RUSSIA.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XV, Issue 80, 3 January 1857, Page 3

RUSSIA.

The correspondent of the Daily News gives the following account of Lord Granville's reception at the Court of St. Petersburg on the 11th of August: —

"Our special embassy had its turn under circumstances calculated to give the British people and their representative entile satisfacfaction. They went down to Petefhoff, in the Princess Alice, and were received at the de'bafcadere by some of the high officers of the court. Imperial carriages were in attendance to convey them in the first instance to the English palace, where they found an elegant dejeuner prepared for them, and every convenience for making their court toilettes. They were then conveyed to the imperial palace, where, in the first instance, Lord Granville was presented to the Emperor at a private audience of some duration, after which his lordship presented id succession all the members of his embassy. The emperor was, I understand, all cordiality and condescension, frequently addressing the persons present in the English and Frond languages. His Imperial Majesty's deportment is spoken of in terms of high admiration by every one who had the honour of a presentation. Subsequently, Lady Granville was presented to the Empress, and in her tarn presented the ladies of her suite, the Marchioness of Stafford, Lady Emily Peel, and Lady Margaret Leveson Gower. Char-a-bancs were in waiting, into which the whole party got at the termination of the ceremonial, and a drive round the beautiful grounds of Petcrhoff fillet! up the time until dinner, which, like the breakfast, was prepared at the English palace. At this banquet several of the high officers of the court were present, amongst whom the son of Count Nesselrode was active in discharging the duties of hospitality to the distinguished guests. At 11 o'clock the whole party were safely conveyed to town in the Princess Alice, being the first time that the voyage has been performed at that late hour by a vessel of her tonnage. So ended a very pleasant day for the British embassy."

The interest which lately attached to the letters of " our own correspondents" from the Crimea is now transferred to the letters from St. Petersburg and Moscow, which may be expected to engross a considerable share of public attention until the fetes of the coronation are over. The journals teem with descriptive particulars of the magnificence in preparation for that august ceremonial ; and if we rhay credit the accounts we have received, the world has never yet witnessed such a scene of barbaric pomp and splendour. Curiosity is concentrated on the representatives of the three leading foreign powers, Lord Granville, Count Moray, and Prince Esterhazy, whose movements and appointments are chronicled with minute fidelity. It seems there was a race between Prince Esterhazy and Count Morny to secure the first presentation to the Emperor, as upon the priority of presentation depends the position to be occupied at the coronation. In order to make sure of this important point, the prince set out in the utmost haste, and outstripped his arrival, arriving in St. Petersburg before him. He immediately desired to be presented officially ; but it was discovered that he had left his credentials behind him, so he was obliged to wait till they could be forwarded. In the meanwhile Count Morny arrived, and intercepted him at the palace.

The following sketch of Prince Esterhazy' s state is from the correspondence of the Mor?iing Post : —

"Among other personages here is Prince^ Paul Esterhazy, the Austrian envoy, whose ap- v pearance at the coronation is expected to be surrounded with a magnificence inferior only to that of the French and English ambassadors. His diamonds are known to be among the finest possessed by any private person in the world, and far excel those which several" crowned heads could boast ; they constitute, it is said, a large part of his entire wealth. These diamonds are actually to decorate his housings. All the envoys — the representatives » of all the Powers and States of Europe — seem to have orders to spare no expense to do houour to Alexander 11., and to increase by their emulous magnificence the solemnity of a coronation which is understood to be a sort of sacred ratification of* the general peace. Here at St. Petersburg nothing is talked of but these splendid preparations ; stories are told of the credit which this envoy and that envoy, or the distinguished individuals that accompany them, have brought upon Baron Stieglitz and other bankers •, everybody pretends to set everybody else right respecting the exact amounts, and the most enormous sums are mentioned. I:i the midst of this tattle and this pretended exactitude about thousands and hundreds of thousands, there is one 'credit' which eclipses all the rest for exactly the opposite reason. It is the French ambassador's. ' Sir, I have seen the letter with these eyes,' says a jwell-knowu wholesale merchant of gossip. ' Aud the amount?' He draws in his breath with a whistling sound ere he will gratify the curiosity of the silently-expectant group ;' and

then, in an awful undertone, pronounces these words, 'No amount — any amount. The credit is unlimited.' — illindU."

Of the magnitude of Count Morny's establishment, the same writer supplies 'the following illustration : —

"M. de Moray's mode of living touches the very chord which most readily vibrates in Russia into goodwill and admiration. One little fact will show the scale on which his establishment is conducted. Every morning regularly 100 bottles of Mcdoc are delivered at his door for the use of his domestic servants till next morning. Among the vulgar in Russia the number of a great personage's domestic servants is, in the higher and more princely sphere of life, all through the year, that gauge of his social pretensions which the fur in the collar of his snooba constitutes in a more humble station during the winter months."

Here follow, from the same source, some characteristic anecdotes of the English embassy :—: —

" The Hotel Demouth, where Lord Granville is sojourning for the short time before the corps diplomatique set out to Moscow, is situated on the first canal that crosses the Nevsky Prospect, and crowds of isvostchiks and other Russian idlers of the lower class, succeeded each other all day long, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, on both sides of the canal, and upon the police bridge, or Politziiskoe Most, to gaze at such of the new inmates as occasionally appeared upon the massive balcony. One, an English naval officer, attracted the greatest attention, thanks to his thoroughly professional look, and to the uniform which set it off. The isvostchiks were never tired pointing to him, and then to their own shoulders, to indicate the gleam of his ponderous bullion epaulettes, exclaiming, ' Ah ! dobrah eta ! Ah ! carasho !' — ' Ah ! how fine he is ! how splendid !' Lord Granville is quite right to attach importance to his being attended by a hundred valets-a-pied at the coronation. The Russians cannot conceive what ambassadors come here for, if not to spend plenty of money — and then to have considerably less than the full benefit of it. Everybody, from the isvostchik who drives you, to the landlord who lets you his house, cheats everybody else in a good-humoured spirit. If the imposter is detected by you, he respects your acuteness as having beaten him ; but it is all a sort of game — better luck next time. If his imposition passes good, he still respects you as being able to stand it. None are despised but those who have nothing to be cheated out of. The French ambassador is

revered, venerated at this moment in St. Peters-

burg ; and if a story w hich I have just heard be true, as I believe it to be, Lord Granville (who, by the way, has just this instant arrived at Cronstadt) will be held in equal veneration at Moscow. The statement is this : he has, of course, taken a house at Moscow ; but he has taken it only for a month, the requisite period. Prince Dolgorouki, the Minister of War, has also taken a house at Moscow for a month. There is not very much difference in the accommodations of the respective houses (except that Lord Granville's has no suitable ballroom) ; and what do you suppose each pays ? Lord Granville pays 40,000 silver roubles; Prince Dolgorouki B,ooo— the one £7,000, the other £1,200." Lord Granville left St. Petersburg for Moscow on the 18th August, and was followed thp next day by the remaining members of the embassy. The correspondent of the Daily News, previously to leaving St. Petersburg for Moscow, relates a few incidents in connexion with his mission to Russia which are not without interest. He says : — " The rivalry between the special embassies will, I believe, be considerable, and a rather humourous indication of it has already got into circulation. It is said that Prince Esterhazy's agent at Moscow, from having been early in the field, was able to obtain a suitable house for his serene highness at the moderate charge of 17,000 roubles the month, but that the prince subsequently hearing that the British and French ambassadors were respectively paying 40,000, he indignantly cancelled his contract, and insisted on having a house at the same price. The serene ambition was easily gratified. A new coat of paint, a new name, and a new rate of rental, soon brought the original house up to the Prince's notion of what was suitable for the representative of the Austrian Emperor." The expertness of the Russian swell mob is thus described by the same writer : — " Lord Waid, whose long residence in Italy has, I believe, made him an admirer of religious ceremonial, took the opportunity of being present at the Smolensko fete, an annual

festival to which the mujiks repair to weep,

and subsequently feast actually over the graves their deceased relatives. While his lordship ■^as gazing on this interesting scene, one of the least absorbed of the mourners contrived to abstract his watch and chain, in a manner that would haye done honour to a London professional, to the great surprise of the aristocratic observer of Russian national customs. A greater wonder, however, yet remains to be told, which is, that his lcrdship is likely to get

it back again through the agency of the English magazin, the thief having by an odd coincidence brought it to one of the workmen, employed in that establishment, for sale. Should he do so, it will be looked upon as

rather a novelty in St. Petersburg, as the Russian police are almost as subject to legal doubts as the late Lord Eldon, when called upon to decide on the restoration of stolen property."