Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

BALL AT THE IMPERIAL PALACE. 29

ments without any prescribed order. All the men, except the mugics, who wore their national costume, and the citizens who were robed in the cafetan, carried the tabarro, or Venetian mantle above their uniform, which wTas a strictly enforced regulation, this fete being called a masked ball.

We remained a considerable time, much pressed by the crowd, waiting for the appearance of the emperor and his family. As soon as this sun of the palace began to rise, the space opened before him, and, followed by his splendid cortege, he proceeded, without being even incommoded by the crowd, through the halls into which the moment before you mia`ht have supposed another person could not have penetrated. Wherever his majesty passed, the waves of peasant,? rolled back, closing instantly behind him like waters in a vessel's track.

The noble aspect of the monarch, whose head rose above all heads, awed this agitated sea into respect. It reminded me of the Xeptune of Virgil; — he could not be more an emperor than he is. He danced, during two or three successive hours, polonaises with the ladies of his family and court. This dance was on former occasions no more than a cadenced and ceremonious march, but on the present, it was a real movement to the sound of music.

The emperor and his cortege wound, in a surprising manner, through the crowd, which, without foreseeing the direction he was about to take, always gave way in time, so as never to incommode the progress of the monarch.

He spoke to several of the men robed and bearded a laRusse: at length, towards ten o'clock, at which hour С 3