Two or three years after, the empress ordered him to leave St. Petersburg on account of the troubles in Poland.  It was said that he kept up a correspondence with his brother, who was endeavouring to intercept the fleet under the command of Alexis Orloff.  I never heard what became of him after he left Russia, where he obliged me with the loan of five hundred roubles, which I have not yet been able to return to him.

M. Maruzzi, by calling a Venetian merchant, and by birth a Greek, having left trade to live like a gentleman, came to St. Petersburg when I was there, and was presented at Court.  He was a fine-looking man, and was admitted to all the great houses.  The empress treated him with distinction because she had thoughts of making him her agent at Venice.  He paid his court to the Countess Braun, but he had rivals there who were not afraid of him.  He was rich enough, but did not know how to spend his money; and avarice is a sin which meets with no pity from the Russian ladies.

I went to Czarsko-Zelo, Peterhoff, and Cronstadt, for if you want to say you have been in a country you should see as much as possible of it.  I wrote notes and memorandums on several questions with the hope of their procuring me a place in the civil service, and all my productions were laid before the empress but with no effect.  In Russia they do not think much of foreigners unless they have specially summoned them; those who come of their own account rarely make much, and I suspect the Russians are right.

CHAPTER XXI

I See the Empress—­My Conversations with Her—­The Valville—­I Leave Zaiya I Leave St. Petersburg and Arrive at Warsaw—­The Princes Adam Czartoryski and Sulkowski—­The King of Poland—­Theatrical Intrigues—­Byanicki

I thought of leaving Russia at the beginning of the autumn, but I was told by M M. Panin and Alsuwieff that I ought not to go without having spoken to the empress.

“I should be sorry to do so,” I replied, “but as I can’t find anyone to present me to her, I must be resigned.”

At last Panin told me to walk in a garden frequented by her majesty at an early hour, and he said that meeting me, as it were by chance, she would probably speak to me.  I told him I should like him to be with her, and he accordingly named a day.

I repaired to the garden, and as I walked about I marvelled at the statuary it contained, all the statues being made of the worst stone, and executed in the worst possible taste.  The names cut beneath them gave the whole the air of a practical joke.  A weeping statue was Democritus; another, with grinning mouth, was labelled Heraclitus; an old man with a long beard was Sappho; and an old woman, Avicenna; and so on.

As I was smiling at this extraordinary collection, I saw the czarina, preceded by Count Gregorius Orloff, and followed by two ladies, approaching.  Count Panin was on her left hand.  I stood by the hedge to let her pass, but as soon as she came up to me she asked, smilingly, if I had been interested in the statues.  I replied, following her steps, that I presumed they had been placed there to impose on fools, or to excite the laughter of those acquainted with history.