by Jane Cook
“He [Armstrong] never shows himself,” Caulaincourt bluntly complained of Armstrong’s failure to attend French social diplomatic functions. “Upon every little occasion, when by a verbal explanation with the minister he might obtain anything, he presents little peevish notes.”
Instead of building relationships at social occasions or speaking off the record by meeting with France’s foreign affairs minister, Armstrong stayed home, hiding behind written communication with the French government.
Though the hallway in which they stood was long, John felt cornered by the Frenchman’s quick jabs, as if in a fencing match. If they had been at a ball, he could have made an excuse to slip into the next room to check on Louisa or get something to drink. The talk about Armstrong was worse than scoring in a duel. It was an intriguing maneuver to trap him into making promises “of which I might be easily made the dupe.”
He couldn’t escape. He must stand firm and play the game of non-commitment. Before he could practice the art of evasion, Alexander ended their match. The imperial family arrived in the chapel. The service was about to begin. “Just as we were at this stage, however, of the conversation, we were summoned to the Te Deum.”
A relieved John entered the palace chapel. Why was Caulaincourt telling him so much about Armstrong? Were his motives to strengthen US-French relations, or was there something more devious about it? Did he truly believe that Adams had the talent to succeed in the French court, or did he somehow feel threatened by him in Russia? Putting all that aside, what was in the best interest of the United States? To serve in Russia or France?
Thousands of thoughts must have crossed his mind as he listened to the unison chanting of hymns and watched the emperor kiss the crucifix. Ceremony rescued him from confrontation.
As August 1810 came to a close, John sensed the winds of autumn cooling his arctic post. He knew the clock was ticking for the American vessels that could not sell their cargo in Archangel. Though he had given Romanzoff a written explanation, the chancellor had not made a decision. Once again John visited the count to confront the problem.
Romanzoff, in contrast, wanted to discuss other business. The matter involved territory occupied by the Aleutian people on Alakshak, “the great land.” Shortening the Aleutian name, the Russians called the peninsula Alaska.
Russia had long traded exclusively with China from posts in that expansive territory. Members of the Russian government wanted to open the route to American trade. They had only one prerequisite. The US government must prevent the sale of weapons from its Northwest Territory to the region’s native tribes, who used the guns against Russian traders.
Adams’s reserved nature probably kept his eyes from opening wide in disbelief. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The United States held no more control over its western territories than it did over Great Britain. Explorers Lewis and Clark had only recently achieved their western explorations. The US government could barely manage Indiana, much less posts along the Pacific Northwest. Romanzoff might as well have asked Adams to wrestle a grizzly bear. Opening trade on these routes was plausible, but restricting weapon sales to tribes? Impossible. Holding back his opinion, Adams deftly agreed to write the US government about the count’s proposition.
John then brought up the worrisome issue anchored in his mind. “I now recurred to the cases of the American vessels which have arrived at Archangel and at Kronstadt to whose admission so many difficulties and days have been opposed.”
Because Archangel was even farther north than St. Petersburg, the waters there would be sealed within a month, by September’s end. The ship captains needed time to unload their cargo and purchase new loads for their return voyage before the season closed. “I urged the necessity of a very speedy decision concerning them.”
The count did not budge. Adams tried sweet talk, noting the “peculiar favor which his Imperial Majesty had been pleased to manifest to the United States.”
Adams noted, “I flattered myself that I was promoting the interests of His Majesty’s empire as much as those of my own country; that the number of American vessels which had come here, and the quantity of Russian productions which they would take in return, were highly favorable to the agriculture and manufactures of this country.”
Though noncommittal, Romanzoff allowed Adams to present additional evidence, which included statements from American merchants that he had collected from letters, newspapers, and personal conversations.
The Russian government claimed to want free trade with America, but obstacle after obstacle hindered it. The emperor’s proclaimed policy conflicted with the practices of his bureaucracy. Was the czar professing trade while doing something else? The possibility of pretense was highly likely and concerning.
Holding back his true feelings, Adams put on a diplomatic front. He explained that he was willing to take up the matter with Baron Campenhausen, the new Russian minister of commerce, but that he had yet to be introduced to him: “I hoped Baron Campenhausen would be made sensible of these circumstances.”
Saying he was “fully sensible of the weight and justice” of the problem, Romanzoff agreed to write him an introduction to Campenhausen.
“But he was extremely apt to entertain suspicions,” Romanzoff warned about Campenhausen. “And possibly some delays might arise from the circumstances.”
“My countrymen felt an extraordinary anxiety at these unusual detentions,” Adams explained, reminding the count that Portugal, Denmark, and Prussia also closed their ports to American cargo.
“The emperor’s sentiments and intentions with regard to the United States remained unaltered,” Romanzoff promised, assuring him that the emperor’s position had not changed.
John then fired off his frustration against the French. Each time he received favorable assurances from the French minister, the French government covertly closed another nation’s port to American trade.
“In the midst of all these violent ill offices which France was doing to us, her government was making . . . the most friendly sentiments toward us.”
He then explained how Caulaincourt had reached out to him, offering him assurances even in the past week of wanting to strengthen France’s relationship with America. At the same time, he had just learned that the French government told its consuls based in the United States to stop issuing licenses to US ships leaving Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other ports. French consuls everywhere were to consider all French licenses given to American ships in the United States as forgeries. Just as offensive, French officials were spreading the idea in Prussia that America did not produce colonial goods, such as cotton or sugar cane.
“This was sporting with the common sense of mankind,” he fumed.
Romanzoff listened. The pair then bantered like two old pals about politics. Adams left more hopeful than he came. Perhaps he had caught a fair wind. Maybe Romanzoff’s note to Campenhausen would free the American vessels trapped at Archangel. But if those ships didn’t unload their cargo soon, they would lose everything and be stuck, broke in Russia for the winter without enough coins to bet on the date when the frozen river would break up.
“Several very recent and rich captures have however occurred,” Adams wrote to the US secretary of state in a letter in late August 1810.
He updated his superior on his conversation with Romanzoff. Since the opening of St. Petersburg’s ports, he had ceased using the czar’s land courier to take his letters to Paris. He had no assurance that this correspondence would reach Washington City, but he had important news to attempt to share nonetheless.
The Danish government had taken a convoy of fifty ships into Kristiansand. Among them were at least eight American ships that sailed from Kronstadt in June. “Some of them had dispatches on board from me to your department,” he added woefully, wondering whether the letter he was currently composing would share the same fate.
Just as he saw the threat of impressment with his own eyes while aboard the Horace last summer, so
America’s latest problems also affected him personally. Both his official and his personal correspondence were aboard one of the newly confiscated ships.
Would his sons ever receive the gifts he sent them? He had purchased three packs of cards for George. The cards were in French and featured the ancient histories of Rome, Greece, and France. He also bought a picture book for John.
“I write to you both together, to assure you that although far distant from you, I always bear you both in my thoughts with tender affection,” he wrote to his sons.
In a letter to his brother Thomas, Adams asked him to be a father to his sons and make sure that George learned French, improved his handwriting, and developed athletic skills in skating and horseback riding. He also wanted him to learn the proper way to handle a musket. That was not the only sport on Adams’s mind. Perhaps his recent conversations with Caulaincourt, a battle of wits, revived a memory from his youth.
“I wish, indeed, he could have an opportunity to take lessons of drawing and of fencing, of both of which I learnt a little at his age, or soon after, and of which I always regret that I did not learn more.”
Drawing developed coordination skills, but fencing was even better, a lesson in how to overcome an opponent. He had learned fencing from a French instructor at the boarding school at Passy.
“The second [fencing] is a very good exercise, and besides its tendency to invigorate the constitution, contributes to quicken the operations of the eye, and to give firmness and pliancy to those of the hand.”
Louisa, too, was worried about the obstacles facing American ships. She feared that the letter she had recently written to Aunt Cranch might not reach Boston.
Would the Danish pirates keep John and George from learning of her request to “Kiss my sweet boys for me”? Very possibly. They were too young to realize that Napoleon’s practices had turned all of Europe into pirates. Bonaparte and the British blockades were the very reasons they had not received fresh reminders of their mother’s and father’s love for them.
What was really going on with France? Adams didn’t know. How closely connected was Caulaincourt to Napoleon? He wasn’t entirely sure what to believe about the news he recently heard about the French ambassador. Before coming to St. Petersburg, was Caulaincourt an accomplice in the murder of a French nobleman?
28
French Accomplice
ON THE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 12, 1810, JOHN QUINCY SHARED A conversation with his friend Mr. Montréal. The pair often exchanged books and discussed current events. On this day Montréal decided to tell Adams the truth behind Caulaincourt’s “honorable” exile to Russia.
Six years earlier as an aide-de-camp general to Napoleon, Caulaincourt led a corps of French troops. In March 1804, he received an order to go to Strasbourg, a French border town with Prussia. There on the square, Strasbourg’s mayor handed him a sealed envelope, which contained the most shocking requirement of his military career. Napoleon ordered him to use his troops to capture and imprison the Duke d’Enghien, a member of the Bourbons, the family behind the French monarchy overthrown years earlier during the French Revolution.
The mission was odd because the duke’s whereabouts were known for years. With the full consent of Napoleon, the Duke d’Enghien lived in exile in Prussia. His banishment from France was strange because it was so loose. On several occasions Bonaparte allowed the duke to cross the border to attend plays in Strasbourg. What no one knew was just how paranoid the French emperor had become. Napoleon suspected the duke was conspiring to create a new coalition against his government.
Always a faithful soldier, Caulaincourt obeyed Napoleon’s orders. He arrested the duke on March 15, 1804.
“The duke had notice of the approach of French troops, and was advised to make his escape, as it was supposed they had no other object but to take him; but . . . refused on the idea that there could be any design to seize him,” John recorded of Montréal’s account.
Caulaincourt’s troops captured the duke and took him to prison that night. After a quick tribunal, the duke was shot at 2:00 a.m. the next day.
In the days that followed, newspapers published witnesses’ statements presented at the tribunal. Many of these witnesses cried foul, claiming their statements were fabrications. The trial proved a sham. The duke’s death reminded many in France of the French Revolution, when members of the nobility were mercilessly executed. Napoleon seemed no better than the murderous generation before him.
“[Caulaincourt] was very much distressed having such a commission entrusted to him but he executed it,” John relayed of Montréal’s explanation.
Bonaparte rewarded Caulaincourt by giving him the ambassadorship to Russia along with other honors and titles. When the Russian nobility heard that he was an accomplice in the duke’s death, they were outraged. Caulaincourt’s appointment became so controversial that he was forced to defend his role in the incident to Alexander. Readily accepting Caulaincourt’s explanation, and perhaps mindful of the accusations against his involvement in his father’s death, he vindicated Caulaincourt.
The Russian czar was so convinced that the French ambassador was unaware of the sham and merely following his commanding officer’s orders that he issued an exoneration letter to the Russian elite. Caulaincourt’s high style and lavish parties later made him a favorite among these same nobles in St. Petersburg.
Enlightened by this revelation, Adams was more determined than ever to stand up for his country against the French.
No doubt a part of Adams was jealous of Caulaincourt’s access to Alexander. The Frenchman’s favor seemed unrivaled. In contrast John feared he had just made a fool of himself. The incident was his most embarrassing moment since arriving in St. Petersburg.
“It is the anniversary festival of St. Alexander Nevsky, a Prince of Novogorad, who reigned about the year 1250,” Adams recorded in his diary on September 11, 1810. “And is also what they call the name day of the emperor.”
Hearing that the annual ceremony was highly popular, John and William left in the morning and rode in their carriage down the crowded Nevsky Prospective to the monastery at the end of the road.
The number of people filling the street grew greater with each passing block. The crowds were so large, their numbers confirmed to Adams what he suspected: the feast day of St. Alexander Nevsky was one of the most important events on the Russian calendar. “[T]he concourse of the people, from the perspective to the church, on both sides of the street, was excessive.”
The crush of the crowd filling the square outside the church rivaled the scene he had seen the previous Easter. As they entered the Holy Trinity Cathedral, the earthy smell of the paupers stood out to the two Americans as much as the impressive classical architecture.
“When we got to the church, we found it difficult to ascertain a proper place to stand.” The cathedral’s spacious dome hovered high above, fulfilling its purpose of pointing them heavenward. In contrast, the floor surrounding them was packed with people. Adams’s full court dress stood out among the tattered, sacklike cloaks of the Russian common men squeezing next to them. Finding a place to fit comfortably in the crowd was not his biggest challenge. The American diplomat quickly wondered whether he was supposed to be there at all.
“None of the other foreign ministers were there,” the reserved Adams observed. No one from his rank, not even Ambassador Caulaincourt, was in view.
Wasn’t this St. Petersburg’s most important celebration? Shouldn’t the envoys attend such an event? After all, the emperor was named after Alexander Nevsky, who drove out the Swedes from the Neva River in 1240 and became a powerful prince. Before his death Prince Nevsky took monastic vows, which earned him sainthood status. Peter the Great built the monastery on the exact spot where Nevsky defeated the Swedes. The feast day marks the day in 1724 when Nevsky’s remains were moved to the monastery and enshrined in a silver sarcophagus, displayed at the church’s altar in front of them.
Soon Count Schenk, the mini
ster from Würtemberg, arrived, pushing his way through the crowds. Schenk was “as much embarrassed as myself.” With no place designated for diplomats, he stood next to Adams.
Seeing their plight, Romanzoff rescued the red-faced foreign representatives. “Count Romanzoff, at length seeing me, came to me and stood next to me during the whole ceremony, and explained to me many parts of the performances.”
Watching the proceedings surrounding the silver shrine immediately turned into a sterling opportunity for Adams, enabling him to show genuine interest in one of Russia’s most sacred customs. Romanzoff explained his church’s traditions as they unraveled before them. His easy manner soon erased John’s embarrassment at being one of only two diplomats in attendance.
What stood out most about the church was the red carpet lining the cold, stone floor in front of the silver shrine. With his empress to his left, Alexander took his place of prominence. The rest of the imperial family fanned out across the carpet while crown attendants lined the steps leading to the shrine.
Unlike the cathedral with its simple classical architecture, this shrine was old-style baroque featuring intricate engravings. The sarcophagus was unusual. While its canopy resembled a coffin lid, it hovered three feet above the base. Thin silver rods, carved like ropes, connected the canopy to the coffin at each of the four corners. The paneled partition behind the coffin depicted scenes of ancient Russia. Near the top of the partition was a framed painting of St. Nevsky, flanked by angels.
As Romanzoff explained, the archbishop lit three candles to represent the Trinity and two candles to symbolize the dual nature of Christ as both man and God.