An attempt against the Tzar’s life was really to be feared, and during a certain time the railway line from Peterhof to Petrograd by which he often travelled had a military guard, a close cordon of troops being placed below the embankment on which the train passed, on both sides of the track. A bomb there would have done important work as these trains were always conveying Ministers and Grand Dukes.
After dinner we often went to listen to “La Musique Rouge,” the Emperor’s private band; the musicians were dressed in red, each one of them being an artist. They played in the park at Peterhof, to which we drove in a large open landau and took our place in the long line of carriages there to meet numbers of friends. These concerts, however, were soon after discontinued on account of the growing troubles.
The Empress-Dowager often came over from Peterhof driving herself a low carriage with a pair of black horses and wearing a black sailor-hat!
Another frequent visitor at Michaelovka was a young Count Toll, in the Lancers of the Guard, cousin of my uncle Count Pahlen, and also related by marriage to the late Russian Ambassador in Paris, Monsieur Isvoltzky; and this recalls to my memory an interesting incident which was the direct cause of the latter’s advancement.
The father of Madame Isvoltzky, _née_ Countess Toll, Russian Minister at Copenhagen, was most anxious to get his daughter suitably married--which seemed rather a difficult task--and informed the Emperor of the situation, who despatched several couriers to Copenhagen with this idea. At last Isvoltzky--whose chief recommendations perhaps were his intelligence and the high favour in which he stood at Court--was sent. On this errand of courtship he was successful, and the Emperor made a career for him. All went well with poor Isvoltzky until the outbreak of the Revolution, when naturally he was amongst the first to be recalled and humbled.
I have often been to their receptions at the Russian Embassy in Paris. He was very clever, but possessed neither the presence nor the exquisite manners of his predecessor, Count de Nelidoff.
The celebration of my Aunt de Baranoff’s birthday was a great event: a regular _défilé_ of celebrities both civil and military; every regiment seemed to have been represented and the drawing-rooms were more than ever filled with flowers--a regular avalanche in fact.