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Memoirs of Countess Golovine, a Lady at the Court of Catherine II

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Memoirs of Countess Golovine, a Lady at the Court of Catherine II LIBRARY I TV OF RNIA V D.A.WHITEttOUSE. , "21, iviELvlLLE RD, EDG. LA COMTESSE GOLOVINE D'APRES UN PORTRAIT PEINT PAR ELLE-MEME (Collection dii Comte Charles Lanijkoro:. MEMOIRS OF COUNTESS GOLOVINE A LADY AT THE COURT OF CATHERINE II TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY G. M. FOX-DAVIES LONDON DAVID NUTT, 57 TO 59 LONG ACRE 1910 PREFACE ' Is it really worth while publishing them ? Everyone ' has read them already ! a friend said to me in jest, just as, with the gracious assistance of Count Charles Langkoron- ski, the great-grandson of the authoress, I was getting these ' ' Recollections ready for the press. This was merely a jest, not seriously meant, but it nevertheless emphasises one feature which distinguishes Mme. Golovine's work from the many productions of the same class, for, in an age when clandestine literature itself borrows from the press its means of propagation, these ' ' Recollections have reached a very wide public, even before the present edition, to which I nevertheless congratu- late myself that I have devoted great care. I am not alluding only to a Russian translation, published in 1900 by M. Choumigorski, the numerous gaps in which are to be explained by the severities of a censorship that now finds no defenders, nor yet to the numerous extracts, reproduced, many years ago, in various publications in Russia, France, and other countries, but even in MS. ' the Recollections,' since they were first written, passed freely from hand to hand, and a considerable number of copies were made of them. I personally have possessed as many as five, from various sources. This wide publicity before any actual printed publication is sufficient attestation of the exceptional value of the book which has enjoyed it, but various reasons contribute to make this value greater. ' ' In the first place, the Recollections were written by v vi PREFACE their authoress not only at the request, but, in part at least, with the collaboration of a great lady who, in a recent publication, has been made to emerge from the discreet obscurity in which she had hitherto dwelt. When she asked Mme. Golovine to devote her leisure to this task, the Empress Elizabeth, wife of Alexander I, offered not ' ' only to assist the production of the Recollections by her advice, but also to revise and check them. Now, as the volumes which have already appeared of the interesting work of his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovitch allow us to perceive, Elizabeth Alexieievna, though voluntarily effacing herself in the midst of the stirring events of her day, was neither ignorant of them, nor indifferent to them. I have in my hands some papers which I hope some day to publish for they appear to me most instructive, from the point of view of French, even more than Russian history which show this amiable princess engaged in a correspondence by no means lacking in political penetration. Herself outside this sphere of action, Mme. Golovine is only its echo, and the vicissitudes of Court life separated her in the end from her most valuable source of information, ' ' so that the latter part of her Recollections becomes almost entirely a personal biography, which is not, however, on that account without interest and charm. The Court of Catherine II, the reigns of Paul I and of Alexander I, grouped round the throne a number of striking feminine figures, attractive and engaging for various reasons. In this brilliant constellation Barbara Nicolaievna stands unrivalled, through a combination of qualities, or even also of failings, that give her a captivating originality. Having lived in the intimacy of the Empress Catherine, she had an unbounded admiration and devotion for that great ruler, receiving from her in return proofs of very exceptional confidence and affection. And yet she shared none of her weaknesses she was not affected in the least ; by her environ- ment, and never at any time allowed herself to be so dazzled by the fascination and corruption of her surroundings, PREFACE vii or as to permit the slightest infringement of her principles, to abate one jot of the independence of her judgment. For this reason her testimony as to the events she wit- nessed is of great value. She saw everything clearly and estimated it with an upright and naturally calm judgment. Personally above reproach, she was able, with regard to the errors of others, to maintain, not the easy indulgence that inclines to guilty compromise, but the broad comprehension which guards one from excessive severity. After the accession of Alexander I, induced by various reasons to go abroad for a time, she took a very keen, but at the same time a very sympathetic, view of the France that was taking up her life again after the revolutionary turmoil. She was present at the end of the Consulate and the beginning of the Empire. Accidental relations brought her in familiar contact with the remnants of the old aristoc- racy that was then in process of reconstitution. In this circle, having espoused the ideas, the feelings, and the interests of her French friends, she did not show herself able to maintain the reserve that, as a foreigner, she ought to have done. More royalist than many of her friends, she even followed some of them into the arena of political controversy. She violently censured Buonaparte. But she was not alone among the Russians of her day to do so, and there again, as reflecting the passions of the time, her testimony is not devoid of interest. In a word, she wrote passing in review the great and small events with which her life was interwoven, and, with no experience of the art of writing, and, too, with no pre- tensions to having such, she acquired, thanks to natural and hereditary talent, if not the mastery of literary expres- sion, at any rate a grace of style that has given pleasure to many readers. Daughter of Lieutenant-General Prince Nicholas Fio- dorovitch Galitzine (1728-1780) and of Prascovia Ivanovna Chouvalov (1734-1802), she belongs by birth to two families whose claims to fame require no comment. From her mother's side she inherited literary and artistic tastes viii PREFACE and aptitudes, for Prascovia Ivanovna was the sister of the favourite of another Elizabeth the daughter of Peter the Great Ivan Ivanovitch Chouvalov (1727-1798), who, the founder of the University of Moscow and of the Academy of Fine Arts, was able to play Maecenas even abroad during the voluntary exile of fifteen years which he imposed upon himself after the death of his Imperial friend. And men of letters, even in France, are acquainted with the other Chouvalov, Andrew Petrovitch (1727-1783), who, the correspondent of Voltaire, of d'Alembert and of La Harpe, rhymed verses of no small merit to the memory of Ninon. The childhood and early youth of Barbara Nicolaievna were, however, spent away from the influence of her illus- trious relations. Born in 1766, until 1780 she lived with her parents at Petrovskoie, a residence quite in the country, in the province of Moscow, where she only associated with country neighbours of very little refinement. Her father, of whom we hear little, seems himself to have been uninter- esting. Her mother, though intelligent, and solicitously devoting herself to her daughter's education, had no facilities at Petrovskoie for giving her proper advantages, and her uncle, Ivan Ivanovitch, was travelling, having taken with him to Italy and France the elder of Barbara Nicolaievna's two brothers, Fiodor. Suddenly, in 1780, a new destiny opened out before the future Countess Golovine. Her father died, her younger brother Ivan having preceded him to the grave (1777), and her uncle came back. Princess Galitzine decided to join, at St. Petersburg, this dearly loved brother, who, a bachelor and with no other near relatives, seemed inclined to con- centrate all his affections upon these who were left him. Reduced now to three persons, the family occupied a house next to Chouvalov's, on the Nevski Prospect, at the angle of the great Sadovaia ; a door between the houses made the two homes one, and Barbara Nicolaievna was soon the heart and soul delight and the happiness of them both. She rapidly filled up the gaps in the rudimentary instruc- tion that she had received at Petrovskoie. Ivan Ivanovitch PREFACE ix had brought back from Rome and from Paris precious art collections, antique marbles, pictures, engravings, and a valuable library, and the girl drew up the inventory of them with a delight and a fervour that made her devote herself thenceforward to artistic and literary pursuits. She read a great deal, but drew even more. Soon she learned to paint, and showed a feeling for nature, and a skill and critical perception of which we have proof in the many examples of her work that have come down to us, and a share of which she seems to have transmitted to all her ' ' descendants. In addition to the Recollections she left behind her numbers of sketchbooks, and her daughters and grandsons have filled the blank pages of them with drawings, landscapes, and views of old Paris, now disappeared, por- traits and caricatures, so that they form a most attractive collection. Barbara Nicolaievna herself gives evidence in them of real artistic gifts. Some of her works have been reproduced, amongst others, a portrait of Potemkine, which is perhaps the most expressive picture in existence of the celebrated favourite of the great Catherine. M. Rovinski mentions also eulogistically, in his 'Lexicon of Engraved Russian ' iv. Portraits (ii. 856, and 393), a drawing representing the ' ' Empress seated under the famous Colonnade at Tsarskoie- ' ' Sielo.
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