At last the grand-duke arrived, and was received with the most unusual pomp and ceremony by the Prussian court. By some curious instance of choice, Sunday is selected on the Continent as the day for every thing in the shape of show. The Russian prince made his public entry into Berlin on Sunday, and was met by the trading companies in uniform, by escorts of cavalry, and the equipages of the king and royal family. In the evening, after a sumptuous dinner, there was a concert and ball. The rest of the week was similarly occupied. The grand-duke had come to demand the Princess of Wirtemberg in marriage. When we recollect the fate of this unhappy monarch, murdered on the Russian throne, and contrast it with the brilliancy of his early reception in the world, and his actual powers when master of the diadem, a deeper lesson of the instability of human fortune has seldom been given to man.
A laughable anecdote of Russian and Prussian discipline is told. All the domestics belonging to the Imperial family of Russia have military rank; the grand-duke’s coachman and the king’s going one evening to drink together, a dispute arose about precedence. “What is your rank?” said the Prussian. “A lieutenant-colonel,” said the other. “Ay, but I am a colonel,” said the German, and walked first into the ale-house. This came to the king’s ears. The colonel was sent for three days to prison, and received fifty blows of the cane.
The ambassador now obtained a new instance of the favour of his court. He was recalled from Prussia in 1776, and shortly after was appointed to the most important of our embassies at that period, the embassy to Russia.
The politics of England at this period bore an appearance of perplexity, which evidently alarmed her cabinet, and which as evidently excited the hopes of her enemies. At this period she had two enemies in Europe, hostile in every thing except to the extent of open war—France, always jealous and irreconcilable; and Prussia, which, from her dread of England’s interference in her Polish usurpations, pretended to believe that England was conspiring with Austria against the safety of her dominions. The feebleness with which the American war was carried on, had deceived Europe into the belief that the power of England was really on the point of decay. Foreigners are never capable of appreciating the reality of English power. In the first place, because they prefer the romantic to the real; and in the next, because, living under despotisms, they have never seen, nor can comprehend, the effect of liberty upon national resources. Thus, when they see a nation unwilling to go to war—or, what is the next thing to reluctance, waging it tardily—they imagine that this tardiness has its origin in national weakness; and it is not until the palpable necessity of self-defence calls out the whole energy of the people, that the foreigner ever sees the genuine strength of England. The capture of two small armies in America, neither of them more numerous than the advanced guard of a continental army, had given the impression that the military strength of England was gone for ever. Thus the European courts thought themselves entitled to insult her; and thus so diminutive a power as Prussia, however guided by an able and politic prince, was suffered to despise her opinion. But the English ministry themselves of that day palpably shared the general delusion; and, to judge from their diplomatic correspondence, they seemed actually to rely for the safety of England on the aid of the foreign courts. They had yet to learn the lesson, taught them by the Revolutionary war, that England is degraded by dependence of any kind; that she is a match for the world in arms; that the cause of Europe is dependent on her; and that the more boldly, directly, and resolutely she defies France, and its allies and slaves, the more secure she is of victory. In the pursuit of this false policy of conciliation and supplication, Harris was sent to Petersburg, to counteract Prussia with the empress, and to form an offensive and defensive alliance with Catharine. Count Panin was at that time prime minister—a man of the old ministerial school, who regarded diplomacy as the legitimate science of chicane, was a master of all the littleness of his art, and was wholly under the influence of the King of Prussia. The count was all consent, and yet contrived to keep the ambassador at arm’s-length; while the empress, equally crafty, and equally determined not to commit herself, managed him with still greater subtlety.
In speaking of the Empress Catharine, it is impossible to avoid alluding to the scandals of her court. The death of her husband, suspicious as it was, had left her sole mistress of an empire, and of the power of public opinion, in a country where a sneer might send the offender to Siberia. The wretchedly relaxed religion of the Greek church, where a trivial penance atones for every thing, and ceremonial takes the place of morals, as it inevitably does wherever a religion is encumbered with unnecessary forms, could be no restraint on the conduct of a daring and imperious woman. By some of that easy casuistry which reconciles the powerful to vice, she had fully convinced herself that she ought, for the sake of her throne, never to submit to matrimonial ties again; and she adopted the notorious and guilty alternative of living with a succession of partners. The ambassador’s letters frequently allude to this disgraceful topic, and always with the contempt and reprobation which were so amply its due. “The worst enemies”—such is his expression—“which the empress has, are flattery and her own passions. She never turns a deaf ear to the first, let it be ever so gross; and her inclination to gratify the latter appears to grow upon her with age.”
The policy of Russia had two grand objects, both of them wholly inconsistent with the policy of England; and therefore rendering the ambassador’s zeal wholly useless. The King of Prussia favoured both, and therefore commanded the highest influence with the empress. It was thus the impossible task of the unfortunate diplomatist, to convince a haughty and self-sufficient woman against her will. Of course, failure was the necessary consequence. But in the mean time, dining and dancing, feasting and frivolity, went on with Asiatic splendour. The birth of the grand-duke’s son, “Constantine,” (expressly so named with a view to Turkish objects,) gave occasion to fêtes which it tasked the whole power of Russian panegyric to describe. The empress gave one in the period of the Carnival, ultra-imperially magnificent. The dessert and supper were set out with jewels to the amount of upwards of two millions sterling! and at the tables of macao, the fashionable game, besides the stake in money, a diamond of fifty rubles’ value was given by her majesty to each of those who got nine, the highest point of the game. One hundred and fifty diamonds were distributed in this manner.
But a new event occurred to stir the lazy politics of Europe—that act of infinite treachery on the part of the French government—the breach of treaty with England, and the alliance with America. The menaces of war which are held out at this moment by the Jacobin party, and its insolent eagerness to turn every trivial incident into a mortal quarrel, give a new and additional interest to this former act of desperate perfidy. But let it be remembered with what tremendous vengeance that perfidy was punished—that the American alliance was the precursor of the French republic; and that the long train of hideous calamities which broke down the French throne, banished the nobility, and decimated the population, dates its origin from the day when that fatal treaty was signed. A letter from Sir Gilbert Elliott (afterwards Lord Minto) to the ambassador, (March 20, 1778,) thus briefly communicates the intelligence:—“We had just passed the bills for repealing some of the obnoxious American acts, and for enabling the king to appoint his commissioners to treat with America with very large powers, when the report of the French treaty with the colonies became very prevalent, and obtained credit here. Government, however, had certainly obtained no authentic account of it which is singular enough; and Lord North positively disclaimed all knowledge of it. A loan of six millions was made on very hard terms for the public, much owing to the report of the French treaty; the three per cent consols being at 66½—monstrously low. The first payment was fixed for Tuesday last. On the Friday before, the Marquis de Noailles delivered a paper to Lord Weymouth, communicating the ‘treaty of commerce and alliance’ with the colonies, and acknowledging their independency. The manner and style of the communication were inexpressibly insolent, and were no doubt meant as a studied affront and challenge. On Saturday, all the French in London were sent to the opera, plays, clubs, coffee-houses, and ale-houses, to publish the intelligence, which they did with their natural impertinence. On Tuesday, the two Houses received a message from the king, informing them of the communication from the French ambassador—that he had recalled his ambassador from Versailles; and assuring them that he would exert every means in his power to protect the honour and interest of his kingdom. In answer to which, the two Houses voted an address, promising to support him with our lives and fortunes. Opposition, like good patriots, in answer to this message, proposed to address the king to remove his ministers; and C. Fox assured us, ‘he thought an invasion a much better thing than the continuance of the present administration.’ When this proposal was negatived, they therefore refused their assent to our address. There is no declaration of war yet; but as it is quite certain, and as France will undoubtedly act immediately, I do not see what we gain by delaying it. I hope at least we shall begin taking their ships immediately. The militia is to be called out; credit is dreadfully low—stock was a few days ago at 60. The French are poorer than we—that’s something.”
Exaggeration is a propensity which seems common to ambassadors. We certainly have never seen an ambassadorial correspondence, in which the most groundless views did not make a large part of its communications. The British diplomatist in Russia was unquestionably a shrewd man, and yet his letters abound in predictions of Russian ruin. His descriptions run in this style:—“Great expenses, and nothing to show for them. The army in a state of decay; the navy incomplete and ill-equipped; the political system languid, and such as, if pursued, must ultimately reduce this immense mass of power to that state of Asiatic insignificancy from which it so lately emerged.”
And this high-coloured and rash statement, it is to be remembered, was not a page in a popular novel or in a summer’s “Tour,” but was given as the deliberate opinion of a statesman conversant in continental politics, and addressed to the government of this country. He seems to have altogether overlooked the boundless territory and growing population of Russia, her forty millions of men—a number already exceeding that of any other kingdom in Europe—the inaccessible nature of her dominions, the implicit and Asiatic devotion of her subjects, the unrivaled vigour of her despotism, and the fact that she had but that moment secured an immense tract of Polish territory, and was stripping the Turks on the other side—that to the north she was touching on the Vistula, and to the south had nearly reached the Danube. The subsequent career of Russia is a still stronger refutation. Every war, instead of shaking her power, has only given it additional strength and stability. Like England, she has gone on with almost involuntary but rapid progress; and the period may arrive when there will be but two nations left in Europe—England the ruler of the seas, and Russia holding the kingdoms of the Continent in vassalage. It is true, that the ambassador adverts now and then to the inaccessible nature of the Russian territory, and the success of the national arms; but the former would be but a negative source of power, and the latter he uniformly attributed to good-luck. He ought to lave attributed them to the causes which would have produced the same effect in any age of the world—to the mastery of an immense population; to the daring of a head of empire possessed of remarkable ability, and filled with projects of unbounded supremacy; and to the growth of a new generation of soldiers and statesmen, encouraged to the highest exertion of their talents by the most munificent rewards—the policy of the empress making the evidence of courage and genius in the soldier the only requisite for promotion; and exhibiting the strongest personal interest of the sovereign in the elevation of those able servants of the crown. The consequence was, success in all the enterprises of Catharine, the rapid advance of the nation in European influence, the establishment of an insecure throne on the strongest footing of public security, the popularity of a despotism, the comparative civilization of a people half Asiatic, and who but half a century before had been barbarians, and the personal attachment of the nation to Catharine in a degree scarcely less than adoration. The chief cause of this triumphant state of things, beyond all question, was the high spirit, the generosity, and the affability of the empress. The unhappy transactions of her private life are matters of painful record; and the letters of the ambassador are full of the reprobation which the memoirs of the time authenticate. But we have no gratification in dwelling on such topics. We infinitely prefer paying the tribute due to great talents splendidly exercised, to the public achievements of a powerful intellect, and to the superiority which this munificent promoter of the genius of all classes of her people exhibited to all the haughty, exclusive, and selfish sovereigns of her time.
The ambassador now found it necessary to look for support against the Prussian propensities of the minister; and he had recourse to Potemkin and the Orloffs, as the antagonists of Panin. Potemkin was one of the most extraordinary men whom the especial circumstances of the court and country raised into public distinction. He had been but a cornet of cavalry on the memorable night when Catharine, uncertain whether she was mounting a throne or a scaffold, put herself at the head of the guards, and deposed her husband. As she rode along, observing that she had not a military plume in her hat, she turned to ask for one; the cornet instantly plucked out his own, and presented it to her—as Raleigh threw his cloak on the ground for Elizabeth to walk over. These gallant acts are never lost upon a woman of the superior order of mind. The favour of the throne followed alike in both instances; and Potemkin soon became the guide of the Russian councils. It was the custom of the French memoir writers—a race who always aimed at pungency of narrative in preference to truth, and who, for their generation, performed the part of general libellers—to represent Potemkin as a savage, devoted to drinking, and whose influence was solely the result of his grossness. But the conferences which he held with this British ambassador, and the extracts of his opinions given in these letters, show him to have been a man of remarkable clearness of comprehension, dexterity of resource, and readiness of knowledge. It is obvious that nothing but the exertion of distinguished skill in the ways of courts, could have accomplished the objects which no other man of his time attained with such complete success. In a court of contention and favouritism, he retained supreme influence to the last; released from the labours of office, he possessed more than the power of a minister—and nominally a subject, he was scarcely less than emperor. Boundless wealth, the highest rank, and every honour which the empire could lavish on its first noble, were the prizes of Potemkin.
People at home are in the habit of looking upon the diplomatic body abroad as a collection of very subtle and sagacious personages—a collection of sages. A nearer view sometimes strips the idea down to humble dimensions. Sir James Harris (he had now obtained the Order of the Bath, which he seems to have deserved by his diligence) thus sketches the new ambassadorial body—a general change having just taken place. “The Imperial, Danish, French, Prussian, and Spanish ministers are all altered, and one from Naples is added to our corps.” The Neapolitan he describes as “utterly unfit for business;” Count Cobenzel, the Austrian ambassador, “as a man of excellent parts and great activity;” Goertz, the Prussian, “a very able and artful man.” So far as this point, the honour of the corps is sustained; but then come the ciphers. Monsieur Verac, the cunning French envoy, is “more amiable in company than formidable in cabinet.” The Swede and the Saxon ministers, “most perfectly insignificant and overpowered with debts.” The Dutch resident, Swartz, “a man neither of birth nor character, totally improper for the post he fills. The Swiss resident, having no other business than the lawsuits of his countrymen,” &c.
Of the culpable habits of the empress we shall say no more. The respect which this country feels for the character of Emperor Nicholas, and the total contrast which that character presents to the especial failings of his ancestor, justly prevent our wandering into those observations. But we have a curious instance of the skill and adroitness of this memorable woman, in an interview in which she was wholly left to herself, and yet succeeded perfectly in what is presumed to be the chef-d’œuvre of diplomacy—the art of disguising her intentions. The British ambassador, after a long period of comparative failure, had succeeded in obtaining an audience through Potemkin—who always pretended to be powerless, yet who could do every thing which he desired. The appointment to meet the ambassador was made, and Potemkin prefaced his service by the following singular sketch of his sovereign. “Do not expect that it is in the power of any living being to prevent her from concluding her favourite plan of armed neutrality. Content yourself with destroying the effects—the resolution is immovable. As it was conceived by mistake and perfected by vanity, it is maintained by pride and obstinacy. You well know the hold of those passions on a female mind; and if you attempt to slacken, you will only tighten the knot.”