1828.] 



C 73 ] 



MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 



Rrivate Anecdotes of Foreign Courts, by 

 iJie Author of the Memoirs of the Princess 

 de Lamballe, $c. 2 vols. 8vo. 1827 These 

 volumes are announced as the production of 

 the author of the Memoirs of the Princess de 

 Lamballe, as if that were an ample pledge 

 for authenticity. The writer of those memoirs 

 withheld her name, and great names though 

 she uses familiarly enough, she herself re- 

 quires a guarantee, and certainly is in no 

 state to supply others with one. By the eva- 

 sive manoeuvres now-a-days so commonly and 

 so unworthily practised, it is not evident where 

 the lady's communications end apparently 

 they do not cover much more than half of the 

 first volume, and that half bears internal evi- 

 dence, of the most irrefragable kind, that sonic 

 of it does not proceed from a female pen. The 

 remaining parts of the first volume are pro- 

 fessedly taken from the " Portfeuille " of one 

 Baron de M. who in the preface is said to be 

 a disgraced minister of the court of Prussia, 

 and in the body of the narrative, he speaks 

 of himself as one, whose exertions had been 

 worse than unrecompensed ; and the whole 

 of the second volume is supplied by M. de 

 Bausset, prefect of the palace to Napoleon. 



To justify the doubts we have expressed, we 

 will just point out a passage or two. Speaking 

 of accommodations at Munich, the author 

 says, that at the principal hotel, the Red-deer, 

 frequented by citizens of the first respecta- 

 bility, as well as by officers civil and military 

 of his majesty's household, they bring you, 

 if you ask for a towel in the morning, a piece 

 of linen, fit only for a razor-rag. Is this the 

 language of one with a smooth chin ? Again 

 in the chief inns of Vienna and in short 

 throughout Austria generally, instead of a 

 bolster at the head of a bed, you find a sack, 

 either of oats, corn, or chopped hay. The 

 bedstead itself is not unlike the boxes wherein 

 the poor are conveyed to be buried by the pa- 

 rish just big enough to hold one small-sized 

 person, and certainly not sufficiently large to 

 accommodate a moderately-sized man. The 

 consequence is, that an individual of six feet 

 or so } must knock out the foot-board, and 

 place the hah of his legs upon a chair, in or- 

 der to stretch himself at his ease, which the 

 savages of the country say is only necessary 

 after a man is dead. Are these the phrases 

 of a lady, or of some brutal grenadier ? , 

 Again, speaking of the high-road from Ham- 

 burgh to Hanover, she says it was truly hor- 

 rible to do it strict justice, it can only be 

 compared to those mountains of loose stones 

 which we now see heaped up together by the 

 Macadamizing gentry, in the streets of Lon- 

 don. Louis XIV. obtained fame, and pro- 

 perly too, by making all the high-roads out 

 of Paris streets, whilst our authorities are, 

 vice versa, seeking renown by turning the 

 streets of the metropolis into high-roads. Old 

 women and children are, it is true, owing to 



M.M. New Series VOL. V. No. 25. 



the greater swiftness and lesser noise of th e 

 vehicles, constantly run over ; but n'importe >* 

 it is perhaps considered that this, as we shall 

 never have another war, is a good and effectual 

 means of checking the superabundant popu- 

 lation. These are the dainty sentiments of 

 a lady. 



The value of narratives of the pretension of 

 these volumes depends solely on their authen- 

 ticity bearing this in mind, we will slightly 

 skim the contents. The work opens with the 

 Court of Russia, continued for 112 pages, 

 filled with details of the arrival in Russia, of 

 Catherine the second, her marriage, her gal- 

 lantries, the death of her husband, and her 

 own usurpation. Essentially, the accounts 

 do not add to our information in general 

 they correspond with WraxalTs, whose credit 

 has not always been unimpeached ; and on one 

 occasion, Wraxall is appealed to as confirm- 

 ing something ; and some slight variations are 

 pointed out, relative to the Duke of Wirtem- 

 berg, between her statement and his. Any 

 thing more disgusting than the whole series 

 of anecdotes we have seldom seen in print 

 not only from the facts narrated, but from the 

 coarse and indelicate style of allusion in the nar- 

 rative proving, incontestably to our minds, 

 the whole to be the compilation of some pro- 

 fligate and witless libertine. Both Stanislaus 

 and Potemkin are positively stated to have 

 refused to marry Catherine Potemkin pub- 

 licly said he found it much easier to govern a 

 mistress, than he could an imperial wife the 

 fate of Peter was before him. But whenever 

 the empress was displeased with Paul, she 

 used to say, I will marry Potemkin, if it is 

 only to be revenged on you, and deprive you 

 of the crown, by having a legitimate heir. 

 ' Some wild stories are told about Paul's 

 birthi not only that he was not Peter's son, 

 which is probable enough, but that he was 

 not Catherine's. On the authority of one 

 Dalolio, a violoncello player in the suite of 

 Stanislaus, she states what she calls 



The singular fact of the Empress Elizabeth's 

 Laving caused a child of her own, by Razoumoff- 

 sky, to be substituted for that of Catherine at her 

 first accouchement ; and this supposition was 

 greatly strengthened by the excessive fondness 

 at all times shown towards the infant by her im- 

 perial majesty. The circumstaiice of Paul's bear- 

 ing a much more striking resemblance to the Cos- 

 sack favourite of Elizabeth than to either of his 

 reputed parents, was an additional motive for cre- 

 diting the above assertion. On questioning my in- 

 formant, as to what became of the real child of 

 Catherine, he replied, "that it had either been 

 sent off to a distant province or strangled adding, 

 that in a country where so little ceremony was 

 used in dispo-ing of the sovereign himself, it was 

 not likely that much importance would be attached 

 to the existence of a new-born infant.'* 



Evidently all guess work The Russians, 

 even of the first rank, were in the habit of 

 L 



