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.