Terrible tsarinas

by Henri Troyat

  The doctors, taking secret council, decided that the Grand Duke might find the ladies more attractive if he drank less. Moreover, in their opinion, his inhibition was only temporary and he would

  «172»

  An Autocrat at Work and Play soon go through a “better phase.” Lestocq concurred. But the empress was s urprised that neither Catherine nor Peter was in any hurry. After lengthy discussions, she set the date of the ceremony, irrevocably. The most s uperb weddings of the century would take place on August 21, 1745.

  «173»

  Terrible Tsarinas

  Footnotes

  1. Catherine II: Memoires.

  2. A pejorative name signifying “Razumovsky’s mother”.

  3. K. Waliszewski, op. cit.

  4.

  Reported by K. Waliszewski: La Derniere des Romanov, Elisabeth Ir e.

  5. Cf. Daria Olivier, op. cit.

  «174»

  IX

  ELIZABETHAN RUSSIA

  When it came to organizing these important festivities, Elizabeth left nothing to chance. The morning of the ceremony, she sat in Catherine’s dressing room and examined her, naked, from head to toe. She directed the maids-in-waiting in the selection of underclothes, discussed with the hairdresser the best way of arranging her hair, and chose, unilaterally, the silver brocaded gown with a full skirt, s hort sleeves, and a train embroidered with roses. Then, emptying her jewel case, she supplemented the ornamentation with necklaces, bracelets, rings, brooches and elaborate earrings, all of which so weighed down the bride that she was reduced to posing like a hieratic figure, barely able to move. The grand duke, too, was encased in silver fabric and decked out in imperial jewels; but while the bride may have appeared like a celestial vision, he, looking like a monkey disguised as a prince, was liable to provoke a good laugh. The buffoons that had surrounded Her Majesty Anna Ivanovna were never so funny (when they tried to be) as he was when trying to look serious.

  The procession traversed St. Petersburg amid a multitude of

  «175»

  Terrible Tsarinas spectators who prostrated themselves as the carriages went by, making the sign of the cross and calling out their blessings and good wishes for the young couple and the tsarina. Never did so many candles glow in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan.

  Throughout the liturgy, Elizabeth was on the lookout for one of her nephew’s little stunts, having come to expect some disruption from him during the most serious occasions. But the service went off without a hitch, including the exchange of rings. After risking ankylosis by standing upright throughout the service, the assembly then flexed its legs at the ball that, of course, capped the day’s festivities.

  However, no matter how much she enjoyed dancing, Elizabeth kept her mind on the essential matter - which was not the Church blessing, and far less the minuets and the polonaises, but the coupling which, in theory, should soon take place. By 9:00 in the evening, she decided that it was time for the young couple to withdraw. As a conscientious duenna, she led them to the bridal apartment. The matrons and maids of honor, all a-twitter, gave them escort. The grand duke discreetly disappeared to don his night clothes. The grand duchess’s maidservants took advantage of the husband’s absence to dress the young lady in a chemise that was tantalizingly transparent, and capped her hair with a light bonnet of lace; she was put to bed under the vigilant eye of the empress. When Her Majesty judged that “the little one” was “ready,” she exited - with theatrical slowness. She would have loved dearly to be able to see what happened next. Would her wretched nephew be able to summon up enough manhood to satisfy this poor young girl? Wouldn’t they need her helpful advice?

  Catherine looked frightened and had tears in her eyes - a virginal apprehension that must only excite the desire of a normally constituted man. But how would the eccentric grand duke behave?

  Might he not harbor an impotence that no woman could cure?

  «176»

  Elizabethan Russia In the days that followed, she studied Catherine, vainly looking for signs of conjugal satisfaction. The bride appeared increasingly thoughtful and disillusioned. Questioning her chambermaids, Elizabeth learned that, every evening, after having joined his wife in bed, instead of cherishing her, the grand duke would amuse himself with the wooden figurines on his bedside table.

  And often, they said, he would abandon the grand duchess on the pretext of a headache to go have a drink and a laugh with some of his friends in a nearby room. Sometimes he even played with the servants, ordering them about as if they were soldiers on parade.

  These may all have been harmless infantile pleasures, but they must have been offensive, and worrisome, for a wife who was only waiting to be undressed.

  Catherine may have been languishing untouched at the side of a husband who shirked his duties; but her mother was carrying on shamelessly. In just a few months in St. Petersburg, she managed to become the mistress of Count Ivan Betsky. She was thought to be pregnant by him, and people were saying that even if the grand duchess should be long in giving the empire an heir, her dear mother would soon be presenting her with a little brother or sister. Offended by the misconduct of this woman who, out of regard for Catherine, should have moderated her passions during her stay in Russia, Elizabeth firmly invited her to leave the country where she had exhibited only dishonor and stupidity. After a pathetic scene, with excuses and justifications on one side and icy contempt on the other, Johanna packed her bags and returned to Zerbst without saying good-bye to her daughter, who was sure to have reproached her.

  Although having been dismayed by her mother’s extravagances all this time, Catherine felt so alone after Johanna’s departure that her melancholy transformed into a quiet despair. Witnessing this collapse, Elizabeth still struggled to believe that upon

  «177»

  Terrible Tsarinas seeing how unhappy his wife had become, Peter would draw closer to Catherine and that her tears would succeed where ordinary coquetry had failed. But, from one day to the next, the lack of understanding between the spouses grew deeper. Upset by his inability to fulfill his marital duty, as Catherine invited him to do every night with a sweetly provocative smile, he took revenge by claiming - with all the cynicism of an army grunt - that he had other women, and that he even had a strong attachment elsewhere. He told her that he had something going on with some of her ladies-in-waiting, who supposedly held him in great affection.

  In his desire to humiliate Catherine, he went as far as scoffing at her subservience towards the Orthodox religion and for her respect for the empress, that hoyden who was openly flaunting her relations with the ex-muzhik Razumovsky. Her Majesty’s turpitude was, he said, the talk of the town.

  Elizabeth would have been merely amused by the trouble in the Grand-Ducal household if her daughter-in-law had quit brooding for long enough to find a way to get pregnant. But, after nine months of cohabitation, the young woman was as flat in the belly as she had been on her wedding day. Could she still be a virgin? This prolonged sterility seemed like an attack on Elizabeth’s personal prestige. In a fit of anger, she called in her unproductive daughter-in-law, said that she alone was responsible for the nonconsummation of the marriage, accused her of frigidity, clumsiness and (following suit from the chancellor, Alexis Bestuzhev) went as far as to claim that Catherine shared her mother’s political convictions and must be working secretly for the king of Prussia.

  The grand duchess protested, in vain. Elizabeth announced that, from now on, the grand duke and she would have to shape up. Their lives, intimate as well as public, would now be subject to strict rules in the form of written “instructions” from Chancel«178»

  Elizabethan Russia lor Bestuzhev, and the execution of this program would be ensured by “two people of distinction”: a master and a mistress of the court, to be named by Her Majesty. The master of the court would be charged with instructing Peter in propriety, correct language and the healthy ideas that were appropriate to his station; the mistress of the court would
encourage Catherine to adhere to the dogmas of the Orthodox religion under every circumstance; she would keep her from making the least intrusion in the field of politics, would keep away from her any young men liable to distract her from her marital commitment, and would teach her certain feminine wiles that might enable her to awaken the desire of her husband, so that, as one reads in the document, “by this means our very high house may produce offspring.”1 Pursuant to these draconian directives, Catherine was forbidden to write directly to anyone. All her correspondence, including letters to her parents, would be subjected to review by the College of Foreign Affairs. At the same time, the few gentlemen whose company sometimes distracted her in her loneliness and sorrow were removed from the court. Thus, by order of Her Majesty, three Chernyshevs (two brothers and a cousin, all goodlooking and pleasant of address) were sent to serve as lieutenants in regiments cantoned in Orenburg. The mistress of the court, responsible for keeping Catherine in line, was a German cousin of the empress, Maria Choglokov, and the master of the court was none other than her husband, an influential man currently on a mission in Vienna. This model household was intended to serve as an example to the ducal couple. Maria Choglokov was a paragon of virtue, since she was devoted to her husband, appeared to be pious, viewed every issue from the same perspective as Bestuzhev - and at the age of 24 already had four children! If need be, the Choglokovs might be backed up by an additional mentor, Prince Repnin, who would also be charged with imbuing Their

  «179»

  Terrible Tsarinas Highnesses with wisdom and a preference for all things Russian, including the Orthodox faith.

  With such assets working in her favor, Elizabeth was sure she would breach the divide in this household; but she very soon saw that it is as difficult to engender reciprocal love in a disparate couple as it is to institute peace between two countries with opposing interests. In the world at large as in her own house, misunderstanding, rivalry, demands, confrontations and rifts were the rule.

  From threats of war to local skirmishes, from broken treaties to troop concentrations at the borders, it happened that, after the French armies enjoyed a few victories in the United Provinces, that Elizabeth agreed to send expeditionary forces to the borders of Alsace. Without actually engaging in hostilities with France, she wanted to encourage it to show a little more flexibility in negotiating with its adversaries. On October 30, 1748, through the peace treaty of Aachen, Louis XV gave up the conquest of the Netherlands and Frederick II retained Silesia. The tsarina left the field, having gained nothing and lost nothing, but having disappointed everyone. The only sovereign who was pleased with this result was the king of Prussia.

  By now, Elizabeth was convinced that Frederick II was entertaining in St. Petersburg, within the very walls of the palace, one of his most effective and most dangerous partisans: the Grand Duke Peter. Her nephew, whom she never could stand, was becoming more foreign and more odious by the day. To cleanse the atmosphere of Germanophilia in which the grand duke was submerged, she set out to eliminate from his retinue all the gentlemen from Holstein, and to remove the others who might try to replace them. Even Peter’s manservant, a certain Rombach, was thrown into prison on a trumped up pretext.

  Peter comforted himself after these affronts by indulging in

  «180»

  Elizabethan Russia extravagant whims. He began playing his violin ceaselessly, scraping away for hours, tormenting his wife. His rhetoric became so bizarre that sometimes Catherine thought he’d gone mad; she wanted to flee. Whenever he saw her reading, he would rip the book from her hands and order her to join him in playing with his collection of wooden soldiers. Having recently developed a passion for dogs, he moved ten barbet spaniels into the marital bedroom, over Catherine’s protests. When she complained about their barking and their odor, he insulted her and refused to sacrifice his pack for her.

  Isolated, Catherine sought in vain for a friend or, at least, a confidant. She finally turned Lestocq, the empress’s doctor, secure in his tenure, who showed some interest and even sympathy for Catherine. She hoped to make him an ally against the “Prussian clique” as well as against Her Majesty, who was still reproaching her for the sterility that was beyond her control. Unable to correspond freely with her mother, she asked the doctor to see her letters on their way, more privately. However Bestuzhev, who hated Lestocq and saw him as a potential rival, was delighted to hear from his spies that the “quack” was flouting the imperial instructions and rendering services to the grand duchess. Backed by these revelations, he contacted Razumovsky and accused Lestocq of being an agent in the pay of foreign chancelleries; and he said that Lestocq was trying to take the shine off the favorite’s reputation with Her Majesty. This denouncement agreed with denunciations made by a secretary to the doctor, a certain Chapuzot who, under torture, acknowledged everything that he was asked. Confronted with this sheaf of more or less convincing evidence, Elizabeth was put on her guard. For several months already, she had avoided being under Lestocq’s care; if he was no longer reliable, he would have to pay.

  In the night of November 11, 1748, Lestocq was yanked from

  «181»

  Terrible Tsarinas his bed and thrown into a cell in the Peter and Paul Fortress. A special commission, chaired by Bestuzhev in person, with General Apraxin and Count Alexander Shuvalov as assessors, accused Lestocq of having sold out to Sweden and Prussia, of corresponding clandestinely with Johanna of Anhalt-Zerbst, mother of the Grand Duchess Catherine, and of conspiring against the empress of Russia. After being tortured, and despite his oaths of innocence, he was shipped off to Uglich, and stripped of all his possessions.

  However, in a reflex of tolerance, Elizabeth granted that the condemned man’s wife could join him in his cell and, later, in exile. Perhaps she felt sorry for the fate of this man whom she had to punish, on royal principle, event though she had such positive memories of the eagerness with which he had always offered his services. Elizabeth may not have been good, but she was sensitive, and even sentimental. Incapable of granting clemency, she nonetheless had always been willing to shed tears for the victims of an epidemic in some remote country or for the poor soldiers who were risking their lives at the borders of the realm. Since she was usually presented to her subjects in a familiar and smiling guise, they, forgetting the torments, spoliations, and executions ordered under her reign, called her “The Lenient.” Even her ladies of honor, whom she sometimes thanked with a good hard slap or an insult harsh enough to make a soldier blush, would melt when, having wrongfully punished them, she would admit her fault. But it was with her morganatic husband, Razumovsky, that she showed her most affectionate and most attentive side. When the weather was cold, she would button his fur-lined coat, taking care that this gesture of marital solicitude was seen by all their entourage. Whenever he was confined to his armchair by a bout of gout - as often happened- she would sacrifice important appointments to bear him company, and life at the palace would re«182»

  Elizabethan Russia turn to normal only after the patient had recovered.

  However, she did allow herself to deceive him with vigorous young men like the counts Nikita Panin and Sergei Saltykov. But, of all her secondary lovers, her favorite was Shuvalov’s nephew, Ivan Ivanovich. She was attracted by this new recruit’s alluring youth and good looks, but also by his education and his knowledge of France. She, who never spent a minute reading, was filled with wonder to see him so impatient to receive the latest books that were being sent to him from Paris. At the age of 23, he was corresponding with Voltaire! With him, one could abandon oneself to love and culture, both at the same time - and without even tiring the eyes and taxing the brain! Certainly, being introduced to the splendors of art, literature, and science in the arms of a man who was a living encyclopedia must be one of the pleasantest methods of education. Elizabeth seemed to be so happy with this arrangement that Razumovsky did not even think of reproaching her for this betrayal. He even considered Ivan Shuvalov worthy of esteem a
nd encouraged Her Majesty to pursue her pleasure and her studies with him.

  With Ivan Shuvalov’s encouragement, Elizabeth founded the University of Moscow and the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. Aware of her own ignorance, she must have enjoyed the irony and felt proud to preside over the awakening of the intellectual movement in Russia, and to know that the writers and the artists of tomorrow would be so much in her debt, despite her lack of learning.

  However, while Razumovsky wisely allowed himself to be supplanted by Ivan Shuvalov in Her Majesty’s good graces, Chancellor Bestuzhev guessed that his own preeminence was threatened by this rising scion of a large and ambitious clan. He tried hard to distract the tsarina with the charming Nikita Beketov; but, after having dazzled Her Majesty during a show put on by

  «183»

  Terrible Tsarinas the students in the Cadet Academy, this Adonis was called up to serve in the army. He was brought back to St. Petersburg, where he could again be placed before Her Majesty, but it was no use.

  The Shuvalov clan made short work of him. Out of pure friendship, they recommended a certain face cream to him; and, when Beketov tried it, red spots broke out on his face and he was smitten with a high fever. In his delusion, he made indecent comments about Her Majesty. He was driven out the palace and never managed to set foot there again, leaving the way clear for Ivan Shuvalov and Alexis Razumovsky, who both accepted and respected each other.