism, put herself unofficially at the head of the movement, with which it soon became known that she was thoroughly in sympathy, and it was her lady-in-waiting and intimate friend, the Countess Antoinette Bloudoff, who, with an energy worthy of a better cause, came forward to lend the weight of her name and of her position to the promoters of the liberation of the Slavs from the Turkish yoke.

I must digress for a moment to refer more particularly to the Countess Bloudoff. She was a most remarkable woman. Many statesmen might have envied, and few of them have possessed, the clarity of her often mistaken view as to political events and their consequences. She was the daughter of one of the leading members of the Government during the reign of the Emperor Nicholas I., Count Dmitry Andrieievitch Bloudoff, for many years Procurator of the Holy Synod, and invested with the entire confidence of the monarch, who often used to say: “Bloudoff is the only man who will always do what I wish, in the way I want it done.” He was a man of strong principles, of stronger convictions; often passionate, sometimes unjust, but never mean, never above owning himself to be in the wrong when it was proved to him to be the case, and with a loyalty such as is no longer met with. He was possessed of independence, even with his Sovereign, and was known to have opposed Nicholas on grave questions where he thought him to be wanting either in prudence or in justice. He had plenty of adversaries and but few enemies, which latter he disdained. He died as he had lived, a faithful servant of the Crown, and his daughter inherited the favour which he had enjoyed. She was very much like him in character and even in appearance. Beauty she had none, yet she did not lack charm; while intelligence she possessed in no small degree. She was the only great lady who held a salon, such as was understood by the term in France under the old regime, and that salon was at one time of immense importance. It was there that the idea of sending volunteers to Servia was first broached, and it was she who assured these volunteers that the Emperor would shut his eyes to their departure. It was she who kept the standard of public opinion at a high level; she who persuaded some leading men in Moscow, such as Ivan Aksakoff, to organise these volunteers, and to begin in his paper a campaign in favour of the Orthodox brothers of Holy Russia, done to death by murderous Bashi Bazouks.

Altogether the Countess Antoinette was an enthusiast, an exalted patriot according to old Russian ideas, when nationality and religion meant the same thing. Still her zeal outran her discretion upon many occasions, and she came later on—after the failure of those hopes which she had been the first to raise and the last to give up—to regret the energy which she had expended in trying to realise a programme which was not in accord either with the needs or the desires of her country, and which only brought upon it disaster, both moral and material. She was compelled, much against her wishes, to be convinced that neither Bulgarians, nor Serbs, nor Greeks were worthy of interest; that the majority of them—at that epoch, at least—were grabbing, money-loving, unscrupulous people, full of ingratitude, who never for one single moment thought of admitting Russian influence, which they rejected just as much as they had opposed Turkish rule.

But at the time to which I am referring the Countess Antoinette was in the enthusiastic period of her life and of her political activities. It was to her one went to receive the latest news as to the development of Eastern affairs. She kept up an active correspondence with General Ignatieff, at that time Russian Ambassador in Constantinople; sharing alike his ambitions and his desires to see the Crescent replaced by the Cross on the minarets of St. Sophia. Continually she made reports to the Empress as to what she had heard, and used to explain to that Sovereign that it was her duty to influence her husband not to reject the great mission given to Russia—that of driving back to the confines of Asia Minor the Turk who had dared to raise his tents in the city founded by Constantine the Great and destined by him to remain the bulwark of the Christian faith in the East.

Alas, alas, for all these dreams! Poor Countess Bloudoff survived them, and when she ended her days, long after all of them had been forgotten, she might well have felt all the bitterness of a life’s disappointment. But this was not the case—at least outwardly. She was far too clever not to admit her defeat, but she maintained that her failure had been due to circumstances only, and that one day Russia would fulfil the mission which she had been given by the Almighty. She remained ever the same bright, clever woman, always deeply interested in politics, in literature, in art, even in current gossip, though in a most kindly way. For she was indeed kind—that small, short woman with the piercing eyes and the quick flash of sympathy in them, which made them glisten every time that she was being told something that interested her. Easy to move, she never refused a service, and at the time when her very name was a power she tried always to do good, to bring to the notice of her Imperial mistress every case in which the latter could help, either by a word spoken in season or by money given just when and where it was needed. Towards the end of her life she grew very infirm, and could hardly leave her arm-chair; but she loved seeing people, though her rooms were no longer thronged as during the time when she was all-powerful. She had kept a small circle of old friends, who came to see her almost daily, and through them she remained in touch with that social world in which she had been a leader.

Countess Bloudoff had one bête noire, and that was the famous Mme. Olga Novikoff. Poor “O.K.” never guessed the antipathy which she inspired, and always imagined that her activity in favour of the Slav cause, and her influence over Mr. Gladstone, were highly appreciated by the Countess Antoinette; but the latter had too keen a sense of humour not to feel that Mme. Novikoff was making herself ridiculous, and, what was worse, was involving in that ridicule her country itself. “Je déteste ces ambassadeurs volontaires en jupon,” she used to say, and she was not far wrong. The rôle played by the too celebrated Princess Lieven needs a very great lady, and one with a very large fortune or a great position, not to give rise to calumny and to ironical smiles and comments, and “O.K.” had none of these advantages. It is still a question whether the Princess Lieven could to-day have made for herself a position such as the one she enjoyed in London and in Paris. Society was different then, and fewer outsiders had entered its fold; people well born, and belonging to the upper ten thousand, could still pretend to influence, simply by reason of their being within that charmed circle. Now that classes are mixed, a person like Mme. Novikoff, who is merely a gentlewoman, runs a great risk of being considered in the light of a simple journalist in need of copy, and such only wield that measured influence which they delude themselves into believing they possess. Countess Antoinette knew all this well, and she disliked intensely women of the style of her famous compatriot, about whom she once made the most bitter remark I ever heard her utter against anyone: “Cette femme là fait de la politique,” she said, “comme une saltimbanque ses tours de passe passe.”

These reminiscences have caused me to diverge far from the subject of this chapter. What I wanted to say was that the war of 1877-8 was the natural result of the activity which the ill-executed reforms of Alexander II. had awakened in the country; an activity which a certain circle of St. Petersburg Society, headed by the Countess Bloudoff and the little coterie of the Empress Marie Alexandrovna—in which her confessor, Father Bajanov, was a leading figure—helped to divert from the channel towards which it had been directed: that of the internal administration of the country. The Government, that never for one single instant admitted the possibility of defeat, secretly encouraged this diversion, and, thanks to all these circumstances, the Emperor, who was the only person who sincerely wished that peace might not be disturbed, found himself drawn into a war the consequences of which were to be the disastrous Treaty of Berlin, the extraordinary development of Nihilism, and finally his own assassination. Dark days were about to dawn for Russia, and when again I left St. Petersburg I was far from anticipating the changes that its Society would experience between the day of my departure and that of my return to the capital, when everything was different and another Sovereign upon the Throne.

CHAPTER VIII

THE EASTERN WAR AND AFTERWARDS

The army itself, that for months had been kept at Kichinev on a war basis, was beginning to tire of its armed inaction; and, what was worse, the incapacity of those in command had already become evident, demoralising the troops and breeding discontent among them. The Grand Duke Nicholas, who was in supreme command, had never been very popular, and the measures he had taken in view of the approaching campaign were severely criticised. One wondered why men with a serious military reputation—such, for instance, as Todleben, the defender of Sebastopol—had not been called upon to give at least their advice as to what should be done. The officers, more competent to form an opinion as to the morale of the soldiers than the Staff of the Grand Duke, knew very well that their men did not believe in the walk-over that was promised to them, and they knew also that the many refugees who had crowded to the Russian camp from Bulgaria and Servia had made anything but a good impression as to the qualities of their nations on their would-be liberators.

When, therefore, the war began in earnest, it was with far less enthusiasm among the army than was confidently expected and had been promised to the Emperor. When the Imperial manifesto was read announcing that war had been declared, and concluding with the words: “We order our faithful troops to cross the frontiers of Turkey,” it was noticed that the hurrahs that greeted them proceeded more from the officers than from the ranks, where they were but faintly echoed. It was only after the Danube had been crossed that anything like animation became evident in the army. To stimulate it a religious propaganda was started, and all the old legends concerning Constantinople and the mosque of St. Sophia, destined to become again a Christian church thanks to the efforts of Russia, were revived. That was a mistake of which the future was to prove the abysmal extent.

At length came the first battle of Plevna. It was there that Skobeleff, “the White General,” “Ak Pasha” as the Turks called him, won immortal fame. The mention of his name always recalls to my mind that sad and bloody day of the 30th of August, 1877, when the fortress was stormed for the third time in response to the mad idea of the Grand Duke Nicholas to present it as an offering to his brother on his name-day. It was a beautiful summer morning, with the roses blooming in the fields, and a clear blue sky lighting up what was so soon to become a scene of horror. The Turkish town lay in a valley, all surrounded by hills, each of which was a redoubt whence the enemy’s artillery was directed against our troops. They were ordered to storm it, and valiantly did they attempt to do so at three different times through that morning. As each regiment rushed to the attack, it was decimated by the deadly fire of the Turkish guns, thousands of men being mown down like ripe corn. At length the Bender Regiment was told to advance. It was commanded by the veteran Colonel Panioutine, to whom Skobeleff himself gave the orders to march. Panioutine looked up at the fort, which he knew that he could not by any possibility hope to wrest from the enemy, and simply answered with the classical word of the Russian soldier, “Slouchaious” (I shall obey); then he took off his cap and made the sign of the Cross. In dead silence the whole regiment took off their caps and crossed themselves, following the example of their commanding officer.

Skobeleff turned towards his staff and said: “If Panioutine is repulsed, I will myself lead the troops to the attack.”

He did lead them forward—led them to their death and to his glory. To his soldiers he appeared “the true god of war,” as Archibald Forbes justly described him. The troops followed him with an enthusiasm which made them forget their own danger, and the Turkish bullets whistling in their ears, and their old commander falling on the field of honour before their eyes. Skobeleff was the only object of their regard; and they seemed to be asking him in mute supplication to show them the way to conquer or to die.

When all was over, when the shades of night had fallen, and the sun gone down upon the scene of carnage, the “White General” turned his steps towards an ambulance where he had been told that one of his friends had been carried wounded unto death. When he gazed upon Panioutine lying on a straw couch, awaiting the eternal dawn, the hero, who unmoved had seen men fall around him stricken by the bullets of the enemy, lost the calm with which he had confronted death, and, bursting into sobs, exclaimed in a broken voice, “And to think that all this has been in vain, all in vain.”

The war continued, and at last Plevna fell, not, however, before old Todleben had been called to the rescue; the veteran of Sebastopol, who had been considered too old to be any good, was, when all seemed lost, asked to come and repair the mistakes and follies of others. Then came the day when Osman Pasha gave up his sword, and the fortress which he had defended so stubbornly fell into Russian hands. It was a bleak November day, with a cruel wind blowing from the Balkans, freezing men’s souls as well as their bodies. The Grand Duke Nicholas went in an open carriage to meet the vanquished Turkish general, greeting him with the respect and courtesy which his bravery had deserved. The Russian troops, seeing the old warrior sitting by their commander’s side, burst into acclamations, which were but homage to the courage of their vanquished opponents.

Then followed the passage of the Balkans, the battles of Shipka, when General Raiovski so bravely crossed the murderous passes of these famous mountains, and finally San Stefano, which we did not have the courage to defend against Europe, incensed at our successes, and the treaty to which General Ignatieff and M. Nélidoff were to put their names.

Much has been written about that famous treaty, but now that years have passed since it was signed we may well ask ourselves whether our occupation of Constantinople would have been so dangerous to the peace of the world as was thought at the time, and what result a war with England would have had for us. Our diplomats were too weak either to understand our position or to see farther than the needs of the moment. The Emperor felt himself bound by the declaration which, in an unguarded moment, he had made to Lord Augustus Loftus, that he did not seek territorial compensations in the Balkans. He also did not like it to appear that he had abandoned the chivalrous position he had taken up when he declared that he had only gone to war to free from the Turkish yoke the Christian subjects of the Sultan, and not for his own personal satisfaction. The Emperor, indeed, carried this vanity—for it was nothing else—so far that he sacrificed to it the interests of his own people, and the desires of his army. Less of a politician than Prince Bismarck—who had so well understood in 1870 the importance of giving satisfaction to the wishes of the troops and to the amour propre of the nation by insisting upon the Germans entering Paris for a few hours at least—Alexander II. thought it beneath him to take his soldiers before St. Sophia, and to allow some of the regiments quartered at San Stefano to enter Constantinople. He had neither the consciousness of his own power nor a just comprehension of the recognition which everybody, be they individuals or nations, must have for accomplished facts. He allowed himself to be bluffed by Lord Beaconsfield, and did not understand that when England threatened it was because she knew that she had—at that time at least—no other means than threats of enforcing her wishes. Much later, during the Berlin Conference, I asked the English Prime Minister what he would have done had we not heeded his menaces and entered Constantinople. He replied to me in the following memorable words: “I would have achieved my greatest diplomatic triumph in getting you out of it without going to war.”

Alexander II. did not realise this, and when it was pointed out to him upon his return to St. Petersburg from Bulgaria, before the Treaty of San Stefano had been signed, he said that he could not run any risk—as though risks were not the only means through which nations can accomplish their task in history!

Perhaps no war has been so disastrous to Russia as this unfortunate Turkish campaign, disastrous in spite of the victories which attended it, because it sounded the knell of our influence in the East, and gave birth to the Bulgarian, Servian, Montenegrin, and Roumanian kingdoms. These small States are destined one day to be absorbed by the strongest and most cunning among them, who will reap the benefits of our efforts and bring the Cross once more over the minarets of St. Sophia, thus entirely destroying the old tradition that it was Russia who was destined to erect it and to replace the Greek Emperors upon the throne of old Byzantium.

San Stefano reminds me of Count Ignatieff, and I will say a few words concerning him. He had great defects, but at the same time he possessed what so many of our politicians lack—a keen sense of duty to keep both the Russian flag and Russian prestige well aloft. He was a patriot in the full sense of the term, and would never admit the possibility of returning along a road once entered upon. He wanted other nations to fear Russia, and he well knew that, in Turkey especially, the moment that one did not domineer over one’s colleagues of the diplomatic corps, one was lost in the eyes of the Government to which one was accredited. Throughout the long years during which he was Russian Ambassador in Constantinople, Russian influence was paramount. The Embassy was a centre not only of social activity, but also of political power.

The Turks were very well aware that Ignatieff would never have hesitated to take the most energetic measures if one of his countrymen had been made the object of an indignity of any kind. In that he followed the example of England, who always maintains the interests of her citizens abroad. In Russia, on the contrary, it seems almost a fundamental principle for diplomats to show themselves as disagreeable as possible to those of their countrymen who happen to get into difficulties abroad, and to refuse them either aid or protection. One has only to see what happens in Paris, where both Embassy and Consulate treat worse than dogs Russians who apply there for assistance, and instead of protecting them, seem to do all that is possible to make their position even more unpleasant.

Count Ignatieff was the only Russian Ambassador who made it his duty to show not only every civility, but every protection to Russians in Turkey, and he thus sustained the prestige of his country. He had, what only great politicians have, a gift of foreseeing the future, and realising the consequences of even the most insignificant events. His conceptions of the results which the Berlin Treaty was bound to have were quite extraordinary, and it would be curious, if his family ever publishes the interesting memoirs which he has left, to read the note which he addressed upon that subject to Alexander II. In this he clearly proved that an autonomous principality of Bulgaria would inevitably become independent, and transform itself into a kingdom that would claim the succession to the Greek Emperors, to which Russia had all along aspired.

It is a great pity that the genius of Count Ignatieff was marred by a deplorable love for intrigue that had become, as it were, a second nature to him. Long accustomed to dealing with Asiatic natures—to whom a lie more or less is of no consequence—and with whom he had, when quite a young man, concluded a treaty which was to prove most advantageous for Russia; and still more used to Turks and to the various political trickeries for which Constantinople was ever famous, he seemed to think that similar tactics could be employed with success in European diplomacy. He apparently thought he could hoodwink Western diplomats as he had hoodwinked the Ministers of Sultan Abdul Aziz. Of course he made a vast mistake, and did not realise that in view of the reputation which he had acquired on the Bosphorus, his only chance was to keep a rigid guard upon every word he uttered. Hence, at the very time he was staying at Hatfield House, he incensed Lord Salisbury by entering into an intrigue against him with Austria.

It was thought that the failure of Russian diplomacy at the Berlin Conference would put an end to the career of Count Ignatieff, but to general surprise Alexander III. recalled him to power in the responsible position of Minister of the Interior, after he had parted with his father’s Liberal councillors under the influence of M. Pobedonostseff. In that capacity Ignatieff again gave a proof of his political foresight, and at the same time of the mistaken nature of the methods he employed to realise his conceptions of Government.

This occasion arose, I should say here, after the assassination of Alexander II. had struck terror all over Russia, and when everyone felt that only a strong hand could stay the spread of the revolution. At the same time, it was also felt that an outlet had to be given to the impatience of certain circles of society, who were clamouring for a change, and screaming that the promulgation of a Constitution was the only means to save Russia from disaster. Ignatieff was too clever not to see that, sooner or later, such a Constitution would have to be granted, and perhaps granted under conditions and in such circumstances that it would appear to have been snatched by force instead of bestowed voluntarily. He then evolved the idea of reviving the old Russian institution called the Zemski Sabor, which existed before the iron hand of Peter the Great had transformed into an autocracy the old monarchy of Ivan the Terrible. He thought that under a wise Sovereign such as Alexander III. this calling together of the clever and honest men of each Government—especially if this choice of men was left to the Emperor—might have a beneficial influence over the destinies of the country. In this attempt, however, he failed, for he found armed against him not only the chief counsellor of the Tsar, the redoubtable Pobedonostseff, but also the Sovereign himself, who feared that by accepting the proposal of Count Ignatieff people would be led to think that he departed from these principles of absolute government which he had made up his mind to maintain. Ignatieff was sacrificed, and had to tender his resignation, and this time his political career came definitely to an end.

Many years later I discussed with him the circumstances that had attended his fall, and he explained to me what had been his idea. Events had crowded upon us; Alexander III. was no more, and the disaster of Tsushima—in which the Count had lost a son—a disaster indeed such as Russia had never suffered before, had taken place. Everything was changed in the country, and the first Duma called together by Nicholas II. had just been dismissed. I asked Ignatieff his opinion of the general political condition of the country. He then began to talk of the time when he was Minister of the Interior, and expressed his regret that his plan of calling together the Zemski Sabor had not met with success: “I am sure that it would have proved a safety valve for the country,” he said. “You see, we were bound to come to some such solution, and it would have been infinitely better for Russia had people got accustomed to take part in political life under a monarch who had enough authority to direct that necessary adoption of Occidental forms of Government, which we could not escape à la longue. Under a weak Sovereign—and who can deny that Nicholas II. is weak?—a Duma can very easily assume the shape of a Convention such as the one that sent Louis XVI. to the scaffold in 1793. It only requires one energetic man to do that, and what guarantee have we that such a man will not be found?”

I have often thought of these words, and wondered whether they would ever come true—whether they were the utterance of a discontented politician, or revealed the foresight of a real statesman.

CHAPTER IX

THE BERLIN CONGRESS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

It is to be questioned, indeed, what could have been done to satisfy the inordinate vanity of the Russian Chancellor, had not Baron Jomini been there to smooth matters with his unfailing tact. Very few people in Russia realise what the country owes to Baron Jomini, to his capacity for work, his conscientious way of looking at facts, the clearness of his mind, which allowed him always to marshal things in their right order, to view them with common sense—the quality which our diplomacy most lacks—and his perfect knowledge of diplomatic traditions, as well as the character of his immediate chiefs. He also was the most perfect French scholar in the department of Foreign Affairs, and, indeed, of all the plenipotentiaries assembled in Berlin, with the exception, perhaps, of Lord Odo Russell; and this advantage allowed him to give certain turns to certain phrases which made them sound less offensive to the parties concerned than would otherwise have been the case.

Baron Hamburger was a very different type from Baron Jomini. He was supposed to be a great favourite with Prince Gortschakov, and had a rather indifferent reputation. But he, too, was a good worker and, moreover, a modest man, who never put himself forward on any occasion, but was, nevertheless, suspected of sometimes pouring oil on a fire which perhaps would have gone out of itself had it not been for his intervention.

The chief attention of the Congress was concentrated upon the English plenipotentiaries and upon Count Andrassy, the Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs. The latter was supposed to rank among Russia’s principal foes, owing to his position as a Hungarian noble, and the part he had taken in the rebellion of 1848, which had only been subdued by the intervention of the Emperor Nicholas and Russian troops.

Count Andrassy was said to be a very clever man; I think he was more than that—a clever politician. Nevertheless, he was no statesman. His was the narrow view which the French call la politique de clocher, or the politics of “the parish pump,” as the English have it. All his thoughts were concentrated upon Hungary, and all his judgments were Hungarian—not even Austrian. Profoundly ignorant, as is generally the case with the aristocracy in the realm of the Hapsburgs, he had all the insolence of the grand seigneur that he undoubtedly was, as well as the obstinacy of a narrow mind that believes itself to be a great one. He had all the prejudices of his class, all the arrogance of the Austrian character, and all the unscrupulousness that has always distinguished Austrian politicians.

Andrassy had arrived in Berlin with only one fixed idea, and that was to humiliate Russia, as much as was humanly possible, and to make her expiate the crime of having obliged the rebel Gyorgyi to lay down his arms before the Russian army. Had it not been for that circumstance, he might have proved more tractable. As it was, he had sworn to his countrymen to return to them with triumph over the hated foe, and he used unmercifully the advantages that circumstances gave to him.

Prince Bismarck had need of Andrassy, and consequently lent him assistance that he would not have extended under different circumstances; but the German Chancellor well knew that the one inevitable result of the Congress would be a coolness in German relations with Russia, and the resentment of the latter country against the Berlin Cabinet and the leaders of its policy. He also was well aware that certain circumstances had got beyond his control, and so all his efforts were directed towards bringing the work of the Congress to a close, whether successful or not, at any rate to a close that would not damage German interests. He played the part of the “honest broker,” as he had called himself, and in a sense he succeeded. He did not, however, attain a tangible result with regard to the establishment of a modus vivendi between Vienna and St. Petersburg, and the fault of it lay entirely with Count Andrassy; the latter’s haughtiness and narrowness of mind unfitted him for the work of diplomacy.

In comparison with the impatience of Count Andrassy, the dignity of the English plenipotentiaries stood out as something quite unique and wonderful. Lord Salisbury, that worthy descendant of Elizabeth’s great Minister, imposed the weight of his powerful personality, and every single word he uttered was pregnant with the earnestness which pervaded his whole character. Never aggressive, courteous even when it was necessary to oppose or contradict those with whom he was discussing, he showed firmness without insolence, and amiability without weakness. There was no meanness about this truly great man, great in every sense: in his convictions, his resolutions, the knowledge of which he never boasted, but of which he knew very well how to make use when he found it necessary to do so.

Lord Beaconsfield was a perfect contrast, not only to his English colleagues, but to everyone else in Berlin. His was the figure that was scanned with the greatest amount of curiosity, and his strongly marked Oriental features contrasted with his suave manners, that reminded one of the days of the old French Court of Louis XV. He was perhaps the one man who thought the most during all the deliberations of the Congress, and his thoughts were as much for himself as for his country.

He was also the only one who could afford to laugh at the anxieties with which other people were watching the turn of events. He alone knew the amount of bluff that had been needed to persuade the world that England had come to the Congress with the firm intention of going to war if her wishes were not granted, or her interests unconsidered. He was the only one who feared that Count Schouvaloff’s perspicacity would see through the comedy which he had been playing, and advise his Sovereign to disdain British threats; and as I have already said, he was meditating upon the best way to drive the Russians out of Constantinople in the event of their entering it, without having to fire a single shot.

One evening, at a party given by the Austrian Ambassadress, the Countess Karolyi—who, later on, was to create such a sensation in London—Beaconsfield began talking with me, and grew quite animated in explaining how satisfied he felt at the success of his policy. He then told me the following amusing story: “When I was a little boy I loved sugar plums, but was strictly forbidden to eat any. My schoolfellows, who knew this, were constantly teasing me about it and the severity of my parents. One day I became angry and made a bet that I would bring some of these cherished sweets and eat them before the whole school. The bet was accepted, but I found it was not so easy as I thought to win it. I had no money to buy sugar plums, and those I asked to make me a present of some refused, saying that my parents would not like it. I did not know what to do, when suddenly the thought occurred to me to use some imitation sweets which I had found among my toys. I therefore brought them triumphantly to school, and, nasty as they proved to be, ate them in public, so as to show that I had been able to get what I wanted. I was horribly ill afterwards, but this little adventure was a lesson to me for the rest of my life, and I made up my mind always to appear to succeed even when such was not the case. The world never asks you whether you eat real or imitation sugar plums; it only notices that you have got the plums, and admires you for having had the pluck to take them.”

Lord Beaconsfield did not speak any other language than English, and this, in a measure, placed him at a disadvantage with the other plenipotentiaries. Most of them, it is true, understood English, but nevertheless he would often have been embarrassed had he not been most ably seconded by his colleague, Lord Odo Russell.

The latter was certainly a unique personality. Few people have been gifted with more tact, more gentle but firm urbanity; few men have possessed such strong common sense allied with such bright intelligence, such keen sense of humour, and such statesmanlike views. He was a persona grata everywhere, with Queen Victoria as well as with her Ministers, no matter to what party they belonged; with Prince Bismarck, as well as with that section of Berlin Society that was opposed to the Iron Chancellor. Together with his clever and charming wife, the daughter of the late Lord Clarendon, he had made his house in Berlin a perfect centre of all that was clever, interesting, and amusing in the German capital. He was trusted by the Crown Prince and by the Crown Princess of Germany, and nevertheless contrived never to fall under suspicion of a political intrigue of any kind, which would have been more than easy, considering the gossip that rendered life so very difficult in Berlin. He did not commit a single indiscretion during his long diplomatic career, and never was guilty of a blunder. His knowledge of humanity was amusing because of its accuracy, and the quiet, dry remarks in which he sometimes indulged revealed the wit that had given them birth. He certainly contributed in no small degree to the success of the Congress from the social point of view. It was impossible to resist his politeness and amiability, and under their pleasant influence most bitter adversaries of the Conference would be conciliated whilst dining or having tea in the hospitable rooms of the British Embassy after the most desperate differences a few hours earlier. Without Lord Odo Russell, the Congress might not have ended so quickly, and certainly not so well. He knew how to elude difficulties, to pass over painful subjects, and to show the best points in every question. At his death England lost her most brilliant diplomat.

Lord Odo was sometimes very amusing in the anecdotes which he related, or the remarks which he made. One that he told me concerned the late Lord Salisbury, who, as everyone knows, shared with the rest of his family the defect of being rather négligé in his dress and general appearance. One evening Lord Odo and I were chatting about this—not ill-naturedly, for it is doubtful which of us had the greatest admiration for the remarkable statesman in question—and he laughingly mentioned to me his surprise when, one day after the dinner-bell of the Embassy had been ringing, he found Lord Salisbury, who was living there, still busy at work in his study. “He rushed out,” said the Ambassador, “and before I had had time to put aside the papers on the table, literally in three minutes was back again ready for dinner. Now in that time he could not even have washed his hands, yet there he was in his evening clothes! I was so thunder-struck that I felt compelled to ask him how he managed to dress so quickly. Do you know what reply I got?—and the Ambassador’s mouth showed a malicious smile: ‘Oh, my dear Russell, changing one’s coat is done at once, and I had black trousers on already.’”

Another hit of Russell’s was made apropos of the famous Princess Lison Troubetzkoy, the friend of Thiers, who had played an important part at the début of the Third Republic, when her salon in Paris was supposed to be a succursale of the Elysée. This enterprising lady, who lived only for politics, and who had made herself so thoroughly ridiculous in St. Petersburg, had arrived in Berlin, fully persuaded—Heaven knows by whom other than herself—that the Congress could not get on without her, and that her presence and knowledge of politics were indispensable to Prince Gortschakov. Someone said in presence of Odo Russell that it was extraordinary how a clever man like Thiers could have been taken in by the Princess, who did not even possess the instinct for intrigue, but was only a very vain woman desiring to pass for what she was not.

“It is very simple,” Russell replied. “Princess Lison has always been envious of the position which the Princess Lieven at one time occupied in Paris society, Thiers was always jealous of Guizot; they both imagined that by imitating their friendship for one another they could replace them in importance. But, you see, they forgot that one must have also le physique de l’emploi. Guizot was a tall and dry old man, and Madame de Lieven a thin, hard, old woman, whereas Thiers is small and bright and Princess Troubetzkoy short and lively. So you see, that though things may be the same, c’est pourtant plus petit,” he ended in French, with an inimitable twinkle in his eye.

France had sent to Berlin as her first representative M. Waddington, who at the time was presiding at the Foreign Office, and the second plenipotentiary was the Comte de St. Vallier, then occupying the post of Ambassador at the Court of the Emperor William. The latter was a very remarkable man, perhaps as remarkable as his chief, and without the former’s phlegmatic nature and quietness which he owed to his English origin. M. Waddington’s influence was beneficial in many ways. He was a perfect gentleman, and though perhaps slow and pompous, he was a keen observer, a man of tact, and one who knew how to make the best of circumstances. He was watchful to seize every possible opportunity to raise the prestige of his country and impress others with the conviction that, though Prussia had been victorious in 1870, the defeat had not deprived France of her place in the great European concert. It was impossible to show more dignity than he did, nor to combine it with greater firmness and courtesy.

He was well seconded by the Comte de St. Vallier, who was the very first French statesman to see the possibility—nay the probability—of a Russo-French alliance as an outcome of the Berlin Congress. He had guessed that public opinion in St. Petersburg would never forgive Russian diplomacy for its failure to obtain real advantages from the war just ended, and that it would also cherish a terrible resentment against Germany and Prince Bismarck for not having assisted Russia after her neutrality had enabled Prussia to accomplish the conquest of the eastern provinces of France in 1871 and to compel that country to sign the Treaty of Frankfort. The Count realised at once the consequences of the Russian irritation, and doubtless there is still in the pigeon-holes of the Foreign Office in Paris a report which he addressed on that subject to his Government. Therein he firmly insisted that the time had come to consider the possibility of a friendly understanding with the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, and of working towards the completion of an alliance which circumstances would render indispensable to both countries, and from which both might derive enormous benefits.

Of all the plenipotentiaries assembled in Berlin, those of Turkey played the saddest part. Méhémet Ali, a German by birth, felt ill at ease in the country upon which he had turned his back, and whose religion he had spurned; Karatheodori Pasha was a Christian, and as such was not the proper person to defend the interests of Mussulman Turkey. They both felt that whatever they might do or say they could not conquer circumstance nor avert the fate that had decreed that Turkey should emerge from the conflict diminished in prestige and territory. They lived a very retired life in Berlin, seldom leaving their hotel other than to attend the sittings of the Congress.

During the month the Congress lasted, no one followed its deliberations with more interest and greater anxiety than the Emperor Alexander II. When he agreed to Germany’s proposal for its assembly he hoped much from his beloved uncle, the Emperor William, upon whose gratitude he relied for the tacit help which Russia had given Prussia by its non-intervention in France after Sedan. Unfortunately for these hopes, his uncle was disabled from taking any part in public affairs at this critical moment. A few days before the opening of the Congress the attempt of Nobiling on the life of William I. took place, and the illness which followed upon the severe wound which he received obliged him to delegate the Regency to his son, and Russia was deprived of her best friend at a time when she needed him the most.

I have said already that Alexander II. was very vindictive. He had not enough political sense to distinguish between foreseen and unforeseen events, and not enough shrewdness to fix responsibility where it really belonged. He became bitter, not only against Germany generally, but against the Prussian Royal Family, and though he afterwards met his uncle at Skiernievice and Alexandrovo, their relations were never so cordial as they had been before. Alexander II. never visited Berlin again, though he once sent his son the Tsarevitch with his wife on a courtesy visit, in return for his uncle’s attempts to re-establish the old family ties which the Berlin Congress had so rudely shattered.