the Castle
Petrofskoy, an hour's ride from here, where he is holding court and
reviewing a hundred thousand Guards; but that is his incognito;
officially, he is not yet here.

The Holy City is preparing for the reception that is to take place
tomorrow. They are hammering and pounding in all the streets and on
all the squares. Most of the houses here stand alone, in the centre of
a garden or court. Large tribunes for spectators have been erected in
these spaces. In several of these I counted three thousand numbered
seats. Before the houses themselves, moreover, small platforms with
chairs have been erected, protected by linen awnings, decorated with
tapestries, carpets and flowers. There must be at least several
hundred thousand seats, so that there can be no crowd. Only those who
cannot pay the few kopecks,[39] the Tschornoi Narod, or "the black
brood of the people," will form the movable mass, and the police will
have to restrain them.

All palaces and churches have laths nailed on their architectonic
lines, upon which the lamps for the festive illuminations are to be
fastened. The Giant Ivan, which will speak from the mouths of
twenty-five large bells, bears upon its golden dome a crown formed of
lamps, surmounted by the great glittering cross, which the French
pulled down with immense toil and danger, and which the Russians
victoriously reinstated. As an atonement for the offense, they laid
one thousand guns of the godless enemy at the feet of Ivan, where
Count Morny can see them to this day.

Half of the population of the city are in the streets, looking about,
and they are allowed to go everywhere, even in the Kremlin.

Every day six-and eight-horse teams, mostly dark gray and black, which
are going to convey the state coaches of the Empress and the
Grand-Duchesses, are going to and fro from the Kremlin to Petrofskoy.
Strangely enough, the outriders sit on the right front horses. An
equerry of the Guards walks by each horse and leads it by the bridle.
Yesterday their Excellencies carried a fearfully heavy canopy,
supported by thick gold posts, through the salons and over the stairs
of the palace. The aides-de-camp walk by the side of it, and balance
it by golden cords.

The state coaches, most wonderful products of former centuries, have
been drawn out of their semi-obscurity in the Arsenal, where they have
rested twenty-eight years. The oldest are entirely without springs,
are suspended by leather straps si