by Jane Cook
They bathed her in warm water, administered laudanum, and gave her digitalis, a drug made from the leaves of the foxglove plant. One doctor ordered that they shave her head and administer blisters to encourage bleeding. The practice of bloodletting dated to the Hippocratic medical writings of ancient Greece and ended in the middle of the nineteenth century with the rise of germ theory. Sometimes physicians or nurses would heat a glass, grease the rim, and hold it over a blister or a cut on the skin to “cup” or draw blood. At other times they would place a leech into a glass of wine, cover the top with a piece of paper, turn the glass over, and remove the paper to allow the leech to bite the patient. They would remove the leech after it produced a teaspoon or so of blood. Physicians at the time thought bleeding would eliminate poisons from the body.
“Language cannot express the feelings of a parent, beholding the long continued agonies of the lovely infant, and finding every expedient attempted to administer relief, utterly unavailing,” John wrote.
Louisa was just as distraught. Though suffering from the negative physical effects of abruptly ending breast feeding, the emotional distress over her daughter’s declining condition was too much for her. Her diary during this time understandingly showed only a few lines. Louisa possibly wrote those later because her dates were out of sync with John’s. His account was much more specific and precise.
“Her mother, fond and affectionate by nature, and attached to this child in particular to an only daughter, affected in her own health very seriously . . . was this afternoon forced to quit the side of the cradle, which for three days and nights before she had scarcely left a minute, and remove to another chamber, to be spared witnessing the last struggles of her expiring life,” John wrote, noting that Kitty and a nurse kept watch by the baby’s cradle. Louisa also “could not keep herself long absent from her.” She moved back and forth to the adjoining chamber.
On September 14 the physicians once again applied a blister to the back of baby Louisa’s head. “A gleam of voluntary hope was kept alive this day from an apparent relaxation of the extreme rigor of the symptoms,” John recorded.
At 8:00 p.m. a change for the worse took place. About this time Kitty fainted, which was an understandable occurrence in the midst of a forty-eight-hour vigil. She resumed her post by the cradle within thirty minutes. John took turns tending to his wife and child, writing, “I was there myself as frequently as I could for a few minutes for my dear wife, who is suffering little less than her child.”
They could do no more. Her convulsions continued. “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. At twenty-five minutes past one this morning, expired my daughter, Louisa Catherine, as lovely an infant as ever breathed the air of heaven,” John wrote on September 15.
The baby died in the presence of Kitty. John delivered the news to Louisa: “My dear wife, to whom it was my lot to communicate the bitter knowledge of the event, fainted for a few minutes but received the shock with a resignation and fortitude, which manifested that her strength had been proportioned to her trial.”
Thirteen months after giving birth to her precious daughter, Louisa Adams said good-bye. She simply stated in her diary: “My child gone to heaven.”
This precious girl, her only daughter, was dead. Louisa’s namesake, her pride, her joy, was gone. She would never forget her smile or her tiny nose. She would never be able to raise her into the woman she could have been. She would never have the chance to teach her how to play the harp or pianoforte. Though she would never hear her daughter sing, she would always be the music of Louisa’s heart.
John took comfort that his daughter was no longer suffering. “Believing in the existence of another and better world than this . . . and that her transition from the pangs of death to the bliss of heaven was instantaneous, and complete.”
He oversaw the funeral arrangements. Two days later, Dr. Pitt, their minister, buried baby Louisa in the graveyard at the English Factory Church. John turned to his faith that day. “I endeavor to collect my scattered spirits and to seek consolation for the heavy calamity that has befallen me by reflecting on the mercies of Divine Providence.” Following the service, John took a walk in the Summer Garden with Charles.
“As life is the gift of God, and is obviously given for enjoyment, it becomes us, not to say that the gift is without value,” John wrote that day. As he bid adieu, he was determined to be thankful for his daughter’s brief life.
In the midst of the wars of 1812, private tragedy struck the Adams household. Domestic tragedy eclipsed the historical drama surrounding them. Without their oldest children, life in St. Petersburg was never what they wanted, but now life in St. Petersburg would never be the same without their baby girl. Their so-called exile had worsened, deepened. Soon the need to escape life there—life anywhere—would overwhelm them, especially Louisa.
48
Enemy Within
NAPOLEON’S GRANDE ARMÉE HAD CAPTURED MOSCOW.
At least that was the rumor swirling through the streets of St. Petersburg the third week of September 1812. Fears of the enemy within Russia’s most symbolic city and former capital spread with cometlike speed. Meanwhile the Great Comet itself remained faintly visible in Russia’s skies above. The news about Moscow frightened John’s proprietor so much that he was afraid to actually speak of it out loud: “My landlord, Mr. Strogofshikoff . . . came to me much alarmed and mortified at the present condition of his country—hinting but afraid expressly to say that Moscow is in the hands of the French.”
The man had good reason to fear. Local authorities had recently forced several mujiks to sweep the streets for the crime of merely saying out loud that Napoleon controlled Moscow. Superstition reigned over them more than the czar. If the Russians openly said something, then it might come true. Though Peter the Great had moved the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg in 1710, Moscow was symbolic, embodying the soul of Russia. If the French had taken Moscow, then they would surely come to St. Petersburg. Government officials had yet to confirm the news. Rumors in war were as unreliable as they were common.
While the Russians fought the French within their borders, John also faced a new enemy within. The realization became evident when he and William Smith attended the funeral of a field marshal’s wife. The makeup of the remaining diplomatic corps in the audience was sobering to John. He was one of only three left from the original group.
Two years earlier John had reigned as an equal with the French ambassador, not in actual rank but in favor with Alexander. The presence of the new British ambassador now rattled the dynamics.
“The courtiers were as assiduous to the British Ambassador as eighteen months ago they had been to the Duke of Vicence [the French ambassador].”
Lord Cathcart’s presence couldn’t have been more awkward for the esteemed American diplomat. John still had not received official word from his government that the United States was at war with Great Britain. Though he could technically speak to Cathcart, without instructions from home he risked making a mistake and misrepresenting his country with a representative of the enemy, a dangerous possibility. How much interaction, if any, with Cathcart was appropriate? How much could he say? What irritated John, however, was the British ambassador’s pretense and lavishness. As if he were king, seven attendants accompanied Lord Cathcart to the Russian woman’s funeral. Not even Caulaincourt required that much attention at a court function.
Though John’s status in St. Petersburg seemed to be fading faster than the comet’s tail, he received hope for deliverance. Romanzoff summoned Adams to a meeting. Alexander may have been leading the Cossacks in battle, but he had not forgotten his American friend. The count delivered an imperial message. The emperor expressed his regret over the war between the United States and Great Britain. He was disappointed that the war would interfere with US-Russian trade relations. Adams knew that with English ships now openly admitted at Russian ports—instead of covertly—American merchants would h
ave trouble competing and might lose their cargo. The problem was as bitter as the chests of English tea flowing into the ports. Alexander had an idea to solve the larger problem.
“It had occurred to the emperor that perhaps an amicable arrangement of the differences between the parties might be accomplished easily and speedily by indirect [rather] than by direct negotiation,” John recorded of Romanzoff’s explanation.
“Was [Adams] aware of any difficulty or obstacle on the part of the government of the United States if he [Alexander] should offer his mediation for the purpose of the effecting a pacification?”
Alexander wanted to mediate peace between the United States and England. What news indeed! A thousand thoughts must have pulsed through John’s mind as he processed the opportunity, both for his country and his personal desire to return home.
“I answered that it was obviously impossible for me to speak on this subject,” John replied, explaining that his initial response was based on his general knowledge of his government, not on Madison’s specific instructions or plans regarding the war and peace.
“I was very sure that whatever determination they might form upon the proposal of the emperor’s mediation, they [President Madison and Congress] would receive and consider it as a new evidence of His Majesty’s regard and friendship for the United States, and that I was not aware of any obstacle or difficulty which could occasion them to decline accepting it.”
He then gave his personal opinion: “For myself, I so deeply lamented the very existence of the war that I should welcome any facility for bringing it to a just and honorable termination.”
Romanzoff assured Adams that the czar himself had made the offer. “He thought an indirect negotiation conducted here, and aided by the conciliatory wishes of a friend to both parties, might smooth down difficulties.”
Direct discussions might fail. Pretension and game playing could obscure compromise. Indirect negotiations through a third-party mediator would allow each side to more fully express its position. “To a mutual friend each party might exhibit all its complaints and all its claims.”
Romanzoff had already suggested the idea to Cathcart, who promised to notify his government. John agreed to do the same. By approaching the new British ambassador first, however, the Russians seemed to be favoring him over their American friend.
As the days went on, reports of the Grande Armée taking Moscow gained credibility. Muddling the news were suggestions that Napoleon had already lost 150,000 soldiers to death and attrition from the long supply lines and murderous march from Paris to Russia. Then the information grew worse. Not only had the French taken Moscow, but they had also burned it. Capturing a capital—whether literal or symbolic—was common; burning it was barbaric.
By September 29 the Russian government officially reported the occupation of Moscow, which the French had invaded eleven days earlier following the Battle of Borodino, seventy miles west of Moscow. Russian commander in chief Mikhail Kutuzov tried to block the French advance at Borodino. The Russians lost 45,000 casualties to death, wounding, or capture; the French, 30,000. The Grande Armée followed the retreating Cossacks to Moscow. To preserve the Russian Army, Kutuzov abandoned Moscow.
Over the next few days, John had several opportunities to converse with Mr. Laval, the former French consul, who was preparing to depart for Sweden with his wife and children. They spoke privately at a dinner party at Laval’s home, where he told John what he knew. Twice the Russians tried to burn the houses adjacent to the Moscow mansion where Napoleon took up headquarters. French troops retaliated by setting several buildings on fire at once. Abandoning Moscow, the Russian army then welcomed the French by releasing inmates from the prison. “It is feared that the whole city may be destroyed.”
The French mistakenly thought that Napoleon’s capture of Moscow would push Alexander to the peace table and return him to the Continental System. Laval saw it for what it was. The move had the opposite effect. The idea of negotiating peace with Napoleon was now “offensive to the emperor, and so it [the war] would continue, unless his army should be defeated, which it had not yet been.”
“His [Alexander] spirit stiffens with adversity. The situation of the French army in the midst of their triumphs is considered as absolutely desperate.”
John asked him why the war had begun.
“Women! Women! Women!” Laval proclaimed. “Women had been the cause of all the late disastrous wars against France.”
Adams was amused at his friend’s rant.
“It was unquestionably the late queen of Prussia who had caused the Prussian war. It was the late empress of Austria who had produced that last Austrian war. And it was Grand Duchess Catherine who had occasioned the present war.”
The Russian duchess was responsible for this war because she refused to marry Napoleon. Their union would have ensured a long-term alliance between the two nations. For the moment, Laval was correct. Austria, the home nation of Napoleon’s current wife, was allied with France against Russia.
“The time of real danger to the invader is now but just commencing, and it is a species of warfare to which Napoleon is not accustomed, and for which he may not be prepared,” Adams wrote in his diary.
Indeed. Alexander’s scorched earth policy had just begun.
The personal situation of the Lavals saddened Adams. They were similar in age and family status. Laval had come to Russia to flee the French Revolution. He was leaving his exile in the same spirit—the need to survive.
“They are to go in five or six days. They both appear to be much dejected. They are fugitives from one of the most magnificent establishments in St. Petersburg, a house where splendor and hospitality went hand in hand. They are going with the family of small children, literally they know not where, and to return they know not when,” John reflected sadly.
Most of John and Louisa’s friends had fled while they remained stuck in St. Petersburg.
“We shall have scarcely any acquaintance left,” observed John.
Louisa’s grief led her to many places that autumn—down the avenues of doubt, guilt, denial, depression, and nightmares. Like that of the Russians, her greatest obstacle was the enemy within. Her mind was as dark as an arctic winter’s day.
Needing some way to process her thoughts, she began using a new journal on October 22. Bound by boards decorated with marble paper, the book felt firm in her hands. The leather spine was just as sturdy but far more flexible than the board. The paper was handmade and a little coarse, lacking the sophistication of perfectly trimmed pager edges. But what better place was there to pour out raw emotions than on crude sheets of paper? Like its owner, the book’s beautiful exterior concealed its rough contents.
“I have procured this book with a view to write my thoughts and if possible to avoid dwelling on the secret and bitter reproaches of my heart for my conduct as it regarded my lost adored child, whose death was surely occasion’d by procrastination.”
Procrastination was a surprising choice of words, but it reflected her depression. She had not forgotten the Russian ladies who predicted that her daughter was born for heaven. Their words haunted her. Should her daughter have died sooner? Louisa’s thoughts may have been irrational, but they were honest.
The next day she added, “[S]till my mind dwells on the past and nothing can fill the dreadful void in my heart, and my babe’s image pursues me wherever I go.”
Had she done something wrong? Was her daughter’s death a punishment?
“Bitter reflection adds to my pangs and in religion alone do I find consolation.” She confessed her sins, throwing herself before the “conviction of the justice and mercy of my God.” She believed the Almighty would give her the strength to change and subdue the pride in her heart in “which all my errors spring.”
Her journal absorbed her guilt, sins, and depression without passing judgment. The next day her entry was short. She agreed to rejoin society and capture “a little [of] the sameness of my sister’s life.
” With Kitty and William, she visited the theater, where a year earlier she had compared domestic and historical tragedies, never expecting to become an actor and her home the stage.
“I visited the theatre. [W]hile I was there I was amused,” she wrote.
The outing was only a temporary balm. As soon as she stepped into the familiar sounds and smells of their apartments, her heart split open once again. “But on my return to my home, how cold, blank and dreadful! [My] first object used to be my child, but alas now I see only the spot on which she died and everything recalls her last agonies.”
Louisa’s depression also led to dissension in her marriage. The moment started simply enough. As usual she read prayers aloud to Charles.
“It has been my practice for some time to teach Charles his prayers and the commandments. Mr. A expressed himself dissatisfied with my method,” she explained.
Louisa couldn’t handle her husband’s criticism. Her anger led to flight. “And I suffer’d myself to be hurried away by my temper in a very unbecoming manner.”
He couldn’t see how hard she was trying to be a good mother. Charles was the only child she had left, at least in St. Petersburg. Nothing was working—not going to the theater, not teaching her son. Nothing could alleviate her pain.
“I am peculiarly unfortunate for what I undertake with the best intentions almost always turns out exactly contrary. I read. I work. I endeavor to occupy myself usefully but it is all in vain. My heart is almost broken and my temper, which was never good, suffers in proportion to my grief.”
Louisa was determined to correct her faults—perhaps out of fear that something else tragic would happen. She needed to give herself grace, some room to let her hair down instead of nit-picking her shortcomings. She was expecting too much of herself, and perhaps those around her were expecting too much of her as well.
“For those I love, no sacrifice will ever be too great for me to make. All I claim is a little indulgence,” she wrote, revealing that she perceived John’s rebuke as harsh.