[82] r EXCESSES OF THE EMPEROR PAUL OF RUSSIA. [From Dr. CLARKE'S TRAVELS. FTER suffering a number of others, were compelled to alter their Aindignities in common with equipage. others of my countrymen during our residence in Petersburg, about the middle of March, 1800, matters grew to such extremities, that our excellent ambassador, Sir Charles (now Lord) Whitworth, found it necessary to advise us to go to MosCOW. A passport had been denied to his courier to proceed with dispatches to England. In answer to the demand made by our minister for an explanation, it was stated to be the Emperor's pleasure. In consequence of which, Sir Charles inclosed the note containing his demand, and the Emperor's answer, in a letter to the English government, which he committed to the post-office with very great doubts of its safety. "In the mean time, every day brought with it some new example of the sovereign's absurdities and tyranny, which seemed to originate in absolute insanity. The sledge of count Razumoffski was, by the Emperor's order, broken into small pieces, while he stood by, and directed the work. The horses had been found with it in the streets, without their driver. It happened to be of a blue colour; and the count's servants wore red liveries: upon which a ukase was immediately published, prohibiting, throughout the empire of all the Russias, the use of blue colour in ornamenting sledges, and red liveries. In consequence of this wise decree, our ambassador, and many "One evening, being at his theatre in the Hermitage, a French piece was performed, in which the story of the English powder-plot was introduced. The Emperor was observed to listen to it with more than usual attention; and as soon as it was concluded, he ordered all the vaults beneath the palace to be searched. "Coming down the street called the Perspective, he perceived a nobleman who was taking his walk, and had stopped to look at some workmen who were planting trees by the Emperor's order.-" What "are you doing?" said he. "Merely "seeing the men work," replied the nobleman. "Oh, is that your "employment?-Take off his pelisse, and give him a spade! There, now work yourself!" "When enraged, he lost all command of himself, which sometimes gave rise to very ludicrous scenes. The courtiers knew very well when the storm was coming on, by a trick which he had in those moments of blowing from his under lip against the end of his nose. In one of his furious passions, flourishing his cane about, he struck by accident the branch of a large lustre, and broke it. As soon as he perceived what had happened, he attacked the las tre in good earnest, and did not give up his work until he had entirely demolished it. "In the rare intervals of better temper, his good humour was be trayed trayed by an uncouth way of swing. ing his legs and feet about in walk ing. Upon those occasions he was sure to talk with indecency and folly treated with impertinence. The dress consisted of a cocked hat, or; for want of one, a round hat pinned up with three corners; a long cue; a single-breasted coat and waistcoat; knee-buckles instead of strings; and buckles in the shoes. Orders were given to arrest any per son seen in pantaloons. A servant was taken out of his sledge, and caned in the streets; for having too thick a neckcloth; and if it had been too thin, he would have met a similar punishment. After every precaution, the dress, when put on never satisfied; either the hat was not straight on the head, the hair too short, or the coat was not cut square enough. A lady at court wore her hair rather lower in her neck than was consistent with the decree, and she was ordered into close confinement; to be fed on bread and water. A gentleman's hair fell a little over his forehead; while dancing at a ball: a police officer attacked him with rudeness and 'with abuse; and told him, if he did not instantly cut his hair, he would find a soldier who could shave his head.* "But the instances were few in which the gloom, spread over a great metropolis, by the madness and malevolence of a suspicious tyrant, was enlivened even by his ribaldry. The accounts of the Spanish Inquisition do not afford more painful sensations than were excited in viewing the state of Russia at this time. Hardly a day passed without unjust punishment. It seemed as if half the nobles in the empire were to be sent exiles to Siberia. Those who were able to leave Petersburg went to Moscow. It was in vain they ap plied for permission to leave the Country: the very request might in cur banishment to the mines. If any family received-visitors in an evening; if four people were seen walking together; if any one spoke too loud, or whistled, or sang, or hooked too inquisitive, and examined any public building with too much attention; they were in imminent danger. If they stood still in the streets, or frequented any particular walk more than another, or walked too fast or too slow, they were liable to be reprimanded and insulted by the police officers. Mungo Park was hardly exposed to greater severity of exaction and of villainy among the Moors in Africa, than Englishmen experienced at that time" cocked hat," they said," neither in Russia, and particularly in Fetersburg. They were compelled to wear a dress regulated by the police: and as every officer had a different notion of the mode of observing these regulations, they were constantly liable to be interrupted in the streets and public places, and When the ukase first appeared concerning the form of the hat, the son of an English merchant, with a view to baffle the police, appeared in the streets of Petersburg, having on his head an English hunting-cap, at sight of which the police officers were puzzled. "It was not a "was it a round bat." In this embarrassment they reported the affair to the Emperor. An ukase was accordingly promulgated, and levelled at the hunting-cap; but not knowing how to describe the anomaly, the Emperor ordained that "no person should appear in public 66 A mode in which criminals are punished in Russia. " with "An order against wearing boots with coloured tops was most rigor ously enforced. The police officers stopped a gentleman driving through the streets in a pair of English boots. The gentleman expostulated, say ing that he had no others with him, and certainly would not cut off the tops of his boots; upon which the officers, each seizing a leg as he sat in his droski, fell to work, and drew off his boots, leaving him to go barefooted home. "If Englishmen ventured to notice any of these enormities in their letters, which were all opened and read by the police, or expressed themselves with energy in praise of their own country, or used a single sentiment or expression offensive or incomprehensible to the police officers or their spies, they were liable to be torn in an instant, without any previous notice, from their families and friends, thrown into a sledge, and hurried off to the frontier, or to Siberia. Many persons were said to have been privately mur dered, and more were banished, Never was there a system of adıninistration more offensive in the eyes of God or man. A veteran officer, who had served fifty years in the Russian army, and attained the rank of colonel, was broken without the smallest reason. Above an hundred officers met with their discharge, all of whom were ruined; and many others were condemned to suffer imprisonment or severer punishment. The cause of all this was said to be the Emperor's ill humour: and when the cause of all that ill humour became known, it appeared that his mistress, who detested him, had solicited permission to marry an officer to whom she was betrothed. To such excessive cruelty did his rage carry him against the author of an epigrain in which his reign had been contrasted with his mother's, that he ordered his tongue to be cut out; and sent him to one of those remote islands, in the Aleoutan tract, on the north-west coast of America, which are inhabited by savages.* The following is the sense of that memorable Epigram, according to different translations in French and in English It originated in the Emperor Paul attempting to finish with brick-work the beautiful Church of St. Isaac, which his predecessor Catharine had begun in marble. De deux regnes voici l'image allegorique : La base est d'un beau marbre, et le somer de brique! This great monument is emblematic of two reigns: MANNERS [85] MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF NATIONS. DESCRIPTION OF Moscow. [From DR. CLARKE'S TRAVELS.] HERE is nothing more ex- regret. Let me conduct the Reader than the transition of the seasons. The people of Moscow have no Spring: Winter vanishes, and Summer is! This is not the work of a week, or a day, but of one in stant; and the manner of it exceeds belief. We came from Petersburg to Moscow in sledges. The next day, snow was gone. On the eighth of April, at mid-day, snow beat in at our carriage windows. On the same day, at sun-set, arriving in Moscow, we had difficulty in being dragged through the mud to the Commandant's The next morning the streets were dry, the double windows had been removed from the houses, the casements thrown open, all the carriages were upon wheels, and the balconies filled with spectators. Another day brought with it twenty-three degrees of heat of Celsius, when the thermometer was placed in the shade at noon. "We arrived at the season of the year in which this city is most interesting to strangers. Moscow is in every thing extraordinary; as well in disappointing expectation, as in surpassing it; in causing wonder and derision, pleasure and which we entered, and thence through the streets. Numerous spires, glittering with gold, amidst burnished domes and painted palaces, appear in the midst of an open plain, for several versts before you reach this gate. Having passed, you look about, and wonder what is become of the city, or where you are; and are ready to ask, once more, How far is it to Moscow? They will tell you, "This is Moscow' and you behold nothing but a wide and scattered suburb, huts, gardens, pig-sties, brick walls, churches, dunghills, palaces, timber-yards, warehouses, and a refuse, as it were, of materials sufficient to stock an empire with miserable towns and miserable villages. One might imagine all the States of Europe and Asia had sent a building, by way of representative, to Moscow: and under this impression the eye is presented with deputies from all countries, holding congress: timber-huts from regions beyond the ARCTIC; plastered palaces from SwEDEN and DENMARK, not white-washed since their arrival; painted walls from the TYROL; mosques mosques from CONSTANTINOPLE; Tartar temples from BUCHARIA; pagodas, pavilions, and viraudas, from CHINA; cabarets from SPAIN; dungeons, prisons, and public offices, from FRANCE; architectural ruins from ROME; terraces and trellisses from NAPLES; and warehouses from WAPPING. "Having heard accounts of its immense population, you wander through deserted streets. Passing suddenly towards the quarter where the shops are situated, you might walk upon the heads of thousands. The daily throng is there so immense, that, unable to force a passage through it, or assign any motive that might convene such a multitude, you ask the cause; and are told that it is always the same. Nor is the costume less various than the aspect of the buildings: Greeks, Turks, Tartars, Cossacks, Chinese, Muscovites, English, French, Italians, Poles, Germans, all parade in the habits of their respective countries. "We were in a Russian inn; a complete epitome of the city itself. The next rcom to ours was filled by ambassadors from Persia. In a chamber beyond the Persians, lodged a party of Kirgisians; a people yet unknown, and any one of whom might be exhibited in a cage, as some newly discovered species. They had bald heads, covered by conical embroidered caps, and wore sheep's hides. Beyond the Kirgisians lodged a nidus of Buchariaus, wild as the asses of Numidia. All these were ambassadors from their different districts, extremely jealous of each other, who had been to Petersburg, to treat of commerce, peace, and war. The doors of all our chambers opened into one gloomy passage, so that sometimes we all encountered, and formed a curious masquerade. The Kirgisians and Bucharians were best at arm's length; but the worthy old Persian, whose name was Orazai, often exchanged visits with us. He brought us presents, according to the custom of his country; and was much pleased with an English pocket-knife we had given him, with which he said he should shave his head. At his devotions, he stood silent for an hour together, on two small carpets, barefooted, with his face towards Mecca; holding, as he said, intellectual converse with Mahomet. "Orazai came from Tarky, near Derbent, on the western shore of the Caspian. He had with him his nephew, and a Cossack interpreter from Mount Caucasus. His beard and whiskers were long and grey, though his eye-brows and eyes were black. On his head he wore a large cap of fine black wool. His dress was a jacket of silk, over which was thrown a large loose robe of the same materials, edged with gold, His feet were covered with yellow Morocco slippers, which were without soles, and fitted like gloves. All his suite joined in prayer, morning and evening; but the old man continued his devotions long after he had dismissed his attendants. Their poignards were of such excellent iron, that our English swords were absolutely cut by them. Imitations of these poignards are sold in Moscow, but of worse materials than the swords from England. When they sit, which they generally do during the whole day, they have their feet bare. Orazai was very desirous that we should visit Persia; and taking out a reed, and holding it in his left hand, he began to write from right to left, putting down our names, and noting the information we gave him of England. Afterwards |