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Paris-Moscou aller et retour ... Pictures & Paintings of Russian Tsars

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pouvoir_aux_canard:
in 1862 Grand Duchess aria Nicolaevna went to Italy and lived with her new husband and her younger children in Florence in an estate who formerly had been property of Jèròme Bonaparte. She also travelled frequently to Rome and Paris. Her main activity became the purchase of artistics works. She became the owner of various collections and in 1863 she travelled to Paris.


1863 - Maria Nicolaevna at André-Alphonse-Eugène Disderi’s (1819-1889)  photographic Studio in Paris :






Same photographer for her daughter Maria Maximilianova:



and her son Eugène (top) + a misterious Colonel Rehbinder:





I am leaving home for about 10 days, so it will continue after


Your devoted


Mr Canard
 

pouvoir_aux_canard:
Salve!
Here I am.... nobody wrote informations about the misterious colonel Rehbinder, so I continue. Yersterday I worked to prepare informations about travels in Paris of Peter the Great, Comte et Comtesse du Nord (Paul and Maria) and Alexander 1.

But first we will see many things about imperial visits from 1867 to 1910...


1867: Great Exhibition in Paris (EXPOSITION UNIVERSELLE DE PARIS). Emperor Alexander 2 went to Paris, we know that.... Just before, he sent his beloved Catherine Dolgorouky in Italy and, from Italy, the girl went also in Paris. So Alexandre, after official meetings with Napoléon 3, official balls in Tuilerie, official chase in Compiègne and so on and so on (the program was enormous) tried during the night to meet the girl, giving no few problems to his french Security Staff (the russian one knew perfectly where he was going, but the french one ignored , at the begenning,  why he was -apparently- wandering each night in the streets). Alexander just tried to disappear for a while.... It is said that, the first evenning he tried to meet Katia, he asked the russian ambassador in Paris for a loan of some money. How much asked the diplomatist? A thousand francs-or said Alexander who did not knew the real value of this money. But you Majesty will be in danger said the ambassador ! Oh! if I see some thief I will throw the money on the ground and run replied the emperor, I can run very quickly....
With difficulty the ambassador put together a thousand Francs-or from various persons of the russian ambassy and gived the sum to the emperor...
French policemen  (it was clearly THE gossip of this period) were sure that the russian emperor was going each night to meet a very wellknown french singer named Hortense Schneider (in fact the girl had an affair with an other sovreign visiting Paris at this time) because princess Dolgorouky was living in an hotel particulier close to the hotel particulier of the singer...

pouvoir_aux_canard:
I forgot to write the name of the lover of the singer : Ismail Pacha, Khédive of Egypt. In 1868 the singer went for a long time in Egypt, invited by Ismail... Here is Hortense Schneider:



The day 1 of June 1867, unfortunately, a polish student tries to kill the russian emperor. This attempt to his life will be terrible for France. Immediately, the Alexandre turns to russia declining to sign the project of french-russian alliance and agreement prepared by Napoléon 3's diplomacy. The result will be, in 1870 that France will be alone against Germany and suffer a terrible defeat....

Now let see some things about the visit :

A painting of Louis-Charles Porion with, in the middle, Napoléon 3, on our right Alexandre 2, on our left François-Joseph 1. The painting shows ALL the sovereigns who visit Paris at this time, but clearly it is a fiction (they never were all together in Paris):





The great painting ( 4 meters x 2 meters) is now in Compiègne.


An other artist, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, (1827-1875)  a great sculptor AND painter - quite the first impressioniste - shows the feasts in Tuileries. Here is a ball with Alexandre giving his arm to Eugénie (painting now in Compiègne) :





here is Napoléon 3 and Eugénie in a masqued ball (painting now in Musée d'Orsay) :




Here is Eugénie receiving at a ball (painting now in Compiègne):



And just to show you how talented Capeaux was also as a sculptor (he did, for the french Opéra de Paris the well-known group called La Danse),
here is Princesse Mathilde (now in Musée d'Orsay):



and the Prince Impérial (now Musée Napoléonien in Ajaccio , Corsica) :



but, rturning to his paintings, here is a painting of Napoléon 3, Alexandre 2 and Guillaume 1 (of Prussia) - painting now in Compiègne:



and a very impressionist painting of the attempt:

pouvoir_aux_canard:
Excuse me, here are two versions of the attempt, VERY, VERY impressionist... :

pouvoir_aux_canard:
So, as I said, Alexandre III never went to Paris (at less officially) but he sent in 1893 an escadre (a huge group of boats) in Toulon.  This friendly action unchained the french enthusiasm... the officers were received in Toulon and Paris, many portraits of the tsar and of his wife were printed and distributed in France..., as this one:





here an idea of the feast in the french military harbour :

All France was in feast: POLITIC ISOLATION WAS FINISHED.

As a consequence, many many french people at this time (it begun during the last years of Second Empire but it became an important economic phenomenon from 1893 to 1914) bought the famous "actions russes" investing in Russian industry and development. They lost all their money in 1917, of course...

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