In the aftermath of 1805 we had several times made peace with Napoleon and fallen out with him again, and we had made and unmade new constitutions, but the salons of Anna Pavlovna and Hélène were the same as they had been, respectively, seven and five years before. Anna Pavlovna’s circle went on in the same old way, nonplussed by Bonaparte’s successes, which they saw as linked to indulgence on the part of the sovereigns of Europe in a spiteful plot aimed solely at upsetting and worrying the court circle of which Anna Pavlovna was the representative. Hélène’s circle went on in the same old way, flattered by the gracious presence from time to time of no less a person than Rumyantsev, a great admirer of his hostess’s sharp intelligence; in 1812 these people waxed eloquent, as they had done in 1808, about a ‘great nation’, and a ‘great man’, much regretting the break with France, which, according to Hélène’s regular visitors, was bound to end in peace very soon.
With the Tsar’s return from the army a stir of excitement had run through these rival salons in recent days, resulting in the occasional manifestation of mutual hostility, but each salon remained true to itself. Anna Pavlovna’s set excluded anyone who was French (except for one or two dyed-in-the-wool legitimists), and their idea of patriotism extended to a boycott of the French theatre, and insistence that the French company playing there cost as much to maintain as a whole army corps. They were avid followers of the latest news from the front, encouraging any amount of rumours that greatly favoured our army. In the French circle of Hélène and Rumyantsev any reports of enemy atrocities or the cruelty of war were discounted, and much was made of Napoleon’s repeated attempts at conciliation. This group roundly condemned as premature any suggestion that it was time to plan the evacuation to Kazan of the court school and the girls’ college patronized by the Dowager Empress. Hélène’s salon looked on the whole process as men going through the motions of war, with peace not far away at all, and the general view was that best expressed by Bilibin, who had happened to find himself in Petersburg and was now almost one of the family at Hélène’s, as befitted a man of intelligence: things would be decided not by gunpowder but the brains behind it. The effusions of Moscow, news of which reached Petersburg along with the Tsar, were looked on in Hélène’s salon with knowing irony and a measure of discreetly handled scorn.
In Anna Pavlovna’s circle, by contrast, the same effusions were greeted with much enthusiasm and spoken about gravely; it was like Plutarch speaking of the ancients. Prince Vasily, who had managed to maintain his hold on all the important positions, constituted the one connecting link between the two circles. He used to visit both ‘my good friend Anna Pavlovna’ and ‘my daughter’s diplomatic salon’, and it wasn’t uncommon, with all his comings and goings, for him to get things mixed up and say something at Anna Pavlovna’s that should have been said at Hélène’s.
Soon after the Tsar’s arrival Prince Vasily was deep in conversation about the progress of the war at Anna Pavlovna’s, and he came out strongly against Barclay de Tolly, adding that he could not make up his mind who should be given overall command. One of the guests, acknowledged as ‘a man of real ability’ (and they said that in French), told them he had seen the newly elected commander of the Petersburg militia, Kutuzov, presiding that very day over the enrolment of new recruits at the Treasury, and he would go so far as to suggest with all due caution that Kutuzov might be the man to satisfy all requirements.
Anna Pavlovna gave a lugubrious smile, and observed that Kutuzov had caused the Tsar nothing but trouble.
‘I’ve said it time and again in the Assembly of the Nobility,’ Prince Vasily put in, ‘but nobody listens. I said that electing him to the command of the militia wouldn’t find favour with his Majesty. They don’t listen.
‘It’s this mania for dissent,’ he went on. ‘Don’t ask me why they do it. It’s all because we are trying to ape the stupid effusions of Moscow,’ said Prince Vasily, losing the thread for a moment and forgetting that the effusions in question should be ridiculed at Hélène’s, not at Anna Pavlovna’s, where the right thing to do was admire them. He was quick to put himself in the right. ‘Is it decent for Kutuzov, the oldest general in Russia, to be presiding in those chambers? It won’t get him anywhere! You can’t have a man like him as commander-in-chief. He can’t ride a horse, he falls asleep at meetings, and he’s completely immoral! He earned a marvellous reputation in Bucharest! Never mind his qualities as a general, at a time like this how can we appoint a man who’s on his last legs and blind? Yes, blind! What a splendid idea – a blind general! He can’t see a thing. All right for a spot of blind-man’s buff! . . .’
No one dissented.
