The Memoirs of Catherine the Great
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48 In part 2 of the middle memoir, Catherine explains that Brümmer wants her to speak to Elizabeth on his behalf (80–81).
49 In classical mythology, Juno charges Argus, a giant with one hundred eyes, to guard Io.
50 Madame Choglokova (née Countess Hendrikova) was the daughter of Elizabeth’s maternal aunt Kristina Skavronskaia.
51 The Russian name for Tallinn, Estonia; Reval in German.
52 A verst is .66 miles, about one kilometer.
53 Countess Mavra Egorovna Shuvalova (née Shepeleva) was the first wife of Count Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov.
54 The secret articles of the Treaty of May 1746 between Russia and Austria committed them to fight together against Prussia and Turkey.
55 They returned to St. Petersburg on July 30, 1746.
56 Tiran the Fair was a knight-errant of the kind mocked by Cervantes in Don Quixote, originally Tirant lo Blach by Mossen Johanot Matorell (Valencia, 1490). Catherine may have read a French imitation by Count A. Cl. de Caylus, Histoire du vaillant chevalier Tiran le Blanc (London, Paris, 1737).
57 The letters of Madame de Sévigné (1629–96), especially to her daughter, were prized for their simple and natural tone, and for the vividness with which they evoked the glory of the seventeenth-century court of Louis XIV.
58 In September 1763, Catherine wrote Voltaire: “From the time that I could do what I liked until 1746, I read only novels. By chance, [your] works fell into my hands. I could not stop reading them. . . . I always returned to the first mainspring of my taste and of my most valued enjoyment, and assuredly, if I have any knowledge, it is to [you] alone that I owe it” (Besterman no. 10597).
59 He died March 16, 1747.
60 The 30,000 troops under Repnin ensured the successful peace negotiations at Aachen to end the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48), which involved all the major powers.
61 An arshin is twenty-eight inches.
62 Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de (d. 1614), Mémoires des messire Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brantôme, contenans les anecdotes de la cour de France, sous les rois Henry II, François II, Henry III & IV, touchant les duels (1665); Hardouin de Beaumont de Péréfixe (1605–71), Histoire du roi Henri le Grand (1661).
63 She was the sisters’ French governess.
64 Count Armand Lestocq’s wedding was on November 11, 1747. The order for his arrest was given November 13, 1748; he was taken to the fortress November 17, tortured November 23, had his property confiscated November 24, and was convicted on November 29 to exile, though he remained in the fortress until 1753, when he was sent to Velikii Ustiug.
65 Father Joseph Barre (1692–1764), Histoire générale d’Allemagne (1748), 10 vols. Dacier’s Oeuvres de Platon traduites de grec en français, avec des remarques et la vie de ce philosophe, 2 vols. (1699, 1744).
66 May 22, 1749.
67 June 21, 1749.
68 He married Ekatarina Ivanovna Naryshkina on October 27, 1746. † Herpes.
69 September 17, 1749.
70 October 8, 1749.
71 Praskovia Ivanovna Shuvalova married Prince Nikolai Fedorovich Golitsyn.
72 In part 3 of her middle memoir, dated 1791, Catherine writes that she sent Baturin to Kamchatka in 1770, and that Beniovsky and his followers deserved to hang (167). She evidently did not know that Baturin had died in 1772. However, in 1773 she pardoned Beniovsky and his followers, allowing them to return to Russia. In a letter to Procurator General Prince Viazemsky (October 2, 1773), she explains that their request to return “shows how the Russian loves his Russia, and their trust in me and my mercy has touched my heart” (quoted in Böhme 2:102). This internal evidence indicates that parts 2 and 3 of the middle memoir, the so-called 1791 memoir, were written after part 1 (dated 1771), finished before October 1773, and only edited in 1791 (ix).
73 Her brothers were Peter and Karl Ernst.
74 February 17, 1750.
75 A white heavy powder used in medical ointments for burns.
76 Count Lynar arrived February 7, 1750.
77 By 1751, he had ten children, and eventually he had twelve.
78 Count Moritz Karl Lynar was the favorite of Anna Leopoldovna, regent (1740–41) for Ivan VI.
79 April 30, 1750.
80 As Catherine points out in part 3 of the middle memoir, “That meant that the Empress did not wish to have us as close to her apartment as we had been before” (181).
81 June 6, 1750.
82 September 17, 1750.
83 Praskovia Fedorovna Saltykova was married to Ivan V, Peter I’s half brother and co-ruler until Ivan’s death. Biron’s father, Karl Bühren, was a cornet in the Polish army.
84 Born 1716.
85 April 30 to June 8, 1751.
86 Lev Alexandrovich Naryshkin’s brother was Alexander, whose wife was Anna Nikitichna (née Rumiantseva); his sisters were Natalia, Maria, and Agrafena.
87 Natalia died in 1760.
88 Actually, November 2, 1751.
89 During and after the coup, she entrusted her son Paul to him.
90 Three of her sons ended up in prison.
91 From “Madame Choglokova replied” to “exist. Then” left out of the Russian Academy edition (1907) of Catherine’s works.
92 July 30, 1752.
93 October 20, 1752.
94 They actually departed on December 16 and arrived on December 20, 1752.
95 From “Meanwhile, Madame Choglokova” to “after Easter” left out of the Russian Academy edition (1907) of Catherine’s works.
96 Journal of the Court Quartermasters, 1753: “April 29. Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess deigned to be absent because of illness.”
97 To drill a hole in the skull to relieve pressure.
98 Nomad’s tent or covered wagon.
99 This was the practice of members of the religious sect called Skoptsy.
100 Shah-Nadir (1688–1747), Shah of Persia (r. 1736–47), known as the Persian Napoleon or the Second Alexander, served Tahmasp II (1704–40) and took the name Tahmasp Kuli Khan, or “Tahmasp’s slave.”
101 Dictionnaire historique et critique 2 vol. (1697) by Pierre Bayle (1647–1706); 8 ed., 4 vol. (Amsterdam, 1740).
102 Journal of the Court Quartermaster, 1754: “September 20. Toward morning Her Imperial Highness Her Majesty Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna successfully gave birth. God has sent His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Paul Petrovich. In the eleventh hour, in the presence of Her Imperial Majesty, Grand Duke Paul Petrovich was brought from the chambers of Their Imperial Highnesses to the inner chambers of Her Imperial Majesty, and the successful birth is announced to the whole court through the raising of banners in the city and cannonades from all fortresses” (728).
103 In a dispatch from July 27, 1757, L’Hôpital notes “the love of the Empress for the son of the Grand Duchess, which they say belongs to Monsieur Saltykov” (quoted in Böhme 2:177).
104 November 6, 1754.
105 A religious ceremony held to celebrate the end of a woman’s confinement.
106 Journal of the Court Quartermaster, 1754: “November 1. Tuesday, Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess, on the occasion of the six weeks since Her Highness successfully gave birth, while seated on her bed, deigned to accept the humble congratulations of resident distinguished persons of both sexes, from ambassadors and other foreign ministers of the second rank” (728).
107 Voltaire’s Annales de l’Empire depuis Charlemagne, 2 vols. (1753), Abrégé de l’Histoire universelle depuis Charlemagne jusqu’à Charles V, 2 vol. (1753), and Histoire universelle, 2 vol. (Paris, 1754); Essai sur l’histoire universelle, or in its final form, Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations (1769); in 1765 he published the introduction separately as La philosophie de l’histoire, par feu l’Abbé Bazin, which he dedicated to Catherine. Catherine was reading Barre’s History of Germany in 1749 too.
108 Cesare Baronio (1538–1607), Secular and Ecclesiastical History (1588–1607), Annales ecclesias
tici, in Russian translation Deianiia tserkovnye i grazhdanskie ot r. Khr. do XIII stoletii (1719) (in Böhme 2:184).
109; Montesquieu, L’esprit des lois (1748) and Publius Cornelius Tacitus (55–117), The Annals (109 A.D.), an important 100-year history of Rome, beginning with Caesar Augustus.
110 A trumeau is a mirror having a painted or carved panel above or below the glass in the same frame.
111 The three days before Ash Wednesday, once a time of confession and absolution.
112 In 1760, Catherine made notes about this visit: “At the end of 1754, seeing that his affairs were in a state that threatened widespread bankruptcy, the Grand Duke decided to give me the task of putting things in order. At first I did not want to take this on, foreseeing the difficulty of remedying this hopeless situation, as well as the jealousy and envy that this would earn me, but I finally decided to agree to it; I could no longer refuse without offending the Grand Duke.” She takes us through his accounts. “I then put into writing all of Brockdorff ’s contradictory actions for and against the Shuvalovs, his accusations, and I gave this text to the Grand Duke. Brockdorff induced his master to reveal its contents to Count Alexander Shuvalov, who, trusting Brockdorff, believed me the author of everything against the Shuvalovs. They detested Chancellor Bestuzhev; these suspicions, and the fear that my relations with him might become harmful to them one day, hastened his fall. At that time they could not imagine that a consistent policy was the product of a woman’s mind, that this woman already had all of the small and great affairs of her husband in hand, that this woman would not tolerate any embezzlement, insinuations, injustice, etc.” (621–24)
113 May 23, 1755.
114 The opposite is probably true. With his toy soldiers and play regiments, Peter III followed the practice of Peter the Great, who as a young man had toy boats and regiments at his estate outside Moscow in Kolomenskoe.
115 Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams arrived June 12, 1755, and Count Stanislaw Poniatowski arrived at the end of the month.
116 November 10, 1755.
117 On January 16, 1756, in a surprise move, Frederick the Great signed the Whitehall Treaty with England, and on May 1, 1756, his spurned ally France signed the Versailles Treaty with Austria, which, by the end of the year, Russia signed too. The war began with Frederick the Great’s invasion of Saxony on August 18, 1756.
118 Count Andrei Alekseevich Bestuzhev-Riumin married Evdokia Danilovna Razumovkaia on May 5, 1747.
119 His daughter is Princess Elena Stepanovna Kurakina.
120 His son-in-law was Count Gavril Ivanovich Golovkin.
121 Duchess Albertine Friederike von Holstein-Gottorp died on December 22, 1755. Defeated by Russia in the Great Northern War (1700–21), Sweden retreated militarily, until in a backlash in the 1730s, Swedish nobles (the Hats) accepted French support against Russia. Their opponents (the Nightcaps, or Caps) looked to England, and after 1748, to Russia, for support; their dependence on Russia and a failed coup in 1755, by King Adolf Friedrich and his Prussian wife to restore an absolutist monarchy, weakened their position.
122 Ivan Ivanovich Betskoi (1704–95) was the illegitimate half brother of the Princess of Hessen-Hamburg; their father was Prince Ivan Iurevich Trubetskoi (1667–1750). The Princess of Hessen-Hamburg’s first husband was Prince Dmitry Antiokhovich Kantemir (1663–1723); their daughter Princess Ekaterina Dmitrievna Golitsyna (1720–61) married (in 1751) Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Golitsyn (1721–93). Hospodar was the title given to princes and governors of Moldavia and Walachia (today Romania).
123 He departed in early November 1757.
124 The treaty between Russia and England of September 19/30, 1755, was ratified on February 1, 1756. Russia then signed the Treaty of Versailles with France and Austria on December 20/31, 1756.
125 He arrived on December 23 and presented his papers as minister on December 31, 1756.
126 “Baba Ptitsa” means pelican; it is a bird (“ptitsa”) that looks like a “baba,” an old woman.
127 Elizabeth first established a council in March 1756 to prepare for war with Prussia.
128 January 29, 1757.
129 May 6, 1757.
130 A religious service held to mark a victory.
131 According to Poniatowski, the Prussian King Frederick the Great said: “I am his Dulcinea; he has never seen me, and like Don Quixote, he has fallen in love with me.” Mémoires du roi Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1914), 1:172.
132 August 6, 1758.
133 May 1764.
134 January 10, 1758.
135 Prussia and Saxony were the most powerful German states.
136 Maria Josepha was the oldest daughter of Emperor Joseph I.
137 May 30, 1758.
138 A sword knot is a looped strap, ribbon, etc., attached to the hilt of a sword as a support or ornament.
139 In a dispatch from July 27, 1757, L’Hôpital writes: “They say that the Grand Duchess is recently pregnant by Count Poniatowski” (quoted in Böhme 2:239).
140 September 8, 1757.
141 Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna (December 9, 1757, to March 8, 1759). Catherine has the year wrong.
142 The events Catherine assigns to this year in fact occurred in 1758. Catherine also wrote “1759,” the wrong year, in the margin.
143 Buturlin married on February 15, Strogonov on February 18, and Naryshkin on February 22, 1758.
144 February 14, 1758.
145 Poniatowski writes: “There was a Venetian jeweler who often took the Grand Chancellor’s and my letters to the Grand Duchess and brought the replies.” Mémoires 1:319.
146 A conventicle is a small, clandestine meeting, in a pejorative sense.
147 By the manifesto of February 27, 1758.
148 Manifesto of April 5, 1759.
149 April 7, 1758.
150 “Today my damned nephew irritated me as never before” and “My nephew is a monster, the devil take him.” The spelling irregularities may be Catherine’s transcription or Elizabeth’s original notes.
151 Chevalier, a knight of an order (not a cavalier, or gentleman).
152 From “I have just said” to “hand at will” left out of the Russian Academy edition (1907) of Catherine’s works.
153 March 7, 1758.
154 Fedor Iakovlevich Dubiansky was married to Maria Konstantinovna Sharogorodskaia, the daughter of Konstantin Fedorovich Sharogorodsky (d. 1735), who had also been Elizabeth’s confessor (Böhme 2:271).
155 April 13, 1758.
156 Princess Johanna was in Hamburg; she arrived in Paris in July 1758, a refugee (because of her ties with Russia) from Prussia’s Seven Years’ War with Russia.
157 Abbé Prévost (1697–1763), et al., ed. Histoire générale des voyages; ou, Nouvelle collection de toutes les relations de voyages par mer et par terre, qui ont été publiées jusqu’à présent dans les di férentes langues de toutes les nations connues . . . pour former un système complet d’histoire et de géographie moderne, qui representera l’état actuel de toutes les nations: enrichi de cartes géographiques . . . , 20 vols. (Paris: Chez Didot, 1746–92).
158 Denis Diderot and Jean d’Alembert, Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 58 vols. (1751–72).
159 Princess Sophie was baptized on April 23, 1729.
160 Prince Charles became Duke of Courland on November 16, 1758, and was invested on January 8, 1759.
161 Catherine dedicated part 2 of her middle memoir to him.
162 May 23, 1758.
163 June 17, 1757.
164 Catherine crossed out what she used in the memoir. Whatever she did not cross out is in italics.
165 Elizabeth has a stroke on September 8, 1757.
166; December 9, 1757. Her daughter, Anna Petrovna, died on March 8, 1759; she never mentions her daughter’s death anywhere.
167 February 18 and 22, 1758.
168 February 14, 1758.
169 April 13, 1758.
> 170 August 14, 1758 (n.s.).
171 May 30, 1758.
172; May 23, 1758.
173 June 25/July 6, 1758.
174 Horace, Ars Poetica, 1. 139.
175 In his memoirs (1: 327–31), Poniatowski describes how the Grand Duke and his drunken party met him as he arrived at Oranienbaum to see Catherine. After snide comments by his mistress, the Grand Duke had him detained as he was leaving. The Grand Duke “first asked me in clear terms whether I had . . . his wife. I told him no.” The Grand Duke brought in Alexander Shuvalov as head of the Secret Chancery, to whom Poniatowski said, “I believe that you understand, Monsieur, that it is absolutely crucial for the honor of your own court that all of this end with as little fuss as possible and you get me out of here as soon as possible.” Shuvalov agreed, and gave Poniatowski a carriage to leave. Two days later he received a note from Catherine, indicating “that she had taken several steps to win over her husband’s mistress.” Catherine told him to meet her at Peterhof, where she would be with the court for St. Peter’s Day, June 29/July 11, 1758. That evening Catherine finds Poniatowski in the Grand Duke’s chamber. ‡ This passage appears in final memoirs before what should be the end of 1757 (before the birth of her daughter), but which Catherine mistakenly thinks is 1758. Here it comes after the middle of 1758, or what Catherine thinks is 1759.
APPENDICES
CATHERINE’S OUTLINE, 1756–59
Return to town. The chevalier W[illiams] departs. Count P[oniatowski] returns as the minister from Pol[and] toward the end of 1756. The assignations continue on the same footing. The intrigues of Brockdorff and the Holstein entourage, a number of officers from this country in the Grand Duke’s chambers. What he thinks of Russia, his lies; the Elendsheim affair, my opposition to his arrest; he is arrested just as Holmer had been, without evidence, with neither an accuser nor an accusation; my views on this subject. Beginning in 1757. Continuation of the Grand Duke’s affairs with Madame Teplova, with Countess Vorontsova, with the Princess of Courland, the danger she risked; Marshal Razumovsky’s affair with Madame Naryshkina; Lev N[aryshkin’s] promise, how they wanted to marry him off and how he . . . How we went one day . . . to Marshal Razumovsky’s home one day during Lent, and how . . . Departure for the country, Pechlin’s death, Stambke’s arrival. In the month of July news of the capture of Memel by the treaty of June 24th. In the month of August, news of the battle of Gros Jägerndorf, which had occurred on the 19th of the same month. I held a party in my garden on the day of the Te Deum, which consisted of a large dinner, and a roast ox for my garden workers and for the masons, who were building a man-made mountain. In the autumn, conversation with the Emp[ress] at the Summer Palace. Retreat of Marshal Apraksin, which has the appearance of flight. Why. Sinister explanation. His difficulties, my letters at the request of the Grand Chancellor. The Marshal does not answer. Winter of 1757. Beginning of 1758, the dispatch of Fermor, capture of Königsberg on January 18th. Marshal Apraksin is taken to Triruki. His trial, his death. General Lieven, mixed up in this affair. His devotion to me, what he says about this to Count Pon[iatowski] at Count Esterhazy’s masked ball. Arrival of Prince Charles of Saxony. New pregnancy. How he was received, the Grand Duke barely honors him, hardly talks to him; the Princess of Courland’s part in this. Prince Charles joins the army. Departure for Oranienbaum, the party that I give there for . . . the effect of this party.163 His Imperial Highness reattaches himself to Countess Vorontsova, he increasingly shuns me; the party I give at Oranienbaum, the effect of this party. How Lev turns his back on me in the spring of this year, how he attaches himself to the Grand Duke, how his sister-in-law and I whipped him. The Empress’s suffering over the Battle of Zorndorf; it is declared won; the truth was that both sides were beaten, the Te Deum is not sung until the third day, our troops however sang it on the battlefield. The Emp[ress] on the Battle of Zorndorf. Count Schwerin, the adjutant general of the King of Prussia is taken prisoner. Fermor gives Lieutenant Captain Grigory Orlov the order to take this prisoner of war to Petersburg.164 The Empress goes from Peterhof to Tsarskoe Selo; what happens to her on September 8th, the day of the Virgin’s Nativity, how I learn about it.165 Return to town. I do not appear in public, believing that I am close to giving birth; I am off by a month; what Lev N[aryshkin] comes to tell me about my pregnancy in October. Why I had my big bed removed and thereafter only slept in my little bed and this in another room. October, news of the recall of Count P[oniatowski]. Count Bestuzhev’s anger about this, my delivery in December,166; celebrations of this, fireworks on January 1st, 1759. How Peter Shuvalov brings me the plan for the fireworks, where I hide my company and how I receive him. During carnival three weddings at court, disastrous weddings of L[ev] N[aryshkin], of Strogonov, and of B[uturlin];167 bets about these, who of the three would first be cuckolded. Arrest of Count Bestuzhev,168 of my jeweler Bernardi, of Elagin, Adadurov; Shkurin’s secret contacts, which fail. The Grand Duke no longer comes into my chambers. Discovery of Stambke’s and Count Pon[iatowski’s] secret contacts with Count Bestuzhev, dismissal of Stambke; the affairs of Holstein are taken from me, someone named Wolff is brought in, they are given to him. The Grand Duke is made to fear speaking to me during the Bestuzhev affair. How I wanted to go to the Comédie Russe and how they wanted to keep me from going there, how I wanted to write to the Emp[ress] about why they wanted to keep me from going. I am warned that there is talk of dismissing me, my decision concerning this. I demand to be dismissed. I write of this to the Empress, what this letter contained; I say that I am sick and no longer go out. I am alone in my chambers, I read five volumes of the Histoire des voyages with the map on the table and the Encyclopédie for my amusement. The Empress has me informed that she wants to speak to me. The Grand Duke learned of this, he became jealous of it and demands to be present at this conversation. How this conversation took place.169 The Empress’s conduct, her words, her actions, the Grand Duke’s conduct on this occasion, mine, how I began upon entering. What the Empress said to me while approaching her toiletry table, what I replied to her. She dismisses us, what Alexander Shuvalov comes to tell me on her behalf. How I reply. How she sends Count Vorontsov to me a short time later. The Prince of Saxony returns to Petersburg after the Battle of Zorndorf,170 how he had fled to Landsberg; because of his cowardice, the Grand Duke does not speak to him, nor does he wish to have anything to do with him. There is talk of making Prince Charles Duke of Courland, the Princess of Courland makes the Grand Duke angry at Prince Charles; third engagement of the Princess of Courland with Cherkasov. How the Grand Duke wanted to go to Holstein, what he did to this end, what was done, how I was told about it; what I said, what Count Vorontsov told me about it, this should be put at the end of 1759. Departure for the country;171 before this second conversation with the Emp[ress] in private, the Empress’s decision about my situation.172; This was the day following Prince Charles’s visit to our residence, what Count P[oniatowski] said to me rather loudly upon departing was heard, I think, by Brockdor f, who was quite near us. I take the waters, where I stay. How Count P[oniatowski] is arrested leaving my residence.173 Brockdor f speaks of killing him. Lev N[aryshkin] advises giving him to Count Ale[xander] Sh[uvalov], who hands him to his son-in-law and leaves for Peterhof. Ivan Sh[uvalov] advises him to have him released, which he does. Ale[xander] Sh[uvalov] comes the following day to tell me what happened overnight, I knew nothing of it, the Grand Duke comes to my chambers, speaks to me, they had appeased him because they did not want any rupture, he proposes that I see, demands that I see Countess Eliz[abeth] V[orontsova]. She comes to my chambers, I remain in bed all day, quite overcome. The evening of the following day, I receive from Alex[ander] Sh[uvalov] a note from the Empress, written in the hand of Ivan Sh[uvalov] and signed Eli[zabeth], in which she begs me not to be distressed and to come to Peterhof for the feast of St. Peter as if nothing had happened. I reply to this and show her my heartfelt gratitude. I go to Peterhof. During the St. Peter’s day ball, Count Rzewuski says to me: my
friend asked me to tell you that by the channel of La Grelée and that of Count Branicki, everything is arranged and that this evening he hopes to have the pleasure of seeing you in the Grand Duke’s chambers. Now, he had never been there. I replied to Count Rzewuski: tell your friend that I find this conclusion completely ridiculous and that [a mountain has given birth to a mouse].174 Back from [supper] I went to bed without hearing discussion of anything. Between two and three in the morning I heard the curtain of my bed being drawn and I awoke with a start; it was the Grand Duke, who told me to get up and follow him; whom I find in his chambers.175 There we all are, the best friends in the world. How until Count P[oniatowski’s] departure, the Grand Duke spent two and three evenings per week in my circle and drank my English beer; so that as a result of this episode and that of the following winter there was no trust to be had in His Imperial High ness in anything, and things took such a turn that it was necessary to perish with him, by him, or else to try to save oneself from the wreckage and to save my children, and the state.‡