Petersburg was still not against him, but he had already lost his head
entirely. Displaying incredible cowardice at Cronstadt, he bade the
Imperial yacht sail not to the fleet, but back to Oranienbaum; the ladies
were afraid of sickness and the sea, he was afraid of everything. It
was a calm moonlight night; the pitiful Tsar hid in the cabin with his
courtiers, while the two heroes, Minih and Gudovitch, sat in gloomy
brooding on deck, with shame and anger and sorrow in their hearts; they
saw that there is no saving people against their will. At four o’clock in
the morning they reached Oranienbaum again, and crestfallen stealthily
returned to the Palace. Peter sat down to write a letter to Catherine.
At the same time two fiery steeds were being saddled, one for Catherine,
the other for Princess Dashkov, and again, full of gaiety and energy,
they were at the head of their soldiers, who set off on the march at
five o’clock, and halted to rest at the Troitsky Monastery. Then Peter’s
envoys began appearing one after another, bringing proposals each more
foolish than the last; he abdicated from the throne, begged leave to go
to Holstein, and owned himself to blame and unfit to rule. Catherine
insisted on his unconditional surrender to avert greater troubles, and
promised in return to arrange his life as comfortably as possible in
whichever he preferred of the palaces away from the town.
Catherine’s troops calmly occupied Peterhof; Orlov, who had ridden on
to reconnoitre, had found no one there. The Holsteiners, who were about
Peter in Oranienbaum and were devoted to him, were ready to die for him,
but he told them to make no defence; he meant to flee, ordered a horse to
be brought, but did not mount it; instead, he got into a carriage with
Romanovna and Gudovitch, and mournfully went to surrender to his guilty
wife. He was led secretly into a remote room of the Palace. Gudovitch,
who even then behaved with extraordinary dignity, was arrested, together
with Romanovna; Peter was given food and drink, and taken to Ropsha
in the escort of Alexey Orlov, Passek, Baryatinsky, and Baskakov. He
selected Ropsha himself; it had belonged to him when he was Grand Duke.
Other authorities state, however, that he did not go to Ropsha at all,
but was on the estate of Razumovsky.
Princess Dashkov saw his letters to Catherine. In one he speaks of his
abdication, in another of the persons he would like to keep about him,
and enumerates everything he needed for his daily life, making special
mention of a store of Burgundy and tobacco. He asked further, it is said,
for a violin, a Bible, and various novels, adding that he meant to become
a philosopher.
On the evening of the day when Peterhof was taken, Princess Dashkov,
coming back from the Princess of Holstein’s to the Empress’s apartments,
came upon Orlov, who was lying at full length on a sofa in one of the
Empress’s inner rooms. He apologised for doing so, alleging that he had
hurt his foot. He was opening a big envelope; Princess Dashkov had seen
such envelopes in the hands of her uncle, the Vice-Chancellor; they were
used for the most important affairs of state communicated from the Privy
Council to the Tsar.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, with amazement.
‘The Empress told me to.’
‘Impossible,’ she answered. ‘You have no official status for doing it.’
At that moment word was brought that the soldiers had broken into the
cellars, and were drinking Hungarian wine in their helmets, taking it
for mead. Orlov did not stir. Princess Dashkov at once went downstairs,
assumed a threatening air, and with her thin girlish voice restored
discipline. Pleased with her success, she distributed among them all
the money she had on her; then, turning her purse inside out, told them
that her means were less than her goodwill, but that on their return to
Petersburg they should have leave to drink at the Government’s expense;
after this she went back.
Beside the sofa on which Orlov was lying she found a table laid for
three. The Empress came in, took her seat, and invited the princess to
sit down. All this so impressed the latter that she could not conceal her
emotion. The Empress noticed it, and asked her what was the matter.
‘Nothing,’ she answered; ‘most likely I am tired from sleepless nights
and excitement.’
Catherine, wishing to draw the princess into being civil to Orlov,
told her that in spite of her urgent wishes he was giving up military
service, and begged the princess to help her to dissuade him. ‘I shall be
charged,’ she said, ‘with horrible ingratitude if he leaves the army.’
But Princess Dashkov, mortified by her discovery, answered that Her
Majesty had so many means of rewarding his services that she had no need
to constrain him.
‘It was only then,’ she adds, ‘that I was convinced there was _une
liaison_ between them.’
It has been thought that she was mortified at this through jealousy,
and it is not a mistake. Only, she was not jealous on Orlov’s account;
she never liked and never respected either him or his brothers; she was
jealous over the Empress; she liked neither the choice nor the tone;
moreover, her dreams of exclusive confidence, of romantic friendship, of
all-powerful influence, paled and vanished at her discovery. And as a
fact, from that evening she had a rival and an enemy; she felt that the
very day after the _coup d’état_.
Crazy Peter’s saying about the orange skin began coming true with
extraordinary rapidity. The very day after ascending the throne the
Empress began appraising and rewarding Princess Dashkov’s services, she
began to be grateful—that is, ceased to be her friend.
After her triumphal entry into Petersburg, Princess Dashkov went away
to see her father, her uncle, and, most of all, to have a look at her
little one. It must not be forgotten that our Preobrazhensky sergeant
had a little daughter Nastya, whom she passionately loved, and with whom
she longed to play, after having played enough with the Tsar’s crown.
Her father’s house was full of soldiers, stationed there partly for
his protection, and partly because ‘Romanovna’ had been brought to his
house. Vadkovsky sent to ask the officer on duty whether all the guard
was needed; Princess Dashkov, speaking to him in French, told the officer
that half of the soldiers were not needed, and that she was dismissing
them.
When she went back to the Palace, Catherine received her with a look
of displeasure; the officer of the guard was present and was talking
to Orlov. The Empress reprimanded Princess Dashkov for acting on her
own initiative, and even observed that she had spoken French before the
soldiers. The princess, deeply wounded, listened to the reprimand, made
no reply, and, to change the conversation, gave Catherine the ribbon and
the order which she had put in her pocket the day before.
‘Not so fast, not so fast,’ said the Empress. ‘I had to reprimand you for
your impetuosity—you had no right to dismiss the soldiers on your own
authority; but I must also reward you for your services.’ With this she
put around her neck the ribbon that had been restored.
Instead of kneeling down before the Empress, as is done on such
occasions, Princess Dashkov said to her sorrowfully: ‘Your Majesty,
forgive me for what I want to say; the time is coming when truth must
be banished from your presence; before it comes, I beg you to take back
that order: as a decoration I cannot sufficiently value it; if it is a
reward—however great it might be, it could not reward my services, they
cannot be paid by anything, for they were not to be bought.’
‘But,’ said the Empress, embracing her, and leaving the ribbon,
‘friendship has its claims; surely I am not deprived of them now?’
Princess Dashkov, pleased again, kissed her hand, and the spirits of a
girl of eighteen got the upper hand; half a century later she does not
forget to add with pleasure: ‘Fancy me in a uniform, with a spur on one
high boot, looking like a boy of fifteen, with the red Catherine ribbon
across my shoulder.’ The new cavalier galloped back again to Nastya,
to show herself to the baby, to be present at her supper, and at last
undressing flung herself into bed; but this time, too, sleep fled from
her fretted nerves, or terrified her with dreams: the amazing scenes
of the preceding days, which she had not merely lived through, but had
partly brought about, passed incessantly before her imagination.
The Empress herself did not deny the important share Princess Dashkov had
taken in the revolution of the 28th of June; on the contrary, when the
wily old Bestuzhev was presented to her, she said to him: ‘Who could
have imagined that the daughter of Roman Vorontsov would have helped me
to ascend the throne!’
The news of the murder of Peter filled Princess Dashkov with horror
and aversion; she was so distressed and revolted by this stain on the
‘revolution which has not cost one drop of blood,’ that she could not
bring herself to go next day to the Palace. She omits in her memoirs all
the details of the revolting proceeding, in which three officers, one
of whom was of gigantic stature, were at work for half an hour stifling
with a napkin the poisoned prisoner, as though they could not wait for a
quarter of an hour. She assumed that Catherine did not know beforehand
of Alexey Orlov’s design;[54] it is more probable that she simply had
no idea of the connivance of Catherine, who could carefully conceal her
wishes. Not only Panin and the other conspirators knew nothing of her
intrigue with Grigory Orlov, but, as we have just seen, Princess Dashkov
had not suspected it.
Catherine perceived what was in the latter’s heart, and when she saw her
began to speak with horror of what had happened.
‘Yes, your Majesty,’ answered Princess Dashkov, ‘this death has come too
quickly and too soon for your fame and for mine.’
As she walked through the drawing-room, she said in a loud voice before
every one that, of course, Alexey Orlov would spare her his acquaintance.
For over twenty-five years they did not bow nor say a word to each other.
It is very possible that Catherine had not given instructions to murder
Peter. Alexander went further: he positively insisted that they should
not _kill_ Paul, when he sent a gang of the rebel nobles to him. We
know from Shakespeare how these orders are given by a glance, a hint, a
silence. Why did Catherine entrust the care of the pusillanimous Peter
to his worst enemies? Passek and Baskakov had meant to kill him several
days before the 27th of June, and did not she know that? And why were the
murderers so shamelessly rewarded?
Princess Dashkov quotes in Catherine’s defence a letter from Orlov,
written immediately after the murder, which the Empress showed her. This
letter, she says, bore unmistakable traces of uneasiness, distress,
consternation, and tipsiness. It was preserved by the Empress in a
special case, together with other important documents. After her death
Paul ordered Prince Bezborodka to go through these papers in his
presence; when they got to this letter, Paul read it aloud to the Tsarina
in the presence of Madame Nelidov.[55] Then he ordered Rastoptchin to
read it aloud to the Grand Dukes.
I have heard what the letter contained from a trustworthy man who had
read it himself; it was in this style: ‘Little Mother, Empress, how am I
to tell you what we have done! such a misfortune has happened! We came to
see your husband, and were drinking with him; you know what he is like
when he is drunk; word followed word. He so insulted us that we came to
blows. All of a minute he dropped dead. What is to be done? Take our
heads if you like, or, merciful Little Mother, think that what is done
cannot be undone, and overlook our offence.’[56]
Princess Dashkov, carried away by her love for Catherine, believed,
or professed to believe, that Mirovitch,[57] too, acted without her
knowledge; and the worst, most disgraceful and loathsome story of her
whole reign, the abduction by Alexey Orlov and De Ribasse of Princess
Tarakanov,[58] she does not mention at all.
It was, among other things, because she believed and wanted to believe in
the ideal Catherine that she could not maintain herself in favour. And
she would have been a splendid minister. Though indisputably gifted with
political insight, she had besides her enthusiastic temperament two great
defects which hindered her from making a career: she could not be silent,
her tongue was sharp and biting, and it spared no one except Catherine;
moreover, she was too proud, and she could not, and would not, conceal
her antipathies—in short, she could not ‘abase her personality,’ as the
Moscow Old Believers express it.
As a matter of fact, a friendship between Catherine and Princess Dashkov
was impossible. Catherine wanted not only to be sovereign by the Imperial
power, but to rule over every one in the world by her genius and her
beauty; she wanted to attract the attention of all to herself alone; she
had an insatiable desire to please. She was still in the full flower of
her beauty, but she was thirty. She could probably have borne to have
about her a weak woman, lost in the radiance of her glory and adoring
her, not very handsome and not very clever. But she could not endure at
her side the vigorous Princess Dashkov, who spoke of _her own fame_,
with her wit, her fire, and her nineteen years.
She withdrew herself from her with the rapidity of truly royal
ingratitude. In Moscow, after the Coronation, the old sinner Bestuzhev
proposed writing an address to the Empress, and begging her, in the name
of all her subjects, to take another husband. Grigory Orlov, who had
already been created a prince of the Empire, dreamed of being Tsar. This
roused the indignation of all decent people. Chancellor Vorontsov asked
for an audience, and warned Catherine, on the supposition that she did
not know what was being done. Catherine was surprised, and wanted to
reprimand Bestuzhev.
Hitrov, one of the devoted conspirators of the 27th of June, loudly
declared that he would sooner kill Orlov, or go to the scaffold, than
acknowledge him Emperor. It need hardly be said that Princess Dashkov’s
voice, too, was heard in the general murmur of displeasure; her words
were carried to Catherine. Suddenly one evening, Tyeplov, the secretary
of the Empress, came to Prince Dashkov and demanded to see him. The
Empress had written him the following note: ‘I sincerely desire not to
be compelled to consign to oblivion the services of the Princess Dashkov
on account of her imprudent behaviour. Tell her to remember this next
time she permits herself an indiscreet freedom of language amounting to
threats.’
Princess Dashkov did not answer a word to this letter; she held herself
aloof, and after the death of her husband in 1768 asked leave to visit
foreign lands. ‘I might very well go without question,’ she said
(probably never dreaming that in another eighty years a stupid law would
almost completely deprive Russians of the right of crossing the frontier,
and still less, that the Government would force every traveller to pay
ransom), ‘but my position as a lady of the court lays upon me the
obligation to ask the sanction of the Most High.’
Receiving no answer, she went to Petersburg, and at her first reception
asked Catherine to allow her to go abroad for the sake of her children’s
health.
‘I am very sorry,’ answered Catherine, ‘that such a distressing cause
obliges you to go. But, of course, Princess, you are perfectly free to
make what arrangements you like.’
Where was the time when they had lain in one bed, under one quilt, and
had wept and embraced each other, or, lying on Colonel Kar’s overcoat,
had dreamed for a whole night of political reforms?
Abroad Princess Dashkov revived, and became again the same proud,
indefatigable, indomitable, active woman, interested in every one and
throwing herself into everything.
On the wall in the hotel at Dantzig there hung a big picture representing
some battle between Prussians and Russians, in which, of course, the
Russians were being beaten. In the foreground there was a group of our
soldiers on their knees before the Prussians begging for mercy. Princess
Dashkov could not stand this. She induced two Russians to creep by night
into the room, with oil-paints and brushes, locked the door, and set to
work with her companions to repaint the uniforms, so that by the morning
the Prussians were on their knees begging the Russians to spare them.
When she had finished the picture, she sent for post-horses, and before
the hotel-keeper had grasped the situation, she was racing along the road
to Berlin, laughing at the thought of his amazement.
In Hanover she went to the Opera alone with Mlle. Kamensky. They were so
unlike the worthy German women that the Prince of Mecklenburg, who was
the chief authority in the town, sent to find out who they were. His
adjutant went unceremoniously into the box in which there were also two
German ladies, and asked our Russians whether they were not foreigners.
Princess Dashkov said ‘Yes.’
‘His Highness,’ added the adjutant, ‘wishes to know with whom I have the
honour of speaking.’
‘Our name,’ answered Princess Dashkov, ‘can be of no interest either to
you or to the Duke; as women we have the right not to say who we are, and
not to answer your question.’
The adjutant went away in confusion. The German ladies, who had from
the first felt involuntary respect for our ladies, gazed at them with
awe when they heard Princess Dashkov’s valiant answer. Seeing that the
Germans took them for very great ladies, Princess Dashkov, turning
courteously to them, said that though she would not answer the Prince’s
impudent question, she had no reason to conceal from them her identity.
‘I am an opera-singer, and my friend is a dancer; we are both out of a
job, and on the look-out for a good engagement.’ The German ladies opened
their eyes wide, blushed to their ears, and not only abandoned their
polite attentions, but tried so far as the size of the box permitted to
sit with their backs turned on them.
In Paris Princess Dashkov was surrounded by all the celebrities and made
friends with all of them except Rousseau; him she would not go to see on
account of his hypocritical humility and affected originality. Diderot,
on the other hand, became an intimate friend, spent whole evenings
_tête-à-tête_ with her, and discussed everything under the sun with
her. Princess Dashkov proved to him that serfdom was not so bad as was
supposed, trapped him into contradictory statements, and the susceptible
Diderot was ready to agree with her instantly.
A servant came in and announced that Madame Necker[59] and Madame
Geoffrin[60] had arrived. ‘Don’t receive them!’ cried Diderot, without
asking Princess Dashkov’s wishes; ‘say that she is not at home.’
‘There is not a better woman in the world than Madame Geoffrin, but she
is the greatest gossip in Paris; I positively won’t have her talking all
sorts of nonsense about you before she has time to know you properly. I
won’t have blasphemy against my idol.’ And Princess Dashkov sent word
that she was unwell.
Rulhière,[61] who was writing about Russia and the year 1762, also
urgently wished to see her. Diderot would not have him received either:
he wanted to keep Princess Dashkov to himself.
In London Princess Dashkov made the acquaintance of Paoli, but she did
not like his ‘Italian grimaces,’ which were unbecoming in a great man. In
Geneva she visited Voltaire and marvelled at him, though she could not
help laughing with some doctor over the way Voltaire lost his temper at
losing a game of draughts, and at the killing faces he made. The doctor,
observing that it was not only Voltaire who could make such faces, bade
his dog lift up his head, and Princess Dashkov could not control her
laughter at the extraordinary resemblance. From Geneva she went to Spa;
there she made great friends with Mrs. Hamilton[62] and, when she parted
from her, romantically swore to come again in five years to see her, if
they did not meet before, and, what was even more romantic, actually came.
The feeling of the most ardent, most active affection was almost the
strongest emotion in this proud and strong-willed woman. Deeply wounded
by Catherine’s treatment of her,[63] she looked prematurely old.
Diderot says that she looked nearly forty, though she was at that time
twenty-seven. Whether she loved any man after her husband’s death, or
was beloved by one, is not to be seen from her Memoirs; but it may be
said for certain that no man played a significant part in her life. After
Catherine she attached herself, with all the ardour of a hungry heart, to
Mrs. Hamilton. And in her old age an infinitely tender motherly affection
brought warmth into her life; I am speaking of Miss Wilmot, who edited
her Memoirs.
From Spa she went back to Moscow to the house of her sister, Madame
Polyansky; this sister, with her humble, prosaic name, was no other than
the notorious ‘Romanovna,’ who, if she had not been Madame Polyansky,
might easily have been Empress of all the Russias.
The clouds which had overcast Princess Dashkov’s sky were beginning to
clear away. The influence of the Orlovs had waned. The Empress, hearing
of her arrival, sent her sixty thousand roubles to buy an estate.
But the princess was utterly unable to get on with the favourites, and
there was no real intimacy between her and the court. Now she began to be
deeply absorbed in the education of her son; an ardent admirer of England
and English institutions, she made up her mind to go with her son to
Edinburgh. Moreover, she saw that she was completely superfluous in the
Winter Palace.
While she was preparing for this journey she betrothed her daughter to
Shtcherbinin. On the way to the estate of the young man’s brother, to
which she was going with the whole party, a servant fell off the box,
and three sledges passed over him; he was badly hurt and stunned; he had
to be bled, but how? Princess Dashkov had with her a case of surgical
instruments bought in London; she took out a lancet, but no one would
undertake to use it; the injured man lay unaided until, overcoming an
intense feeling of disgust, she opened his vein, and after successfully
performing the operation, almost sank into a swoon herself.
In Edinburgh she was soon surrounded by the leading celebrities,
Robertson, Blair, Adam Smith, Fergusson. She wrote long letters to
Robertson, and explained to him in detail her plan of education; she
wanted her son, who was at that time fourteen, to complete his studies
in two years and a half, and then, after making a tour of the whole of
Europe, to go into the Service.
Robertson presumed that he would need four years; the mother thought that
was too much. She wrote out in detail what her son knew already, and what
he must know.
‘_Languages_:
Latin.—The initial difficulties are overcome.
English.—The prince has a very good understanding of prose,
and to some extent of verse.
German.—He understands it perfectly.
French.—He knows like his mother tongue.
‘_Literature_: He is familiar with the best classical works.
His taste is more formed than is common at his age. He has an
excessive tendency to be critical, which is perhaps his only
defect.
‘_Mathematics_: A very important branch of study. He has been
fairly successful in the solution of advanced problems, but I
should like him to go further in algebra.
‘_Civil and Military Architecture_: I want him to make a
particular study of these subjects.
‘_History and Political Institutions_: He has a knowledge of
general history, and particularly of Germany, England, and
France, but he ought to go through a course of history more in
detail; he can study it at home with a tutor.
‘Now this is what I want him to study: 1. Logic and the
Philosophy of Reasoning. 2. Experimental Physics. 3. A little
Chemistry. 4. Philosophy and Natural History. 5. Natural Law,
International Law, public and private Law in its application to
the legal systems of European nations. 6. Ethics. 7. Politics.’
This extensive programme she divides into five sessions, and then, as
always, carries it out exactly. Her son passed his M.A. examination
in 1779; it is commonly said that she exhausted him, and, certainly,
he never did anything; moreover, he died very young, but whether his
education is to blame for that it is hard to say.