All the St. Petersburg churches are already adorned with trophies gained from various nations of Europe and Asia, particularly the Kasan church, the cathedral of the metropolitan ; they are hung up on the pillars and in the corners of the church. Keys of German and French towns, marshal's batons from French generals, and a number of standards from Turks and Persians. The Persian flags are easily known by a silver hand as large as life fastened to the end. The Turkish flags, surmounted by the crescent, are merely large, handsome unsoiled pieces of cloth, mostly red, and so new and spotless that they might be sold again to the sierchant by the ell. It looks as if both Turks and Persians had handed their flags over to the Russians out of politeness, and without striking a blow. The French colours which hang near them, off'er a sad but most honourable contrast. Tliey are rent to pieces, and to many of the eagles, only a single dusty fra2:ment is attached. Of some the Russians have only carried oif the flag-stafi", perhaps because the French ensign had swallowed the last rag, that it might not fall into the hands of the enemy. How many unknown deeds of heroism may not those flags have witnessed. Those eagles with their expanded wings, with which they vainly sought to cover the whole empire, look strangely enough in the places they now roost in.
Amongst the field-marshals' batons is that of the Prince of Eckmiihl, and among the keys suspended to all the pillars, are those of the cities of Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Rheims, Breda, Utrecht, and many other German, French and Netherland cities, before whose gates a Russian trumpet has once been blown.
After the church of Kasan, that of Peter and Paul, in the fortress, is the most interesting. It was built by an Italian architect, under Peter the Great, and stands nearly in the middle of the city, opposite the Winter Palace. Its pointed slender tower, exactly resembling that of the Admiralty, rises like a mast 340 feet in height; for the last 150 feet the tower is so small and thin, that it must be climbed like a pine-tree. On one occasion, when the metal angel on the top wanted some repairs, an adventurous workman reached the summit thus : from the last gallery of the tower he knocked in a hook as high as he could reach from a ladder, threw a rope over it, and dragged himself up by it ; he then knocked in a second hook, which he also mounted by means of his rope, and so reached the top. On the gilding of this slender tower, which is seen from all parts of St. Petersburg hke a golden needle hovering in the air, particularly when, as is frequently the case, the lower part is veiled in fog, 10,000 ducats have already been lavished.
The PeterPaid church in St. Petersburg is a kind of sequel to th .3 Arkhangelskoi Sabor in Moscow ; the one continues the register of the deceased rulers of Russia, from where the other leaves off. In Moscow are interred the Russian czars down to Peter the Great ; he, and those that succeeded him, in the PeterPaul church. Whoever has seen the monuments of the Polish kings at Cracow, or those of the French and English kings and Italian princes, will wonder at the simplicity and absence of ornament in this last resting-place of the Russian emperors, particularly when he thinks of the splendour of the Winter Palace. The simple coffins are placed in the vaults, and over them in the church is notliing further in the shape of a monument, than a stone coffin-shaped sarcophagus, covered with a red pall. On the pall the name of the deceased emperor or emperor's son is embroidered in golden letters, quite simply, as " His Imperial Highness the Grand-Duke Constantine ;" " His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Peter the First," &c. In some there is nothing but the initial letters, and here and there some unimportant trophy. On the sarcophagus of the Grand-Duke Constantine lie merely the keys of some Polish fortresses. Peter the Third, to whom Catherine in her lifetime refused this place, rests there now. Paul placed both Catherine and his father there. A hundred cannon, impregnable bastions, and a garrison of 3000 men defend the place, which can be desecrated by hostile hands only when all St. Petersburg lies in ruins. The Russian princes are the only ones in Europe, as far as I know, who are buried within the walls of a fortress.