A Very Short Story about Dim but Dutiful Officials, Which Could Quite Easily Have Happened in Our Own Day
One day Paul I was receiving the Governor-General of Saint Petersburg, Count Pahlen, and the Catholic bishop Stanisław Siestrzeńcewicz, who enjoyed the Emperor's particular favour. How far the Emperor favoured the metropolitan may be judged from the fact that he did not express the slightest indignation at the chamber pages, who were romping noisily in the neighbouring apartments, with giggling and scuffles. Stanisław Siestrzeńcewicz regularly discussed with the Emperor the pressing affairs of the Order of Malta and even the possible union of the Catholic and Orthodox churches.
When the meeting was over, leaving the hall, Paul stopped and said coldly to Pahlen: “Take this monkey to the Peter and Paul Fortress at once, and report to me when it is done.” Pahlen, much as it grieved him, carried out the Emperor's will and took the metropolitan off to the Peter and Paul Fortress, and reported at the palace that the prisoner had asked only to be allowed to take his prayer book with him, and had sighed and whispered prayers the whole way.
The Emperor fell into a terrible rage, realising that it was his friend, Metropolitan Siestrzeńcewicz, who had been arrested, and not the chamber page he had noticed in the passage, dressed out of uniform. But given the absurdity of most of Paul's instructions, the sudden transfer of a beloved churchman to the Peter and Paul Fortress can hardly have surprised anyone
