THE MEMOIRS OF THE COUNTESS GOLOVINE.* THE Memoirs of the
Countess Golovine are singularly in. teresting as a record of Russian life and manners in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. They have not the sub- jective charm of autobiography, and they have little of the lightness, intimacy, malice and wit to which the memoirs of so many brilliant French women have accustomed us. Madame Golovine does not pour out her confessions, with that curious egotism so characteristic of the feminine mind, to an inquisitive world. On the contrary, about herself she is wonderfully reticent, though here and there she may mention her own pride, her own unimpeachable propriety, her disinterestedness, and her strong independence of charac- ter. Sbe is less reserved, and, perhaps, more candid, about her friends. She neither praises nor blames them more than is sufficient to convey to us, not only her charity and justice toward weaker natures, but the higher standards by which she regulated her own conduct. Perhaps the slightly hard and impersonal quality of her work is due to the fact that it was written at the request of the Empress Elizabeth Alexieievna, and partly under her supervision. The Empress, while she was yet Grand Duchess, seems to have given to Madame Golovine her complete confidence, to have clung to her with a passionate affection. "I love you, my dear; I love you dearly. Everything is a burden to me when I am separated from you. Be my friend, guide me, advise me. I feel a need to love stronger than anything else." It was in these terms that the Grand Duchess wrote to Madame Golovine in the early days of their friendship. The Grand Duchess had been married to the Grand Duke Alexander at the age of fifteen, and her husband was only a year older. The Empress Catherine, in choosing the members of their household, had selected Count Golovine as Marshal, largely on account of his wife's character, recognizing how necessary it was that the Grand Duchess should have someone to guard her against the innumerable intrigues of a dissolute Court. Madame Golovine was not only " a dragon of virtue." Madame Vigee-Lebrun wrote of her : " She is a charming woman, intelligent and gifted, and was often herself our only entertainment, for she received very few visitors. She drew very well and composed delightful songs, which she sang to her own accompaniment on the piano. Moreover, she was on the watch for all the literary novelties in Europe, which, I believe, were known at her house as soon as they were in Paris." Madame Edling spoke of her " grace and talents," and Prince Adam Czartoryski describes her as "witty, sensitive, and excitable." She was herself, at the time of her husband's appointment as Marshal, only twenty-six years old, and it was natural that the Grand Duchess should have turned to her as to an elder sister, and that the confidence should have ripened into a deep affection. It was equally natural that this confidence and affection should have excited the jealousy of others, and that Madame Golovine's natural dignity and independence should have made her many enemies. After some years there was 'a rupture of their friendship, Count Golovine, thinking himself slighted by the Grand Duke, resigned his position of Grand Master of the Household, and accepted an appointment under his friend, Count Rostoptchine, the man who, in 181Z, was to burn Moscow over the head of Napoleon, and his own castle of Voronovo rather than that it should • Memoirs of Countess Golovine. Translated from the French by G. M. Fos Davies. London : David Nutt. [10s. ed. net.J
harbour the French. Madame Golovine was accused of being concerned in her friend, Madame de Tolstoy's intrigue with Lord Whitworth, the British Ambassador, and of being responsible for the slanders which at that time coupled the name of the Grand Duchess with that of Prince Adam Czartoryski. The Grand Duchess afterwards became convinced of Madame Golovine's innocence, and a reconcilia- tion took place between them ; but the cloud was never entirely dispersed. A broken friendship is not easily repaired, and the Grand Duchess bad become in the interval the Empress Elizabeth Alexieievna. It seems probable, too, that there was something in the nature of the friendship which rendered it exceptionally brittle : a passionate affection asks for so much that when it comes finally to the enigma which every person, in the ultimate resort, presents to it, it imagines that it has been betrayed. Thus it was that when the Empress asked Madame Golovine for her memoirs the other could only bring her an apologia.
Madame Golovine, however, was a woman of genius. The Memoirs have a singular charm, in spite of the typical Russian pessimism and melancholy which pervade them ; in spite, too, of the scarcely veiled bitterness with which the author speaks of the wrongs done her and the proud, almost scornful, insistence on her own disinterestedness and inde- pendence. The gaunt air of disillusion has its grandeur. And if Madame Golovine had not that intuitive clairvoyance which reads deeply into character, and can throw the result into a single illuminating phrase, by the mere accumula- tion of detail and the simple narration of facts she gives us the same effect. Rer portraits are clear, vivid, convincing. She has also a certain descriptive power, which is best illus- trated in the following passage from an account of her "Journey into Bessarabia ": "To the right I saw an inter- minable plain, treeless, and without habitations other than some Cossaek stations, with a few beautiful flowers scattered here and there on the parched-up turf ; on the left were some fairly high mountains. These Cossack stations are under- ground huts, of which only the sugar-loaf thatched roofs are visible outside. Lances stuck in the ground all round shine with the brilliance of stars. I stopped at one during the night to change horses. The moon was brilliantly light, the weather magnificent; and as I got out of my carriage I heard the music of a guitar, the long notes of which, underground, had a weirdly magical effect." Perhaps the translator might have avoided the rhyming " stations " and habitations," " ground " and " round" ; but the picture itself is clear and complete.
It is, however, in Madame Golovine's power of simple and direct narration that she shows to the best advantage. In describing the series of plots by which Count Pahlen ousted Itostoptchine from the confidence of Paul I., and then with diabolic ingenuity brought about the Emperor's assassination, this simplicity gives a fine dramatic force to the narration.
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Pahlen, whom Paul had raised to a position of almost absolute power, informed the Emperor that his sons were implicated in a conspiracy against his life, and thus persuaded him to sign an order for their arrest. This order he simply showed to the Grand Dukes, and it was decided by them that Paul should be asked to abdicate. Madame Golovine continues : " On the evening of the fatal night the Grand Duke (Alexander) had supper with his father, and sat by his side at table. Imagine the situation—the Emperor believing that his son wished to take his life, the Grand Duke thinking that his father had ordered his imprisonment. I have been told that during the painful meal the Grand Duke sneezed, and the Emperor, turning upon him a look of mournful severity, uttered the usual compliment : Sir, I hope your wishes may be realized.' Two hours later he was no more. . . . The Emperor, awakened by the hussar's cry, had jumped out of bed and hidden behind a screen. They had a moment's fright, thinking he had eluded them, but they soon found him, and Bennigsen, the first to speak, announced to him that they had come to read him his Deed of Abdication. The Emperor saw Prince Zoubov, and said to him, And are you here too, Prince?' Nicholas Zoubov, who was drunk, said boldly, 'Why make so much ado P Let us get straight to the point,' and he rushed at the Emperor, who tried to get away by the door leading into the Empress's room, but unfor- tunately found it fastened. Nicholas Zoubov gave him a push, and he fell, striking his temple against the corner of the table, and fafilled. The conspirators seiied him, and Skariatine took off his scarf and strangled him. Then they laid him back on the bed, and Bennigsen with several others remained to keep guard over him while they went to tell Pahlen that all was over." Such narrative as this has a dramatics force which could not be bettered. It was given
out that Paul had died of apoplexy, which caused Talleyrand to remark that it was time the Russians invented a new disease. About the same time Rostoptchine received a note in the Emperor's hand: " J'ai besoin de vous. Revenez vite.
.PauL." Re reached Moscow on his way to St. Petersburg to hear that Paul was dead, and that Alexander had been pro.: claimed. This slight detail Madame Golovine does not mention ; nor does the editor, M. B. Waliszewaki, refer to its in his notes.
All Madame Golovine's portraits are excellent and just, She shows us the bonhomie, kindliness, and patience of Catherine II., a great ruler too often treated merely as a bloodthirsty monster, a Messalina, or a Semiramis of the North; she shows us Paul I. gloomy, morose, unbalanced in his mind perhaps, and yet honest and well-meaning. She has a gallery of those strangely fascinating people who keep the mystery of the East and affect the culture of Paris. Women like Madame de Witt, afterwards Princess Potocka, who was bought as a slave for a few piastres by Boscamp, envoy of the King of Poland; became the wife of Colonel de Witt ; was divorced by him; and then married the richest nobleman in Poland, Count Felix Potocki. She describes to us the Asiatic luxury of Prince Potemkine's household, with the Princess Dolgorouki in " the costume of a favourite sultana, nothing lacking but 'the trousers." We may quote another passage as a contrast to that describing the Cossack huts : " On the days when there was no ball the evening was spent in a divan salon. This divan was covered with Turkish cloth, of rose- pink and silverlabric; a similar cloth, interwoven with gold, was under- our feet. On a magnificent table stood a filigree scent-box, which filled the air with Arabian perfumes. Different teas were served. . . . Supper was served in a very beautiful room ; the dishes were carried in by tall cuirassiers, with red capes and very high caps covered with black fur and surmounted by a tuft of feathers ; their shoulder-belts were 02 ilver. They walked two by two. . . . During the meal a splendid orchestra, accompanied by fifty cornets, played beautiful symphonies, Sarti being the con- ductor. Everything was magnificent and on a gigantic scale, but everything was spoilt for me. It is impossible calmly to enjoy when your principles are constantly being shocked." • As the Memoirs come to describe the events of later life the pessimism increases, the melancholy deepens into gloom, and there are even touches of the macabre. Madame Golovine alienated many of her friends and some members of her family by joining the Roman Church. The memory of the early friendship which we have described was full of bitterness for her; and her even more beautiful friendship with the Princesse de Tarente was broken by the Princess's death of cancer. Madame Golovine died of the same disease, a voluntary exile, in Paris. She is buried in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise.
As to the merits of Mr. G. M. Fox-Davies's translation we can scarcely speak, not having seen the original; but it seems to us competent and careful, though in places lacking slightly in ease and spontaneity. The name of the editor of the French edition, who is responsible for the preface and for the careful annotation of the Memoirs, a task seldom appre- ciated sufficiently, should have been placed upon the title- page.
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