CHAPTER XIII.

PICTURE OF ST. PETERSBURGH.

INTRODUCTION TO COURT. - Ceremonial attending it. Interview with His present Majesty and with the Empress-mother. - Ton of Society. The fair Sex.Opinion of a modern French traveller. -Soirées. Balls. - Internal arrangement of the Palaces and other Houses of the Nobility.-Extravagant number of Servants and attendants. - Principal Palaces of Noblemen at St. Petersburgh. Fêtes priées and "at homes." - Visiting. — Birth-days. -Onomastic days. · Court Fêtes. - Bal Masquè at the Taurida Palace. Imperial Christenings. — Dinners. — Form and style of a Russian Dinner in the houses of the great. - English Sauce and Russian Cookery. Delicious Fish. Introduction of the English fashion of Dining. Mansion of Count Stanislaus Potocki. Dining among the English at St. Petersburgh. - "Conversazioni." -Cards.- La Mouche. Splendour and pomp of the Russian Nobility in former times. Grande Societé at the Palace of the late Great Chamberlain, Naryschkine.

ing, and burial.

His fortune, death, embalmLion Naryschkine. - Midnight Suppers. - State of Society among the Russian Merchants. Magnificent Houses and Fêtes of some of them. - The Clubs. The English Club. The Commercial Club. The English Library. The Tiers Etat?- Public Walks. The Lounge in the Nevskoï Prospekt, the Regent-Street of St. Petersburgh. Equipages and Pedestrians. The English and the Russian Quays. The Summer Gardens, and its magnificent railing.

"BUT trève to all this learning," said a lively young

Russian Officer to me one day, whom I had been en

tertaining with a long and prosing account (as I fear my readers, too, will find it) of what I had seen in his favourite city. "Trève to all this learning, et allons voir les lions, as one of your adopted countrymen, who came over to see the coronation, said to a lady in his best French à l'Anglaise" and so say I too; for I fear I am tiring out even the most patient and the gravest of my readers, with my endless list of buildings and institutions.

It is not one of the least advantages of an introduction to Court at home, that it facilitates a similar ceremony abroad. Some imagine that it is ostentation alone which leads a traveller entitled either by his rank, his station, his character in society, or by courtesy, to such a distinction, to wish for a presentation at Court. This may be true in some respects in this country, where, with the exception of exalted persons, the majority of foreigners who have the honour of paying their homage to the Sovereign, in common with his Majesty's subjects, go through the ceremony of appearing in the Royal presence in less than the quarter of a minute, and have no opportunity of expressing more than a mute acknowledgment of their respect. But it is a very different thing abroad. The Sovereign condescends to address every stranger who is presented, frequently discourses with him on interesting topics,—a circumstance the more flattering to the individual thus honoured, as the conversation is generally directed to subjects with which he is most familiar. Such is the practice followed by the Emperor and the two Empresses at the Court of St. Petersburgh; and the well-known affability and gracious courtesy with which they receive strangers, render it natural for a traveller to wish for the enjoyment of that distinction. The ceremonials of an introduction at Court in St. Petersburgh are very different

from those which are observed on a first presentation at the King's levee in England.

The first necessary step on such an occasion is an application to the Ambassador, or Minister, of the country to which the stranger belongs, who requests the Minister for Foreign Affairs to inform him of the day and hour when the Emperor will receive the stranger. Ambassadors, particularly the English, have instructions not to present, or cause to be presented, any other persons than such as have already had that honour conferred on them at home. Occasionally it happens that the answer of the Minister for Foreign Affairs is not forwarded until a long time after the application, and then the notice is probably very short, which notice is communicated by the Ambassador to the applicant in an official form. The hour appointed is generally two o'clock, after the parade, at which time, the person to be presented, dressed either in a military or naval uniform, or in the court-dress of his own country, repairs to the Winter Palace, where he is received by an officer belonging to the Grand Master of the Ceremonies, who conducts him into a waiting-room, in the Emperor's private suite of apartments. The lastmentioned Grand Officer himself next makes his appearance, and conducts the stranger into the apartment adjoining the sitting-room of his Majesty, opposite the doors of which he is desired to place himself. Some of the officers of the household, and one or two more Masters of the Ceremonies, are present in this room; and when more than one stranger is to be presented, they are placed in an oblique line, at a short distance from each other, and facing the entrance into the Emperor's room. In a few minutes, two pages throw open the folding doors of the apart ment; and his Majesty, dressed in his simple uniform,

booted and spurred, with a single star on his breast, advances, smiling and bowing most courteously, in the same manner that a highly bred gentleman receives his guests; and having heard the name of the individual first to be presented, pronounced aloud by the Grand Master of the Ceremonies, proceeds to address him, and to ask questions, concluding generally with some well-turned and flattering compliment. When his Majesty has thus addressed all those who have been presented, he retires in the same manner, bidding them conjointly farewell, while they remain still in their places until the folding doors are once more closed, when they are conducted to the apartments of the reigning Empress, and afterwards to those of the Empressmother, both which Princesses are accompanied, on such occasions, by one or two ladies of honour, and as many Grand Officers of the Court, without any other pomp, and with both of whom precisely the same ceremony, in every respect, takes place. There is no kneeling to either the Emperor or the Empresses, and the kissing of hands takes place only with the two Empresses. The only manifestation of respect required on the appearance of the Sovereign, as well as at his departure, is a profound inclination of the head. It is curious that a more humble obeisance should be practised in the presence of a constitutional King, than before an absolute Monarch. On all these occasions, it is not the etiquette for the Ambassador or Minister to be present, unless required by his Majesty, or except when the Ambassador himself has requested a personal audience at the same time. When, however, the Emperor signifies his pleasure to receive the first presentation of a stranger at the Circle du Corps Diplomatique, the individual is presented by the Ambassador in person, and the ceremony takes place in the state apartments, with more pomp than I have described, but with much less of that gratification

which cannot but be felt by all who have had the honour of a private introduction to the present leading members of the Imperial family of Russia. The names of those who have enjoyed that honour are inserted on the following day in the Court Gazette and the Journal de St. Petersburgh, from authority.

When his Majesty admitted me to the honour of being presented to him, I had an opportunity of witnessing the happy manner in which he studied to put those who were introduced to him at their ease, by entering at once, and with great fluency, upon the subject most likely to be interesting to them. To an English gentleman, who had been presented at the same time, and who was known to have recently travelled a great deal in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, his Majesty put such questions respecting that journey, and the many natural beauties which it must have offered to his attention, as were likely to give him an opportunity of entering freely upon the subject. The apt remarks made by the Emperor upon several parts of the traveller's rapid narrative of his journey, evinced a facility of discoursing on the various topics connected with that narrative, and a degree of condescension, which could not fail to make a striking impression on our minds. In addressing me next, his Majesty with equal ease changed the topic of conversation, made inquiries respecting the state of science, and the progress of modern discoveries in England; was pleased to allude to the investigation on the art of embalming among the Egyptians, in terms which showed that he was acquainted with my experiments on that subject; asked my opinion of the civil, naval, and military hospitals in St. Petersburgh; and spoke very highly of the Naval Hospital at Plymouth, which he had examined minutely, and to which he hoped I should find those in his capital not very dissimilar. He expressed his