The Memoirs of Madame Vigee Lebrun Part 8

In vain did I attempt to make my daughter understand how unlikely in every way this marriage was to make her happy. Her head was so far turned that she would take nothing from my affection and experience.

On the other hand, people who had determined to get my consent employed all possible means to wring it from me. I was told that M.

Nigris would carry off my daughter and that they would marry at some country inn. I had little faith in this elopement and secret marriage, because M. Nigris had no fortune, and the family that befriended him was not blessed with superfluous money. I was threatened with the Emperor, and I answered, "Then I will tell him that mothers have truer and older rights than all the emperors in the world!" It will scarcely be credited that the persons intriguing against me were so sure of making me yield under persecution that they were already throwing out allusions to a marriage portion. As I was supposed to be very rich, the amba.s.sador from Naples came to see me and asked a sum which far exceeded my possessions. I had left France with eighty louis in my pocket, and a portion of my savings I had since lost through the Bank of Venice.

I could have endured the malignant and stupid slanders which the cabal spread, and which were repeated to me from all sides; it pained me much more to see my daughter becoming alienated and withdrawing all her confidence from me. Her old governess, Mme. Charrot, who had already made the great mistake of allowing her to read novels without my knowledge, had totally dominated her mind and embittered her against me to such a degree that all a mother's love was impotent to fight against her sinister influence. At last my daughter, who had become thin and changed, fell ill altogether. I was then, of course, obliged to surrender, and wrote to M. Lebrun, so that he might send his approval. M. Lebrun had in recent letters spoken of his wish to marry our daughter to Guerin, whose successes in painting had been bruited loud enough to reach my ears. But this plan, which had such attractions for me, now could not be carried out. I informed M.

Lebrun, making him feel that, having but this one dear child, we must sacrifice everything to her desires and her happiness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF MME. LEBRUN'S DAUGHTER

In the Bologna Gallery.]

The letter gone, I had the satisfaction of seeing my daughter recover; but alas! that satisfaction was the only one she gave me. Owing to the distance, her father's answer was long delayed, and some one convinced her that I had only written to M. Lebrun to prevent him from a.s.senting to what she called her felicity. The suspicion hurt me cruelly; nevertheless, I wrote again several times, and, after letting her read my letters, gave them to her, so that she might post them herself.

Even this great condescension on my part was not enough to undeceive her. With the distrust toward me that was incessantly being poured into her, she said to me one day, "I post your letters, but I am sure you write others to the contrary." I was stunned and heartbroken, when at that very moment the postman arrived with a letter from M. Lebrun giving his consent. A mother might then, without being accused of exaction, have expected some excuses or thanks; but in order to have it understood how entirely those wicked people had estranged my daughter's heart, I will confess that the cruel child showed not the least grat.i.tude at what I had done for her in immolating all my wishes, hopes and dislikes.

The wedding was nevertheless enacted a few days later. I gave my daughter a very fine wedding outfit and some jewellery, including a bracelet, mounted with some large diamonds, on which was her father's likeness. Her marriage portion, the product of the portraits I had painted at St. Petersburg, I deposited with the banker Livio.

The day after my daughter's wedding I went to see her. I found her placid and unelated over her bliss. Being at her house again a fortnight later, I made the inquiry, "You are very happy, I trust, now that you are married to him?" M. Nigris, who was talking with some one else, had his back turned to us, and, since he was afflicted with a severe cold, had a heavy great coat on his shoulders. She replied, "I confess that fur coat is disenchanting; how could you expect me to be smitten with such a figure as that?" Thus a fortnight had sufficed for love to evaporate.

As for me, the whole charm of my life seemed to be irretrievably destroyed. I even felt no joy in loving my daughter, though G.o.d knows how much I still did love her, in spite of all her wrongdoing. Only mothers will fully understand me. Soon after her marriage she took the smallpox. Although I had never had that frightful disease, no one succeeded in preventing me from hastening to her side. Her face was so swelled up that I was seized with terror. But it was only for her that I feared, and as long as the illness lasted I thought not of myself for a single moment. At last I was glad to see her restored without being marked in the least.

I then resolved to leave for Moscow. I wanted a change from St.

Petersburg, where I had been suffering to such a degree that my health was affected. Not that after the wedding the wretched stories which had been brought up against me left any impression. On the contrary, the people who had blackened my character most repented of their injustice. However, I was unable to shake off the memory of the past months. I felt miserable, but kept my trouble to myself; I complained of no one. I observed silence, even with my dearest friends, on the subject of my daughter and the man she had given me for a son, going so far as reticence toward my brother, to whom I had written frequently since being apprised by him of another misfortune. Indeed, this period of my life was devoted to tears: we had lost our mother.

Hoping, then, to obtain relief from so much sorrow through distraction and a change of scene, I hastened the life-sized portrait I was then doing of the Empress Maria, as well as several half-length portraits, and left for Moscow on the 15th of October, 1800.

CHAPTER XII

MOSCOW

JOURNEY TO MOSCOW -- A BAD SMELL AND ITS ORIGIN -- FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MOSCOW -- ANOTHER IMPRESSION, ORAL AND UNPLEASING -- THE KREMLIN -- STEAM-AND-SNOW BATHING -- SOCIETY -- LUXURIOUS PRINCE KURAKIN -- AN IMPOSSIBLE DUOLOGUE -- EXAMPLES OF RUSSIAN CLEVERNESS -- DETERMINATION TO RETURN TO FRANCE.

No more dreadful fatigue can be imagined than that which awaited me in the journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The roads I counted upon as being frozen--as I had been led to believe--were not yet in that condition. The roads, in fact, were terrible; the logs, which rendered them almost impracticable in severe weather, not being as yet fixed by the frost, rolled incessantly under the wheels, and produced the same effect as waves of the sea. My carriage was half-covered with mud, and gave us such terrible shocks that at every moment I expected to give up the ghost. For the sake of some relief from this torture, I stopped half-way at the inn of Novgorod, the only one on the route, where--so I had been informed--I should be well fed and lodged. Being greatly in want of rest, and faint with hunger, I asked for a room. Hardly was I installed when I noticed a pestilential smell that made me sick. The master of the inn, whom I begged to change my room, had no other to give me, and I therefore resigned myself. But soon, seeming to observe that the intolerable stench came from a glazed door in the room, I called for a waiter, and questioned him as to the door. "Oh!" he calmly replied, "there has been a dead man behind that door since yesterday. That is probably what you smell." I waited for no further particulars, got up, had my horses harnessed, and started, taking nothing with me but a piece of bread to continue my journey to Moscow.

I had accomplished but half of the journey whose second part was to be more fatiguing than the first. Not that there were any high hills, but the road consisted of perpetual ups and downs--which I called torture.

The climax to my annoyance was that I could not amuse myself with a view of the country through which I was travelling, since a thick fog veiled the scene on all sides, and this always depresses me. If one considers, besides these tribulations, the diet I was restricted to after I had eaten my piece of bread, it will readily be conceived that I must have found the road very long.

At length I arrived in the former immense capital of Russia. I seemed to be entering Ispahan, of which place I had seen several drawings, so much does the aspect of Moscow differ from everything else in Europe.

Nor will I attempt to describe the effect of those thousands of gilded cupolas surmounted with huge gold crosses, those broad streets, those superb palaces, for the most part situated so far asunder that villages intervened. To obtain a right idea of Moscow, you must see it.

I was driven to the mansion which M. Dimidoff had been kind enough to lend me. This enormous building had in front of it a large courtyard surrounded by very high railings. It was untenanted, and I promised myself perfect peace. After all my fatigue and my forced diet, my first concern, as soon as I had appeased my hunger, was, of course, to sleep. But, bad luck to it! at five o'clock in the morning I was awakened with a start by an infernal din. A large troop of those Russian musicians who only blow one note each on their horns had established themselves in the room next to mine to practise. Perhaps the room was very s.p.a.cious and the only one suitable for this kind of rehearsal. I was careful to inquire of the porter if this music was played every day. Upon his answer that, the palace being uninhabited, the largest apartment had been devoted to this purpose, I resolved to make no change in the customs of a house that was not my own, and to look for another lodging.

In one of my first expeditions I called on the Countess Strogonoff, the wife of my good old friend. I found her hoisted on the top of some very high affair which did nothing but rock to and fro. I could not imagine how she could endure this perpetual motion, but she wanted it for her health, as she was unable to walk. But this did not prevent her being agreeable to me. I spoke to her of the embarra.s.sment I was in on account of lodgings. She at once told me she had a pretty house that was not occupied, and begged me to accept it, but because she would hear nothing of my paying a rent, I positively declined the offer. Seeing that her efforts were in vain, she sent for her daughter, who was very pretty, and asked me to paint this young person's portrait in payment of rent, to which I agreed with pleasure.

Thus, a few days later, I settled in a house where I hoped to find quiet, since I was to live there alone.

So soon as I was established in my new dwelling, I visited the town as often as the rigours of the season would permit. For during the five months I spent at Moscow, the snow never melted; it deprived me of the pleasure of seeing the environments, said to be admirable.

Moscow is at least ten miles round. The Moskva cuts through the town, and is joined by two other small streams, and it is really an astonis.h.i.+ng sight--all those palaces, those finely sculptured public monuments, those convents, those churches, all intermingled with pretty landscapes and villages. This mixture of urban magnificence and rural simplicity produces an extraordinary, fantastic effect, which must please the traveller who is in search of something new. The churches are so numerous in this city that a popular saying runs: "Moscow with its forty times forty churches." Moscow is supposed to contain 420,000 inhabitants, and commerce must be on a large scale, because in a single quarter, whose name I have forgotten, there are six thousand shops. In the quarter called the Kremlin there stands the fortress of the same name, the old palace of the czars. This fortress is as ancient as the town, said to have been built about the middle of the twelfth century, and is situated on an elevation at the foot of which flows the Moskva, but there is nothing remarkable in the style excepting its antiquity. Close to this pile, whose walls are flanked with towers, I was shown a bell of colossal dimensions half-embedded in the ground, and I was told it had never been possible to raise it in order to hang it in the palace chapel.

The cemeteries at Moscow are stupendous, and following the custom prevailing all over Russia, several times a year, but especially on the day that in Russia corresponds to our Death Day, the cemeteries are filled with vast crowds. Men and women kneel at their family tombs, and there give vent to loud lamentations, which may be heard a long way off.

A habit as universal in Moscow as in St. Petersburg is the taking of steam baths. There are some for women and some for men, only when the men have taken their bath, coming out of it as red as scarlet, they go out and roll in the snow in the most extreme cold. To this habit the vigour and sound health of the Russians have been attributed. It is very certain they know nothing of chest maladies or rheumatism.

A pleasant walk in Moscow is the market, which is always to be found provisioned with the rarest and most excellent fruits. It is in the middle of a garden, and is traversed by a broad avenue which renders the place fascinating. It is quite proper for the greatest ladies to go there and do their buying in person. In summer they repair thither in carriages, and in winter in sledges.

I had observed that in St. Petersburg society formed, so to speak, a single family, all the members of the n.o.bility being cousins to one another. At Moscow, where the population and the n.o.bility are far more numerous, society becomes almost the public. For instance, you will find six thousand persons in the ballroom where the first families meet. Around this room runs a colonnade on a platform a few feet above the ground, where the persons who are not dancing can promenade, and adjoining are various apartments in which people sup or play cards. I went to one of these b.a.l.l.s, and was surprised at the quant.i.ty of pretty women I found a.s.sembled. I can say the same for a ball to which Marshal Soltikoff invited me. The young women were nearly all of remarkable beauty. They had imitated the antique costume I had suggested to the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Elisabeth for Catherine II.'s ball.

They wore cashmere tunics edged with gold fringes; gorgeous jewels held their short upturned sleeves in place; their Greek head-dresses were for the most part tied with bands adorned with diamonds. Nothing could have been more stylish or luxurious than these costumes; they beautified even this cla.s.s of lovely women, of whom no one was prettier than the next. One I especially observed was a young person soon after married to Prince Tufakin. Her face, whose features were regular and delicate, wore an excessively melancholy expression. After her marriage I began her portrait, but was only able to finish the head in Moscow, so that I carried off the picture to finish it at St.

Petersburg, where, however, I before long heard of the death of that charming young lady. She was scarcely more than seventeen years old. I painted her as Iris, seated on some clouds, with a billowy scarf about her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MADAME VIGeE LEBRUN.]

Mme. Soltikoff kept one of the best houses in Moscow. I had paid her a call upon arrival. She and her husband, who was then Governor of the town, showed me great kindness. She asked me to paint the Marshal's portrait, and her daughter's, who had married Count Gregory Orloff, son of Count Vladimir. At this time I was doing a picture of Countess Strogonoff's daughter, so that by the end of ten or twelve days I had begun six portraits, without counting the likeness of the good and genial Mme. Ducrest de Villeneuve, whom I was charmed to meet again in Moscow, and who was so pretty that I insisted on painting her. An accident that might have cost me my life deprived me of the use of my studio and r.e.t.a.r.ded the completion of all these works.

I was enjoying perfect peace in the house loaned me by Countess Strogonoff, but, as it had not been inhabited for seven years, it was horribly cold. I remedied the evil as far as possible by heating all the stoves to the utmost. In spite of this measure, I was obliged to leave the fire lit in my bedroom at night, and was so frozen in bed, with the shutters hermetically closed, to say nothing of a small lamp burning near me to moderate the air, that I tied my pillow all round my head with a ribbon, at the risk of being stifled. One night, when I had succeeded in going to sleep, I was awakened by suffocating smoke.

I barely had time to ring for my maid, who declared that she had put out all the fires. I told her to open the pa.s.sage door. Scarcely had she obeyed when her candle went out, and my room and the whole apartment was filled with thick, sickening smoke. We broke the windows as fast as we could. Not knowing where this dreadful smoke came from, it may well be imagined how anxious I was. I then sent for one of the men who lit the fires, and he informed me that another man had forgotten to open the cover capping the pipes, which is on the roof, I think. Relieved from the alarm of having set Countess Strogonoff's house on fire, I went to look at my rooms, all upset that I was. Near the room where I gave my sittings was a large stove with two doors, in front of which I had put Marshal Soltikoff's picture to dry. I found this portrait so thoroughly scorched that I was obliged to do it over again. But what gave me most pain in this night of trouble was my inability to have removed at once a collection of pictures by various great masters, sent me by my husband; they, of course, suffered very much.

By five o'clock in the morning the smoke had only begun to disperse, and as we had broken the windows the place was no longer tenable. But what were we to do? where to go? I decided to send to good Mme.

Ducrest de Villeneuve. She rushed over at once, and took me off to her house, where I remained a fortnight, during which the dear woman showered attentions upon me which I shall never forget. When I had concluded to go home, I first went with M. Ducrest de Villeneuve to examine the premises. Although the windows had not yet been replaced, the whole house was still so redolent with smoke that it was impossible to think of living in it then. I was exceedingly put out at this, when Count Gregory Orloff, with that courtesy which is the natural heritage of the Russians, offered to lend me a vacant house belonging to him. I accepted his offer, and immediately went to settle in my new lodgings. Here, by the way, the rain poured in so hard that Mme. Soltikoff, coming to see me and wis.h.i.+ng to stay a few minutes in the room where my pictures were exhibited, asked me for an umbrella.

But in spite of this new form of discomfort, I remained in the house until my departure from Moscow.

The Russian n.o.bles display as much luxury at Moscow as at St.

Petersburg. Moscow possesses a mult.i.tude of splendid palaces most richly furnished. One of the most sumptuous belonged to Prince Alexander Kurakin, whom I knew in St. Petersburg, where I had twice painted his portrait. On learning that I was in Moscow, he came to see me, and invited me to dinner with my friends, the Countess Ducrest de Villeneuve and her husband. We found an immense palace, ornamented externally with royal magnificence. Every room through which we pa.s.sed was more handsomely furnished than the one preceding, and in most of them was a picture of the master of the house, either full or half length. Before leading us to table Prince Kurakin showed us his bedchamber, which surpa.s.sed all the rest in elegance. The bed, standing on a raised platform laid with superb carpets, was encircled by richly draped columns. Two statues and two vases with flowers stood at the four corners of the platform; chairs of exquisite taste and divans of great price rendered this room a habitation worthy of Venus.

To reach the dining-room we traversed broad corridors, both sides of which were lined with liveried serfs holding torches, which made me feel as though I was taking part in some grave and solemn ceremony.

During the dinner invisible musicians overhead diverted us with the horn-playing I have already referred to. Prince Kurakin's large fortune allowed him to maintain the establishment of a king. He was an excellent man, politely obliging toward his equals, and not in the least haughty to his inferiors.

I also dined with Prince Galitzin, universally sought after because of his affable and friendly ways. Although he was too old to sit down to table with his guests, forty in number, the luxurious and very abundant dinner nevertheless lasted more than three hours, which tired me inexpressibly, especially as I was placed opposite a tall window through which came a blinding light. To me this banquet seemed unendurable, but by way of compensation I had the pleasure, before eating, of going through a fine gallery containing pictures by great masters, mixed, it is true, with some that were rather mediocre.

Prince Galitzin, whom age and illness kept to his armchair, had charged his nephew with doing me the honours. This young man, being ignorant of painting, limited himself to explaining the subjects as best he could, and I had difficulty in refraining from laughter when, before a picture representing Psyche, being unable to p.r.o.nounce the name, he gave me the information, "That is Fiche."

This long meal at Prince Galitzin's reminds me of another, which probably never ended at all. I had engaged to dine with a big, stout, enormously wealthy banker of Moscow. We were eighteen at table; never in my life did I see such a collection of ugly and insignificant faces--typical faces of money-makers. When I had looked at them all once I dared not raise my eyes again, for fear of meeting one of those visages. There was no conversation; they might have been taken for dummies if they had not eaten like ogres. Four hours went by in this fas.h.i.+on, and I was bored to the verge of nausea. At last I made up my mind, and feigning indisposition I left them sitting at the table--where they perhaps still are.

It was an unlucky day, for that evening a rather comical episode occurred, though it did not amuse me in the least. For some reason or other I was obliged to make a call upon an Englishwoman. A lady of my acquaintance took me there, and left me for some time, after promising to come back for me. As ill-luck would have it, this Englishwoman knew not a word of French, and myself not a word of English, and it may readily be conceived how great was our mutual embarra.s.sment. I still see her before a little table, between two candles lighting up a face as pale as death. She thought it her duty, from politeness, to keep talking to me in a language I could not understand, and I reciprocated by addressing her in French, which she understood no better. We remained together more than an hour, which hour seemed to me a century, and I imagine the poor Englishwoman must have found it just as long.

At the period when I was in Moscow the wealthiest resident of the town, and perhaps of all Russia, was Prince Bezborodko. He could have raised, it is said, an army of 30,000 men on his estate, so many peasants did he own, these people, as everybody knows, being considered as part of the soil in Russia. On his different properties he owned a large number of serfs, whom he treated with the greatest kindness, and whom he caused to be instructed in various trades. When I went to see him he showed me rooms full of furniture, bought in Paris from the workshops of the famous upholsterer, Daguere. Most of this furniture had been imitated by his serfs, and it was impossible to distinguish between copy and original. It is this fine work which leads me to a.s.sert that the Russian people are gifted with remarkable intelligence; they understand everything, and seem endowed with the talent of execution. Thus the Prince de Ligne wrote: "I see Russians who are told to be sailors, huntsmen, musicians, engineers, painters, actors, and who become all these things according to their masters'

wish. I see others sing and dance in the trenches, plunged in snow and mud, in the midst of musket and cannon shots. And they are all alert, attentive, obedient, and respectful."

Prince Bezborodko was a man of high ability. He was employed in the reign of Catherine II. and of Paul, first as secretary to the cabinet, and then, in 1780, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In his desire to avoid the countless appeals by which he was besieged, he made himself as inaccessible as possible. Women sometimes followed him into his carriage. He would answer their demands with "I shall forget," and if it was a case of a pet.i.tion with "I shall lose it."

His greatest gift was a thorough and exact knowledge of the Russian language. In addition to this he boasted a phenomenal memory and an astonis.h.i.+ng facility of putting his thoughts into words. I give a well-known instance in proof thereof. On one occasion the Empress ordered him to draw up a ukase, which, however, a great pressure of business caused him to forget. The first time he saw the Empress again, after conferring with him on several matters of administration, she asked him for the ukase. Bezborodko, not the least bit in the world dismayed, drew a sheet of paper out of his portfolio, and without a moment's hesitation improvised the whole thing from beginning to end. Catherine was so well pleased with this presentment that she took the paper from him to look at it. Her surprise may be imagined at the sight of a sheet that was quite blank! Bezborodko began elaborate excuses, but she stopped him with compliments, and the next day made him Privy Councillor.

Another Russian, whose memory was as marvellous as Prince Bezborodko's, was Count Buturlin, whom I knew quite well at Moscow, where, by the way, we lived so far apart that whenever I supped with Countess Buturlin I was obliged to go two miles. The Count, through his experience and his knowledge, is one of the most remarkable men I have ever known. He speaks all the languages with extraordinary ease, and his information on all sorts of subjects renders his conversation infinitely fascinating. But his superiority over others never prevented him from being very unaffected, nor from treating his friends with good-nature and generosity. He owned a huge library in Moscow, composed of the rarest and most valuable books in different languages. His memory was such that when he was recounting a historical or any other anecdote he could at once tell in what room and on what shelf of his library the book was that he had just cited.

I was greatly amazed at this, yet a thing as fully astonis.h.i.+ng was to hear him talk of all the towns of Europe and their most conspicuous features as if he had lived in them a long time, whereas he had never once set foot outside of Russia. For my part, I know that he spoke to me about Paris and its buildings, and everything curious to be seen there, in such complete detail that I exclaimed, "It is impossible that you have not been in Paris!"

The request made to me for portraits and my agreeable social circle ought to have kept me longer in Moscow, where I stayed but five months, of which I spent six weeks in my room. But I was melancholy and ailing; I felt a need of rest, especially of breathing in a warmer climate. I therefore resolved upon returning to St. Petersburg to see my daughter and then quitting Russia. I was, however, held back for some days by an unusually severe attack of my general indisposition.