His funeral dwells in my memory as the most imposing pageant I had ever seen. When his body was carried from the palace to the Fortress Church, it was borne between double lines of troops standing closely together on each side of the avenues for a distance of five miles; marshals of the empire carried the lesser crowns and imperial insignia before his body; and finally were borne the great imperial crown, orb, and scepter, the masses of jewels in them, and especially the Orloff diamond swinging in the top of the scepter, flashing forth vividly on that bright winter morning, and casting their rays far along the avenues. Behind the body walked the Emperor Alexander and the male members of the imperial family.
Later came the burial in the Fortress Church of St.
Peter and St. Paul, on the island of the Neva, nearly opposite the Winter Palace. That, too, was most imposing.
Choirs had been assembled from the four great cathedrals of the empire, and their music was beyond dreams. At the proper point in the service, the Emperor and his brothers, having taken the body of their father from its coffin and wrapped it in a shroud of gold cloth, carried it to the grave near that of Peter the Great, at the right of the high altar; and, as it was laid to rest, and beautiful music rose above us, the guns of the fortress on all sides of the church sounded the battle-roll until the whole edifice seemed to rock upon its foundations. Never had Iimagined a scene so impressive.
Among the persons with whom it was my duty to deal, in behalf of our representative, was the Prime Minister of Russia,--the Minister of Foreign Affairs,--Count Nesselrode.
He was at that period the most noted diplomatist in the world; for, having been associated with Talleyrand, Metternich, and their compeers at the Congress of Vienna, he was now the last of the great diplomatists of the Napoleonic period. He received me most kindly and said, ``So you are beginning a diplomatic career?'' My answer was that I could not begin it more fitly than by making the acquaintance of the Nestor of diplomacy, or words to that effect, and these words seemed to please him. Whenever he met me afterward his manner was cordial, and he seemed always ready to do all in his power to favor the best relations between the two countries.
The American colony in Russia at that period was small, and visitors were few; but some of these enlivened us. Of the more interesting were Colonel Samuel Colt of Hartford, inventor of the revolver which bears his name, and his companion, Mr. Dickerson, eminent as an expert in mechanical matters and an authority on the law of patents. They had come into the empire in the hope of making a contract to supply the Russians with improved arms such as the allies were beginning to use against them in the Crimea; but the heavy conservatism of Russian officials thwarted all their efforts. To all representations as to the importance of improved arms the answer was, ``Our soldiers are too ignorant to use anything but the old `brown Bess.' '' The result was that the Russian soldiers were sacrificed by thousands; their inferiority in arms being one main cause of their final defeat.
That something better than this might have been expected was made evident to us all one day when Iconducted these gentlemen through the Imperial Museum of the Hermitage, adjoining the Winter Palace. After looking through the art collections we went into the room where were preserved the relics of Peter the Great, and especially the machines of various sorts made for him by the mechanics whom he called to his aid from Holland and other Western countries. These machines were not then shut up in cases, as they now are, but were placed about the room and easy of access. Presently I heard Mr. Dickerson in a loud voice call out: ``Good God! Sam, come here! Only look at this!'' On our going to him, he pointed out to us a lathe for turning irregular forms and another for copying reliefs, with specimens of work still in them. ``Look at that,'' he said. ``Here is Blanchard's turning-lathe, which only recently has been reinvented, which our government uses in turning musket-stocks, and which is worth a fortune. Look at those reliefs in this other machine; here is the very lathe for copying sculpture that has just been reinvented, and is now attracting so much attention at Paris.''
These machines had stood there in the gallery, open to everybody, ever since the death of Peter, two hundred years before, and no human being had apparently ever taken the trouble to find the value of them.
But there came Americans of a very different sort, and no inconsiderable part of our minister's duties was to keep his hot-headed fellow-citizens from embroiling our country with the militant powers.
A very considerable party in the United States leaned toward Russia and sought to aid her secretly, if not openly. This feeling was strongest in our Southern States and among the sympathizers with slavery in our Northern States, a main agent of it in St. Petersburg being Dr.
Cottman of New Orleans, and its main causes being the old dislike of Great Britain, and the idea among pro-slavery fanatics that there was a tie between their part of our country and Russia arising from the fact that while the American Republic was blessed with slavery, the Russian Empire was enjoying the advantages of the serf system. This feeling might have been very different had these sympathizers with Russia been aware that at this very moment Alexander II was planning to abolish the serf system throughout his whole empire; but as it was, their admiration for Russia knew no bounds, and they even persuaded leading Russians that it would not be a difficult matter to commit America to the cause of Russia, even to aiding her with arms, men, and privateers.
