One Year at the Russian Court: 1904-1905. Renée Gaudin de Villaine Maud
umbrellas inside to prevent ourselves from being soaked by the heavy rain occasioned by a severe thunderstorm which overtook us, on this never-to-be-forgotten excursion in the wildest and most romantic parts of the country. The little boys on the road blew us kisses, while the little girls offered us fruit, flowers, eggs, and pretty coloured stones.
On arrival at Rättijärvi we took the steamer down the canal of Lake Saima, thoroughly enjoying the lovely scenery by which we were surrounded, as we passed on our way through many lakes.
The locks of Juustila are very interesting—our boat sunk deeper and deeper, so deep indeed that I thought we would never reach the bottom! We returned enchanted with our Finnish trip.
At Monrepos, we had some charming neighbours, amongst whom were the Count and Countess de Stackelberg. The latter was before her marriage Countess Shouvaloff, a niece of my aunt and the daughter of a former Russian Ambassador at Berlin, while her husband, General Baron de Stackelberg, was attached to the person of one of the Grand Dukes. I have often met them in Paris since those days, and to my great regret I heard lately that at the outbreak of the late revolution in March 1917 Count Stackelberg was arrested and was actually being led off to the Bureau Central by a detachment of soldiers to be tried, when, while still on his own staircase, a shot was fired—presumably by some ill-advised person, at the top of the staircase—whereupon the soldiers, who were on the ground-floor and far from the unfortunate General who was unarmed, imagining that it was he who had fired at them, turned on him with violence and finally shot him in cold blood.
Half an hour after this tragedy my uncle, Baron Paul de Nicolay, called at the house, when he also was arrested by a young revolutionary who left him in charge of two soldiers while he went off to fetch his revolver. The soldiers’ attention being taken away by their leader’s action, my uncle profited by their momentary distraction and most fortunately was thus enabled to make good his escape, otherwise he would most probably have shared the same fate as poor Stackelberg.
I have the greatest affection for Uncle Paul, from whom I often receive long and most interesting letters, which help to remind me of the happy days I am now attempting to describe—the golden memory of which will ever remain impressed upon my heart.
It is to be hoped that Fate will spare Finland and the cradle of the family from an invasion by the brutal Hun, and may the Angel of Peace protect those blessed tombs from his sacrilegious and infamous hands.
I left Finland to go back to Petrograd with my aunt for a few days, which I spent most gaily. Then I went to Peterhof with my aunt, Princess Cherwachidze, and to Michaelovka with Aunt de Baranoff, going often from one to the other.
CHAPTER III
THE Court spent the summer at the Palace of Peterhof. My aunt, Princess Cherwachidze, always rented a villa there on leaving her house at Petrograd. Most of the Grand Dukes had their palaces there also. Being only at a distance of about one hour by train from Petrograd, Peterhof with its numerous palaces and villas, situated in their lovely gardens, reminded me of the Riviera; by its brilliant society, both military and civil, Peterhof was indeed a delightful place to live in. There was a perpetual round of luncheons and dinners in the Court Circle which I enjoyed very much, also the concerts and the theatre.
The place is charmingly pretty; the park magnificent, reaching right down to the shores of the Baltic where many of its fine trees dip their long branches into the sea. In the park we used to meet the Imperial Children, Grand Duchess Olga, the eldest, and lately one of the leading sister-disciples of Rasputin’s religion, was then a pretty little doll, always very gracious and well-dressed. She used to say “Bonjour” aloud when anyone bowed to her; policemen and others were delighted with the salutation of their “little Empress!” Later on, their drives and rides had to be discontinued as attempts on their lives were feared.
The second daughter, Grand Duchess Tatiana, was said to be the cleverest of the family and her father’s favourite.
The playing of the fountains was a sight worth seeing, the Russians never ceased asking me whether they did not outshine the “Grandes Eaux” of Versailles.
The appearance of the exterior of the Palace inspired gaiety, whilst the interior was the very acme of comfort.
The Russian Court was the most luxurious Court in the world, combining as it did all the wealth and luxury of the East and the West. It was a rule that all the numerous palaces of the Emperor should be kept up during his absence just as though he were in residence—always ready to receive him at any moment.
I often accompanied my aunt to the Palace of Peterhof to see my uncle, Prince Cherwachidze, who was Grand Master of the Court of Russia, specially attached to the person of the Empress-Dowager, being also Grand Master of her Court; and he sometimes came to spend his evenings with us.
My aunt continually lunched with the Empress-Dowager, who used to invite her every year to spend long friendly visits with her at Gatchina; she also lunched very often at the Palace. My aunt might have taken up her abode in the Palace had she chosen, but always declared she preferred her liberty to the perpetual glow and
THE CASTLE OF MONREPOS FROM THE PARK
PETERHOF, THE IMPERIAL CHILDREN
fuss of the Court—in my view a somewhat injudicious step to have taken considering all things.
Princess Cherwachidze, née Baronne de Nicolay, my father’s first cousin, is small and slender, very refined and fragile, so fragile indeed that one is almost afraid of breaking her when embracing her, but possessing in her heart an unfathomable depth of kindness and devotion.
My dear little aunt—Aunt Maka, as I called her—seemed to be in love, so much in love with her husband that morning and night, especially when at Petrograd, she rushed off as fast as she could cover the ground to the telephone to converse with the object of her adoration, who was always in waiting on his Imperial Mistress wherever she happened to be—Gatchina, Peterhof, Tsarskoë-Celo or Petrograd, at the Anitschkoff Palace. The conversation was always the same and in her soft emotional voice she commenced:—
“Comment vas-tu?” The reply I never caught. “Allons tant mieux.” Idem. “Tu vas venir aujourd’hui, n’est-ce pas?” I guessed the reply to be in the negative. “Et demain?” Again in the negative. “Alors tu me diras. Au revoir.” Then it was over. He was not often able to respond to these summonses.
She seemed quite satisfied to know that her spouse was in good health—there was no alternative—and then again would rush off across the drawing-rooms back to her comfortable study where she always had a vast correspondence to attend to, and to reply to in that beautiful calligraphy of hers—everything she undertook to do was executed to perfection. Every day she received several begging letters, some from people desirous of obtaining employment, others seeking for Imperial audiences for some protégé or other—and these latter simply poured in!
Again at night, she used to ring up my uncle on the telephone which, alas, more often than not gave no reply; then my poor little aunt became quite thoughtful and sadly consoled herself by saying, “Comme son service est fatiguant!”
She had also a conversation on the telephone very often with Grand Duke Nicholas Michaelovitch who had been a friend of hers for many years. His Imperial Highness sometimes came to see us in the evening and we always knew when he had entered the apartment by the tremendous clatter of his scabbard on the parquet floor of the ante-room and the clinking of his spurs as he walked. He was of a jovial disposition and spoke with a very loud voice. He was besides un gai causeur and extremely literary, amongst his last publications was La Famille des Strogonoff.