relations, she took an idealistic view of her domestic problems. She
turned from Machiavelli to Montesquieu. When she thought of Courland
and Poland she pictured herself as a general on horseback; when she
thought of Russia she pictured herself as the Little Mother, Matushka.
She and Russia were united against the rest of the world.
The Empress wished to make her people happy without making herself
unhappy. Russia had despotic, conflicting, chaotic laws. There was a
printed code which had been handed down from Czar Alexei Michaelovich,
the father of Peter the Great. But chiefly the people were ruled by
ukases, of which Catherine’s Manifesto of Silence is a good example.
Not always, however, did the Russians obey so promptly as they had done
in this particular instance. It was commonly said of the peasants when
some order had not been obeyed, “They are waiting for the third ukase.”
During the reign of Elisabeth Petrovna, the Senate had discussed the
need of codifying the laws but postponements had ensued and nothing had
been accomplished. On the threshold of her reign, Catherine was met by
this need. It was a task made to her hand.
She took the ancient code of Czar Alexei in one hand and Montesquieu’s
Spirit of Laws in the other. There seemed to be no way of reconciling
the two; so she decided that she had better cleave to Montesquieu
altogether. She worked three hours every day for more than three years
and produced a thick volume. There was but little original thought in
it as most of it had been adapted from her philosopher and guide. It
was published under the title “Instruction of Her Imperial Majesty
Catherine the Second for the Commission charged with preparing a
project of a new code of laws.” It was more briefly known in Russian as
the Nakaz.
She worked secretly, showing her book to no one but Panin and Orlov.
Count Panin was delighted. The Empress was at last engaged on a plan
in which he could whole-heartedly share, that of putting political and
social ideals on paper. The Count cried out, while his huge peruke
flopped to one side in his excitement, “These are principles which will
cast down walls!” The handsome Gregory, lounging with his feet up,
thought the literary efforts of his Empress would surely add to her
already shining laurels. He wished to take the pages which she read to
him and show them around to the whole court. But Matushka forbade him
to do this.
In the summer of 1767 the work was at last finished. In December
Catherine had sent out a ukase ordering the election of delegates for
a legislative commission. During the spring, a time of great floods
and freshets in Russia, the elections had taken place. There had been
much groaning and protesting from districts afflicted by heavy rains,
as the swollen streams made travel difficult and dangerous, but the new
Empress ignored all excuses for delay and somehow or other the streams
were forded. In early summer, the delegates began to arrive in Moscow,
in kibitkas, on horseback, on foot. They represented cities, districts,
social classes, religions, races. There were Russian nobles wearing
laces, diamonds, and velvets made up in the latest Paris fashion; there
were merchants and military men; there were a few peasants in smocks;
there were Tartars and Bashkirs. Over a thousand delegates assembled.
Prior to the convention, the Empress sequestered herself in the
Kolomenskoe Palace not far from Moscow. Here she gathered around
her various thinking persons, as she called them, and asked them to
criticize her manuscript. To meet their conflicting objections, she
crossed out so much that only half of the Instruction was left.
Collecting the remnant of her labors, she sent it to the printer, and
then had it read before the legislative convention. As many of the
delegates could not read, it was necessary that the Instruction should
be read aloud frequently and fully. At first the delegates rose in a
body at the first sound of Her Majesty’s words; but the document was
read too often and too lengthily. Finally they just remained sitting
or milled around according to their custom. Some English visitors who
attended the convention called it a riot. Whether the meeting was
really as tumultuous as the English Parliament can be on occasion is
doubtful. But the Russian delegates wore so many gay, primitive colors,
it probably seemed to Anglo-Saxon observers as if they expressed
excitement and savagery in every way.
The legislative commission dragged on a year and a half. The first
sessions took place in the Kremlin but shifted to Petersburg when
the Empress returned to her northern residence. The commission like
everything else in Russia accommodated easily to a nomadic life. In
Catherine’s day, the court, which travelled continually back and forth
between Petersburg and Moscow, took their furniture with them, for
furniture was scarce and precious. To give a man _meuble_ from France
was one of the best ways of bribing him. This was one of the lessons
that Catherine had learned from the Empress Elisabeth.
When the Empress set forth for Petersburg in December, 1767, she had
more people and more furniture than usual in her train. One thousand
delegates were swept northward in flying sleighs and were reassembled
in the Winter Palace after the Christmas festivities had been duly
celebrated. In Petersburg as in the Kremlin, the Empress kept herself
modestly in the background. She sat in a box behind a drawn curtain and
left the commission entirely in the hands of a presidium composed of
Viazemsky, Bibikov, and Shuvalov. Her General-Adjutant, Gregory Orlov,
was prominent on the floor and on one occasion spoke up eloquently
in defense of a peasant who had been called “lazy and stubborn” by a
nobleman. The Empress was not officially present. She sent messages
from her box to the presidium but did not appear on the floor. This
made it possible for the convention to draw up formal addresses to
the author of the Instruction and for her to reply in writing to
them. In one of these addresses she was designated for the first time
as “Catherine the Great.” She modestly replied that the title was
one which she had not yet earned. Still the title clung and she was
to enjoy it for many long years as she was not yet forty when the
commission on laws bestowed it upon her.
The Instruction abounds in democratic ideas. It goes so far as to
advocate the gradual abolition of serfdom in Russia by allowing the
serfs to own property and to purchase their own freedom. But the
Russian nobles were not in favor of the reform. Most of the plan was
stricken out by her counsellors before the Instruction ever went to
print and the remainder was eliminated by speeches in the convention.
The Empress abandoned all propaganda for the abolition of serfdom for
the rest of her life and consoled her conscience by abusing the Russian
nobles in her memoirs. “What had I not to suffer from the voice of an
irrational and cruel public opinion when this question was considered
in the legislative commission. The mob of nobles, whose number was
much greater than I had ever supposed because I had judged them too
much by the people who daily surrounded me, began to suspect that these
discussions might bring about an improvement in the position of the
peasants.... I believe that there were not twenty human beings who
reflected on the subject at that time with humanity, really like human
beings!”
7
Catherine’s campaign against smallpox in Russia won great fame for her
in Europe. It must be admitted that her step took courage in those
days. The prevalence of the disease was such that everybody believed
that everybody had to have it. For instance, the court spoke of the
Grand Duke’s uncertain chance of life because he “had not yet had the
smallpox.” The royal family had no more protection than the poorest
peasant. The fiancé of Empress Elisabeth had been carried off by
smallpox on the eve of his marriage and Peter the Second had died in
early youth of the same disease. From the time of Catherine’s arrival
in Russia she was constantly pursued by the fear of the pest and every
time she fell ill she thought it had overtaken her.
She had heard of vaccination in England. Her admiration for English
institutions had been encouraged by her friendship with Sir Charles
Hanbury Williams and the influence of Voltaire. The practical English
had imported vaccination from the Orient, and an English-woman, Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu, had set a brave example by allowing herself and
her son to be inoculated. On the other hand, there were many voices
raised against it. The physicians of the Sorbonne discountenanced
vaccination and disregarded the experience of England with the
practice. Frederick the Great was intensely afraid of it and wrote
to Catherine to urge her strongly not to take the risk. She replied
that she had always feared the smallpox and wished more than anything
else to be freed of her enslavement to this fear. “I am so struck by a
situation so unworthy that I regard it as a weakness not to escape from
it.”
She entered into correspondence with an English surgeon, Dr. Thomas
Dimsdale, who was adventurous enough to accept her invitation to
come to Russia. He had published a work on inoculation and this had
attracted the Empress’s attention; she had always been a great importer
and reader of foreign books. The famous Dr. Dimsdale arrested her
attention, preoccupied as she was at all times with her anxiety about
smallpox.
He arrived at the court of Petersburg in December, 1768. He was
received as all foreign guests were received with social entertainments
which the worthy doctor subsequently described in full in his tracts
on inoculation in Russia. The Empress had been warned against the
experiment and her fears were rife. Although she had sent for Dimsdale
to vaccinate her, she still continued to discuss the matter pro and
con. At last she put an end to her fears by ordering the physician to
vaccinate her secretly one day. The test succeeded capitally. The ghost
of this fear was laid, never to walk again.
The Grand Duke Paul was now vaccinated and Gregory Orlov. On the second
day after the operation, Orlov had gone hunting. This was news to send
to Europe, still trembling at the bare thought of vaccination. The
Empress wrote the story to Voltaire, trusting him to spread it in the
proper quarters. All at once she was ashamed that she had ever been
so timorous as to fear vaccination. After all, every street urchin in
England had as much courage as that! She urged inoculation upon court
circles in Petersburg and the aristocratic Russians suddenly became
very bold. Dr. Dimsdale was kept busy with impatient applicants. “A few
weeks ago,” said Catherine, “nobody would hear of inoculation; but now
nobody can wait to be vaccinated. It has become the fashion.”
The dramatic example of the Empress did not, alas! put an end to
smallpox in Russia. It meant only that the heir-apparent of the throne
was now immune and the dynasty was to this extent assured. It meant
that a few thousand nobles and their families were immune. But the
vast population of Russia was no better off than if the celebrated
Dimsdale had never visited their country. Perhaps the greatest
contribution of his visit had been to diminish superstition among the
least superstitious element of the population. The most superstitious
element, the peasants, had never heard of Dimsdale or vaccination. When
the smallpox came, they still fled to the Virgin, whose wonder-working
portraits hung in every chapel. When the patient was too ill to go and
the family could afford to pay for it, the wonder-working image of Our
Lady would be borrowed from the church and carried to the sufferer’s
bedside. This, however, was rare. Usually the sick one was borne into
the church by the members of the family and laid at the feet of the
Virgin whose pity they implored.
So it was in the city of Moscow in the autumn of 1771. For months the
plague had raged and ravaged the town. The Empress had sent all the
physicians she could commandeer, which meant a great many. Though
she professed to hate physicians, she always kept a large retinue on
call. The stricken city was unusually well taken care of during this
epidemic. Catherine had opened hospitals for the victims of the plague.
All these innovations failed to win the confidence of the terror-shaken
population who had somehow got the idea that the physicians and their
hospitals had brought the pest to Moscow. They fled from the medical
men and gathered at the foot of the icons with their invalids. The
Virgin at the Varvarsky Gate became more popular than the others, and
the terrible pestilence lay massed at her feet day and night. She
became the worst center of contagion in the entire city, distributing
the pest to hundreds of new victims every day.
The physicians were at their wits’ end. They dared not take any radical
steps to prevent the frightened people from doing what they pleased.
The bishop of Moscow, Father Ambrosius, was an enlightened man who
saw that the physicians were helpless. Relying on his authority as a
priest, he resolved to adopt a desperate remedy. He had the Varvarsky
Virgin removed under cover of night and hidden away. When the pilgrims
arrived in the early dawn, Our Lady had vanished. The panacea was gone,
and Death glowered in her vacant niche. Father Ambrosius believed that
the authority of the Church was enough to make these fear-driven
human beings submit. They were his children who had always obeyed. He
thought that, as soon as they knew that the good father had done it,
they would disperse to their homes and the plague spot would be wiped
out. But instead of dispersing, they were suddenly welded into a mob,
a growling, threatening, creeping, blood-thirsty pack. As the menacing
thing began to move, Ambrosius fled from his home into the Kremlin, and
took refuge in the Donskoy Monastery. On down into the cellar he fled,
hiding himself in the darkest corner he could find. The mob came after
him and invaded his sacred retreat. They found him in the darkness and
tore him limb from limb.
When the Empress received a report of the tragedy, she realized that
the population of Moscow was out of hand. The plague raged on. While
the victims multiplied, the hospitals stood empty. Riots were added to
smallpox until it seemed as if the old Muscovite city must soon perish
under its burden of afflictions. The Empress had but one resource
left and that was a military occupation. She sent Gregory Orlov with
a regiment to take charge of the town. Gregory had been vaccinated
by Dimsdale three years before, and the fact that he believed
himself immune gave him extraordinary courage and effectiveness on
this occasion. It must be admitted that Orlov was not distinguished
ordinarily for courage and initiative. His record in putting down the
smallpox in Moscow is exceptional. For once he seemed to take a leaf
from the book of his brother Alexei. He bullied the populace into
complete submission, so that the dying could at least die quietly
undisturbed by mobs and riots. He asked the physicians what they
wanted to have done and dragooned the people into actual obedience.
A certain German doctor is said to have furnished the sanitary ideas
which Gregory Orlov put into execution and which finally helped to wipe
out the plague. Whatever the scientific man may have contributed, the
heroic feat of Gregory Orlov is unquestionable. For once he behaved
like a fearless man and deserved his mistress’s encomiums.
The Empress was almost giddy with delight. She was no longer obliged
to invent reasons for praising her favorite in her correspondence.
She wrote to Prince Henry, “The malady at Moscow has been reduced
to a fifth of what it was, thanks to the care and intelligence of
Count Orlov. He has, besides, understood how to subdue the fanatical
spirit to obedience, not only in the matter of miracles, but he did
not even permit the people to enter the Church to hear mass, because
our churches are small; and, since everybody remained standing, the
pressure that exists could increase the infection. During the service
the people were made to remain outside the churches--an order which
they followed to the letter. Another salutary regulation carried out
despite the bigots, was the prohibition against burying in the churches
and the cemeteries of the city. The Count made his own house into a
hospital, took one of mine for his own use; after which every quarter
of the city provided one.”
The Empress heaped honors upon her hero when he returned to Petersburg
in December. She built a triumphal arch in the park of Czarskoe Selo
with the inscription, “To him who saved Moscow from the plague.” A
medal was struck to commemorate his bravery, on which Orlov’s portrait
and that of Curtius were united. “Russia also has such sons,” read the
inscription.
8
The favorite’s star was to set in glory. When he subdued the Moscow
plague, he had been living with his Empress for a period of ten years.
The end of the cycle had come. What had gone wrong between these two
who had been like married people for so long and who had had three
children together? There are stories of Orlov’s infidelities and
Catherine says that he tired of her. Apparently she sincerely believed
afterwards that Gregory deserted her, although it was only with the
greatest difficulty that she drove the handsome guardsman from her
side. She did not hesitate to employ force when force became necessary.
In the meantime, before and after Moscow, Orlov had played his part in
the Turkish wars though it was by no means as gallant as his Moscow
exploits. The Empress credited him with greater achievements in the
South than others did. In the summer after the smallpox, she sent him
to the Congress of Fokshani as her delegate in the peace negotiations.
Here he swaggered about in a diamond-studded costume and offended the
Turks by his high-handed attitude so that the negotiations came to
nothing. Stories about Orlov’s conduct at this time suggest that he was
a man of idiosyncrasies. After the battle of Tchesme he told Catherine
with a shudder that the water in the harbor was colored red with the
blood of the Turks who had perished. Two years later, his diamonds and
his political indiscretions at Fokshani indicate that phantasy was
growing on him. He was sometimes too timid and sometimes too bold.
Presently he was plunged straight from the clouds to the uttermost
depths by a disconcerting piece of news. The Empress had taken a
new lover in his absence. A young man named Vassilchikov had been
installed in Orlov’s apartments. Taking French leave of his political
and military responsibilities, Gregory Orlov started at once for
Petersburg. Not many versts from the city he was stopped by the most
ironical circumstance conceivable. The Empress had him quarantined
in his own palace at Gatchina. There was smallpox in the South, she
said, and he must not bring it to Petersburg. She had forgotten that
Orlov was immune. She shut him up for four weeks, under military
guards. She also put double locks and military posts at the doors of
the apartment occupied by young Vassilchikov. All the while she wrote
reassuring motherly letters to Orlov and sent him clean socks and
shirts. She showered him with gifts; another palace, a thousand more
serfs, the title of Prince contributed to the weaning process. At last
it was successful. Orlov came to Petersburg and presented himself at
the Empress’s receptions, looking on while his rival performed the
functions which he alone had performed ever since Catherine had become
Empress of Russia. He even overdid his part, making a comrade of
Vassilchikov and going about with him everywhere.
Gregory Orlov was now past forty years of age. Cut adrift at this age,
the exile did not know where to turn. At first he comforted himself
with women of the streets, showing himself in their society in the
vicinity of the Palace. He went abroad and boasted and squandered like
the swashbuckler that he was. He came home again; hung for a short
time in suspense and inaction and then married his first cousin, a
girl of nineteen far gone in tuberculosis. The Senate issued a ukase
commanding them to separate, as first cousins were not allowed to marry
by the Russian Church. The Empress knew exactly what such ukases were
worth; she had herself married a cousin when she came to Russia. As
head of the Church, she issued a dispensation to Gregory Orlov and his
bride and gave them her blessing. They went away to Europe where they
wandered from specialist to specialist, trying to find some one who
could restore the young wife’s health. But steadily she faded. Long
before she died, Orlov had been declared insane.
Horrible stories are told of his last days: that he was constantly
pursued by the apparition of the murdered Peter and that he covered
his face with excrement to shut out the vision. Yet it was not Gregory
who had struck the blow. His brother Alexei had done that, Alexei who
throve on honors and riches and outlived them all even the Empress
herself. But Gregory had always been soft and could not endure his
exile from Catherine. Yet the Empress always said that he had tired of
her.
[Illustration]
X
POTIOMKIN
The middle-aged Empress grew enormously stout. Some of the clothes
which she wore at fifty and thereabouts are still preserved in the
Kremlin Museum. A skirt of blue velvet, her favorite wear, testifies
to the ungraceful breadth of beam which detracted from her Majesty’s
appearance and afflicted her pride. She had always been eager to look
her best and as she grew older and stouter and more toothless, her
cheeks grew brighter and brighter with rouge. She made up every day
as if for a dress rehearsal. Her _friseur_ came regularly to arrange
her really fine rich crop of hair, and the only time, so far as known,
that he was turned away for more important matters was the day when
the Empress rode up from Peterhof to Petersburg to seize her husband’s
throne. She was proud of her hair, and her hairdressers were persons
of considerable importance in her life. Yet none of them approached in
this respect old Yevreinov who had been her first barber and paternal
adviser when she came to Russia, and who had been banished from court
because of his friendship for her.
She liked to dress well but not to eat well. Her contemporaries say she
had no interest in food, that she employed wretched cooks and set a
poor table. Those who enjoyed the distinction of dining daily with the
Empress had to put up with bad cooking. When the cook burned the food,
the Empress thought it a joke and that was the end of it. She herself
had such an indifferent palate that all the dishes set before her were
pretty much alike. At supper she ate nothing and wine she eschewed
altogether. A decanter of currant-juice, _alcohol-frei_, stood beside
her plate.
But this does not mean that she avoided stimulants entirely: she was
addicted to both coffee and snuff. Catherine’s morning coffee was a
daily feat which has impressed itself on history. Her cook used one
pound of coffee for the five cups which she drank to the last drop.
She was apparently immune to caffeine. “Anybody else would have got
heart disease from this concentrated poison,” says one biographer,
“Catherine however needed it for her health.” It certainly seems true
that the health of those persons who lived to acquire the surname
of “The Great” was apparently in need of some very peculiar things.
The constitution of Catherine the Great might be expected to develop
unique necessities, and it did. Besides one pound of coffee daily,
it needed vast quantities of snuff. Like Frederick the Great, also a
snuff addict, Catherine spilled the brown powder in her pockets and her
clothes reeked of it.