Paolo Primo started his career in the army; he attended in 1875 the Military College of Milan (which then existed together with that of Naples) and then the Military Academy of Artillery and Genius in Turin (1878). He was named Lieutenant in 1880. Various photographs from around that time, made with his father Caesar and his brother Carlo, all in uniform, portray them as handsome and willowy. Paolo Primo in particular has a distinction and a beautiful masculinity that accompanied him during all his life. In 1890 he attended the School of War and having exited there, he entered into the Major State.
Helene Vitchinine
In 1885, at 23 years of age, he went for the first time to Russia and there he met the woman who would become his first wife, Elena Vetchinine. The occasion to go to Russia was presented to him in a fortuitous way; he had decided to return to Anversa for the World Exposition and made a stop in Venice. At the hotel he met a man of Russian nationality with whom he got on; after a few days passed engagingly in Venice, the itinerary of Paolo Primo’s voyage changed and instead of going to Anversa, they redirected themselves together to Russia, Tambov to be precise, where his Russian acquaintance Alessandro Alessandrovitch Vetchinine had some vast estates.
Alessandro Alessandrovitch achieved the office of “Marshall of the Noblesse” (Marshall of the Nobility); his mother, Elena Petrovich, was daughter of the governor and minister of the Tzar Alexander II.
Helène, the eldest of the daughters, had two sisters, Nadiok and Claudie and a brother, Petia. Nadiok married Pavlof; Claudie [married] the Baron Alessandro (Sacha) Staël Holstein, cousin of Alessandra Staël Holstein, [who was the] wife of Paolo Primo. Petia died young.
The Vetchinines belonged to the landed nobility, open to the cultural influx of the West, but closed and conservative in their ways of life and in the traditions, which were very ingrained. In that period, every family of the aristocracy or the wealthy had for their children’s education: a French tutor for the son and one or two governesses, English and German, for the daughters. They derived from this a large understanding of the foreign languages that were being spoken currently, reserving the Russian language for their servants, and a profound understand of various foreign literatures and of the French, English, and German thought of their period.
And now here is the description of the family. I will avail myself of notes left by Paolo Primo in his hand under the title: Vigil of the Russian Revolution. In the chapter “My First Journey to Russia” he writes thus:
“Alessandro Alessandrovitch Vetchinine, is a good man. Lord, well educated, a little ancient and therefore convinced reactionary though without exaggeration, he worries little about the bonds held by the attendant and little enough about his office of Marshal of the Nobility. Good father, very indulgent with his children and kind with his wife, is very courteous with guests. He is a mature gentleman, of complex body size, tall, with a round, grey beard and blue eyes.
“Elena Petrovitch, the wife, is very ladylike. Daughter of a Governor and Minister of Alexander II, she has traveled abroad. She is little older than forty years old and is still beautiful and pleasant. Culture, intelligent, she possesses, like all her compatriots, a great personal charm, that attracts sympathies, but also here like her compatriots, is at times fey, fickle, superstitious, and not always truthful. She has however certainly more than her husband, courage and decision.
“Their three children, from the eldest: Hèlene, Nadiok and Claudie, all three blonde, are cute, educated and romantic. Under the strict rule of their English governess, whom they nevertheless greatly love, they appear wise and tranquil, but as soon as they are unsupervised, they allow to flash what fire they hide in their Slavic hearts.
“Their son Petia is 12, has for his tutor an Englishman and a Frenchman for his teacher.
“The conversations are held in various languages without hesitation and elegantly as if they were only speaking a single language. Before breakfast, the master of the house says in a whisper a brief prayer, making the sign of the cross at the Icon posted in the corner of the room, as high as the ceiling. After every meal, everyone: children, husband, guests, thank the master of the house, kissing his hand.”
In this environment Paolo Primo passed a period of vacation that was very pleasant and fun. He made some good friends and, invited, returned the next year. It was in this way that he conquered the heart of the eldest of the sisters, Helène, whom he married in 1886. He had three children: Paolo (Paolo II) (b. 1886 – d. 1945), Caterina, Elena. Helène, (b. 1868 0 d. 1890) died after four years of marriage, leaving Paolo Primo with three very small children.
Even after the death of his wife, Paolo Primo continued to return to Russia. There were the relatives of his wife to visit and to introduce to the little ones, not to mention interests to look after.
Alessandra Staël Holstein
The Vetchinine property bordered on that of the Staël Holstein family, composed at that time of the Baroness Sofia (b. 1844 – d. 1920) widow, and of her daughter, nubile, and a little older than twenty, Alessandra (b. 1872 – d. 1969), nicknamed Sania. Paolo Primo had occasion to meet this family while they were visiting the Vetchinines. The lightning strike occurred, however, in Italy, precisely at Milan where Paolo Primo was garrisoned with the grade of Captain of Stato Maggiore. Sania Staël Holstein, in the company of Claudie Vetchinine and of the husband of the latter Sacha Stël Holstein (Sacha S. H. was the cousin of Sania inasmuch as he was the son of her uncle, Anatole, brother of Nicola Staël Holstein, father of Sania) made a trip to Europe and Claudie wanted to stop in Milan to see her nieces and nephews Paolino, Rina, and Lola. So Sania also saw Paolo Primo again, falling in love with him bit by bit, and when she departed to return to Russia, she had become his fiancée. This happened in the March of 1895; the 29th of August of the same year the marriage between Paolo Primo and Sania was celebrated at Voronezh (Russia) where the property of the Staël Holstein family was found.
This brings me to speak of the Staël Holstein family. I will do so briefly as I’ve already written about the Staël Holstein family in Volume I of The Ruggeri-Laderchis, and will make use of a record, very detailed, compiled in Russian by Wolodia and Lala Zwenguintzof, children of the sister of my mother, and translated into English by my sister Nora who made various typed copies of it, one of which is in my hands and another in the hands of my son Paolo II. I return however to this record for major details. Here I will note only that the family is of Baltic original and very ancient.
Actually there exist three branches of them: the Swedish branch, the German branch, and the Russian branch. The founder of all the branches was Baron Otto Willhelm Staël Holstein, who lived around 1760. He was the son of Jacob, Major General of the Swedish army who died, killed through the betrayal of Baron Reinhold von Mengdan. The two were supposed to duel with pistols on horseback, but Reinhold von Mengden, before the duellers had drawn and the masters had given the signal to start, galloped up to General Staël Holstein and fired, wounding him in the hand, causing him to drop his pistol. Reinhold’s father in turn, with another pistol shot, mortally wounded General Staël Holstein who died the day after. Reinhold von Mengden, processed, was condemned and decapitated.
To the Swedish branch belongs the famous Madame de Staël, lady of great intelligence, writer, politico, great enemy of Napoleon I. She, née Necker, a noted financier, married a Staël Holstein. Another relative of the Staël Holsteins is Count Fersen, known for his devotion to Marie Antoinette and for having sought to help her escape during her imprisonment. There are known a group of letters addressed to Fersen from Marie Antoinette, but of these is revealed nothing concerning a sentimental connection which some wish to have existed between the two. Fersen, who was always very reserved concerning this, deleted from the above mentioned letters expressions and phrases that could furnish these indications.
To the Russian branch belongs Alessandra (Sania) Staël Holstein who married Paolo Primo. Of the German branch there exist some Staël Holsteins who live in San francisco (USA).
The Russian nationality was taken by the Staël Holsteins from the Baltic provinces, when Russia occupied and annexed those provinces. Alessandro Staël Holstein lived from 1802 to 1875, was the first to marry a Russian, Sophie Shatilov, who being Orthodox, imparted that religion to her children. Before this the Staël Holsteins had been Protestants. My mother Alessandra, born Orthodox, having married an Italian Catholic, allowed her children to be Catholics and, when she was struck by the misfortune of losing some of her children, assumed the Catholic religion to feel closer to them.
Sophie Shatilov, from a noble and wealthy family from Central Russia, brought as a dowry numerous properties, those being: Nikolske, Alexeevskoe, Sophyino, Pestchany, Pridachnoye.
Alexeevskoe, which belonged to the family of Sophie Shatilov’s grandmother, named Daria Lossev, passed as an inheritance to Anatole Staël Holstein, second-born of Sophie Shatilov and brother of Nicola, father of Alessandra Ruggeri-Laderchi. The property passed therefore to the son of Anatole, Alessandro (Sacha) who as we will see married Claudie Vetchinine without having children. Alexeevskoe borders on the Staël Holstein properties in Voronezh,
From Alessandro Staël Holstein and from Sophie Shatilov were born four children:
- Nicola (1833-1887), who married Sophie Andrault de Langeron and had three children:
- Olga, married first to Nicola Zveguintzov, from whom: Wolodia who is found in France, Olga (Lala) in the USA, Ella in Canada. Cola died during the revolution and Irina in Yugoslavia. A daughter of Ella, by the name Irina, married the Marquis Rangoni Machiavelli who has property in Forano (Macerata); Olga in her second marriage, married Oom.
- Alessandra (Sania) wife of Count Paolo Ruggeri-Laderchi, from whom: Cesare b. 1896; Giorgio b 1899 – d. 1916; Olga b. 1908 – d. 1913; Alessandro b. 1909 – d. 1936; Eleonora b. 1912; [Tr.: d. 1987]
- Giorgio, who died a bachelor during the Russian Revolution. He lived as if he was married to an Italian-born ballerina, re-settling at Nikolskoye. He was “Marshal of Noblesse”, Official in his young years, commander of a hospital train during the First World War, that traveled
- Anatole, from whom Alessandro Staël Holstein (Sacha) husband of Claudie Vetchinine, born without children;
- Olga, wife of Count Cancrine, a very beautiful and refined lady. A precious watercolor that depicts her in a ballgown of the period, of white lace and with a large, golden-yellow scarf, that is in the hands of my sister Mrs. Robert H. Klein, Portola Valley, California. [Tr.: Now owned by Sandra Klein-Frum (Northbrook, IL)] Her husband was a landowner of large estates in Bessarabia, but she, wanting to stay close to her brothers, bought in the area of Voronezh, the estate of Otradnoe which then at her death she left to her sister-in-law Sophie Andrault de Langeron wife of Nicola Staël Holstein, her brother. She had a daughter Ina who married first Count Tolstoi and in her second marriage wed the Englishman Philip Stanhope, who then became Lord Worsdale.
- Lydia, wife of Shabelsky; she lived almost always outside of Russia.
Nicola Staël Holstein dedicated himself to a career in the army and took part in the wars of his time, distinguishing himself. A great painting, of which there exist only photographs — since the original is conserved in the official circle of the regiment to which Nicola Staël Holstein belonged — portrays him, very handsome, on a horse at the head of his regiment of the cavalry while the battle of Kruszyn rages, during the Russo-Polish War. The painting is by Kossak.
From the campaign against the Turks, he brought to his daughter Alessandra, about 7 at the time, a little table inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl made in Turkey. Said table is still in my house, located in front of the red divan in the English leather room. Nicola died young at 54; he felt ill one evening when his wife had accompanied their daughter Olga to a ball. His death came suddenly and my mother, very young, remembered with pain that at the dying man’s bedside, his wife and and her sister were still in their ball gowns.
He was a handsome man, tall, with two beautiful “favorites” (that is, his mutton-chop beard with the chin showing). Photographs portray him with a bit of a frown and already bald at the age of 50. His wife Sophie Andrault de Langeron, though she had a French surname, was Russian.
This family assumed Russian citizenship in the early 1800’s, Count Alessandro living then, who was the grandfather of Sophie. Alessandro Andrault de Langeron belonged to an ancient and noble French family with the title of Count. The family is cited in official French documents back to 1336. In the 15th century he received the feudal village and the Castle of Langeron situated 7 km from St. Pierre des Moutiers and of this exist now only ruins. In the land of this castle is buried the son of the aforementioned Alessandro Andrault de Langeron, Theodoro, father of Sophie, who wanted to be interred there even though he had been Russian from birth. Through marriage and other means the titles of the family were: Andrault Counts of Langeron and Sasty. The coat of arms is: blue shield with three spurred roundels of silver, in memory of the three crusades in which members of the family took part. Motto: “Alors content,” which are supposed to have been the words spoken by a Langeron when, dying of wounds received during the siege of Jerusalem, learned that the city had finally been conquered; he said in those circumstances, “Alors je meur content.” [Tr: “Now I die content.”]
French Alessandro Andrault de Langeron began a career in the army at 17 and rapidly rose to the upper ranks of the french army. Sick of garrison life, too monotonous for him, he obtained [permission] to leave for America with the Regiment of Duke Laval-Montmorency to battle the English there. There he distinguished himself in the battles of Puerto-Cabella, Caracas, and San Domingo, obtaining from the American Governor the decoration of the Order of Cincinnatus. Returning to his homeland and promoted to Colonel, in 1788 always unable to bear inaction, he asked and obtained [permission] from Empress Caterina the Great of Russia to enter into the Russian army, with the grade of Colonel. He took part in the war against Sweden and then in the Russo-Turkish War. At the siege of Izmail, in 1790, he was wounded in the leg and was newly decorated “for valor.”
In 1795 he was promoted to Brigadier-General and in 1796 Lieutenant-General. He took part in the battle of Austerlitz at the command of a Russian colonnade.
In 1815 he was named Governor of Kherson and in 1822 Governor General of Novorossisk and Commander in Chief of the Cossacks of Bug and of the Black Sea.
In 1828 during the Russo-Turkish War he was designated to the Supreme Imperial Command. The Emperor conferred upon him the highest decoration: The Cross of St. Andrew with diamonds. Assuming Russian nationality, he obtained to keep his noble titles.
He lived the last years of his life in Odessa of which he was Governor and where he gave all his activity, having quarters and streets constructed. One of the main streets of Odessa is still named Boulevard Langeron.
Alessandro Andrault de Langeron definitely belonged to the ranks of the great Leaders, numerous in the 18th century and early 19th. He was not a great strategist, but he was very brave. He disdained danger, but had a sacrosanct terror of illnesses and … especially of cholera. Far before he died, he began his will with the words: “I am dying of cholera….” Destiny desired that he really did die of cholera in 1831 at St. Petersburg, where he had been exiled for a long time to distance himself from a cholera epidemic that had broken out in Odessa.
Alessandro Andrault de Langeron married three times to:
- Teresa-Diana de la Vaupalière;
- Natalia Petrovna Kashintze;
- Elisabetta Adolphovna von Brummer
but he did not have any children by these three wives. He instead had a son in 1804 by Angelica Dzierzanowska to whom he gave the name of Theodoro (in Russian Feodor). Theodoro was legitimated in France by Louis XVIII and authorized to make use in France of all the titles and rights he had inherited. The legitimization was confirmed also in Russia by decree of the Senate, but Theodoro did not obtain the power to use in Russia the title of Count.
Theodoro Andrault de Langeron was also an official himself. He was born in 1804 and died in 1865. He took part in the Russo-Turkish war of 1828. In 1861 he was name appointed Senator of the Department of the City of Warsaw, after having been for 14 years President of the City of Warsaw. He married Anna Olenine, very beautiful, sweet and intelligent. Upon Anna and her family he happened to linger for the gifts of Anna and for the the elevated cultural and artistic halo of the family.
From Theodoro Andrault de Langeron and from Anna Olenine, were born:
- Theodoro, who married a) Tatiana Ivanova Romanov; b) Sophie Shidlowsky;
- Alessandra, who married a) André Garbinsky; b) Mr. Malkowsky;
- Sophie, who married Baron Nicola Alexandrovitch Staël Holstein;
- Antonina, who married a) Apollon Uvarov; b) General Woyde.
The Olenine family is registered in Book VI of the Russian Nobility. Nicola Olenine married around 1760 the Princess Wolkonsky, a woman who was known in the family annals as being very authoritative and having many manias, but belonging to one of the most ancient and illustrious Russian families.
She was very severe and at times cruel with her son Alexis, despotic with her husband. In the family they used to say that it was the “Wolkonsky demon,” that was the original cause of such descendants in the family.
She had 17 children; the first 14 died as children; the only male child to survive was Alexis XV, who had a very brilliant career and became famous in the field of the arts of letters. In 1811 he was appointed director of the Imperial Public Library to which he gave a notable boost, inviting and collaborating there with great writers from that period. In 1817 he was appointed President of the Imperial Academy of Art to which he gave competent and useful activity. He had the duty of reordering and increasing, with the acquisition of famous works of art from all over Europe, [the collections] of the Museum of the Hermitage of St. Petersburg and it was he who promoted the construction of the Basilica of St. Isaac, one of the most artistic and beautiful in the city.
“Alexis Olenine, was a distinguished artist, an expert in the materials of Russian and classical antiquity, an archaeologist, a historian, a writer of scientific issues. Beyond knowing his own language perfectly (a rare thing in those days), he knew Latin, Greek, Arabic, German, French, English, Italian, and ancient Hebrew. Alessandro Tausend wrote that he was a magnificent artist and a wise man who could justly have a preeminent place in the history of Russian and global culture.” (Translation from memory in English: “The Barons Staël Holstein and the Families Related to Them.”)
Alexis Olenine was also an enchanting conversationalist and master of the house. He was the center around which the cultured society of St. Petersburg loved to come together. In his house one could meet the most select representatives of the arts and sciences.
He loved tenderly his wife Elisabetta Markovna Poltoratzky, who transformed him and was his collaborator in every field. She dispensed it with the care of her own substance by caring for herself. Alexis, in fact, an artist and a splendid one at that, did not have any idea of administration of the value of money. Such is made clear from the letter of the correspondence between the spouses on the occasion of their separation due to illness and by the will of Elisabetta Markovna that advised her husband to sell at her death the Priotino estate which was too expensive and difficult to administrate. (Copy of the letter of and the will can be found with me.)
The children of the Olenines were five:
- Nicola, died during the battle of Borodino;
- Peter, born 1793, wife Maria Lvov;
- Alexis, born 1797, wife Princess Alessandra Dolgorouky;
- Barbara, born 1806, husband her cousin Gregorio Olenine;
- Anna, born 1808, husband Theodoro Andrault de Langeron.
Anna, in her youth was considered one of the beauties of the society of St. Petersburg. Her name is connected to the history of Russian literature because the great poet Pushkin dedicated many poems to her, asking her in vain to marry him. Notwithstanding her physical and intellectual gifts, Anna Olenine married only at the age of 32 Count Theodoro Andrault de Langeron, then an official in the Regiment of the Hussars. When her husband was transferred to Warsaw she followed the traditions of the House Olenine showing herself to be a lovable mistress of the house, a lady of high culture and of perfect education. In her salon in Warsaw, Anna Andrault de Langeron, née Olenine, succeeded in bringing together personalities of various nationalities, religions, and cultural provenances.
The daughter of Anna Olenine, Sophie Andrault de Langeron, married Nicola Staël Holstein, Official of the Hussars of Grodno, whom she met at Warsaw. They had three children:
- Olga;
- Alessandra (Sania) who married Paolo Primo Ruggeri-Laderchi and had five children: Cesare II, Olga, Giorgio, Alessandro I, Eleonora;
- Giorgio I
Sophie Andrault, according to her father’s wishes that, although being born Russian, she remained very attached to France and to French culture (I have already said that he wished to be buried in France in the grounds of the Castle andrault de Langeron), she was educated in French colleges. She was blonde, very white of skin, with light eyes very regular traits. Although photographs portray her as very beautiful and with even traits and with beautiful long hair, it appears as if she were not really beautiful. She was perhaps a little dull, something which today, with makeup, would no longer be an inconvenience. She was not tall in stature and had a tendency to get fat. She was widowed at a very young age, only 43, and lived almost always in the countryside at Otradnoe, passing from time to time a few winter months at St. Petersburg. Of character she was not very expansive and children and nieces and nephews knew little of her life as a youth and of the goings-on in her time. She was easily offended and tended to sulk, but she also knew how to be jovial.
When the Russian Revolution began, Sophie Staël Holstein née Andrault de Langeron was already old, living on her property in Otradnoe, locality near Voronezh; in 1918 she was obligated to leave Otradnoe and it was confiscated. She found refuge at Voronezh, near a woman who had been for many years some maid of her daughter Olga, and she shared a room with her. She died of a stroke on February 12, 1920 at the age of 76. She was buried at Voronezh.
The Ruggeri-Laderchi Family 