Part 18 (2/2)

The guests of the amba.s.sador heard on the morrow that their festivities had been kept over the mouth of a volcano.

At the fete held at Zakret not only the life but the empire of Alexander was at stake. In the middle of the dance he was apprised that the advanced guard of a guest he had forgotten to invite had pa.s.sed the Niemen. This was the Emperor Napoleon, his old host at Erfurth, who might momentarily be expected to enter the hall, followed by six hundred thousand dancers. Alexander gave his orders with great coolness, chatting while he issued them with his aide-de-camps. He walked about, praised the manner in which the saloons were lighted, which he declared was only second to the beautiful moonlight, supped, and remained till dawn. His gay manner and the serenity of his countenance prevented the guests from even suspecting the nature of the communication he had received, and the entrance of the French into the city was the first intimation the inhabitants had received of their approach.

He was in imminent peril in this Polish city, from which his great self-command delivered him. His retreat at early morning was made before the approach of an enemy he had hitherto found invincible. Very different might have been the result of Napoleon's campaign in Russia, if the inhabitants of Wilna had known during the fete of Zakret of his vicinity.

These incidents naturally occurred to the guests of the Emperor Alexander, during this New-Year's day festival, when they beheld him approach alone to show himself to the mult.i.tude, amongst whom he had reason to believe many conspirators, or even a.s.sa.s.sins lurked. If such indeed were there, the calm serenity of his countenance disarmed them, and none dared raise an arm against the life he fearlessly trusted, if not to their loyalty at least to their honor.

Indeed the suffering and melancholy Emperor, the last time he received his people, seemed to have shaken off his la.s.situde and depression, and appeared full of life and energy, traversing with rapidity the immense saloons of the Winter Palace. He led off the sort of galoppe peculiar to the Russian Court, which, however, terminated about nine o'clock.

At ten, the illuminations of the Hermitage being finished, those persons who had cards for the spectacle went there. Twelve negroes, superbly arrayed in rich oriental costumes, kept the doors of the theatre, to admit or restrain the crowd, and examine the authenticity of the vouchers of the guests. Here the admission was not promiscuous, a certain number alone being allowed to be present at the banquet.

Upon entering the theatre, the spectators found themselves in a land of enchantment--a vast hall encircled with tubes of crystal, bent in every possible way, meeting at top in order to form the ceiling, united by silver threads of imperceptible fineness, behind which hung 10,000 colored lamps, whose light, reflected and refracted by these transparent columns, illuminated the gardens, groves, flowers, cascades, and fountains, like an enchanted landscape, which seen across this veil of light resembled the poetical phantasm of a dream. The splendid illuminations cost twelve thousand roubles, and lasted two months.

At eleven a flourish of musical instruments announced the arrival of the Emperor, who entered with the Empress and the imperial family, the amba.s.sadors, the amba.s.sadresses, the officers of the household, and the ladies in waiting, who all took their places at the middle supper-table; two other tables were filled by six hundred guests, mostly composed of the first-cla.s.s n.o.bility. The Emperor alone remained standing, moving about the tables, conversing by turns with his numerous guests.

Nothing could exceed the magnificent effect produced by the banquet, and the appearance of the court; the sovereign and his officers and n.o.bility covered with gold and embroidery, the Empress and her ladies glittering with diamonds and splendid velvets, tissues, and satins. No other fete in Europe could produce such a grand _coup d'oeil_ as the New-Year's fete at the Hermitage. At the conclusion of the banquet the Court returned to the Saloon of St. George, where the music struck up a polonaise, which was led off by the Emperor. This dance was his farewell to his guests, for as soon as it was finished he withdrew. The departure of their sovereign gave pleasure to those loyal subjects who trembled for his personal safety; but the courageous and ever paternal confidence reposed in his subjects by Alexander, turned away from him every murderous weapon. No one could resolve to a.s.sa.s.sinate a kind father in the midst of his children, for as such the Emperor had received his numerous guests.

The second annual fete was of a religious character, ”The Benediction of the Waters,” to which the recent disastrous calamity of the most terrible inundation on record in Russia, the preceding year, had given deeper solemnity. The preparations were made with an activity tempered by care, which denoted the national character to be essentially religious. Upon the Neva a great pavilion was erected of a circular form, pierced with eight openings, decorated by four paintings, crowned with a cross; to this pavilion access was given by a jetty forming the hermitage. The temporary edifice, on the morning of the ceremony, was to have its pavement of ice cut through in order to permit the Patriarch to reach the water. The cold was already twenty degrees below zero, when at nine o'clock in the morning the whole population of St. Petersburg a.s.sembled themselves on the frozen waters of the Neva, then a solid ma.s.s of crystal. At half-past eleven the Empress and Grand-d.u.c.h.esses took their places in the gla.s.s balcony of the Hermitage, and their appearance announced to the crowd that the _Te Deum_ was concluded. The whole corps of the Imperial Guards, amounting to forty thousand men, marched to the sound of martial music and formed in line of battle on the river, from the hotel of the French emba.s.sy to the fortress. The palace gates opened as soon as this military evolution was effected, and the banners, sacred pictures, and the choristers of the chapel, appeared preceding the Patriarch and his clergy; then came the pages and the colors of the different regiments of guards, borne by their proper officers; then the Emperor, supported by the Grand-Dukes Nicholas and Michael, followed by the officers of his household, his aide-de-camps and generals. As soon as the Emperor reached the door of the pavilion, which was nearly filled with priests and banners, the Patriarchs gave the signal, and the sweet solemn chant of more than a hundred voices rose to heaven, unaccompanied by music indeed, yet forming a divine harmony hardly to be surpa.s.sed on earth. During the prayer, which lasted twenty minutes, the Emperor stood bareheaded, dressed in his uniform, without fur or any defence from the piercing cold, running more risk by this disregard to climate, than if he had faced the fire of a hundred pieces of artillery in the front of battle. The spectators, enveloped in fur mantles and caps, presented a complete contrast to the religious imprudence of their rash sovereign, who had been bald from his early youth.

As soon as the second _Te Deum_ was concluded, the Patriarch took a silver cross from the hand of the young chorister, and encircled by the kneeling crowd, plunged it through the opening made in the ice into the waters below. He then filled a vase up with the consecrated element, which he presented to the Emperor. After this ceremonial of blessing the waters, came the benediction of the standards, which were reverently inclined towards the Patriarch for that purpose. A sky-rocket was immediately let off from the pavilion, and its silvery smoke was answered by a terrible explosion, for the whole artillery of the fortress gave from their metallic throats a loud _Te Deum_, and these salvos were heard three times during the benediction of the standards; at the third, the Emperor commenced his return to the palace.

He was more melancholy than usual, for during this religious ceremony he felt no need of courage or presence of mind; he was secured by the natural veneration of a superst.i.tious people. He knew it, and, therefore, wore no mask in the semblance of a joyless smile.

On the same day, this imposing ceremonial is used at Constantinople, only the winter is a mere name and the water has no ice. The Patriarch stands on the deck of a vessel, and drops his silver cross into the calm blue waves of the Bosphorus, which a skilful diver restores to him before it reaches the bottom. To these religious ceremonies succeed sports and pastimes of all kinds. Booths and barracks are erected on the frozen Neva from quay to quay, Russian mountains, down which sledges slide with inconceivable velocity, and the Carnival commences with as much zest as in cities enjoying a southern temperature. Plays are performed on the ice, and curious pantomimes, in which a marmot performs the part of a baby very cleverly, while the man who shows him off under the character of the good father of the family, finds resemblances in this black-nosed imp to all his supposed human relatives, to the infinite delight of the spectators.

Sleighing on the ice is, as in Canada, a favorite diversion with the Russians, whose sledges are lined with fur and ornamented with silver bells and ribbons of every color. Sometimes a wind loaded with vapor puts an end to these diversions by rendering the ice unsafe, in which case they are interdicted by the police, and the sports and pastimes of the people are transferred to _terra firma_; but the Carnival is considered to come to an abrupt conclusion if this misfortune occurs at its commencement, for the Neva is to the inhabitants of St. Petersburg what Vesuvius is to the Neapolitans, and the absence of the ice robs their Saturnalia of its greatest attraction. In countries where the Greek religion is the national standard of faith, Lent is preceded by the same unbounded festivity as in those which are Roman Catholic; but the Court does not display in these days so much barbarous magnificence as in those earlier times when civilization was unknown. The Carnival was, however, held during the last century by Anna Ivanovna, in a style surpa.s.sing that of her ancestors. This pleasure-loving princess, the daughter of the elder brother of Peter the Great, covered her usurpation of a throne she had s.n.a.t.c.hed not only from the decendants of her mighty uncle, but also from her own elder sister and niece, by conducing to the popular amus.e.m.e.nts of her people, who in their turn forgot her defective t.i.tle to the throne. This popular female sovereign founded the largest bell in the world, and gave the most magnificent Carnival ever held in Russia. Thus she maintained her sway by the aid of pleasure and devotion, a twofold cord her subjects never broke. In 1740 Anna Ivanovna resolved to surpa.s.s every preceding Carnival by her unique manner of providing her people with amus.e.m.e.nt during this merry season.

It was customary for the sovereign of Russia to be attended by a dwarf, who united the privileged character of a jester to the tiny proportions of a little child. This empress possessed two of these diminutive personages, and she chose for her own amus.e.m.e.nt and that of her loving subjects, that they should be married during this Carnival, and ”whether nature did this match contrive,” or it was the consequence of her own despotic will, cannot be known without a peep into the jealously guarded archives of Russia; but the nuptials of these sports of nature was the ostensible cause of the fete. This the Autocrat gave on a new and splendid scale. She directed her governors to send her two natives of the hundred districts they ruled in her name, clothed in their national costume, and with the animals they were accustomed to use on their journeys. The idea was certainly a brilliant one, and worthy of the sovereign lady of so many nations, tongues, and languages.

Anna Ivanovna was punctually obeyed, and at the appointed time a motley procession, including the purest types of the Caucasian race and the ugliest of the Mongolian, astonished the eyes of the Empress, who had scarcely known the greater part of these distant tribes by name. There she beheld the Kamtchadale with his sledge drawn by dogs, the Russian Laplander with his reindeer, the Kalmuck with his cows, the Tartar on his horse, and the native of Bochara with his camel, the Ostiak on his clogs. Then for the first time, the beautiful Georgian and Circa.s.sian, with their dark ringlets and unrivalled features, looked with astonishment upon the red hair of the Finlander. The gigantic Cossack of the Ukraine eyed with contempt the pigmy Samoiede--and in fact, for the first time were brought into contact by the will of their sovereign lady, who cla.s.sed each race under one of four banners, representing spring, summer, autumn, and winter; and these two hundred persons, during eight days, paraded the streets of St. Petersburg, to the infinite delight of the population, who had never seen the power of the throne displayed in a manner so agreeable to their taste before.

Upon the wedding day of her dwarfs, these important personages had been attended to the altar by this singular national procession, where they plighted their faith in the presence of the Empress and all her Court, after which they heard Ma.s.s, and then, accompanied by their numerous escort, took possession of the palace prepared for them by the direction of their imperial mistress. This palace was not the least fanciful part of the fete. It was entirely composed of ice, and resembled crystal in its brilliancy and fine cutting and polish. This beautiful fabric was fifty-two feet in length and twenty in width; the roof, the floor, the furniture, chandeliers, and even the nuptial bed, were formed of the same cold, glittering, and transparent materials. The doors, the galleries, and the fortifications,--even the six pieces of cannon that guarded this magical palace, were of ice; one of these, charged with a single ice-bullet, and fired by the aid of a pound of powder, perforated at seventy paces a plank of twelve inches thickness. This was done to salute the bridal party, and welcome them home. The most curious piece of mechanism, and which pleased the Russians the most, was a colossal elephant, mounted by an armed Persian, and led by twelve slaves. This gigantic beast threw from his trunk a column of water by day, and at night a stream of fire, uttering from time to time roars which were heard from one end of St. Petersburg to the other. These n.o.ble roars were produced by twelve Russians concealed in the body and legs of the phantom elephant, whose costly housings hid the men whose noise so delighted their countrymen. This Carnival of the fete-loving feany male usurper has never been surpa.s.sed by Russian sovereign, though, with the exception of the a.s.sembly of her distant subjects, its taste was barbarous enough.

From Household Words.

RAINBOW MAKING.

It is a great idea--too large to be arrived at but by degrees--that the fleece of sheep can clothe nations of men. The fleece of a sheep, when pulled and spread out, looks much larger than while covering the mutton; but still it is with a sort of despair that we think of the quant.i.ty required, and of the dressing and preparation necessary, for clothing fifteen million of men in one country, and double the number in another (to say nothing of the women), and of the number of countries, each containing its millions, which are incessantly demanding the fleeces of sheep to clothe their inhabitants. We remember the hill-sides of our own mountainous districts; and the wide gra.s.sy plains of Saxony; and the boundless table lands of Thibet, and the valleys of Cashmere, all speckled over with flocks; we think of the Australian sheep-walks, where there are flocks of such unmanageable size, that the whole sheep is boiled down for tallow; we think of Prince Esterhazy's reply to the question of an English n.o.bleman, when shown vast flocks, and asked how his sheep in Hungary would compare in number with these,--that his shepherds outnumbered the Englishman's sheep; we think of these things, and by degrees begin to understand how wool enough may be produced to furnish the broadcloths and flannels of the world. But the most strong and agile imagination is confounded when the material of silk is considered in the same way. Compare a caterpillar with a sheep; compare the coc.o.o.n of a silkworm (the achievement of its life) with the annual fleece of a sheep; and the supply of silk for the looms of Europe, Asia, and America, seems a mere miracle. The marvel is the greater, not the less, when one is in a silk-growing region, attending to the facts and appearances, than when trying to conceive of them at home. In Lombardy, we travel from day to day, during the whole month of May, between rows of mulberry trees, where the peasants are busy providing food for the worms; a man in the tree stripping off the leaves, and two women below with sacks, to carry home the foliage. We see what tons of leaves per mile must be thus gathered daily for weeks together; we go into houses in every village to inspect the worm; we mount to the flat roofs of the dwellings, and find in each countless mult.i.tudes of the worms; we pa.s.s on, from country to country, till we mount to the hamlets, perched on the rocky shelves of the Lebanon; and we find every where the insect secreting its gum, or spinning it forth as silk; we remember that the same process is going forward in the heart of our Indian Peninsula, and throughout China; we look at the broad belt round the globe where the little worm is forming its coc.o.o.ns; and still we find it impossible to imagine how enough silk is produced to supply the wants of the world, from the brocade of the Asiatic potentate to the wedding ribbon of the English dairy-maid. Nowhere is the speculation more difficult than in a dye-house at Coventry.

Probably there was as much wonder excited by the same thought, when King Henry VIII. wore the first pair of silk stockings brought to England from Spain; and when Francis I. looked after the mulberry trees in France, and fixed some silk weavers at Lyons; and when our Queen Mary pa.s.sed a law forbidding servant-maids to wear ribbons on bonnets; and when monarch after monarch pa.s.sed acts to teach how silk should be boiled, and whence it should be brought, and who should, and who should not, wear it when wrought; but the perplexity and amazement of king, lords, and commons could hardly, at any time, have exceeded that of the humblest visitor of to-day in any dye-house at Coventry. We know something of the fact of this astonishment; for we have been noting the wonders that are to be found on the premises of Messrs. Leavesley and Hands at Coventry.

On entering, we see, ranged along the counters, half round the room, bundles of glossy silk, of the most brilliant colors. Blues, rose-colors, greens, lilacs, make a rainbow of the place. It is only two days since this silk was brought in in a very different condition. The throwster (to throw, means to twist or twine), after spinning the raw silk, imported from Italy, Turkey, Bengal, and China, into thread fit for the loom, sent it here in bundles, gummy, harsh, dingy; except, indeed, the Italian, which looks, till washed, like fragments of Jason's fleece. If bundles, and regiments of bundles, like these, come into one dye-house every few days, to be prepared for the weaving of ribbons alone, and for the ribbon-weaving of a single town, it is overwhelming to think of the amount of production required for the broad silk-weaving of England, of Europe, of the world. Of the silk dyed at Coventry, about eighty per cent. is used for the ribbon-weaving of the city and neighborhood; and the quant.i.ty averages six tons and a half weekly. Of the remaining twenty per cent., half is used for the manufacture of fringes; and the other half goes to Macclesfield, Congleton, and Derby.

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