Royal Romances: Titillating Tales of Passion and Power in the Palaces of Europe

by Leslie Carroll

  Sir Robert Gunning, the British envoy, damned the empress’s new man with faint praise. “His figure is gigantic and disproportioned, and his countenance is far from engaging. From the character I have had of him he appears to have a great knowledge of mankind, and more of the discriminating faculty than his countrymen in general possess, and as much address for intrigue and suppleness in his station as any of them; and though the profligacy of his manner is notorious, he is the only one who has formed connections with the clergy….”

  Within weeks of becoming Catherine’s lover, Potemkin collected promotions like blooms in a bouquet. In addition to the adjutant-general post on March 1, on the fifteenth of the month he was made lieutenant-general of the Preobrazhensky Guards, a position formerly held by Grigory Orlov. Catherine herself was the colonel of the regiment. And at the end of March, he was named Governor General of New Russia, the vast expanse to the south bordered by the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire.

  Yet in April, less than two months into their romance, this passionate letter to Potemkin reflects Catherine’s anxiety regarding his level of commitment to her.

  Fear not that one can free oneself from your webs, but from hour to hour one becomes more entangled. But should you yourself somehow lessen my passion, you would make me unhappy. And even then I would probably not stop loving you. But I pray God that I might die at that hour when it seems to me that you are not the same towards me as you have deigned to be these seven weeks! Only whatever happens, I need to think that you love me and the slightest doubt about this troubles me cruelly and makes me unspeakably sad.

  On another occasion the empress rather desperately wrote to her lover, “How awful it is for someone with a mind to lose it! I want you to love me. I want to appear lovable to you. But I only show you madness and extreme weakness. Oh, how awful it is to love extraordinarily. You know, it’s an illness…only I don’t send for an apothecary and neither do I write long letters. If you like, I’ll summarize this page for you in three words…here it is—I love you.”

  Even autocrats get moonstruck.

  Catherine feared that such discombobulation made her feel like a “headless chicken,” incapable of attending to affairs of state.

  On April 21, 1774, Catherine’s forty-fifth birthday, Potemkin was given a gift of fifty thousand rubles and received the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky from the empress’s former paramour the king of Poland, Stanislas Poniatowski. But the honoree must have said something unpleasant during the ceremony, because the following day Catherine scolded him for reproaching her in public, writing to Potemkin, “We ask that in future you don’t humiliate us, but that you cover our vices and mistakes with a stole [the vestment a priest places over a penitent’s head when he grants them absolution] and don’t parade them in front of people, for that cannot be pleasant for us. And anyway it’s inappropriate to treat a friend, let alone your w[ife], like that. Now there’s a reprimand for you, though a most affectionate one.”

  Catherine’s reference to herself as Potemkin’s wife is what immediately catches one’s attention. By this stage in their relationship, he was already boasting that he would kill any successor as the empress’s favorite, and although each would eventually take other lovers, Potemkin was never supplanted as her primary confidant and counselor. Catherine was also complaining in the manner of neglected wives, accusing Potemkin of being sleepy when she came to him, peeved that he visited her only “on forays,” saying he couldn’t spend much time with her because he was dashing off elsewhere on business. Catherine hinted that Grigory Orlov had behaved the same way.

  Perhaps she had an emotional pattern of choosing strong men who would master her, and then resenting them for it, both as the sovereign and as the tenderhearted woman beneath the autocrat’s protective carapace who had vulnerably exposed herself by falling so hard for them and letting them know just how dependent she was upon their love and esteem.

  During the spring of 1774, Catherine consulted Potemkin on matters large and small, from affairs of state to spelling and grammatical errors in her documents, both personal and official. “If there are no mistakes, please return the letter and I will seal it. If there are some, kindly correct them. If you want to make any changes, write them out…. Either the ukase [a proclamation made by a Russian emperor] and the letter are perfectly clear, or else I am stupid today.”

  On May 5, Potemkin became a member of Catherine’s council. Later in the month he was made vice president of the College of War and awarded the rank of General in Chief, a promotion that particularly offended Russia’s top military brass.

  And then, on June 8, 1774, came an event that historians continue to dispute; even the couple’s contemporaries could not agree on what happened. That evening, Potemkin and Catherine attended a dinner at the Summer Palace in St. Petersburg. At midnight, accompanied only by her loyal maid, Catherine slipped away. Wearing a hooded cloak, she clambered into an unmarked carriage that clattered away for the jetty on the Little Nevka. From there she was rowed across the river and climbed into another coach that brought her to the Church of St. Sampson, where Potemkin was already waiting for her. He was wearing his General in Chief uniform: a red-collared green coat with gold lace trim and braid, red breeches, a regimental sword, and a hat bordered in gold trim and festooned with white plumes. Catherine had not even changed clothes for the ceremony. She’d spent the entire day in her green regimental gown trimmed in gold lace, which resembled a ladies’ riding habit.

  Inside the church, in addition to the unidentified priest, were two groomsmen. Potemkin’s nephew Alexander Samoilov stood up for him; Catherine’s chamberlain, Yevgraf Alexandrovich Chertkov, was her witness. In accordance with Russian Orthodox tradition, two crowns were held over the heads of the bridal couple. It was a lengthy ceremony, after which the wedding certificates were signed and given to the two witnesses, both of whom were sworn to secrecy.

  This is the story that has passed into legend. But the reputed certificates have never come to light. And there are other versions of the “secret marriage,” one of which alleges that the pair wed in Moscow in 1775. Another claims the ceremony took place in St. Petersburg in 1784 or 1791 (long after their sexual relationship had ended). Catherine’s biographer Virginia Rounding doubts the veracity of a legal union, yet believes the June 8 rite may have been more of a commitment ceremony. Meanwhile, Simon Sebag Montefiore, who has written the definitive twenty-first-century biography of Potemkin, allows for the probability of a fully legitimate wedding ceremony that night and gives the legend credence.

  The empress’s most recent biographer, Robert K. Massie, leaves the door open for the possibility that a royal wedding did indeed occur, pointing out that Catherine never addressed any of her other lovers as “husband,” nor ever referred to herself as their “wife.” Only Potemkin received that distinction. Additonally, the empress allowed him vast viceregal power, even long after their sexual liaison ended—and she was not a woman who relinquished power lightly. The existence of a marriage provides the best explanation for the unique authority Potemkin wielded in the empire and the special place he retained in her heart and esteem.

  What can be confirmed regarding their putative royal wedding are the dates and content of the court records that show Catherine leaving the palace on the night of June 8. The certificate that was placed in the hands of Chamberlain Chertkov passed into obscurity, but the document given to Potemkin’s nephew was passed down through several generations. However, Montefiore provides conflicting information as to its denouement, saying at one point that it was buried with one of Potemkin’s male descendants, but later mentioning that the certificate was tossed into the Black Sea by one of his grandnieces. Under the assumption that Potemkin and Catherine were indeed married on June 8, 1774, Montefiore does justify the suppression of the documents, stating that no one would have wanted them to come to light during the reign of Paul I, Catherine’s son (who detested both his mother and Potemkin), nor during the militaristic reig
ns of the two subsequent tsars. And the Victorian-era Russians were embarrassed about Catherine’s sex life.

  Another thing that is certain is that Catherine and Potemkin behaved both publicly and privately like a married couple. They even bickered like spouses—and indeed referred to each other in their letters as husband and wife. These terms of endearment could have been statements of fact, or merely a reflection of the way the lovers perceived their relationship. If Potemkin and Catherine had indeed married (and at least in her heart she felt that way), it makes his insecurity more difficult to comprehend. However, in a misogynistic society like imperial Russia, one has to wonder why a female autocrat would legally remarry when her husband, especially one as gifted and capable as Potemkin, might be expected to seize the reins of power from her hands. Why would she risk losing the scepter? On the other hand, Potemkin, for all his eccentricities, was exceptionally devout and may have wanted to legalize their liaison. Catherine was so passionately in love with him that she was incapable of denying him anything. Perhaps the secret marriage was the compromise.

  The empress refers to Potemkin as her husband in at least twenty-two surviving letters, and calls him her “lord” or “master” in many others. She also treated several of his relatives as generously if they were her own kin. That is still no proof of a legal marriage ceremony, but a letter from Catherine to Potemkin written most likely in early 1776 provides the strongest evidence in favor of a genuine religious wedding.

  My Lord and Cher Epoux [French for “dear spouse”]…Why do you prefer to believe your unhealthy imagination rather than the real facts, all of which confirm the words of your wife. Was she not attached to you two years ago by holy ties? I love you and I am bound to you by all possible ties. Just compare, were my acts more meaningful two years ago than they are now?

  Foreign ambassadors suspected something, but didn’t mention the word “marriage” in their written dispatches. Many years later, in December 1788, the French ambassador, the comte de Ségur, informed Versailles that Potemkin “takes advantage of…certain sacred and inviolable rights…The singular basis of these rights is a great mystery which is known only to four people in Russia; a lucky chance enabled me to discover it and when I have thoroughly sounded it, I shall, on the first occasion…inform the King.” By October of the following year, Louis XVI was jokingly referring to the empress of Russia as “Madame Potemkin.”

  The British envoy, Lord Keith, as well as the Holy Roman Emperor (Joseph II, brother of Marie Antoinette) also found out what the French had been surmising.

  And perhaps, although it might dilute her power, the more Catherine came to know Potemkin, the easier it was to understand that there would be no one better to rule the vast empire with her, and she really did not lose much in marrying him as long as the union remained a secret.

  Unfortunately there may be some truth to Lao Tzu’s adage “The flame that burns twice as bright lasts half as long.” By the middle of 1775, only a year after their alleged marriage, Catherine and Potemkin’s romance was on the rocks.

  As early as the spring, it was rumored that Potemkin was pleading illness to avoid Catherine’s bed. He was becoming even more restless than usual. Catherine complained that she wasn’t able to see him often enough. “This is really too much! Even at nine o’clock I cannot find you alone. I came to your apartment and found a crowd of people who were walking about, coughing, and making a lot of noise. Yet I had come solely to tell you that I love you excessively.” On another occasion she wrote, “It is a hundred years since I saw you. I do not care what you do, but please arrange that there should be nobody with you when I come….”

  The empress was also wearying of Potemkin’s volatility. What had once seemed exciting was now draining. The pair of them were high-maintenance—“human furnaces,” to quote Montefiore—and required massive amounts of stoking and stroking in their desires for affection, glory, power, and extravagance. Their gargantuan egos and tempestuous personalities were too similar for them to remain compatible in the long run.

  Upon the death of his sister in May, Potemkin became the legal guardian of his five unmarried nieces. When they came to court, Catherine appointed the oldest two girls imperial maids of honor. All five were hailed as great beauties. Uncle Grigory thought so, too. Eventually, three of them would become his lovers, although it was rumored that he had seduced all five. The court was scandalized, and Potemkin’s mother, Darya, wrote several letters to him, to the effect that sleeping with his late sister’s children was immoral. Potemkin burned the correspondence. The empress, however, took a far more liberal view. Uncle-niece liaisons were fairly common in royal circles, (the Spanish and Austrian Hapsburgs and the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria were rife with them; Catherine and her own uncle had flirted, petted, and contemplated marriage before she was summoned to Russia), and Potemkin’s nieces, who were all “of age” at the time they graced his bed, were passionately, sexually in love with him.

  Also in the spring of 1775, Catherine hired a new secretary, a handsome Ukranian named Peter Zavadovsky. Around the end of July, he began regularly dining at the empress’s table and accompanying her on short excursions into the countryside. After the couple returned to the capital, along with Potemkin they formed a frequent troika at dinner and at work. Both he and Potemkin had helped her implement her system of education reform. On November 26, Catherine awarded Zavadovsky the Cross of St. George, fourth class.

  Even after Zavadovsky had piqued Catherine’s sexual interest, Potemkin could be found weeping in her arms, desperate to find a way to make their relationship work. They would settle arguments with dialogue letters. Potemkin would write to the empress and she would comment on the same letter, referring in the right margin to specific phrases in his original correspondence. She would then return his letter to him with her notations on it.

  Their daily pattern had become one of violent arguments, followed by tearful reconciliations. They needed to figure out how to salvage what was working in their relationship and jettison what was tearing their insides out. As the couple struggled to decide whether to stay together or separate, Catherine, wounded by Potemkin’s increasing callousness to her (“I believe that you love me in spite of the fact that often there is no trace of love in your words” and “I am not evil and not angry with you”), ultimately conceded, “The essence of our disagreement is always the question of power and never that of love.”

  It’s a testament to Catherine’s clear-sightedness, despite her passion for and frustration with Potemkin, that she was able to cede him so much power and authority, and play to his strengths without compromising her status as empress, even when they were no longer each other’s primary sexual partners. On January 1, 1776, he received command of the Petersburg troop division, and his mother was made a lady-in-waiting. But Her Imperial Majesty’s bounty didn’t end there. The following day Peter Zavadovsky was made adjutant-general, the code, as Potemkin himself knew so well, that the empress’s private secretary had been promoted to lover.

  On March 21, 1776, Potemkin was given permission to use the title Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, which Catherine had requested through her ambassador in Vienna. She also gave him sixteen thousand serfs. Denmark awarded him the Order of the White Elephant. And on April 2, Prince Henry of Prussia invested Potemkin with the Order of the Black Eagle.

  Unfortunately, the promotion, along with the collection of ribbons and medals, were also a form of adieu. Potemkin realized that Zavadovsky had superseded him in Catherine’s bed, and she was shoving him out the door with the equivalent of a golden parachute. However, he was also able to recognize that the nature of his relationship with the empress was such that it could survive and even thrive without the sexual element, and that it could still be possible to ensure his own favoritism even if Catherine had another lover. In fact, the new dynamic would allow him some freedom from what he had privately begun to admit was a suffocating liaison. With a standby stud in the wings, Potemkin wouldn’t feel a
s though he always needed to be there for Catherine.

  Her Imperial Majesty, too, needed the respite from Potemkin’s volatile mood swings, and the time and energy she devoted to her all-consuming passion for him made it inconvenient to running an empire. Although Catherine replaced Potemkin with a less demanding but emotionally fulfilling paramour, Zavadovsky was far from ideal. Evidently, he was prone to premature ejaculation. Yet Catherine was understanding about his little problem, remarking, “You are Vesuvius itself. [W]hen you least expect it an eruption appears,” then assuring him, “but no, never mind, I shall extinguish them with caresses.”

  Zavadovsky received no key political appointments as a mark of the empress’s favor. She had no need to bestow them when Potemkin held every important post and remained as her chief adviser. By the spring of 1777, the young secretary was near collapse. It was all too much for him. Catherine always set the timetable for their assignations. He hated the scrutiny of his private life. He was a natural administrator, not a courtier, and because his French wasn’t strong enough to sustain social conversation, he never fit in. He, too, had his jealous sulks, primarily because Potemkin was around all the time. The prince was always bursting in on Catherine and her boy toy of the year, a flamboyant sight in his fur wraps, pink shawls, and bandannas. And the empress always expected her young men to pay court to Potemkin. None of them could match the giant man’s equally towering wit or charisma, and all of them felt inadequate by comparison, despite Catherine’s protestations of affection for them.

  By her own admission, Catherine could not live without love for a moment. At the beginning of each new affair, she expected it to last forever. And when she and Zavadovsky first became paramours, she assured him, “Petrusa dear, all will pass, except my passion for you.” But the Zavadovsky experiment barely lasted a year. Catherine told her secretary-lover that perhaps it was best if they took a break. Potemkin, however, was convinced that the dynamic of a ménage à trois of sorts, though not in the literal sexual sense, was still the best way to preserve his relationship with the empress. It was just a matter of finding the right other man. This third wheel could not be a threat to Potemkin’s political sovereignty, but he had to please the empress. Some of these studs came from the prince’s own stable, in his employ as adjutants, and had therefore already been vetted, at least for character.