Saturday, October 20, 2012

Mining the Archives - Mir Iskusstva 1904 No2 - Arkhangelskoye Palace


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Mir iskusstva magazine 1904 (issue 2).
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Photographs of the Arkhangelskoye Palace taken 1903-1904

and published in Mir Iskusstva magazine 1904 (issue 2)

The magazine scanned by Doria: the multi-institutional repository maintained by 
The National Library of Finland




Arkhangelskoye Palace: 

Arkhangelskoye (Russian: Арха́нгельское) is a historical estate located around 20 
kilometers to the west from Moscow. In 1703–1810 Arkhangelskoye belonged to Galitzine, 
and from 1810–1917, to the Yusupov family. In 1917 the Yusupovs' property was 
nationalized by the Bolsheviks. Nowadays Arkhangelskoye is a state museum.

The estate is built in a classicizing style, with the prominent palace facing the Moscow 
river and a regular terraced park decorated with many antique statues. Other structures 
of note inclide a small palace named the Caprice, monuments to Catherine II of Russia 
and Alexander Pushkin, and an 18th century the theater designed by famous Italian 
theater set designer Pietro Gonzaga (1751-1831). Arkhangelskoye's oldest building is the 
church of Archangel Michael (1646). Among the other buildings are Saint Gates (1825–26), 
the uncompleted building known as 'Colonnade' (1909–1916), which was intended to be a 
Mausoleum for the elder son of the last Princess Yussupova and serves today as an 
exhibition hall and two extensions of the sanatorium built in the 1930s.

The estate is famous with its exquisite collection of fine art including paintings, 
sculptures, furnitures, ceramics and interior.
--- wikipedia ---








Selected Mir Iskusstva photographs of the palace,
with quotes from Prince Felix Yusupov's memoir "Lost Splendor"






Mstislav Dobuzhinsky (1875-1957).
(Dobuzhinsky was part of the Mir Iskusstva group.)
.
































"I cannot end this short biography of my great-greatgrandfather without devoting a few lines to 
the estate which was his masterpiece. "Arkhangelskoye," he used to say, "is not run for profit, 
but is a source of expense and joy."

I have known more magnificent and imposing places, visited many a royal or princely residence, 
but nowhere have I seen a house as finely proportioned as Arkhangelskoye. And nowhere have I 
found man's handiwork so happily united with that of nature. The names of the architects who 
actually built this masterpiece are unknown. Arkhangelskoye first belonged to a Prince Galitzin 
who began the construction of the chateau but, having lost a great deal of money, was obliged 
to part with it and sold it to Prince Yussupov. The latter continued the building of the house but 
made important changes in the original plans. These had been drawn up by the French architect 
Guerne, but as he never came to Russia himself his ideas were doubtless carried out by Russian 
architects.

In all probability, when Prince Nicholas became the owner of Arkhangelskoye be himself 
superintended the work of construction with the aid of an Italian, Pietro Gonzago, a wellknown 
architect and stage decorator of the period. Prince Nicholas often asked him to his house at St. 
Petersburg, and also commissioned him to paint scenery for his private theater. It is more than 
probable that the Italian artist helped in the decoration of Arkhangelskoye.

A detailed description is necessary in order to give an idea of the house. I will describe it, just 
as I knew it.

A long, straight avenue led through a forest of pine trees to a circular courtyard round which ran 
a colonnade. On the ground floor of the chateau, great columned halls with frescoed ceilings 
were adorned with statues and fine pictures. Two rooms were specially reserved for the works 
of Tiepolo and Hubert Robert. In spite of their imposing proportions, all these rooms were 
friendly and intimate, thanks to the beautiful old furniture and a profusion of plants and flowers. 
A rotunda intended for receptions had doors opening onto the park. All the visitors who came to 
Arkhangelskoye admired the view from this room; terraces and a long green lawn lined with 
statues stretched to the horizon and seemed to fade into the shadowy blue of the forest.

The left wing contained the dining room and my parents' private rooms. On the floor above were 
my rooms, my brother's and the guest rooms. In the right wing were the reception rooms and a 
library of thirty-five thousand volumes, among which were five hundred Elzevir editions and a 
Bible dating from 1462. All these volumes were in their original bindings, with this bookplate: 
"Ex biblioteca Arkhangelina.""






"A great number of gardeners were needed for the upkeep of the park. Prince Nicholas, who 
wished Arkhangelskoye to be a residence dedicated solely to luxury and beauty, forbade the 
cultivation of cereals on his land. He bought wheat from a neighboring estate for his peasants' 
needs, and the latter were employed only in maintaining and improving his gardens. The park 
was laid out in the purest French style. Three long terraces adorned with statues and marble 
urns led down to the river. In the center, long hornbeam hedges bordered a sweeping lawn, and 
fountains played on every side, Four pavilions stood on the river bank, connected by hothouses 
over two hundred yards long. In the winter garden among the orange and palm trees were seats 
and marble fountains. Exotic birds and flowers gave the illusion of eternal summer, even while, 
from the tall casement windows, one saw the park lying shrouded in snow. The Prince's 
zoological gardens were stocked with specimens of rare animals which he had brought from 
foreign countries. Catherine the Great presented him with a whole family of Tibetan camels, and 
while these animals were on their way from Tsarskoe Selo a special courierrode each day to 
Arkhangelskoye to keep the Prince informed of their state of health.

Tradition has it that every day, on the last stroke of noon, an eagle flew from the park to the 
chateau, and that the fish in the ponds had gold rings in their gills."






















































The theatre exterior.
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"Summer saw us back at Arkhangelskoye; we had many guests, and some of them stayed for 
the whole season.

My liking for them depended entirely on the degree of interest they took in our beloved estate. I 
bad a violent hatred for those who were indifferent to its beauties and merely came to eat, 
drink and play cards. To me their presence was a desecration. To escape from them I used to 
take refuge in the park, wandering among the groves and fountains, never tiring of a landscape 
where art and nature harmonized so perfectly. Its serenity brought me peace and quiet, and in 
its romantic setting my imagination had free play. I used to pretend I was my great-great-
grandfather, Prince Nicholas, absolute monarch of Arkhangelskoye. I would go to our private 
theater and, seated in a box, would watch an imaginary performance in which the finest artists 
played, sang and danced for me. Sometimes I myself would go on the stage and sing, and be so 
carried away by my imagination that the ghosts of past audiences seemed to come to life and 
applaud me. When I awoke from my dreams, it was as though my personality had been split in 
two: one part of me jeering at such nonsense, the other grieving that the spell was broken."



The theatre interior.
.




















"In my childhood I was afraid to wander around the library,
for it contained a life-sized 
automaton representing jean Jacques Rousseau,
dressed in an eighteenth-century French 
costume;
the figure was seated at a table, and a spring would put it in motion."
.

























Francois Flameng
Portrait of Princess Zinaida Yusupova with Two Sons at Arkhangelskoe, 1894.
(Brothers Felix and Nikolai, Yusupova's sons).
.



"Our foreign guests were always surprised by the spirit of fraternity that existed between us and 
our peasants. This was the result of our straightforward dealings with them, and never made 
them less respectful to us. The painter Francois Flameng, who stayed with us at 
Arkhangelskoye, was particularly impressed by this. He was so delighted with his visit to us that 
he said to my mother, on taking leave: "Promise me, Princess, that when my artistic career is 
over you will allow me to become the honorary pig of Arkhangelskoye!""



Valentin Serov painting a portrait of Felix Yusupov at Arkhangelskoe in 1904.
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"Arkhangelskoye had a friend and admirer after my own heart in the person of Serov, the artist 
who came to paint our portraits in 1904.

He was a delightful man. Of all the artists I have ever met in Russia or elsewhere, my memory 
of him is the most precious and vivid. His admiration for Arkhangelskoye, which revealed his 
acute sensibility, was the basis of our friendship. In an interval between sittings, we sometimes 
went into the park, sat down on a bench under the trees, and had long talks, His advanced ideas 
influenced the development of my mind considerably. I must add that in his opinion there would 
have been no cause for a Revolution if all rich people had been like my parents.

Serov bad a great respect for his art and never consented to paint a portrait unless the model 
interested him. He refused to paint a very fashionable lady of St. Petersburg whose face did not 
inspire him. However, be finally yielded to the lady's entreaties but, after the last sitting, he 
added to the portrait an enormous hat, which concealed three-quarters of her face. When the 
model protested, he replied that the hat was the most interesting part of the portrait.

He was too independent and too disinterested to conceal his feelings. He once told me that when 
he was painting the Tsar's portrait the Tsarina exasperated him by continual criticisms; so much 
so that one day, losing all patience, he banded her his palette and brushes and suggested that 
she should finish the work herself.

This portrait, the best ever painted of Nicholas II, was ripped to pieces during the 1917 
Revolution, when a frenzied mob invaded the Winter Palace. An officer, who was a friend of 
mine, brought me a few shreds of it which I have reverently kept.

Serov was very much pleased with the portrait he painted of me. Diaghilev asked us to allow 
him to include it in the exhibition of Russian art which he organized in Venice in 1907, but it 
brought me so much notoriety that my parents were annoyed and requested Diaghilev to 
withdraw it from the exhibition."



Valentin Serov
Felix Yusupov, 1904
.
























Excerpt from "Lost Splendor", a memoir by Prince Felix Yusupov:

"Prince Nicholas (Nicholas Yusupov 1751-1831) is one of the most striking of my ancestors. 
Gifted with a remarkable personality, keenly intelligent and very erudite, he was a great 
traveler, spoke five languages, and corresponded with most of the famous men of his day. In 
addition to this he was a great patron of the arts, as well as the friend and counselor of 
Catherine the Great and her successors the Tsars Paul I, Alexander I, and Nicholas I.

When he was seven, his name was put down for one of the Imperial Guards regiments, and he 
received a commission at sixteen. Later, he reached the highest dignities of state and was given 
all the most coveted decorations of his time, even the diamond and pearl shoulder ornament 
usually reserved for members of reigning families. In 1798 he was Grand Commander of the 
Orders of Malta and of St. John of Jerusalem. It has even been asserted that be received other 
more intimate if less dazzling favors from Catherine the Great.

Prince Nicholas spent a considerable part of his life abroad. There he met the greatest artists of 
his day, and remained in correspondence with them when he returned to Russia.

When be went to stay in Paris, Prince Nicholas was often invited to receptions given at the 
Palace of Versailles and at the Trianon. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were very fond of him 
and presented him with a Sevres dinner service with a floral design on a dark brown ground, 
one of the finest specimens produced by the Royal Manufactory, and originally intended for the 
Dauphin. No one had any idea what had become of this service, till in 1912 I was visited by two 
French professors who were making a study of Sevres porcelain. This led me to make 
investigations, and in a far corner of one of our furniture warehouses, where it bad been stored 
for more than a century, I found the Sevres service presented to my great-great-grandfather by 
Louis XVI.

Prince Nicholas prided himself on his friendship with Frederick the Great of Prussia and with the 
Emperor Joseph II of Austria. He was also a friend of Voltaire, Diderot, d'Alembert and 
Beaumarchais; the last-mentioned composed an ode in his honor.

In 1795, Prince Nicholas married Tatiana Engelhardt, one of Prince Potemkin's five nieces.

Tatiana was a charmer from early childhood. When she was twelve, the Empress Catherine took 
the child under her wing and kept her beside her constantly. Princess Tatiana soon conquered all 
hearts at court and, as she grew to womanhood, had numerous suitors.

At that time an Englishwoman, as famous for her beauty as for her eccentricity, came to St. 
Petersburg. She was the Duchess of Kingston, sometimes known as the Countess of Bristol. On 
the bridge of her luxuriously decorated and appointed yacht, she had arranged an exotic garden 
stocked with rare birds.

The Duchess of Kingston took a great fancy to Tatiana. The day before she left Russia, the 
Duchess asked leave of the Empress to take her protegee back to England with her, promising 
to make her sole heiress to her immense fortune. Catherine told Tatiana about this proposal, 
but, although she was much attached to the Duchess, Tatiana refused to leave her country and 
her empress.

She was twenty-four when she married Prince Nicholas Yussupov, who was over forty. At first 
their marriage was a very happy one, and a son named Boris was born to them. In St. 
Petersburg, in Moscow and at Arkhangelskoye, their summer residence, the couple were always 
surrounded by artists, poets and musicians. Alexander Pushkin was one of their intimate friends. 
The poet spent part of his youth in a suite of rooms which the Prince and Princess had given his 
parents in their Moscow house.

Princess Tatiana was not only a perfect hostess, as gracious as she was witty, but also proved 
to be an excellent business woman. Under her wise administration her husband's fortune 
increased, while the standard of living of the peasants on the Yussupov estates was much 
improved. She was gentle and kindly. "When God tries us," she used to say, "it is for the sole 
purpose of enabling us to exercise our faith and patience." Notwithstanding her many virtues 
she loved beautiful clothes. She was particularly fond of jewelry, and her collection became the 
nucleus of a larger one which was to become famous. She bought a diamond called the "Polar 
Star," several sets of jewels which came from the French Crown, the jewels of the Queen of 
Naples and, lastly, the unique and splendid "Peregrina," a celebrated pearl which had belonged 
to Philip II of Spain and, in ancient times, or so tradition has it, to Cleopatra.

The Prince, who loved his wife after his own fashion, gave her an unlimited amount of money to 
spend. His peculiar nature showed even in his gifts. On one of her birthdays he gave his wife all 
the statues and stone urns which adorned the park at Arkhangelskoye; on another occasion, he 
made her a present of animals and birds to stock the zoological gardens which she had planned 
and created on the estate. But their happy relations did not last. In his old age Prince Nicholas 
turned into a profligate. The Princess, wishing to leave a place where her husband lived like a 
pasha in the midst of his seraglio, retired to a small pavilion, called "Caprice," which she had 
built in the park of Arkhangelskoye. Renouncing the world and its pomp, she gave herself up to 
her son's education and to good works. She survived her husband by ten years and died in 1841 
at the age of seventy two, having kept to the last the rare qualities which had made her famous.

After years spent in traveling through Europe and the Near East, Prince Nicholas returned to 
Russia and applied himself diligently to furthering the fine arts. He began the installation of the 
Hermitage Museum and of his own picture gallery at Arkhangelskoye, which he had recently 
acquired. He built a theater in the park of the estate where his private company of actors, his 
musicians and his own ballet dancers, gave performances that were long remembered in 
Moscow. Arkhangelskoye became an art center that attracted foreigners as well as Russians. It 
was then that Catherine the Great, who appreciated Prince Nicholas' taste and ability, gave him 
the management of all the imperial theaters.

Two factories, one for porcelain, the other for glass, were built by the Prince on his estate of 
Arkhangelskoye. He sent to the Sevres manufactory for decorators, workmen and raw 
materials, and kept the entire output for his private use, chiefly to give as presents to friends 
and distinguished visitors. Porcelain with the trade-mark "Arkhangelskoye 1828-1830" is much 
sought after nowadays by collectors. Unfortunately fire destroyed the factory and warehouses 
and a great quantity of Arkhangelskole porcelain was lost as well as a magnificent "rose du 
Barry" service of Sevres, bought by the Prince on one of his journeys to Paris.

In 1799, Prince Nicholas returned to Italy where he spent several years as ambassador to the 
courts of Sardinia, Rome, Naples and Sicily.

During his last stay in Paris, in 1804 he often met Napoleon I. He had the entree to the Imperial 
box in every Parisian theater. When he was about to leave France, the Prince was presented by 
the Emperor of the French with two large Sevres vases and three tapestries representing 
Meleager's Hunt.

On his return to Russia, the Prince continued to embellish his Arkhangelskoye estate. In memory 
of Catherine the Great, he had a temple erected in the park on the pediment of which were 
inscribed the words: Dea Caterinea. Inside the temple, a bronze statue representing the 
Empress as Minerva stood on a marble pedestal. A tripod placed before the statue supported an 
urn in which perfumes and aromatic plants burned. On the wall, these words were engraved in 
Italian:

Tu cui concede il cielo e dietti il fato, voler il giusto e poter cio che vuoi. (Thou who didst 
receive from heaven the desire for justice, and from destiny the power to enforce it.)

An Eastern prince who was making a short stay in Moscow having expressed the desire to visit 
Arkhangelskoye, Prince Nicholas had a wall built in front of the chapel in order to conceal it 
from his visitor, for he could not bear the idea that an infidel might enter it. The wall is 
curiously topped with small pinnacles of Oriental design and was, so they say, erected in two 
days by the Prince's serfs.

His head steward was a Frenchman called Deroussy. He humored all his master's imperious 
whims, but his cruelty to the peasants made them hate him. One fine evening they burled him 
from the top of a tower and threw his body into the river. The culprits were arrested, each 
received fifteen lashes with the knout, their nostrils were torn off, the word "murderer" was 
branded on their faces with a red-hot iron; after which they were sent to Siberia in chains.

A great number of gardeners were needed for the upkeep of the park. Prince Nicholas, who 
wished Arkhangelskoye to be a residence dedicated solely to luxury and beauty, forbade the 
cultivation of cereals on his land. He bought wheat from a neighboring estate for his peasants' 
needs, and the latter were employed only in maintaining and improving his gardens. The park 
was laid out in the purest French style. Three long terraces adorned with statues and marble 
urns led down to the river. In the center, long hornbeam hedges bordered a sweeping lawn, and 
fountains played on every side, Four pavilions stood on the river bank, connected by hothouses 
over two hundred yards long. In the winter garden among the orange and palm trees were seats 
and marble fountains. Exotic birds and flowers gave the illusion of eternal summer, even while, 
from the tall casement windows, one saw the park lying shrouded in snow. The Prince's 
zoological gardens were stocked with specimens of rare animals which he had brought from 
foreign countries. Catherine the Great presented him with a whole family of Tibetan camels, and 
while these animals were on their way from Tsarskoe Selo a special courier rode each day to 
Arkhangelskoye to keep the Prince informed of their state of health.

Tradition has it that every day, on the last stroke of noon, an eagle flew from the park to the 
chateau, and that the fish in the ponds had gold rings in their gills.

In 1812 Prince Nicholas was obliged to leave Arkhangelskoye and take refuge at Tourachkin 
where the Russian armies bad fallen back before the advancing French troops. For long months 
he was without news of his estates. When the war ended, he returned to Moscow to find his 
house intact, but Arkhangelskoye seriously damaged. All the statues in the park were mutilated 
and the trees uprooted. On discovering that the noses of his mythological deities had all been 
broken, the prince exclaimed: "Those pigs of Frenchmen have given my entire Olympus 
syphilis!" In the chateau itself, all the doors and windows had been taken away, and most of the 
furniture and objets d'art lay in heaps on the floor. The destruction of his beloved collection 
proved too much for the Prince, and he took to his bed.

Prince Nicholas led a life of splendor at Arkhangelskoye where hunting parties, balls and 
theatrical performances were given continually. His enormous fortune allowed him to gratify his 
slightest whims and fancies and, where these were concerned, he spent without stint. He was, 
however, petty-minded to the point of avarice in minor daily expenses. This stinginess was to 
cost him dear. He most unwisely heated his stoves with sawdust to save wood, and one day the 
interior of the chateau was completely destroyed by fire. One of his friends in Moscow describes 
the accident thus:

"Here is the latest news from Moscow: the magnificent chateau of Arkhangelskoye has been 
burned down, and this misfortune is due to the old prince's avarice, for he insisted on using 
sawdust instead of wood to beat his stoves, There is, alas, but a step from sawdust to ashes. 
The greater part of the library and many pictures have been destroyed. To save them from the 
flames, paintings and objets d'art were thrown out of the windows. As a result, the arms and 
feet of Canova's celebrated group, Love and Psyche, were broken. Poor Yussupov! How could he 
be so stupid? I think that Arkhangelskoye will never forgive him its gaping wounds, to say 
nothing of its desecration by a whole harem of dancers and prostitutes."

All Moscow gossiped about the scandalous life led by old Yussupov. Separated from his wife for 
many years, he kept an incredible number of mistresses, dancers and peasant girls. An habitue 
of the Arkhangelskoye theater used to relate that when the whole ballet was on the stage the 
Prince waved his cane and suddenly all the dancers appeared completely naked. The premiere 
danseuse was his favorite, and he showered on her magnificent gifts, but his great passion was 
for a very beautiful Frenchwoman who unfortunately drank. She led him a terrible dance, and 
when she was intoxicated their quarrels often degenerated into a battle royal. China and 
ornaments were smashed to pieces, and the wretched Prince lived in a state of continual terror; 
nothing could soothe his irascible mistress but the promise of some splendid gift. His last 
intrigue was with a girl of eighteen. He was then eighty.

The Prince's journeys were complicated affairs. He never traveled without his intimate friends, 
his mistresses of the moment, a numerous staff of servants, his musicians and their 
instruments, not to mention his favorite dogs, monkeys, parrots and part of his library. 
Preparations lasted for weeks, and at least ten coaches, each drawn by six horses, were 
required to convey the Prince and his retinue. He never omitted to have a salute fired from his 
own guns whenever he left Moscow for his summer residence and upon his arrival at his 
destination.

Prince Nicholas died in 1831, aged eighty. He was buried on his estate of Spaskole-Sclo, near 
Moscow.

I cannot end this short biography of my great-greatgrandfather without devoting a few lines to 
the estate which was his masterpiece. "Arkhangelskoye," he used to say, "is not run for profit, 
but is a source of expense and joy."

I have known more magnificent and imposing places, visited many a royal or princely residence, 
but nowhere have I seen a house as finely proportioned as Arkhangelskoye. And nowhere have I 
found man's handiwork so happily united with that of nature. The names of the architects who 
actually built this masterpiece are unknown. Arkhangelskoye first belonged to a Prince Galitzin 
who began the construction of the chateau but, having lost a great deal of money, was obliged 
to part with it and sold it to Prince Yussupov. The latter continued the building of the house but 
made important changes in the original plans. These had been drawn up by the French architect 
Guerne, but as he never came to Russia himself his ideas were doubtless carried out by Russian 
architects.

In all probability, when Prince Nicholas became the owner of Arkhangelskoye be himself 
superintended the work of construction with the aid of an Italian, Pietro Gonzago, a wellknown 
architect and stage decorator of the period. Prince Nicholas often asked him to his house at St. 
Petersburg, and also commissioned him to paint scenery for his private theater. It is more than 
probable that the Italian artist helped in the decoration of Arkhangelskoye.

A detailed description is necessary in order to give an idea of the house. I will describe it, just 
as I knew it.

A long, straight avenue led through a forest of pine trees to a circular courtyard round which ran 
a colonnade. On the ground floor of the chateau, great columned halls with frescoed ceilings 
were adorned with statues and fine pictures. Two rooms were specially reserved for the works 
of Tiepolo and Hubert Robert. In spite of their imposing proportions, all these rooms were 
friendly and intimate, thanks to the beautiful old furniture and a profusion of plants and flowers. 
A rotunda intended for receptions had doors opening onto the park. All the visitors who came to 
Arkhangelskoye admired the view from this room; terraces and a long green lawn lined with 
statues stretched to the horizon and seemed to fade into the shadowy blue of the forest.

The left wing contained the dining room and my parents' private rooms. On the floor above were 
my rooms, my brother's and the guest rooms. In the right wing were the reception rooms and a 
library of thirty-five thousand volumes, among which were five hundred Elzevir editions and a 
Bible dating from 1462. All these volumes were in their original bindings, with this bookplate: 
"Ex biblioteca Arkhangelina."

In my childhood I was afraid to wander around the library, for it contained a life-sized 
automaton representing jean Jacques Rousseau, dressed in an eighteenth-century French 
costume; the figure was seated at a table, and a spring would put it in motion.

Near by was a collection of ancient carriages. I particularly remember a wooden coach, carved, 
gilded, and decorated with panels painted by Boucher. On raising a cushion of the back seat, a 
closet stool was disclosed. Prince Nicholas, who bad been obliged to attend the Tsar Paul Is 
coronation in spite of illness, had had this facility built into his state coach.

In 1912 when I modernized the private apartments of the chatcau, I had to be on the spot to 
superintend the work. I took advantage of this to look through the storerooms, the basement 
and the attics and discovered some wonderful treasures. I found a great roll of dusty canvases 
which turned out to be the stage scenery painted by Pietro Gonzago. I bad these placed in the 
theater where they were most effective.

I also found whole crates full of crystal and porcelain from the Arkhangelskoye factory. I took 
this treasure trove to St. Petersburg where it adorned the cabinets in my dining room.

After the death of Prince Nicholas, Arkhangelskoye went to his son, Prince Boris. He was far 
from possessing his father's personality and had quite a different nature. His independence, 
integrity and great frankness brought him more enemies than friends. Neither rank nor fortune 
played any part in his choice of friends; all that mattered to him was their worth and honesty.

On one occasion, when he was about to entertain the Tsar and Tsarina, the court minister struck 
out several names on the list of guests. The Prince refused to accept this. "When I have the 
great honor of receiving my Emperor," lie said, "all my friends should be considered fit to share 
it."

During the famine of 1854 Prince Boris made himself responsible for the maintenance of his 
peasants. Naturally be was adored by them.

He took great pains with the administration of the fabulous fortune he had inherited. Prince 
Nicholas had long hesitated whether he should leave Arkhangelskoye to his son or to the state. 
He realized that if ever it belonged to Prince Boris the whole character of the place would be 
altered. And sure enough, no sooner was the old Prince dead than his son at once turned 
Arkhangelskoye into a profit-making concern. Most of the works of art were removed to St. 
Petersburg, the animals from the zoological gardens were sold, actors, dancers and musicians 
dismissed. The Emperor Nicholas tried to intervene, but it was too late; irreparable harm bad 
been done. when Prince Boris died, his widow inherited his whole fortune. He had married 
Zenaide Ivanovna Narishkin, who later became Comtesse de Chauveau. Their only son, Prince 
Nicholas, was my mother's father."





















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