With all of the recent hoo-ha about who said what to whom about what and how, I thought it would be entertaining to bring you the following historical document. Astolphe, Marquis de Custine, made a long journey in Imperial Russia in the 1820's, resulting in a volume called
Souvenirs de Russie that appeared much later, in 1854.
Among the things which had caught the Marquis's eye in St Petersburg were the following Rules, which he claims to have noted-down when he saw a copy of them framed at the Hermitage. These would have already been 30 years old by the time the Marquis saw them, and relate to the period when the Hermitage was effectively the private literary salon of Empress Catherine The Great. The "Rules" were, he said, written in the Empress's own hand.
Rules To Be Observed Upon Entering The Hermitage
- All title and rank are to be put off at the door, along with hats and swords
- Pretentions founded upon the prerogatives of birth, pride, and other sentiments of a like nature, must also be left at the door
- Be merry, but nonetheless break nothing and spoil nothing
- Sit, stand, walk, do whatever you please, without caring for anyone
- Speak with moderation, and not too often, lest you become a bother to others
- Argue without anger or heat
- Yawns and sighs are strictly banished, that you may not communicate ennui to others, or a be a nuisance
- Innocent games proposed by the company must be accepted by the others
- Eat slowly and with good appetite. Drink moderately, that each may walk out with the same steadniness with which he arrived
- Leave all quarrels at the door. What enters at one ear must go out at the other before leaving. If any forfeit my rules, for each fault witnessed by two others, he must drink a bumper of cold water (ladies not excepted); furthermore he shall read not less than four quatrains of the Telemachiad by Tredyakovsky. Whoever fails during one evening in three or more articles shall learn by rote the Telemachiad. But he who fails in the last article shall nevermore enter the Hermitage.
Catherine, Empresse de la Rossiye
