Terrible tsarinas

by Henri Troyat

  That last clause should be enough, she judged, to alleviate Louis XV’s concerns.

  To prepare for such delicate negotiations, the king of France rested his hopes on the assistance that the baron of Breteuil could lend to the aging marquis de l’Hopital. In fact, it was not the baron’s diplomatic experience that he counted on in circumventing the tsarina, but the seductive influence that the 27-year-old dandy seemed to have over women. Elizabeth knew the game too well not to see through Breteuil’s false admiration of her glory; moreover, in analyzing his ploy, she understood that it was not she but the grand duchess whom he sought to allure into cooperating in furthering the interests of France. In order to win favor with Catherine, he offered her a choice - to allow him to make love to her as only a Frenchman knows how to do, or to persuade the tsarina to bring back Stanislaw Poniatowski, moldering as he was in his dull Poland. Whether she accepted either one of these offers or combined them both for her pleasure, she surely would

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  Terrible Tsarinas be so grateful towards France that she would not be able to refuse him anything.

  The time was right for such a charm offensive - especially given that the young woman had just suffered two serious heartaches: the death of her daughter, young Anna,5 and that of her mother, who had recently passed away in Paris. However, in spite of this twofold mourning, it happened that Catherine had finally overcome the depression that had held her back all these years and, better yet, she felt no need to take up again with her former lovers nor to entertain another one, even if he were French.

  The truth is that she had not waited for the baron of Breteuil to come up with a successor to the men who used to brighten her days. Her newly-anointed had the unique qualities of being of purely Russian blood and a superb, well-built man, athletic, brash, and deep in debt, renowned for his escapades and ready to undertake any folly to protect his mistress. This was Grigory Orlov. He and his four brothers all served in the imperial guard. His dedication to the traditions of his regiment reinforced his hatred of the Grand Duke Peter, who was well known for his contempt of the Russian army and its leaders. The very idea of this histrionic poltroon swaggering about in a Holstein uniform, a selfproclaimed follower of Frederick II despite being heir to the throne of Russia, left Orlov feeling morally obliged to defend the grand duchess against her husband’s irrational maneuvers.

  Although exhausted by disease, age, political concerns and excesses of food and drink, the tsarina kept abreast of these developments. She viewed her daughter-in-law’s escapades with a mixture of reprobation and envy. She approved the deception for, in her opinion, the Grand Duke Peter deserved to be betrayed by his wife a hundred times over, having himself betrayed Russia with Prussia. But she was afraid that, by diverting the course of events, Catherine might prevent the realization of her dearest

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  Another Catherine! wish: the peaceful transfer of power, over the head of Peter, to his son, young Paul, who would be assisted by a regency council.

  Admittedly, Elizabeth could have proclaimed this change in the dynastic order, right then. However, such an initiative inevitably would have entailed skirmishes between rival factions, revolts within the family and perhaps in the street. Wouldn’t it be better to leave things as they were, for the time being? There was no need to rush; Her Majesty still had a clear head; she might live on a few more years; the country needed her; her subjects would not understand her suddenly ignoring current issues to deal with the succession.

  As though to encourage her in maintaining the status quo, the “Conference,” the supreme political council created at her initiative, was considering a march on Berlin by the combined allied armies. However, Field Mars hal Saltykov being ill, General Fermor hesitated at the idea of such a large-scale action. Then, in a daring move, the Russian general Totleben launched an attack on the Prussian capital, surprised the enemy, penetrated the city and accepted its surrender. Although this “raid” was too fast and too poorly exploited to lead Frederick II to give up his entire territory, the king was sufficiently shaken that one might reasonably expect the ensuing negotiations to be highly profitable.

  In such a context, Elizabeth felt that France should set an example of firmness. Ivan Shuvalov was so much persuaded of that, that his mistress would laugh and say that he was more French than the French. In addition, she believed that Catherine was on good terms with the baron of Breteuil only insofar as the politics of France did not contradict too directly that of Russia.

  However, Breteuil, obeying his principal, the duke of Choiseul, advised the tsarina that Louis XV would be grateful to her if, exceptionally, she would agree to sacrifice “her particular interests to the common cause.” In short, he asked her to settle

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  Terrible Tsarinas for a compromise. But, in spite of the illness that kept her confined to her room, Elizabeth refused to let go before she received assurances that Russia would receive its due. In her view, prolonging the truce would only help Frederick II. She understood him well enough to know that he would take advantage of the suspension of hostilities to rebuild his army and to prepare to fight again, with a new chance of success. The Empress’s mistrust and vindictiveness being abruptly awaked, she took the bit in her teeth. On her deathbed, she wanted to ensure that Russia would live on after her - and thanks to her. While in her shadow hushed rumors on the future of monarchy were circulating again, she and her advisers from the Conference were planning to attack Silesia and Saxony. As a final inspiration she named Alexander Buturlin commander-in-chief; his principal qualification for the position was that he had once been her lover.

  While the generalissimo, appointed in extremis, was certainly full of good intentions, he had neither the authority nor the military knowledge necessary to fill the role. However, nobody in Elizabeth’s inner circle warned her against the risks of such a choice. For one Ivan Shuvalov (who was always preaching all-out war), how many worthy advisers showed themselves strangely hesitant, inexplicably evasive!

  Little by little, Elizabeth noted that even within the palace there were two irreconcilable political views, two groups of partisans who fought with arguments, tricks and intrigues. Some pushed for complete conquest for love of country; the others, tired of a war that was costly in terms of lives and money, wished to see it ended as soon as possible, even at the price of some concessions.

  Torn between the two camps, Elizabeth was almost ready to give up her claims on Eastern Prussia provided that France supported her claims on Polish Ukraine. In St. Petersburg, in London, in Vienna, and in Versailles, the diplomats haggled endlessly. That was

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  Another Catherine! their pleasure and their trade. But Elizabeth was wary of their quibbles. Even as everyone around her was discussing her health, she intended to keep a tight grip on the destiny of her empire, as long as she had the strength to read her mail and say her prayers.

  At times, she regretted being an old woman and unable, in that condition, to command her regiments in person.

  In reality, in spite of the shifting winds in war and politics, things were not going so badly for Russia. These disturbing events ruffled the surface of the water, but deeper down, a strong current was flowing right along, maintained by the usual paperpushing in the state offices, the harvests at the agricultural estates, the output of the factories, artisans’ workshops and public building sites, and the comings and goings of boats in the ports and caravans in the steppes, bringing their cargos of exotic goods.

  This quiet agitation went on, like an anthill, in spite of the tumult at the top; and Elizabeth interpreted it as a sign of the extraordinary vitality of her people. Come what may, she thought, Russia is so vast, so rich in good land and courageous men that it can never perish. If one could cure it of its subservience to Prussian models, the game would be half-won already. For her part, she could take pride in having, in just a few years’ time, removed most of the Germans who had run the Administration. Whenev
er her advisers had suggested a foreigner for an important position, her invariable answer was, “Don’t we have a Russian to put there?”

  This systematic preference quickly became known to her subjects and led to the arrival of new statesmen and military men, eager to devote themselves to the service of the empire.

  While bringing new blood into the hierarchy of civil servants, the empress had also set about boosting the country’s economy by removing the internal customs system, instituting banks of credit like those in other European states, encouraging the

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  Terrible Tsarinas colonization of the uncultivated plains of the southwest, creating the first secondary schools here and there, and founding the university in Moscow (to succeed the Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy in that city) and the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Thus she maintained, against all the winds and tides, the trend of opening to the Western culture that Peter the Great had so urgently fostered, and without too much sacrificing the land’s traditions that were so cherished by the old nobility. While she recognized the defects of serfdom, she by no means planned to give up this secular practice. Let unrepentant utopians dream of a paradise where rich and poor, muzhiks and landowners, illiterate and erudite, blind and clear-sighted, young and old, minstrels and freaks would all have the same chance in life - she was too conscious of the harsh Russian reality to subscribe to such a mirage. On the other hand, whenever she found, within reach, an opportunity to extend the geographical limits of Russia, she became possessed, like a gambler at a betting table.

  At the end of 1761, just when she was starting to doubt the abilities of her military chiefs, the fortress of Kolberg (in Pomerania) fell into the hands of the Russians. The attack was led by Rumiantsev, with a promising new general at his side - one Alexander Suvorov. This unhoped-for victory proved the empress right in holding out against the skeptics and the defeatists.

  However, she hardly had the strength to enjoy the moment.

  She had just spent a few weeks resting at Peterhof, but it had not brought her any relief. Returning to the capital, the satisfaction brought by her country’s military victory was soon effaced by the turmoil around her. She was haunted by the thought of death and caught up in rumors of dynastic intrigues, the grand duchess’s love scandals and the grand duke’s stupid, stubborn obsession with the triumph of Prussia. Shut up in her room, she suffered most of all from her legs, whose wounds bled in spite of every

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  Another Catherine! remedy. Moreover, she was becoming prone to hemorrhages and crises of hysteria, which left her dazed for hours. Now, she would receive her ministers sitting up in bed, her hair capped with a lace bonnet. Sometimes, to cheer herself up, she would call in the mimes from an Italian troupe that she had invited to St. Petersburg; she would watch their pranks and think back to the time when such buffoons us ed to make her laugh.

  As soon as she felt a little more puckish, she asked to have some of her most beautiful dresses brought in and, after pondering a bit, chose one; at the risk of splitting the seams, she had her chambermaids dress her, entrusted her coiffure to the hairdresser with instructions to give her the latest Parisian fashion, and announced her intention to appear at the next court ball. Then, planted in front of a mirror, she lost heart at the sight of her wrinkles, her sagging eyelids, her triple chin and the blotches on her cheeks; she had herself undressed, went back to bed, and resigned herself to ending her life in solitude, lethargy and memories.

  Greeting the rare courtiers who came to visit her, she read in their eyes a suspicious curiosity, the cold impatience of the lookout on a watchtower. They may have had an affectionate look on their faces, but they weren’t coming to wish her well - they wanted to see how long she had left to live. Only Alexis Razumovsky seemed to really care. But what was he thinking about, as he looked at her? Of the loving and demanding woman whom he had held so often in his arms, or of the corpse that he would soon be strewing with flowers?

  To the disastrous obsession with death, Elizabeth soon added a fear of fire. The old Winter Palace where the tsarina had lived in St. Petersburg since the beginning of her reign was an immense wooden construction that, at the least spark, would go up like a torch. If fire broke out in some recess of her apartments, she would lose all her furniture, all her holy images, all her dresses.

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  Terrible Tsarinas And she would certainly not have time to escape, herself, but would perish in a blazing hell. Such disasters were, after all, frequent in the capital. She would have to summon up the courage to relocate. But to where? The construction of the new palace, which Elizabeth had entrusted to Rastrelli, was so far behind schedule that one could not hope to see an end to the work in less than two or three years. The Italian architect was asking for 380,000 rubles just to finish Her Majesty’s private apartments.

  She did not have that kind of money, and she did not know where to find it. Maintaining the army was costing an arm and a leg.

  Moreover, in June 1761, a fire had devastated the hemp and flax depots, destroying valuable goods that would have been sold to help replenish the State coffers.

  To console herself for this penury and this typically Russian chaos, the tsarina went back to drinking great quantities of alcohol. When she had downed enough glasses, she would collapse in bed, sleeping like a beast. Her chambermaids watched over her while she rested; and she kept a special watchman, in addition - the spalnik, who was charged with checking her breathing, listening to her complaints and calming her fears whenever she began to wake up, between blackouts. To this good man, uneducated, naive and humble as a domestic animal, she no doubt entrusted the concerns that beset her as soon as she closed her eyes. All the family troubles simmered in her head together with the political intricacies, making an unpalatable stew. Chewing over old resentments and vain illusions, she hoped that at least death would hold off until s he signed a final agreement with the king of France.

  That Louis XV should have spurned her as a fiancee when she was only fourteen years old and he was fifteen, s he could (if need be) understand. But that he should hesitate now to recognize her as a unique and faithful ally, when they were both at the height of their glory, surpassed understanding. That rogue, Frederick II,

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  Another Catherine! would not be such a cad!

  It is true that the king of Prussia was counting on the grand duke to bring Russia back to its senses. Elizabeth would prefer to be damned by the Church than to accept such a humiliation! To prove that she was still in charge, on November 17 she took measures to reduce the very unpopular tax on salt and, in a belated burst of leniency, she published a list of prisoners condemned for life whom she suggested should be released. A short time later a hemorrhage, more violent than usual, curtailed all her activity.

  With every coughing fit, she vomited blood. The doctors stayed by her bedside now and acknowledged that they had given up all hope.

  On December 24, 1761, Elizabeth received extreme unction and summoned up the strength to repeat, after the priest, the words of the prayer for the dying. As she slid toward the great void, she guessed how pathetically agitated must be those, in this world that was receding from her little by little, who would have to carry her out to be buried. It was not she who was dying, but the universe of the others. Having failed to make a decision about her succession, she relied on God to settle Russia’s fate after she heaved her last sigh. Didn’t He know better than anyone down here what was appropriate for the Russian people? For a few more hours, the tsarina held off the night that was invading her brain. The following day, December 25 - the day Christ was born - at about 3:00 in the afternoon, she ceased breathing and a great calm spread across her, where traces of make-up still remained. She had just reached the age of 53.

  When the double doors of the death chamber opened wide, all the courtiers assembled in the waiting room knelt down, crossed themselves and lowered their heads to hear the fateful announcement uttered by old princ
e Nikita Trubestkoy, Procurator General of the Senate: “Her Imperial Majesty Elizabeth Pet«233»

  Terrible Tsarinas rovna sleeps in the peace of the Lord,” adding the consecrated formula, “She has commanded to us to live long.” Lastly, in his powerful voice, doing away with any possible ambiguity, he said, “God keep our Very Gracious Sovereign, the Emperor Peter III.”

  After the death of Elizabeth “the Lenient,” her associates piously inventoried her wardrobes and trunks. They found 15,000 dresses, some of which Her Majesty had never worn.

  The first to bow down before the trimmed and made-up corpse were, as expected, her nephew Peter III (who found it difficult to disguise his joy) and her daughter-in-law Catherine (already preoccupied with how to play this new hand of cards).

  The cadaver, embalmed, scented, hands crossed and head crowned, remained on exhibit for six weeks in a room in the Winter Palace. Among the crowd that filed past the open casket, many unknown individuals wept for Her Majesty who had so loved the ordinary people and who had not hesitated to punish the faults of the mighty. But the visitors irresistibly shifted their gaze from the impassive mask of the tsarina to the pale and serious face of the grand duchess, who knelt by the catafalque. Catherine seemed to have sunk into a never-ending prayer. Actually, while she may have been murmuring interminable prayers, she must in fact have been thinking about how to conduct herself in the future, to thwart the hostility of her husband.