The Daughter of an Empress

This Russian count gave the good Romans much material for reflection and

head-shaking; the women were occupied with his herculean beauty, and

the men with his wild, daring, and reckless conduct. They called him a

barbarian, a Russian bear, but could not help being interested in him,

and eagerly repeating the little anecdotes freely circulated respecting

him.

They smilingly told that he had been the first who had had the courage

to defy the powerful republic of Venice, which, for recruiting sailors

for his fleet in their territories for the war against the Turks, wished

to banish him from proud and beautiful Venice. But Alexis Orloff had

laughed at the senate of the republic when they sent him the order to

leave. He had ordered the two hundred soldiers, who formed his retinue,

to arm themselves, and, if necessary, to repel force with force; but to

the senate he had answered that he would leave the city as soon as he

pleased, not before! But, as it seemed that he was not pleased to leave

the city, he remained there, and now the angry and indignant senate

sent him the peremptory command to leave Venice with his soldiers in

twenty-four hours. A deputation of the senate came in solemn procession

to communicate to the Russian count this command of the Council of

Three. Alexis Orloff received them, lying upon his divan, and to their

solemn address he laughingly answered: "I receive commands from no one

but my empress! It remains as before, that I shall go when I please, and

not earlier!"

The senators departed with bitter murmurs and severe threats. Count

Alexis Orloff remained, and the cowardly senate, trembling with fear

of this young Russian empire, had silently pocketed the humiliation of

seeing this over-bearing Russian within their walls for several weeks

longer. This evidence of the haughty insolence of Count Orloff was

related among the Romans with undisguised pleasure, and they thanked

him for having thus humiliated and insulted the proud and imperious

republic. But they suspiciously shook their heads when they learned that

he seemed disposed to display his pride and arrogance in Rome! They

told of a soiree of the Marchesa di Paduli which Alexis Orloff had

attended. As they there begged of him to give some proof of the very

superior strength which had acquired for him the name of "the Russian

Hercules," he had taken one of the hardest apples from a silver plateau

that stood upon the table and playfully crushed it with two fingers of

his left hand. But a fragment of this hard apple had hit the eye of the

Duke of Gloucester, who was standing near, and seriously injured it. The

sympathies of the whole company were excited for the English prince, and

he was immediately surrounded by a pitying and lamenting crowd. Count

Orloff alone had nothing to say to him, and not the slightest excuse to

make. He smilingly rocked himself upon his chair, and hummed a Russian

popular song in praise of his empress.