CHAPTER VIII
THE following autumn proved a veritable time of enchantment for me. I spent it in the Caucasus, at Tiflis, with my good and kind aunt, Princess Cherwachidze, who owns a beautiful palace there. I specially admired its large white marble staircase. She also had a beautiful property near Soukhoum, called “BÉthanie,” not very far from Tiflis, but in consequence of the disturbances at that time we were unable to go there.
Her father, Baron Alexandre de Nicolay, had been the most popular Governor of the Caucasus, where he left behind him a remembrance only equal to that of a dearly loved sovereign; besides this, my aunt is closely allied to all the chief princely families of Georgia—many of them of royal blood. Thus my visit was carried out under the most favourable conditions.
We again met there old Princess Bagration Moucransky, a great personality everywhere, and more especially at Tiflis. She had a beautiful palace and I thought her drawing-rooms very French. She was one of our frequent visitors and we dined at each other’s houses constantly. At my aunt’s and also at Princess Moucransky’s I met—at least four or five times a week—Prince Louis NapolÉon, brother of Prince Victor NapolÉon, heir to the Imperial throne of France, and a great friend of my aunt’s.
The Prince did not appear often in society, but made exceptions sometimes. The reason for this aloofness was caused by the fixed idea of many Princesses to marry him; one of whom had even gone so far as to be on the point of divorcing her good, thorough-going husband with a view to accomplishing this great feat—and the only missing point in the situation was the consent of Prince Louis himself. So, to avenge themselves on the Prince, the embittered females cried out from the housetops the great news that he was already much married in Tiflis, in a very different milieu to theirs and that he was the father of many little “Bonapartes de la main gauche.”
He was in command of several Caucasian regiments and was quartered at Tiflis. I greatly admired his military bearing. At that time he was in despair at not having obtained a command in Manchuria, but it was said that the French Government, fearing that he might gain his laurels there, had petitioned the Russian Government not to send him as he was a general in the Russian Army; Russia, being desirous of keeping on good terms with her French Ally, naturally acquiesced in this request.
I quite understood what the bitterness of his innermost feelings must have been. I often had long and interesting conversations with the Prince which helped me on the banks of the Koura to remember distant France.
One night I went to a Russian play at the theatre with my aunt; and the Prince, who sat next to me, whispered in my ear its version in French. Between the acts he escorted me on his arm to the foyer, when I asked him:
“Monseigneur, et la France? N’y songez-vous donc jamais?”
He looked at me and smiled, then said:
“It would be necessary to change the whole of the Army and the whole of the Navy.”
When I told him of the spark of light, still visible very often amongst the Norman peasants of another generation, in the pupils of the old men’s eyes, those who had fought the wars of the Empire and would have willingly laid down their lives for their Emperor—whose children now are fighting for France.
The Prince seemed pleased and surprised.
“En tous les cas,” me dit-il, “ce ne serait pas À moi mais À mon frÈre.”
As every one knows, his brother Prince Victor NapolÉon lived in Brussels and married Princess ClÉmentine, daughter of the late King of the Belgians, after the death of the latter who for years had been opposed to the marriage. The Prince and Princess have now a daughter and a son and, perhaps, one recalls to memory the touching thought of Princess ClÉmentine, who when hoping she was going to have a son had some earth brought from France so that the infant, although in exile, might be born on French soil.
He signed his name in my autograph book simply “Louis NapolÉon.” I should have liked him to have written more but he declined, saying: “It would be commented upon,” and that was the reason for his refusal. He told me he would be forty in a few days’ time.
He paid long visits to my aunt lasting often more than two hours; she had known him for a long time and had made many things easier for him. In Russia he enjoyed the privileges of a Grand Duke and was treated as such at Court; but as he was not really a Grand Duke many of his brother officers were madly jealous at seeing him already enjoying such an important position and rank which would only be accorded to them when their heads were bald and their joints stiffened by the service and toil of years—if ever!
Luckily for us we had arrived in the Caucasus comparatively fresh after four nights in the train; Russian trains are not so fast as ours and in consequence not so tiring.
My introduction to Princess Orbeliani was, to say the least of it, original in the extreme. I found my hostess with all the other ladies in the room lying face downward on the floor, while the gentlemen of the party stood contemplating with more or less knowledge the somewhat uneven surfaces before them; the rotundity of the female sex is not rare and is much admired in the Caucasus.
The beauty of the average Caucasian woman is by no means a negligible quantity, the type being usually dark with large black eyes; but they grow old prematurely, often becoming very fat. The men are usually tall with wasp-like waists; their features are good, but their expression is very often decidedly savage.
In the mountain districts there exists a fair ruddy type amongst some of the tribes; the women are very pretty and are much admired.
It was subsequently explained to me that these ladies on the floor were really practising a Russian dance and they were taking the parts which should have been allotted to their male partners.
I often met Princess Murat, nÉe Princess de MingrÉlie, and her daughter Antoinette; her eldest son Lucien had married a daughter of my cousin the late Duc de Rohan, to whom the lovely Castle of Jocelyn in Brittany belongs, while her second son NapolÉon, generally called Napo, was fighting on the side of the Russians at the war.
Her daughter Antoinette was looking after her mother’s vast estates with the knowledge of a man—and although not dressed in khaki could have shown some of our present-day girls on the land what real hard work means.
Some years previously the Duchesse de Rohan had, much to every one’s surprise, married her daughter to Prince Murat, whose ancestors do not date farther back than NapolÉon, while the Rohans’ motto for generations has been: “Roy ne puis, Prince ne daigne, Rohan suis.”
Amongst the three daughters of the Duchess were Princess Talleyrand-PÉrigord, whose marriage was a failure, but who is dead now. Princess Murat does not get on very well with her husband, so no one was surprised when the third daughter, before selecting a fiancÉ, exclaimed: “My eldest sister was married to a man who says, ‘Vive le Roi,’ my other sister to one who says ‘Vive l’Empereur,’ I want a husband who says ‘Vive la Raison.’” She eventually married a Caraman-Chimay.
The various regiments from the basis of all social activity and I spent delightful moments with Princesses Orbeliani, Ratieff, Melikoff, Heristoff, etc. I saw much of the Princess de Georgia and the young Troubetzkoy princes, Nikita and Petia, all more or less related to my aunt; they gave delightful evening parties and I really think I did not spend one evening at home.
The evening parties at Tiflis were of the gayest, and there was an uninterrupted succession of them. One ended by knowing each other well, as one was continually meeting the same people which I thought was delightful. I saw not a few little glasses of vodka emptied by the gentlemen, but without traces of injurious or disastrous results—“Honi soit qui mal y pense”—with the exception, however, of an old general whose nose was always like a lighthouse, and who I saw fall down three times in the same evening, so tipsy was he; but he was set up again on his legs the same number of times and there was no more to be said. I always found in that liquid an awful smell of methylated spirit and took good care not to get further acquainted with it.
When short of vodka the moujik easily drinks methylated spirit, it appears, and gets drunk on it; this often happened during the last Revolution. And to think that the “Little Father” suppressed the use of it among his troops since the war! What a marvellous result of the so much abused “autocratic” power.
We often began our evenings at the theatre. The Opera was very good; and the house a very fine one; my aunt had her box, needless to say. It was there that I saw performed “Mademoiselle Fifi,” that story of Maupassant’s, episode of the war of 1870 and 1871 which would, alas, be so life-like to-day. Then we went to visit some of our friends. I must mention a charming party given by an attractive woman À l’air gamin Madame Cheremetieff—Lise. The drawing-rooms represented a little country inn and its garden, what the Italians would describe as an “osteria.” It was full of local colour. Round the tables the women in full toilette, most of the men officers in uniform—which the Russians always wear. Many among them officers in the Cossacks and Tcherkesses, wearing on their heads their high astrakhan caps either white or black. Certainly in the soft veiled light it was a very pretty sight, and created a most charming and picturesque effect.
Madame Z——, a rich Armenian, gave charming fÊtes, to which my aunt and I often went: excellent buffet, amidst every possible luxury. But the story of this lady having been discovered in her own house a few days before on the knees of a young officer, whose moustache she was lovingly pulling, somewhat cooled my aunt’s feelings towards her and she begged me not to go there without her in the future.
Anyone of importance passing through Tiflis always found a warm welcome at my aunt’s house.
I remember meeting the Envoy Extraordinary of the Shah of Persia while on his way to Petrograd to present the Empress with a magnificent necklace of enormous pearls and the Tzarevitch with a portrait of the Shah.
Two days after I met him again at a large dinner-party at the Swetchines’—Mr Swetchine was governor of Tiflis.
My Uncle de Nicolay had known this Persian official, with his strangely languorous brilliant eyes, when he was merely Persian Consul-General during my uncle’s governorship, the cholera epidemic at that period having brought the two together in their work of mercy.
This parvenu—he was nothing more nor less—has since become Highness, Prince, Envoy and Ambassador-Extraordinary of the Shah, in spite of his humble past; enough success to bring hope to the most despairing heart.
During the envoy’s youth he is reputed to have sold oranges; then he became a valet; and subsequently married an English governess at Tiflis whom he exchanged later on for a French girl.
Amongst the guests were several Turks and Persians wearing their fezes, which seemed absolutely a part of themselves. The effect was extremely picturesque. I must not forget the Emperor’s envoy whom he had sent from Petrograd to greet this important personage.
Persia and Turkey went so far as to offer me mounts, but the idea of being accompanied by fezes made me reflect and decline the offer with many thanks.
Monsieur Swetchine was the nephew of the famous Madame Swetchine, well known for her writings and, also, for her conversion to the Catholic Faith, her death being mourned by many friends in Paris.
A well-known big game hunter, Monsieur Swetchine often took part in the Grand Duke’s boar hunts, hunts which would make our Western sportsmen’s mouths water. Those boars are real giants; he had then killed forty without counting the pheasants, and jackals galore.
The French Consul, also, and his wife were most kind to me.
One day I was taken to St Mzchette, to which we drove in an old tumble-down vehicle drawn by four horses, returning by moonlight across those vast plains where cattle and sheep are bred and the cultivation of wine carried out more and more every year. We followed la Route Militaire—the Georgian Military Road—which winds across the mountains of Caucasia 132 miles away; at intervals we obtained lovely views over the plains and church of DidoubÉe, a place of pilgrimage, as we followed the course of the Koura.
The Georgian Military Road was made by order of the Empress Catherine; 800 soldiers were employed on the work, and in 1783 Count Paul Potiomkin—then in command of the Russian troops in the Caucasus—drove to Tiflis behind eight horses, the first man to make a carriage journey across the range. However, his first measure had been to build the fort of Vladikavkaz. Till then, nothing but a rough bridle-path
SCENERY IN THE CAUCASUS
was to be found, this in spite of the ancient race migrations from Asia into Europe and of the many military powers who had marched successively against the Caucasus: Egyptian, Scythian, Greek, Persian, Arab, Mongol, Tartar, Turk.
St Mzchette is the cradle as well as the burial place of the Kings of Georgia, and we visited the tombs of Prince Bagration-Moucransky and of Prince Grouzinsky of Georgia.
The cathedral is a fine building and contains splendid frescoes, alas, mostly smothered with plaster.
We were shown a pulpit carved out of a tree which is supposed to contain our Lord’s tunic. The passion of our Lord and the deaths of several of the Apostles are represented by wooden sculptures dating from A.D. 329. The church encloses the ancient miniature cathedral which was the original edifice.
Many monks are buried there and the whole is surrounded by a high wall with towers.
The beautiful Queen Thamar, a celebrated Queen of Georgia, whose palace was within the precincts, could not have felt very happy there, one would imagine. But who can tell!
We lunched at a most filthy inn, and subsequently visited a convent, the tiny church of which contains the remains of the first King of Georgia and of his wife; it was built by St Nina who is so greatly venerated in the Caucasus. The tower of the church is very ancient and possesses many architectural qualities. We were shown the nuns’ dormitory; their beds consist of planks of wood merely covered with a carpet, each has a single pillow but no bolster. I did pity those poor things!
CHAPTER IX
TIFLIS is a town of 100,000 inhabitants, built, as it were, at the bottom of a basin, surrounded by high mountains which in former days were wooded, now, however, absolutely bare owing to a terrible conflagration some years ago.
The view of the snow-capped Mount Kasbeck is one of the most beautiful to be obtained in that superb range.
The streets of the town were paved with rough cobbles placed in upright position making it almost impossible for pedestrians, so much so that for their convenience little smooth crossings are made at intervals. The horses of the country are as sure-footed as mules, and they go at full tilt down the streets which to my unaccustomed mind seemed more like precipices than anything else. But I never once saw any of these animals stumble.
I could not help remarking the strange get-up of the police at night; “night watchmen” as they are called, posted at various street corners armed with huge clubs. I took them to be robbers before their calling was explained to me.
Apart from the European quarter of Tiflis there is also the Mussulman quarter, which is most interesting and its aspect most picturesque with its curious looking cosmopolitan populace.
It is wiser for a woman not to venture alone into this quarter, in spite of the amiable smiles and brilliant and inviting eyes of the Turks and Persians, who try to attract you into their pretty little shops so full of cachet. Many make carpets, some of which are very beautiful. The Persian bakers’ shops are full of originality with their different loaves, not resembling ours in the least, and their large and flat pastry cakes which they hang on cords in their shop fronts, even several layers of these cakes one on the top of another where the glass front of the shops would be with us; glass does not exist with them.
In the houses of the Caucasians there is always a vast divan covered with a sumptuous carpet; which makes a very comfortable seat on which often five or six people crowd themselves, some sitting on the top after the manner of tailors. In the study or little drawing-room there are often besides great carpets hung on the wall which gives to the room a warm, furnished and comfortable look. The silver-work in the Caucasus is also very good, somewhat in the style of what you find in India. The country silks are of a beautiful colouring and are of a solidity beyond all question, even the taffeta, which is not the case with us.
This indeed is the East, the East beneath a sky perpetually blue and a climate which would make our Riviera green with envy.
Merchandise in this district was conveyed for the most part by camels and it was a common occurrence to see them in the streets of Tiflis.
From the windows of the train I was able to distinguish a caravan, numbering about eighty camels all in Indian file, silhouetted against the sky, on the edge of the Caspian, which the train skirts before it bends round the end of the mountains near Bakou and threads the valleys of Transcaucasia.
I have always admired those fine animals with their placid expression and their grand, slow, soft movements, which nothing seems to disturb.
The mineral wealth of the Caucasus is worthy of The Arabian Nights, but, unfortunately, owing to the non-existence of railways, it is next to impossible to utilize the output from but very few places.
The oil wells at Bakou and other places are, as every one knows, one of the great sources of the wealth of the country. Nothing is more terrible to behold than one of these oil-wells when it catches fire, which sometimes happens.
The Armenian church is interesting; the Armenians are known as the Jews of the Caucasus, and there is a saying that one Armenian is equal to five Jews!
There are two Catholic churches, one specially frequented by the Poles and built in the Polish quarter; the other built almost entirely by one of my grandmother’s brothers, and where I used to go.
This grand-uncle of mine, Baron Louis de Nicolay, became a celebrated Russian General and conqueror of Shamyl, the famous Caucasian Chief held to be invincible till then in his mountains. This uncle ended his days as a monk at the Grande-Chartreuse, near Grenoble, in France, where he was known to the last, even by the visitors who always asked to see him, as “the old Russian General.” He charmed them all in spite of himself by his brilliant intelligence and his charming gift of conversation; and they wondered how so much genius, hidden beneath the humble fustian of his frock, could adapt itself to the severe life of the cloister after the rough and free existence of a soldier and the emotions of the battle-field. The Superior allowed him a newspaper, a weak and solitary link to bind him to that world which had awarded him so many honours, but which he had left to be worthy of others more glorious.
A Protestant in his youth, he had been converted to the Catholic faith, during one of his visits to France, after several conversations with the well-known Monseigneur Dupanloup.
The monks of the Grande-Chartreuse made that delicious liqueur known everywhere under the name of Chartreuse—white and green. Certainly it is one of the best liqueurs procurable, and its good qualities are derived from the great purity of the ingredients used in its manufacture; the secret of its fine and strong flavour exists, they say, in certain plants and flowers collected by the monks in the mountains. The secret of its fabrication was only known to the Superior and in case of his death to one of the Fathers. Since the separation of Church and State in France the Carthusians have been expelled—an example of the liberty of republics—and they have taken refuge in Spain, since when they have made a liqueur called Tarragone, which is not equal to the other, as, the flora not being the same, many of the first elements are missing.
Many princes of the country don the Caucasian costume, which is similar to the Cossack uniform; even the servants sometimes wear it and at first it was at times hard for me to make a distinction! One day I accompanied Lise Cheremetieff, Madame Arapoff, nÉe Princesse Galitzine, and several other young women from the Dragoon and other regiments on a bicycle picnic in the neighbourhood of Tiflis; there were also present a few officers. We lunched gaily in the garden of a little country inn; and all went well till our return, but then our luck changed. Madame Arapoff fell and had the misfortune to sprain both her ankles. We had to hoist her into one of the carriages which followed. Three officers also found themselves unseated, and, as for me, I went over my handle bar, right in the middle of a descent, and picked myself up off a bed of pointed stones, which I found very hard in the Caucasus. I had as escort “Romeo”—an officer so nicknamed—who was also thrown off; he sang, danced and said a thousand foolish things. A little behind us followed a moucha or porter, a giant who carried my bicycle like a feather on one of his shoulders. We caught up the others at the tobacco manufactory. Then I got into the carriage with Madame Arapoff, when what was my astonishment to see her take from her muff two little slippers, most fascinating to behold, and put them on!
By what mystery were these two little slippers in her muff? That is a question that I have not yet solved—but, after all, a mystery is always insoluble or it ceases to be one any longer, and the mysterious has so much charm.
In these smart regiments one found the greatest diversity of types—a subject for interesting study—from the most refined from North Russia to that of the Tartar prince, very powerful but also very savage, I thought; the women were very elegant, many being dressed by Paquin.
We had the bad luck to miss at Tiflis Count Worontsoff-Dachkoff, the new governor of the Caucasus, and a friend of my aunt’s, who was expected shortly.
There in the depth of the Caucasus one did not notice the war as in the north of Russia; indeed, one would hardly have realized it except for the departure of Prince Petia Troubetzkoy and a few others, and the visits we paid to Madame Cheremetieff—the Dowager—whom we always found surrounded by cases for the Red Cross, which she painted white herself, adding a big red Cross. She must certainly have flooded the Empire with them. She was very nice looking, and very amiable and distinguished.
At the end of December my aunt and I retraced our steps to Petrograd, in a direct route, having to renounce once again the Crimea and the Volga, as on our coming, my aunt’s health not permitting the longer journey. I regretted it, for it would have been delightful and full of interest.
We bore the journey very well in spite of the three days and four nights in the train, during which time I found myself again much admiring three things: the banks of the Don, the country of the Cossacks; the Caucasus range; and the shores of the Caspian Sea, especially by moonlight.
The love of liberty, of war, of rapine are the chief characteristics of the Cossacks. They are excellent warriors and believe themselves superior to all other races. The power of Russia only makes itself felt in their country by troops which are quartered there. They look upon these soldiers as so many intruders, and despise the Russian peasant, whom they consider coarse and savage.
The Cossack does not work at home; the young girl is allowed to do nothing, but may amuse herself to her heart’s content; a married woman must work very hard up to even the most advanced age. She must be submissive and laborious, like the woman of the East.
Apparently resigned, the Cossack woman has nevertheless in her home more real authority than the woman of the West.
The Cossack would not like to treat her familiarly in the presence of strangers, but tÊte-À-tÊte he acknowledges her supremacy and realizes that it is to her that he owes all that goes towards making the home comfortable. Thanks to this severe regime, the Cossack woman develops both morally and physically; she possesses much good sense, and above all great firmness of character; she is very superior to the men of her race. Her beauty is a mixture of the women of northern Russia and the Tcherkesse or mountaineer type. She wears their costume: Tartar chemisette, with an embroidered jacket, Tartar shoes, and on the head the coloured handkerchief that the Russian peasant also wears. She is clean, and is careful about her dress.
The Cossack makes his own wine; and does not look upon drunkenness as a vice, but as a custom to which he should strictly conform.
A terrible snowdrift blocked our progress during several hours in the Russian Steppes. It seemed as though it would have been impossible to advance. In England we have no idea what these snowstorms are like.
At Rostoff on the Don, as on our outward journey, we walked a little way, taking this opportunity for a little air and exercise. At the station library awaiting a purchaser, I saw some French novels for sale, a choice which astonished me on account of their insignificance. I should never have expected to find them so far away. Possibly as a last resource!
On the other hand, at the Petrograd libraries one only sees the lightest French literature well exposed in the front row in the windows, those which we should refuse to read in France, the Russians pretending to believe that all French books are of that description. This made me furious; the falseness of the argument exasperated me, and I used to answer that they must evidently have been chosen and written specially for the Russian market, for in France one never heard them spoken of.
Moscow, the real capital of Russia, which one feels so well to be the soul of this great people, and which had enchanted me in October during the too short hours which I spent there, enchanted me again with its Kremlin, its gilded cupolas, its Chinese town, its Red Square, old cannons. The old cannon balls heaped around, which had been taken from Napoleon, made my heart ache; but the city enchanted me more than ever, seen thus beneath its snow mantle.
May Russia become the tomb of the barbarous Hun—and may that day be not too long delayed. May the real Russia, the real great invincible Russia, though dumb at this moment, speak behind those high walls of the Kremlin, make herself heard, collect herself and understand her folly, and refuse to be any more the plaything and the prey of an enemy as detested as detestable, of an enemy who scoffs at her as it scoffed at her former sovereigns.
The sleeping-carriages in this Caucasus train were comfortable, but much in them was primitive. Thus each compartment was only lighted by one solitary smoky candle, of bad quality, which guttered very much, fixed in a sort of stand of the simplest kind, placed above the door leading to the corridor. When it went out, there was nothing to do but gaze on the darkness and call the attendant, who was often a long time in coming. The heating also was of the most primitive kind, consisting of a horrible little cheap stove placed at the end of every carriage, near the corridor by the exit, and all stuffed with birch wood. A pipe ran the length of the carriage, which was thus warmed.
When we arrived at Petrograd the thermometer was more than ten degrees RÉaumur below zero; so cold was it that, when opening one’s mouth to speak, it seemed as though one had been stabbed to the heels by cold steel.
The cold is doubly increased by the wind—and at Petrograd it nearly always blows hard—tearing with violence along the canals which traverse the town in all directions.
As at Tiflis many friends and relations had come to the station with flowers and bonbons; it is a charming custom, I think. Among them was Uncle Cherwachidze, who in spite of his wish to join us in the Caucasus, which he adores, had been unable to do so on account of his important duties at the Court. Some years before, the younger brother of the Emperor, Grand Duke George, had come to the Caucasus on account of his health, being consumptive, and one day, on his return from a motor drive with my uncle, he died in the latter’s arms. It is since that time that the Empress-Dowager has shown my uncle so great an attachment and friendship that she cannot bear to be separated from him for long.
I brought back from the Caucasus a memory that was sunny and full of gratitude for the charming welcome that I found there. My aunt often gives me news from there and old friends still send me their remembrances, and with all my heart I send them the same.
The Caucasian has the right to be proud of his beautiful country, with its ever blue sky and its ever temperate climate which seems to give him that wonderful joie-de-vivre expression which appeals so deeply to the stranger, who is always struck by that warm and unforgettable charm of welcome which greets him at every turn.
