Paul I.—Terror he inspired—Death of the mother of Mme. Le Brun—Marriage of her daughter—Moscow—The Tsarevitch Alexander—Assassination of Paul I.—“I salute my Emperor”—Mme. Le Brun returns to Paris—Changes—London—Life in England—Paris—Separated from M. Le Brun—Society during the Empire—Caroline Murat—Switzerland—Fall of the Empire—Restoration—Death of M. Le Brun—Of her daughter—Travels in France—Her nieces—Conclusion.
Capital letter F

FROM Catherine II. to Paul I. was indeed a fearful change. The sudden accession to supreme power after a life of repression increased the malady which was gaining ground upon him. It was evident that his brain was affected, and the capricious violence and cruelty which he was now free to exercise as he pleased left nobody in peace or safety.
PAUL, EMPEROR OF RUSSIA

Nobody could feel sure when they got up in the morning that they would go safely to bed at night; the slightest offence given to the Emperor meant imprisonment or Siberia, and his orders were so preposterous that it was difficult not to offend him.

He commanded every one to salute his palace, even when he was not there. He forbade round hats, and sent police about with long sticks to knock off any they met.

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There were spies everywhere; people never dared mention him, and began to be afraid to receive their friends at all, or if they did, carefully closed the shutters; if a ball took place, the carriages were sent away for fear of attracting attention.

The order was given for every one to wear powder, but as Mme. Le Brun did not like it in portraits, and was painting that of Prince Bariatinski, she begged him to come without it. One day he arrived in her studio pale and trembling.

“What is the matter?” she exclaimed.

“Ah!” cried he. “I have just met the Emperor as I came to you. I had only time to rush under a portico and am dreadfully afraid he recognized me.”

One night, at a masked ball, a young man accidentally in a crowd pushed against a woman, who cried out.

Paul turned to one of his aides-de-camp, saying—

“Take that gentleman to the fortress and come back and tell me when he is safely shut up there.”

The aide-de-camp returned, saying that he had executed the order, but adding—

“Your Majesty must know that that young man is extremely shortsighted; here is the proof.” And he held out his spectacles, which he had brought.

The Emperor tried them on and exclaimed hastily—

“Run quick and fetch him and take him to his parents. I shall not go to bed till you tell me he is safe at home.”

Lisette was dreadfully afraid of him, for although [141] he liked her, and was always extremely polite and pleasant to her, she never felt that she could trust him.

He gave orders that every one, women as well as men, should get out of their sledges or carriages when he passed. It was dreadfully cold, with deep snow, and he was always driving about, often almost without escort, so that he was not at once recognised; but it was dangerous to disobey.

One day Lisette was driving, and seeing him coming when her coachman did not, she called out—

“Stop! Stop! It is the Emperor!” But as she was getting out, he descended from his sledge and hastened to prevent her, saying with a most gracious air that his orders did not apply to foreigners, above all, not to Mme. Le Brun.

He continued the kindness of Catherine II. to Doyen, who was now very old, and lived prosperous and happy, and, as Mme. Le Brun said, if her father’s old friend was satisfied with his lot at St. Petersburg, she was not less so.

She now painted the whole day except when on Sundays she received in her studio the numbers of people, from the Imperial family downwards, who came to see her portraits; to which she had added a new and great attraction, for she had caused to be sent from Paris her great picture of Marie Antoinette in a blue velvet dress, which excited the deepest interest. The Prince de Condé, when he came to see it, could not speak, but looked at it and burst into tears.

Society was so full of French refugees that [142] Lisette remarked she could almost fancy herself in Paris.

The Emperor desired her to paint the portrait of the Empress, whom she represented standing in full court dress, with a crown of diamonds. Lisette used to declare that she was like a woman out of the Gospel, and that she was the only woman she knew whom no calumny ever attacked. One day she brought her two youngest sons to the sitting, the Grand Dukes Nicolas and Michael, then children. Of the Grand Duke Nicolas, afterwards Emperor, Mme. Le Brun declared that she had never seen a more beautiful child, and that she could paint from memory his face, which had all the characteristic beauty of Greece.

But amidst all this professional and social prosperity Mme. Le Brun was now to experience two severe domestic sorrows, one of which was the loss of her mother, of whose death her brother sent her the news from France. The other, related to her daughter, was entirely owing to her own infatuated folly, and was not at all surprising.

For Mme. Le Brun had so brought up the girl that it would have been a miracle if she had not turned out, as she did, utterly selfish, vain, and heartless.

Jeanne Le Brun was, according to her mother, pretty, clever, extremely well-educated, charming in manner, and universally admired. Allowing for her infatuation, it was probable that her daughter was attractive. She was now seventeen, and went into society with her mother, whose foolish admiration and flattery encouraged all her faults.

Mme. Le Brun allowed her to have her own way [143] in all things; made herself a slave to her caprices, as she had always done; and when her friends remonstrated with her upon her folly, paid no attention to them, or replied that everybody loved or admired her child. Being engaged all day and unable to go out much with Jeanne, she allowed her to go on sledging parties with the Countess Czernicheff, and often to spend the evenings at her house, where she met and fell in love with the Count’s secretary, M. Nigris, a good-looking man of thirty with neither fortune, talent, character, connections, or any recommendation whatever.

In vain Mme. Le Brun tried to dissuade her from this deplorable marriage, the spoilt young girl, accustomed to have everything she chose, would not give way; the Czernicheff and other objectionable friends she had made supported her against her mother, the worst of all being her governess, Mme. Charot, who had betrayed the confidence of Mme. Le Brun by giving her daughter books to read of which she disapproved, filling her head with folly, and assisting her secretly in this fatal love-affair.

After being tormented and persecuted for some time, Mme. Le Brun yielded, gave her consent, obtained that of M. Le Brun, and provided a handsome dot, trousseau, and jewels for the intolerable girl, who did not show the slightest gratitude or affection to her mother, but behaved throughout in the most insolent, heartless manner.

A fortnight after the marriage she no longer cared about her husband, and soon afterwards she caught the small-pox.

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Mme. Le Brun nursed her through it with a devotion she did not deserve, and then ill, exhausted, and out of spirits, set off for Moscow, where she arrived after a long journey full of hardships, bad roads, and thick fogs. The sight of Moscow, the ancient splendid capital, before it was devastated by the fire and sword of the invader, with its huge palaces and thousands of domes surmounted with gold crosses, filled her with admiration and delight.

She was received with the hospitality and distinction she always experienced, met many old acquaintances, and passed several months very pleasantly.

Society was much larger here than at St. Petersburg, where it seemed almost to form one family, every one being related to each other.

It was with difficulty that she tore herself away when, in March, 1801, she wished to return to St. Petersburg, and it was upon her journey thither that she heard of the assassination of Paul I.

She had stopped to change horses and found that she could get none, as they were being sent all over the country to convey the news. She was consequently obliged to remain all night in her carriage, which was drawn up by the roadside close to a river, from which blew a bitterly cold wind.

When at length she arrived in St. Petersburg she found the city in a frenzy of delight. They danced in the streets, embracing each other, and exclaiming—

“What a deliverance!”

Indeed, many houses had been illuminated, such [145] was the terror he had inspired and the cruelty of his actions.

For some time the character of Paul had become more and more gloomy and menacing; his mind was filled with the darkest suspicions, even to the extent of believing that the Empress and his children were conspiring against his life; which was all the more terrible for the Empress Marie, as they had for many years, as long as the Empress Catherine lived, been very happy together, and in spite of everything she still remained deeply attached to him.

This was all the more inexplicable as he not only suspected and accused her of conspiracy, but made no pretence of being faithful to her, and had taken away Mme. Chevalier, the mistress of his devoted valet de chambre, Koutaivoff. The doors between his own apartments and those of the Empress he had caused to be double-locked, thereby preventing his own escape when the conspirators forced their way into his room, headed by Zuboff, whom he had first exiled, then loaded with favours.

They had systematically augmented his suspicions till they induced him to sign an order for the arrest of the Empress, the Tsarevitch, and the Grand Duke Constantine, and this document they showed the Tsarevitch, saying: “You see that your father is mad, and you will all be lost unless we prevent it by shutting him up instead.”

Alexander, seeing the fearful danger hanging over his mother, his brother, and himself, was silent; and Pahlen, who was the director of the plot, took care that it should go much further than restraint.

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When Alexander heard of the assassination of his father his grief and horror left no doubt of his ignorance of what had been intended and carried out; and when, on presenting himself to his mother she cried out, “Go away! Go away! I see you stained with your father’s blood!” he replied with tears—

“I call God to witness, mother, that I did not order this dreadful crime!”

When the affair was fully explained to her she threw herself at his feet, exclaiming—

“Then I salute my Emperor.”

The strong affection between Alexander I. and his mother lasted as long as she lived.

The young Emperor and Empress showed the same kindness and friendship to Mme. Le Brun as their parents and grandmother, but the time had come when she was resolved to return to France, and in spite of the entreaties of the Emperor and Empress, of her friends, and of her own regret at leaving a country to which she had become attached, she started in September, 1801, for Paris, leaving her ungrateful daughter, her unsatisfactory son-in-law, and her treacherous governess behind.

She was received with delight at her house in the rue du Gros-Chenet, by M. Le Brun, her brother, her sister-in-law, and their only child, the niece who was to fill her daughter’s place. The house was beautifully furnished and filled with flowers, and that same evening a grand concert in her honour was given in the large salon of a house in a garden adjoining, which also belonged to M. Le Brun, who told her that he had during the [147] Revolution, when the churches were closed, lent this salon to celebrate mass.

The applause with which she was welcomed on entering the salon so overcame her that she burst into tears. Next day those of her friends who had survived the Revolution began to flock to see her. Her old friend, Mme. Bonneuil, was among the first, and invited her to a ball the following night given by her daughter, now the celebrated beauty, Mme. Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angely, to which she went in a dress made of the gold-embroidered India muslin given her by the unfortunate Mme. Du Barry.

There she met many old friends, and saw many new beauties, amongst others Signora Visconti, the mistress of Berthier, and another by whom she was so attracted that she involuntarily exclaimed—

“Ah, Madame! Comme vous étes belle!”

It was Mme. Jouberthon, afterwards the wife of Lucien Buonaparte.

Macdonald, Marmont, and other generals were pointed out during the evening; it was a new world to her.

Madame Buonaparte came to see her, recalled the balls at which they had met before the Revolution, and asked her to come some day to breakfast with the First Consul. But Mme. Le Brun did not like the family or surroundings of the Buonaparte, differing so entirely as they did from the society in which she had always lived, and did not receive with much enthusiasm this invitation which was never repeated.

The Louvre, then filled with works of art—the [148] plunder of the rest of Europe—was naturally a great attraction, in fact so absorbed was Lisette in the wonders it contained that she was shut in when it closed, and only escaped passing the night there by knocking violently at a little door she discovered. The aspect of Paris depressed her; still in the streets were the inscriptions, “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” which in France bore so horrible a meaning. Many of the friends for whom she inquired had perished on the scaffold; nearly all who survived had lost either parents, husband, wife, or some other near relation. The change in dress gave her a gloomy impression; the absence of powder, which she was accustomed to see in other countries, the numerous black coats which had displaced the gorgeous velvets, satin, and gold lace of former days—in her opinion made a theatre or an evening party look like a funeral; the manners and customs of the new society were astonishing and repulsive to her.

Still, there was at first much to attract her. The friends who had survived were delighted to have her again amongst them. Many of her foreign friends arrived in Paris; she began again to give suppers which were as popular as ever. She even gave a ball at which the celebrated dancers, M. de Trénis, Mme. Hamelin, and Mme. Demidoff, excited general admiration. She also gave private theatrical............