Great Catherine

by Erickson, Carolly, 1943-

  The ruling prince of Anhalt-Zerbst now died and Christian August and his brother Ludwig inherited joint rulership of the little principality. Frederick (or Fritz), Christian August and Johanna's second son, became the designated heir. Even Sophie inherited an estate of her own, at Jever on the North Sea coast.

  Christian August resigned his military duties and moved with his family to the medieval town of Zerbst, a quaint walled community with dark winding streets, ancient narrow houses and a charming palace. Johanna still grieved for her son, but she had some consolation in her grief. She had attained her ambition, she and Christian August now had their own miniature domain, with a tiny royal household, a modest royal income, a troupe of guardsmen and subjects who bowed in reverence when the carriage of the prince and princess passed by. Never mind that Anhalt-Zerbst was so small that a swift horseman could ride across it in a single day; it was, in a very unassuming way, a sovereign power, and within its boundaries Johanna was the highest lady in the land.

  When Sophie was fourteen, the family traveled to the estate at Jever, and there Sophie encountered a woman she was to remember all her life.

  The Countess of Bentinck was thirty years old when Sophie met her, a strapping, mannish woman with an ugly face, a hearty manner and an exuberant physicality. She was intelligent, she knew a good deal and she seemed to have an utter and joyous disregard for respectability. Married to the Count of Bentinck, who was nowhere in evidence, she lived on her mother's estate, in the company of another woman who was most likely her lover. She also had a three-year-old son whose father, Sophie discovered, was one of her mother's footmen.

  But it was the countess's spontaneity and self-directedness as much as her unconventional living arrangements that Sophie found compelling. With childlike abandon she took Sophie by the hand and swept her into a peasant dance, the pair dancing so lustily that a crowd gathered to watch them. She rode expertly— "like a courier," Sophie thought—galloping off on her own in a way that Sophie had never seen any woman do before. And the countess managed to persuade Christian August to agree to let her take Sophie riding too, all around the grounds of the estate. "She gave a new boost to my natural vivacity," Sophie recalled.

  For Sophie the hours spent in the countess's exhausting company were exhilarating. "From that moment," she remembered many years later, "riding became my dominant passion and remained so for a long time thereafter." That her parents, especially Christian August, were disconcerted by the bold countess only added to her allure for Sophie, and she continued to contrive ways of visiting her for several days, risking severe punishment each time. The countess took her to her private apartments. On one wall was a portrait of a very handsome man, whom the countess identified as her husband.

  "If he hadn't been my husband," she told Sophie confidentially, "I would have been madly in love with him."

  Christian August and Johanna left Jever sooner than they had meant to, largely in order to tear Sophie away from her newfound friend. But the countess's charm and fascination had a lasting impact. For weeks afterward, Sophie basked in the recollection of this free spirit who did what she liked and had no fear of disapproval. The Countess of Bentinck had kicked over the traces of other people's expectations. She was married, yet independent of her husband. She slept with her servants, and was intimate with another woman. Her speech was as free as her actions, and, most important, she seemed comfortable with herself and her choices. All in all, the Countess of Bentinck, Sophie thought, had a uniquely enviable life.

  "This woman had made some noise in the world," Sophie recalled. "I think that if she had been a man, she would have been an exceptional one." Sophie, an exceptional child, and one whom the countess recognized as a kindred spirit, must have begun in those few days at Jever to realize that she too could grow into an exceptional woman, one who might make some noise in the world.

  Chapter Three

  AT FOURTEEN SOPHIE WAS A SLIM AND VITAL GIRL, WITH A slender waist and womanly curves. Her manner was serious and decided, and at the same time ingratiating. There was nothing comely about her face—her nose was too long, and too wide at the bottom for prettiness, her chin was pronounced, her mouth was narrow, and she held her lips primly together, as if declaring her unapproachability. Her large, wide eyes, the left one straying disconcertingly from alignment with the right, had something feral about them; her gaze was piercing and made people uncomfortable. She was much more challenging than demure, though she was learning how to hide her feelings and keep her opinions to herself when necessary.

  One of Johanna's waiting women, the Baroness von Prinzen, knew Sophie well and described her as having "a serious, calculating and cold personality." Intelligent and wary she certainly was. Calculating, perhaps. But not cold. Here the baroness misread her. Sophie had a warm heart and it was about to be awakened to the transports of infatuation.

  Johanna's entire family was gathering at Hamburg to celebrate a major event: Johanna's brother Adolf, Prince Bishop of Liibeck, was about to become King of Sweden.

  Empress Anna Ivanovna of Russia had died, and after a brief interval of chaos the throne had passed to her cousin Elizabeth, younger daughter of Peter the Great and erstwhile sister-in-law to Johanna and her siblings. The new empress felt a strong tie to the Holstein-Gottorp clan into which, save for the untimely death of her fiance, she would have married. She had recently decided to name her sister's son, Sophie's cousin Karl Ulrich, as her heir. And since that meant that he would renounce the Swedish succession, Elizabeth decided to extend another mark of her favor to the Holstein-Gottorp family by nominating Adolf to wear the Swedish crown.

  The ceremonies at Hamburg were impressive. Members of the Swedish Estates arrived to greet Adolf and escort him to his court across the Baltic, and they and their numerous suite were entertained at balls and assemblies over a period of weeks. Swedish Senators, envoys of foreign courts, diplomats and other notables mingled in an endless round of social events. Attending the festivities was Johanna's young brother Georg, a good-looking cavalry officer with an ebullient, outgoing personality not unlike Sophie's. He lacked his niece's pensive side, he was not at all intellectual but he was cheerful company and he was so handsome—and, at twenty-four, so much more worldly than she was—that Sophie was quite captivated by him. She thought that he had lovely eyes.

  Uncle and niece spent a great deal of time together. Georg came to Sophie's room to talk to her, tease her, and secretly woo her. He interfered with her lessons, much to Babette Cardel's annoyance and alarm. They became inseparable, and Johanna, who might under other circumstances have objected, was only too happy to indulge her favorite brother by letting him charm her daughter. She saw what was happening, and knew that Georg was becoming interested in Sophie, not just as a bright young relative, but as a prospective wife.

  Johanna had not entirely given up hope that Sophie might marry Karl Ulrich, now grand duke, and that hope was nourished when, at two different times, emissaries from Empress Elizabeth's court came to ask for Sophie's portrait to carry back with them to Russia. Clearly the empress was considering Sophie, along with other suitable girls, as a candidate for becoming grand duchess of Russia. But now that Karl Ulrich had become such an exalted personage Johanna could no longer assume that Sophie's chances of marrying him were good; the empress might well decide on a young woman of higher rank. For that reason she could not afford to neglect whatever other opportunities presented themselves for Sophie to marry. Marriages between uncle and niece were not unknown, the Lutheran church sometimes permitted them.

  Besides, if Sophie married Georg, Johanna would have one less worry. She was still mourning the loss of her elder son, and had a new baby to be concerned about, a girl she had named Elizabeth in honor of the family's imperial benefactress in Russia. Christian August's precarious health was a continuing cause of anxiety, and she herself had begun to suffer from stomach pains. So she let the flirtation continue.

  Sophie must have been flattered by her uncle's
attention, beyond enjoying his companionship. And his was not the only attention she received at Hamburg. One of the party of distinguished Swedes who had come to escort the new king to his realms, Count Gyllenburg, singled Sophie out for praise. He was impressed with how well read she was, how she was conversant with philosophy and political ideas and could discuss them without the shyness he expected in a sheltered princess. He observed how Johanna slighted Sophie, and reprimanded her. Her daughter was very precocious, he said, and accomplished far beyond most fourteen-year-olds. Johanna was wrong to undervalue her.

  Basking in Count Gyllenburg's praise, and perhaps savoring the rebuke to her neglectful mother, Sophie continued to enjoy her uncle's company. "We were inseparable," she later wrote. "I took it to be friendship."

  But Uncle Georg took it to be love, and showed every sign of lovesickness. He dogged Sophie's footsteps and followed her with his beautiful eyes. Every moment out of her presence was agony to him. When the ceremonies at Hamburg were complete and Johanna and Sophie left for Brunswick, Georg was desolate, knowing that he would see less of Sophie there. He told her so, and she asked him why.

  "Because it would lead to gossip better avoided," he said.

  "But why?" Sophie demanded, unaware that her friendship with her uncle could be misconstrued by others. He didn't answer her, but when they reached Brunswick, and he no longer had so many opportunities to spend time alone with her, he became visibly distraught. Sophie noticed that he was not himself, now moody and dreamy, now full of chagrin. He confronted Sophie one night in her mother's room and complained bitterly of his lot in life and of the pain he was in. Another time he confided to her that what aggravated him most was the fact that he was her uncle.

  Sophie was astonished to hear this, and quickly asked him why, what had she done? Was he angry with her?

  "Far from it," he said. "The reason is that I love you too much."

  When she tried to thank him for his affection, he interrupted her angrily.

  "You're a child, I can't make you understand!" he burst out, and Sophie, disconcerted, pressed him to tell her what he meant by this, and why he was so distressed.

  "Well then, is your friendship for me strong enough to give me the comfort I need?"

  She assured him that it was.

  "Then promise me that you will marry me."

  Sophie was thunderstruck. She had never imagined that her uncle was in love with her.

  "You can't be serious," she managed to say. "You are my uncle, my father and mother wouldn't want us to marry."

  "Nor would you," he said morosely. Just then Sophie was called away, and the astonishing conversation came to an end.

  But Georg renewed it as soon as he could. His wooing took on a new urgency and he pressed Sophie hard to accept him, telling her in impassioned tones how much he loved her and wanted her to be his. She had recovered from her original amazement at his proposal and was beginning to get used to the idea of becoming his wife. He was exceptionally handsome, they were used to one another, he knew and accepted her moods; she liked basking in his melting gaze. "He began to please me and I didn't run away from him," Sophie recalled in her memoirs. She agreed to marry him provided her parents put no obstacle in their way.

  Once she gave him her promise Georg gave free rein to his passion. He lay in wait for her, stealing kisses when and where he could, arranging things so that they could be alone together, losing sleep, forgetting to eat, so great was his all-consuming obsession with Sophie. His sighs and groans were baffling to Sophie, eventually he lost all his good humor and became tiresome. And for reasons of his own, he failed to ask Christian August for her hand in marriage. Perhaps he was only out to seduce her. Or perhaps he did want to marry her, but feared that she was still too young. Possibly he was worried about being rejected in favor of Prince Henry or even Karl Ulrich. The time came for Johanna to leave Brunswick and Georg wrung from Sophie a promise not to forget him. No doubt she expected to see him again before long.

  But a few months later, in the first week of January, 1744, Georg's chances were superseded.

  A swift courier from Berlin came riding into the courtyard of the palace at Anhalt-Zerbst, with a packet of letters for Johanna. As this was a very unusual event, the entire family, just then sitting at the dinner table, became curious and Johanna asked a servant to bring her the letters immediately. She opened them then and there, and Sophie, sitting next to her, tried to read them over her shoulder. She recognized the handwriting of Karl Ul-rich's tutor, Otto von Brummer, and the words "the princess your eldest daughter." A duller girl than Sophie would have realized at once that the letters had to do with her betrothal to Karl Ulrich, yet Johanna was secretive about their contents.

  For three days nothing was said. Finally Sophie confronted her mother.

  "So, you're anxious, you're dying of curiosity," Johanna said.

  "Yes! But I can guess what your letters say."

  "Well then, what?"

  Instead of saying straight out what she thought she knew, Sophie played a game. "I'm going to make my prediction," she announced, imitating a woman they both knew who claimed she could guess the name of a woman's beloved from the letters of her own name.

  "Let us see what you will guess."

  Sophie went away and worked out an elaborate acrostic, using the letters of her own name. It prophesied that she would marry Karl Ulrich, who on being baptized into the Orthodox Church had taken the new name Peter.

  Johanna stared at her daughter, then laughed. "You are a little minx, but you won't find out any more."

  Later Johanna explained that, although Sophie had guessed correctly that overtures had been made about the possibility of a betrothal, she and Christian August were having second thoughts. Count Brummer had invited Johanna and Sophie to come to St. Petersburg, an arduous and dangerous journey of nearly a thousand miles. No guarantees were being made. If Sophie was not to the empress's liking, she would be sent home again. Russia was too far away, Christian August thought, there was too much risk associated with the journey. Both parents were reluctant to send Sophie off to spend her life at an impossibly distant court—and they were in fact on the point of writing to Brummer and telling him their decision when Sophie demanded to know just what was in the letters.

  "What do you think?" Johanna asked her.

  "Since it doesn't please you, it would be ill-advised for me to wish it."

  "It seems that you don't find the idea repugnant."

  It was not repugnant, it was exciting. Sophie had ambition, she had never forgotten the prediction that she would wear three crowns. Yet now that she faced the prospect of actually going to Russia, it daunted her. Realizing that if she agreed to marry her cousin she might never see her parents again, Sophie began to cry. She was tenderly attached to her father and could not bear the thought of leaving him. Christian August joined in the conversation, kissing Sophie and telling her that he would not think of insisting that she go to Russia. Johanna ought to go alone, he said, to thank Empress Elizabeth in person for all that she had done for the Holstein-Gottorp family. If Sophie did want to go along, she could, but she would be under no obligation to stay on and marry Karl Ulrich—or rather Grand Duke Peter, as he now was. She could return home again and would always find a welcome.

  "I was dissolved in tears," Sophie wrote in her memoirs, recalling the conversation. "It was one of the most affecting moments of my life. I was agitated by a thousand different feelings: gratitude for my father's goodness, fear of displeasing him, the custom of blind obedience to him, the tender affection which I had always felt toward him, the respect he deserved—truly no man ever had more merit, the purest virtue guided his steps."

  In the following days Sophie managed to resolve her conflicting feelings and persuaded her parents to let her accept Count Brummer's invitation. No doubt Johanna's ambition for her family and her daughter reasserted itself, and everyone, even Christian August, must have been overawed by the great honor that beckon
ed from afar. Uncle Adolf was King of Sweden, but Sophie was being invited to occupy a far higher rank at a far more imposing court. Johanna did have a twinge of discomfort over how the decision would affect her favorite brother. ("What will my brother Georg say?" she asked Sophie. "He could not but wish me good fortune and happiness," was the tart reply.) So much for infatuation.

  Trunks were hastily packed and preparations made. Sophie's wardrobe was modest—three rather plain gowns, none of them cut in the elaborate style Russian court etiquette required, a few changes of underwear, a dozen handkerchiefs and six pairs of stockings. Even if her parents had wanted to outfit her sumptuously, there was no time to order new gowns and petticoats. And besides, Count Briimmer had been most insistent in his letter that Johanna and Sophie should travel incognito, keeping the purpose of their journey and their destination secret. Had extensive preparations been made, with new gowns and other finery, the servants would have guessed what was going on, and the secret would have been out. Sophie had to content herself with buying a new pair of gloves. In addition, her paternal uncle Johann gave her a length of beautiful blue and silver brocade fabric woven in Zerbst, which could be made into a gown later.

  Sophie went to Babette Cardel to say goodbye, telling her, as she told all the palace servants and officials, that she was going to Berlin. She had to mask the pain she felt at the leavetaking, for it was essential to disguise her true destination even from her beloved governess. Babette guessed that there was more to this journey than Sophie was admitting—the servants gossiped endlessly about it—and demanded to be told the truth. But all Sophie would tell her was that she was sworn to secrecy, and could not reveal anything. Babette was annoyed and angry. Hadn't she been, in many ways, a surrogate parent to Sophie? The one who had formed her mind and helped to mold her feelings, the person who knew her best and with whom she had spent the most time? There was no dispelling the bad feeling, yet both women cried as they embraced, each sensing that she might not see the other again.