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heaves, and misunderstood commands. All hands now worked to rescue the animals and the buried coach from their icy interment using the only horsepower they had available. No bribes (at least none Chappe considered worth recording) passed hands this time as one of the drivers rode to town to get shovels. The group spent the better part of the day excavating the horses, vehicle, and equipment from the snowdrift. Their cold, wet clothes, icy gear, and shell-shocked steeds made the drivers swear off carriage wheels for good. At the next town, the drivers installed runners on the convertible carriage. And at the next major posting stationthe university town of Derpt (present-day Tartu, Estonia)the travelers traded the converted vehicles for horse-drawn sleighs. This time the weather cooperated, and no snowless patches conspired to hinder the groups progress. Sobering windchills kept normally exposed cheeks and necklines hidden beneath scarves and collars. But other than the trouble of additional layers, the partys final fortnight toward St. Petersburg was smooth as the ride itself. As the travelers approached the colossal Russian palace that was their destination on February 13, familiar sounds that Chappe and his servants hadnt heard since Vienna pricked up their earsconversations in courtly French. Russian empress Elizabeth, although largely uneducated, took pride in importing erudite western European culture into her realm. To her, this meant all things French: language, music, dance, art, and cuisine.10 Elizabeths Winter Palacestunning and magnificent like Versaillesoffered up French gastronomical delights for the starving travelers. And its halls resounded with French courtly music like the harpsichord variations of Jacques Duphly or clavichord compositions of Johann Schobert. The opulent Winter Palace (today part of the Hermitage Museum) concealed the busy activity of its hundreds of residents and attendantswhose attention was now trained on the distinguished visitors from the west. Yet for all its comforts, the Winter Palace also harbored an uncomfortable surprise. Despite her admiration for French erudition, Elizabeth had also signed off on two competing Russian Venus transit expeditions to two sites near Lake Baikalsome 1,500 miles farther east than Chappes destination. Not all of Elizabeths court shared their empresss Francophilia, and indeed perhaps the most revered Russian astronomer of the day, Mikhail Lomonosov, did not want to see his nation cede to a foreigner the unique opportunity for the advancement of Russian science that the 1761 Venus transit provided.11 Nevertheless, having mollified her patriotic Russian scientists with their own pair of expeditions, Elizabeth commanded that Chappe journey to Tobolsk with royal sanction. The lead horse on his team of sleighs would carry a special bell in its harness, signaling all Russians traveling the icy roads to clear the way for a vehicle of royal post. Chappe requested both a top clockmaker and a translator to join his Siberian caravan as well, provisions that were soon made. Finally on March 10, four sleighs glided eastward out of the Russian capital and into the greatest expanse of frozen wilderness the world scarcely knew.
From the book The Day the World Discovered the Sun, by Mark Anderson. Reprinted by arrangement with Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright 2012.