Terrible tsarinas

by Henri Troyat

  Catherine called on all her reserves of energy not to weaken.

  With equal fervor, she bade farewell to the prestigious husband who had made her a gift of Russia and to the innocent child whom she would never again see smiling as she awoke from sleep.

  But, if Natalya’s death wrung her heart like the sight of a bird fallen from the nest, that of Peter exalted her like an invitation to the astonishments of a legendary destiny. Born to be last, she had become first. Whom should she thank for this fortune, God or her husband? Or both, according to the circumstances?

  Plunged into this solemn interrogation, she heard the voice of the archbishop of Pskov, Feofan (Theophanes) Prokopovich, pronouncing the funeral oration. “What has befallen us, O men of

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  Catherine Shows the Way Russia? What are we seeing? What are we doing? It is Peter the Great whom we are burying!” And, in conclusion, this comforting prophecy: “Russia will go on as he molded it!”

  At these words, Catherine raised her head. She had no doubt that, in uttering this sentence, the priest was transmitting a message to her from beyond the tomb. By turns exalted and frightened at the prospect of the days to come, she found herself stifling in the crowd.

  But, exiting the church, she found the square looked vaster, emptier, more inhospitable than before. The snow was coming down harder. Even though flanked by her daughters and friends, Catherine felt acutely alone, lost in an unknown land.

  It was as though the absence of Peter had paralyzed her. It would take all her courage to face the reality of a Russia with no future and no master.

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  Terrible Tsarinas

  Footnotes

  1.

  According to legend, Monomakh’s Cap (the oldest crown in the Russian treasury) was a gift from the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus to his grandson Vladimir II Monomakh, grand prince of Kiev (1113-1125).

  2. Villebois: Memoires secrets pour servir a l’histoire de la cour de Russie.

  3. In the 18th century, Russia was still using the Gregorian calendar, so that this date is 11 days behind the date shown by the Julian calendar cur rently in use.

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  CATHERINE’S REIGN: A FLASH OF FLAMBOYANCE

  Catherine I was almos t fifty. She had lived so much, loved so much, laughed so much, drunk so much - but she was never satisfied. Those who knew her during this period of ostentatious pleasure described her as a large, rotund woman, heavily made up, smiling, with a triple chin, a ribald eye and gluttonous lips, garishly dressed, overloaded with jewels and not necessarily entirely clean.

  However, while everyone denounced her appearance as a camp-follower masquerading as a sovereign, opinions are more varied when it comes to her intelligence and decision-making ability. She barely knew how to read and write; she barely spoke Russian (and with a Swedish-tinged Polish accent, at that); but from the first days of her reign she displayed a creditable intention to emulate her husband’s thinking. She even learned a little French and German in order to improve her understanding of foreign policy issues. And she relied on the common sense that she inherited from a difficult childhood. Some of her interlocutors found her more human, more understanding than the late tsar.

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  II

  Terrible Tsarinas That being said, she was conscious of her lack of experience and consulted Menshikov before making any important decision. Her enemies claimed, behind her back, that she was entirely beholden to him and that she was afraid of dissatisfying him through any personal initiative.

  Was she still sleeping with him? Even if she had never deprived herself of that pleasure in the past, it is unlikely that she would have persevered at her age and in her situation. Avid for fair and flourishing flesh, she had no need to restrict herself to the pleasures that may be available in the arms of an aging partner.

  With complete freedom to choose, she changed lovers according to her fantasies and did not spare any expense when it came to rewarding them for their nights of prowess. The French ambassador, Jacques de Campredon, enjoyed enumerating some of these transitory darlings in his Memoirs: “Menshikov is no longer anything but an advisor,” he writes. “Count Loewenwolde appears to have more credit. Sir Devier is still among the most outstanding favorites. Count Sapieha has also stepped up to the job. He is a fine young man, well-built. He is often sent bouquets and jewels… There are other, second-class favorites, but they are known only to Johanna, a former chambermaid of the tsarina and agent of her pleasures.”

  At the many suppers she held to regale her companions in these tournaments of love, Catherine drank like a sailor. At her command, ordinary vodka (prostaya) was alternated, on the table, with strong French and German liquors. She quite often passed out at the end of these well-lubricated meals. “The tsarina was rather ill from one of these debaucheries that was held on St. Andrew’s Day,” noted the same Campredon in a report to his minister, dated December 25, 1725. “A bleeding set her up again; but, as she is extremely plump and lives so very irregularly, it is expected that she will have some accident that will shorten her days.”1

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  Catherine’s Reign: A Flash of Flamboyance These binges of drinking and lovemaking did not prevent Catherine from conducting herself like a true autocrat whenever she recovered her wits. She scolded and slapped her maidservants for a peccadillo, bellowed at her ordinary advisers, and attended without a misstep the tiresome parades of the Guard; she rode on horseback for hours at a time, to soothe her nerves and to prove to one and all that her physical stamina was beyond dispute. Since she had a sense of family, she brought in brothers and sisters (whose existence Peter the Great had always chosen to ignore) from their remote provinces. At her invitation, former Livonian and Lithuanian peasants, uncouth and aw kwardly stuffed into formal clothing, disembarked in the salons of St. Petersburg.

  Titles of “Count” and “Prince” rained down on their heads, to the great scandal of the authentic aristocrats. Some of these new courtiers with calloused hands joined the rest of Her Majesty’s dinner crowd in the conclaves of good humor and licentiousness.

  Nonetheless, however keen she may have been for this dissolute debauchery, Catherine always set aside a few hours to deal with public affairs. Certainly, Menshikov continued to dictate decisions in matters affecting the interests of the State, but, from one week to another, Catherine gained in confidence and began to stand up to her mentor, sometimes to the point of disputing his opinions.

  While recognizing that she would never be able to do without the advice of this competent, devoted, wily man, she convinced him to convene around her a High Privy Council, including not only Menshikov but several other characters whose fidelity to Her Majesty was notorious: Tolstoy, Apraxin, Vice Chancellor Golovkin, Ostermann… This supreme cabinet relegated the traditional Senate to the sidelines, where they no longer discussed any questions of primary importance. It was at the instigation of the High Council that Catherine decided to ease the fate of the

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  Terrible Tsarinas Old Believers, who were persecuted for their heretical beliefs; to create an Academy of Sciences according to the desires of Peter the Great; to accelerate the beautification of the capital; to pursue the construction of the Ladoga Canal; and to equip the expedition of Danish navigator Vitus Behring, who was bound for Kamchatka. These wise resolutions mixed oddly in the tsarina’s turbulent mind with her penchant for sex and alcohol. She was voracious and well-disciplined by turn, hotly sensual and coldly lucid.

  Hardly had she tasted the complementary joys of power and pleasure when she again turned her attention to her paramount concern: that of the family. Any mother, tsarina or not, cons iders it her mission to see her daughters established as soon as they reach the age of puberty. Catherine had given life to two pretty daughters, who were clever-minded enough to be as pleasing in their conversation as they were to look at. The elder, Anna Petrovna, had recently been promised to the duke of HolsteinGottorp, Charle
s Frederick. Weak, nervous and ungainly, he had little but his title to attract the girl. But reason can overrule feelings when, beyond the union of the hearts, political alliances and territorial annexations are foreseen. The marriage having been delayed by Peter the Great’s death, Catherine planned to celebrate it on May 21, 1725. Subservient to the maternal will, Anna sadly resigned herself to what she must have seen as her only choice.

  She was 17 years old. Charles Frederick was 25. The archbishop Feofan Prokopovich, who just a few weeks before had celebrated the funeral offices of Peter the Great in Old Slavonic, the language of the Church, now blessed the union of the daughter of the deceased with the son of Duke Frederick of Holstein and Hedwige of Sweden, herself daughter of King Charles XI. As the fiance spoke neither Slavonic nor Russian, an interpreter translated the key passages into Latin for him.

  The party was entertained by the acrobatics and contor«18»

  Catherine’s Reign: A Flash of Flamboyance tions of a pair of dwarves, who spouted out of an enormous meat pie while dessert was being brought in. The attendees choked with laughter and burst into applause. The bride herself enjoyed it. She did not suspect the bitter disappointment that awaited her. Three day after the wedding ceremony, the Saxon diplomatic representative let his king know that Charles Frederick had stayed out all night three times in a row, leaving Anna fretting alone in her bed. “The mother is in despair at her daughter’s sacrifice,” he wrote in his report. A little later he would add that the scorned wife was comforting herself “by spending the night with one and another.”2 While regretting her elder daughter’s poor luck, Catherine refused to admit defeat and sought to interest her son-in-law in public affairs - since he appeared so little interested in private affairs. She guessed correctly: Charles Frederick was mad about politics. Invited to participate in the meetings of the Supreme Privy Council, he threw himself into the debates with so much passion that Catherine was alarmed, finding that he sometimes meddled in matters that were not his concern.

  Dissatisfied with this first son-in-law, she thought to correct her mistake by arranging a marriage that all of Europe would envy for her second daughter, Elizabeth, who had been Peter the Great’s preferred. Europe was known to her mostly through the remarks of her late husband and, recently, through her diplomats’ reports. But, while Peter the Great had found the Germanic rigor, discipline and efficiency attractive, Catherine found the charms and the spirit of France increasingly appealing. She heard wonderful tales from all who visited Paris - they claimed that the pomp and ceremonies of the court at Versailles were incomparable in their refinement. Some went as far as to say that the elegance and intelligence that the French people prided themselves on added luster to the enlightened authority of its government and the

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  Terrible Tsarinas power of its army.

  The French ambassador, Jacques de Campredon, often spoke to Catherine of the benefits that a rapprochement would represent between two countries that had every reason to support each other. According to him, such an agreement would relieve the empress of the underhanded interventions of England, which never missed an opportunity to interfere in Russia’s disputes with Turkey, Denmark, Sweden and Poland. For the four years that this distinguished diplomat played his role in St. Petersburg, he never stopped his sly preaching in favor of a Franco-Russian alliance. From his first days at the court, he had alerted his minister, Cardinal Dubois, that the tsar’s younger daughter, little Elizabeth Petrovna (“very pleasant and good-looking”) would be an excellent wife for a prince of the house of France. But, at the time, the Regent favored the English and feared irritating them by expressing any interest in a Russian grand duchess. The tenacious Campredon now returned to his original thought. Couldn’t the negotiations that had been broken off with the tsar be taken up again, after his death, with the tsarina?

  Campredon sought to persuade his government that they could and, to prepare the ground, he redoubled his attentions towards Catherine. The empress was flattered, in her maternal pride, by the admiration the diplomat expressed for her daughter.

  Wasn’t this, she thought, a premonitory sign of the warm sentiments that all the French would one day feel for Russia? With emotion, she remembered Peter the Great’s fondness for little Elizabeth, so young then, so blonde, so slender, so playful. The gamine was only seven years old when Peter asked the French painter Caravaque, a familiar figure at the palace in St. Petersburg, to paint her in the nude so that he could look at her at any hour, whenever he wished. He certainly would have been very proud to have his child, so beautiful and so virtuous, selected for marriage

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  Catherine’s Reign: A Flash of Flamboyance by a great prince of France. A few months after her husband’s funeral, Catherine showed herself receptive to Campredon’s suggestions. Matrimonial discussions were thus picked up again at the point where they had been dropped upon the death of the tsar.

  In April 1725, the rumor spread that the infanta Maria Anna (the 7-year-old daughter of King Philip V of Spain), who was supposed to have been engaged to the 15-year-old Louis XV, was about to be sent back to her country because the French regent, the Duke of Bourbon,3 considered her too young for the role. Inspired, Catherine called for Campredon; he could only confirm the news.

  Catherine then waxed sympathetic over the fate of the unfortunate infanta, but declared that the regent’s decision did not surprise her, for one cannot play with impunity with the sacred candor of childhood. Then, wary of Naryshkin, the grand master of the court who was present during this meeting, she went on in Swedish. Praising Elizabeth’s physical and moral qualities, she stressed the importance that the grand duchess would have on the international chessboard in the case of a family accord with France. She did not dare to state her thoughts outright, opting merely to assert, with a prophetic gleam in her eyes: “We would prefer friendship and an alliance with the King of France over all the other princes in the world.” Her dream: that her dear little Elizabeth, “that little royal morsel,” should become Queen of France. How many problems would be resolved smoothly, from one end of Europe to the other, if Louis XV agreed to become her son-in-law! If need be, she promised, the fiancee would adopt the Catholic religion. This offer struck Campredon very much like a declaration of love; he dissolved in thanks and asked to be given time to transmit the details of the proposal to his superiors. For his part, Menshikov went to the ambassador and swore to him that Elizabeth’s intelligence and grace were “worthy of the French

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  Terrible Tsarinas genius,” that “she was born for France” and that she would dazzle Versailles from her first appearance at the court. Persuaded that the Regent would not be able to withstand these arguments, dictated by sincere friendship, he went even further and suggested supplementing the marriage of Louis XV and Elizabeth by marrying the Duke of Bourbon with Maria Leszczynska, the daughter of King Stanislaw of Poland, who was currently exiled in Wissembourg. Indeed, someday this deposed sovereign might find his way to the throne, if Russia did not find it too disadvantageous.

  Secret memoranda went back and forth between the chancelleries for three months. To Catherine’s great surprise, no resolution seemed to be forthcoming from the French. Could they have misplayed their hand? Would they have to consider other concessions, other compromises in order to take the top prize?

  Catherine was lost in conjecture, in September 1725, when the news broke like a thunderclap in the misty skies over St. Petersburg: confounding all predictions, Louis XV would marry Maria Leszczynska, the empty-handed 22-year-old Pole, whom the Empress of Russia had thought of offering as a token to the Duke of Bourbon.

  This announcement was a superb snub to the tsarina. Outraged, she ordered Menshikov to discover the reasons behind such a misalliance. He caught up with Campredon on his way to an appointment between seconds, preliminary to a meeting of the sword. Pressed with questions, the diplomat tried to hedge, fell into rambling explanations, spoke of reciprocal
inclinations between the fiances (which seemed somewhat implausible), and ended up implying that the House of France was not lacking in applicants with whom the pretty Elizabeth might be satisfied, in the absence of a king. Certain princes, he insinuated, would be better partners than the sovereign himself.

  Clutching the last hope that was offered, Catherine, disap«22»

  Catherine’s Reign: A Flash of Flamboyance pointed by Louis XV, decided to try for the Duke of Charolais.

  This time, she thought, no one could accuse them of aiming too high. Informed of this haggling, Elizabeth’s pride was hurt and she begged her mother to give up her ill-considered ambitions, which dis honored them both. However, Catherine claimed to know better than anyone else what would be good for her daughter. Although she believed she was finally betting on a winning horse, she suddenly ran into an even more humiliating refusal.