## Chapter 208: The Russian Envoy (4K)
After bidding farewell to Arthur, Lady Livent remained in the embassy hall, gazing at the four concert tickets clutched in her palm, seemingly troubled by how to distribute them.
At that moment, a series of creaking sounds from hard leather boots on the floor echoed from the drawing-room.
Lady Livent looked up, a smile instantly blooming on her face: “Count Orlov.”
The newcomer was a man with a handlebar mustache, dressed in a blue-green military uniform.
The surname Orlov was practically a household name in Russia.
During Catherine the Great’s coup d’état, the Orlov brothers were her five most trusted aides.
Almost without exception, these five brothers later became influential figures in both the Russian political and military arenas. The second and third brothers even became Catherine the Great’s lovers, and due to this connection, they rose even faster than their other siblings.
While the father of the current Count Orlov wasn’t the Empress’s lover, he was personally raised under Catherine the Great’s supervision. As a result, Count Orlov was practically childhood friends with Catherine the Great’s two grandsons—the former Tsar Alexander I and his younger brother, the current Tsar Nicholas I.
Based on this experience alone, no one in Russia dared to underestimate Count Orlov’s power. Especially after the current Tsar Nicholas I ascended the throne, the Russian political circles’ flattery and fear of Count Orlov grew steadily with time.
Everyone knew that compared to the indecisive and mild-mannered Alexander I, the current Tsar was decisive, single-minded, possessed an iron will, and had a strong sense of responsibility and mission. While these could be considered virtues, when combined in a ruler, the country would likely get a grand autocrat.
Nicholas I was such a ruler, brimming with energy and a near-pathological lust for power.
He was extraordinarily concerned with every aspect of the Russian Empire, especially his concern for the military, which went as far as personally ordering changes to the number of buttons on military uniforms.
As for the Decembrist uprising, which opposed his rule, Nicholas I naturally took great interest in arresting, investigating, interrogating, and punishing the Decembrists, meticulously overseeing every detail.
This uprising further exacerbated his suspicious nature, leading him to prefer distancing himself from the regular administrative apparatus.
Upon taking power, Nicholas I favored managing the state through various committees independent of the regular state institutions. These committees usually consisted of a small group of his most trusted confidants.
However, the number of such confidants was limited, so in reality, the numerous committees across Russia were merely different combinations of the same group of people.
These committees, like the Imperial Chancellery, operated in secrecy. Beyond providing the Tsar with a minimal sense of security, they only served to further complicate the already complex imperial administration. The entire government machinery became increasingly permeated by direct orders, absolute obedience, and a meticulous military style, which became increasingly evident in official documents and outward appearances.
Count Orlov, a man who embodied both military and childhood friend attributes, naturally belonged to the Tsar’s select circle of confidants. Or to put it more plainly, Count Orlov held key positions in many of the committees directly under the Tsar.
Therefore, the Russian delegation to the London conference was naturally led by Count Orlov.
However, while others might appear nervous when facing this great man from the Tsar’s inner circle, Lady Livent could converse with him calmly and confidently. The reason was simple: her father, Count Benckendorff, was also a trusted confidant of the Tsar, serving as the director of the third department of the Imperial Chancellery.
In Russia, everyone knew that the Tsar spent more time with Benckendorff and Orlov than with the Empress.
Gazing at Lady Livent, who looked troubled while holding the tickets, Count Orlov couldn’t help but ask, “Dorothea, are you encountering any difficulties? If you need help with anything, please don’t hesitate to ask. I will definitely find a way to solve it for you.”
Hearing this, Lady Livent couldn’t help but tease him, “Aleksey, this isn’t St. Petersburg. If you want to arrest someone, you’ll have to ask the officers of Scotland Yard whether they agree or not. Oh, perhaps it’s not too late for you to turn back and chase after him. To be honest, I just met a young police inspector from Scotland Yard.”
Upon hearing this, Count Orlov couldn’t help but turn back and glance: “You mean the young man who just left? He’s quite tall and strong. When I first saw him, I thought he must be a Dutchman because of his height. It wasn’t until he greeted me in thick London slang that I realized he was a genuine Englishman.”
“Shh!” Lady Livent placed a finger to her lips and chided, “Aleksey, be careful what you say. Don’t let the Duke of Wellington hear you, or he’ll be furious. He hates talking about his height.”
Count Orlov couldn’t help but laugh out loud, “Now that you mention it, I think the Duke of Wellington was shorter than Napoleon, wasn’t he? Napoleon claimed to be 5 feet 6 inches tall, but everyone said he was short. Most people don’t know that the Duke of Wellington was only 5 feet 5 inches.
But frankly, achieving their level of success, height truly becomes irrelevant. During the Napoleonic Wars, countless tall men stood before them, not daring to breathe. Even if they were actually short, it didn’t stop them from becoming military giants.”
Lady Livent asked, “So, are you ready to spar with this giant, the Duke of Wellington? From what I see, the British seem ambiguous about Belgium’s independence. They neither explicitly support nor oppose it. This isn’t good news for Russia.
The Tsar must have given you a secret decree before you came, right? If I’m not mistaken, according to our consistent policy, he wants you to seek support from the British, continuously pressure France, and bring independent Belgium back under Dutch rule. Only then will the encirclement of France remain intact. If the Dutch lose Belgium, they won’t be able to stop the French from expanding their sphere of influence eastward with their current strength.”
Count Orlov nodded, “That’s the logic, but while the British dislike the French, they may not be too fond of us either. Since Codrington defeated the Ottoman Turkish navy in the Battle of Navarino, our path from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean has been cleared.
The British Admiralty and Foreign Office seem very angry about this. Not long after the Battle of Navarino, they sent Codrington to the Channel Fleet to sit on the bench. You also made a secret report to the Tsar about this, didn’t you?
The British are uncomfortable seeing our Black Sea fleet sailing freely in the Mediterranean. It’s like they have sand in their eyes. I suspect this is a major reason for their ambiguous stance on Belgian independence.
If possible, I hope you can help me figure out the British current foreign policy. I desperately need to know if they still see France as the primary threat to Europe.”
Lady Livent, upon hearing this, simply smiled and replied, “If you had asked me this question when the Tories were in power, I would have directly refused you. While I have a good relationship with the Duke of Wellington, that old man is incredibly tight-lipped. Extracting useful information from him is harder than climbing to the sky.”
“Dorothea, from the sound of it…” Count Orlov grinned, “The situation has taken a turn?”
“There is indeed some change.”
Lady Livent tucked her hair behind her ear and chuckled, “Our current Foreign Secretary, the Whig, is my dear Henry. He got this position not only because of Lady Cowper, but also because of my strong suggestion. To be honest, Henry, that old philanderer, initially wanted to go to the Treasury.
However, I told him that the competition for the Treasury position was too fierce. Given his position within the party, he should aim for another important chair in the Cabinet. Others might not achieve much in the Foreign Office, but he has me. I can share with him some inside information that others wouldn’t easily get through my network.”
Count Orlov, upon hearing this, teased, “Sounds rather sad, Dorothea. I thought you were with Viscount Palmerston because of love.”
Lady Livent twirled a strand of hair with her finger and playfully blinked, “Love, of course, there’s a bit of it. It’s quite enjoyable to be with Henry. He knows how to get along with women. However, this is England, after all. We need to do things the English way. Mutual benefit is love. One-sided taking is slavery. A decent Russian might not understand this, but the English call it free trade and a commodity economy.”
Count Orlov couldn’t help but laugh, “It seems the Tsar was right. Putting Dorothea in England is worth half of the third department. Your father should send all the foreign intelligence specialists from the third department to learn from you. I’ve been reviewing the third department’s files recently, and my head is spinning. What kind of nonsense are they writing? All the gibberish, full of ambiguous information. Even if you grab two chickens, dip them in ink, and let them step on paper, the result would be more insightful than what they’ve written.”
Hearing this, Lady Livent hesitated for a moment before gently defending the third department. After all, it was part of her father’s subordinate department, and some of their specialists were stationed at the Russian embassy.
Lady Livent said, “Aleksey, you should know that the third department is also forced to do this. Intelligence isn’t so easy to gather. Sometimes, there’s no information on a particular matter, but the Tsar says there must be, so the third department’s report has to include it. Even if it involves adding some personal speculation, they need to produce a report.
The Tsar is a man of action, so his subordinate departments must keep up with his ambition. That’s why he didn’t let the tragedy of the 1824 St. Petersburg flood happen again. His performance in the 1830 Moscow cholera epidemic was simply awe-inspiring.
I bet if cholera had happened in England, they wouldn’t have been able to handle it as well as Russia.”
Count Orlov, upon hearing Lady Livent mention this, couldn’t help but recall something. He chuckled, “Speaking of cholera, do you know about Duke Begendorff’s incident?”
Lady Livent, upon hearing the name, couldn’t help but feel a bit of mischief, “Did the old man make fun of the Tsar again?”
Count Orlov pursed his lips, “After the cholera ended, he wrote a report and submitted it. It said, ‘It seems that for everyone, the disease itself has surrendered before the Tsar’s boundless power.’ Of course, I tend to believe it was not meant to be sarcastic.”
Lady Livent couldn’t help but agree, “Right, just like the conversation he had with the Tsar when the Tsar wanted to crack down on corruption. The Tsar said, ‘I will use hot iron to eradicate bribery!'”
Count Orlov continued, “Duke Begendorff replied, ‘Your Majesty, then who are you planning to stay with?'”
At this point, the embassy’s drawing-room erupted in joyous laughter. Even the few Russian military officers standing at the entrance couldn’t help but turn away, their shoulders shaking with laughter.
However, amidst the laughter in the drawing-room, no one noticed a shadow flashing past the door of the room where the bellows were kept.
Pinkerton, with a letter in his mouth, struggled to move inch by inch out of the ventilation duct, his body contorting. When he noticed a glimmer of light at the dark opening, he instantly saw Arthur, squatting on the wall, leaning against the branches of a tree, smoking.
Arthur noticed the movement in the ventilation duct. He turned his head, startled for a moment, then smiled, “Kid, you sure know how to surprise me. I just asked you to scout the ventilation ducts so we wouldn’t get lost next time we infiltrated. I didn’t expect you to bring back some embassy souvenirs on your first try.”
He reached out and pulled Pinkerton out of the ventilation duct, then agilely flipped over the wall.
As his boots landed, the carriage waiting by the roadside hurriedly opened its door. Eld, sitting inside, waved at them, “Get in quickly. I’ve calculated that the embassy guards patrol this area every three minutes. Based on the time, they’ll be here soon.”
(End of Chapter)