What should Miloradovich prioritize: governing the captured enemy city or writing a letter to his sort of girlfriend? 🤔
On this day the cavalry of general lieutenant Korf arrived in Grodno and on the next one the infantry of general Miloradovich did so as well. I gave up all the shops and hospitals, situated in the city, to the first one and moved to his quarters, remaining there until my recovery.
I cannot not talk of general Miloradovich here. After his arrival at Grodno all Poles forgot of me and fell on their knees to his feet; however he cared neither about his newly found power, nor the infamy of others: at that time he had received a letter together with a precious saber from countess Orlova-Chesmenskaya.* This letter consisted of some wordings, which were giving him a hope for a marriage with the richest woman in the entire country. Miloradovich started burning with a truly fearsome passion! He couldn't find the words to properly express his gratitude, and would write replies to her for days, and would cover his entire feet with hieroglyphs; and every letter written by him in the evening would get funnier and funnier, plus stupider and stupider! Noone was allowed to enter his cabinet, besides his adjutant Kiselyov, me and doctor Bartellemis, taken prisoner before. We were his advicers: Kiselyov as the smart man of the noble society, me as the man of literature, Bartellemis as Frenchman, since the letter was supposed to be written in French. (Imagine being captured as a prisoner only to work as the translator for Russian soap opera...) Old friend of Miloradovich, major general Passek would complain of him to anyone who would dare to get close to his merciless door, where, as an angry dog, he made his layer. Commandant of the city and officials of the corp came to it several times a day and went home without any replies, because of which, both corps and city management stopped, the hospital turned into the graveyard, shops full of bread, materials and skins were abolished by the newly arrived to Grodno commissary officials, Poles started offending Russians at the streets and at home, to put things simply, the mess reached its peak. Then Miloradovich finally signed his epistle, opened the merciful doors through which everyone rushed... but -alas!- the cabinet was already empty: the great commander had slipped away through his secret exit and galloped off to Gil to dance mazurka, and I got into the sledge and arrived at Tikochin, where my party was waiting for me.
*This saber, encrusted with precious diamonds, was gifted to her father by empress Catherine during the holidays. The letter of countess Orlova was delivered to Miloradovich by his adjutant Okulov; Miloradovich would ask Okulov several times in front of his own staff: "What did the countess tell you, when she gave you the letter?" and to his biggest pity would get "Nothing" as an answer these several times. Miloradovich started hating and haunting him. Okulov soon died in the outpost skirmish.
Count Miloradovich was known in our army for his unbelievable courage and an ability to remain calm no matter what during the battle. Not being gifted with grand abilities, he was an uneducated and not very knowledgeable general, remarked for his love to spend money, amorousness, passion to talk using the unknown to him French and love to dance mazurka. He had received several rich inheritances, but it was all gone quite soon, so he had to ask for help from the sovereign's generosity not once. The mess in the armies commanded by him had always been big; he never slept in the places marked for this beforehand, which forced the adjutants of the generals under him to search for him whole nights in order to receive commands. He would answer them: "What am I supposed to tell your commanders? They know better than me what to do". After the battle for Maloyaroslavetz Yermolov, whom he always called "sa passion", following his squad, was the one to give away the orders from Kutuzov's name. In the future, in times of his appointment as the governor of Saint Petersburg, Miloradovich, while making jumps in front of his richly decorated mirror, got so close to it, that he shattered it by his own head; this forced him to wear a headband for quite a long time. He was adored by the soldiers, and despite not only never running away from dangers, but greedily looking for them, he was never injured during the war. While dying, Miloradovich said: "I'm happy, that I don't die from the soldier's bullet". He was in love with madame Dur; when her throat fell sick, he always told everywhere: "Elle a l'èqui-noxe à la gorge".
The abovementioned countess Anna Orlova-Chesmenskaya, daughter of the famous Russian admiral Aleksey Orlov-Chesmenskiy (also the brother of one of Catherine the Great's lovers), and general Mikhail Miloradovich
My translation of Davydov's memoirs for @kaxen
