for Alexander. It was imperative that the young Grand Duke should have
no fear of guns. His grandmother decided to prevent the possibility of
such a disaster by habituating the child in early life to the sound.
She had him systematically exposed to the noise of cannon in the hope
that the early experience would inoculate him against this unmanly fear
as vaccination had made him immune from the terror of smallpox. Her
experiment with the cannon did not work as well as her experiment with
vaccination. The boy, it is true, grew up without fear of the noise of
guns firing; but that was partly because his deafness prevented him
from hearing them. Alexander the First was merely hard of hearing.
The explanation usually given is that his disability was acquired
from being forced by his grandmother to listen to gun practice in his
childhood.
Another feature in Catherine’s pedagogy which throws a light on her
character concerns the subject of sex and reproduction. She was as
rigid with her grandsons as she had been with the young ladies at
Smolny. She thought it was better not to call their attention to such
things too early. Just as the Smolny pupils had produced Voltaire’s
plays with the passages about love cut out, so her grandsons were
expected to study science and omit the subject of reproduction. Their
tutors were instructed to keep them in strict ignorance about all
that related to the relation of the sexes. “Her great modesty in this
respect,” says Masson, “appears strikingly contrasted with other parts
of her character.... The celebrated Pallas was giving the Princes
a short course of botany in their garden near Pavlovsk; but the
explanation of Linnæus’s system of the sexes gave them the first ideas
of those of human nature and led them to put a number of very amusing
questions with great naïveté. This alarmed their governors; Pallas was
requested to avoid entering into further particulars; and the course of
botany was even broken off.”
The Empress, who was devoted to science, who loved the study of comets
and philology, who strove industriously to wipe out superstition with
knowledge, went so far as to interrupt a course of botany for prudish
reasons. The modesty for which she was so often admired but which
would be more accurately called prudery was doubtless present in her
make-up. Her efforts to preserve the innocence of her grandsons did
not have the happy result which she hoped for. As she had been eager
to have grandchildren, she was also eager to have great-grandchildren.
Her hopes were destined to disappointment. She married both of her
grandsons at an early age but neither of them had descendants. Their
marriages were not happy and remained childless. The outcome was not
according to their grandmother’s scheme. Not for this did she bring
them up in ignorance of sex and sacrifice the course in botany to
preserve their innocence. Their sterility was a bitter disappointment
to her. Paul’s youngest son, the only one she had left to be educated
by his mother, carried on the dynasty that she had founded. From the
Empress’s own point of view, Nicholas, who was brought up by her
Philistine daughter-in-law, was a greater success in life than his
two elder brothers whom she had so carefully reared. Perhaps she had
worked too hard on the training of her precious young. A more casual
upbringing might have produced happier results for her own purposes,
which included first of all the production of progeny.
4
While the Empress was educating Paul’s children at the court, Paul was
living in strict retirement at Pavlovsk and Gatchina. He complained
bitterly of his exclusion from active life. “You tax me with my
hypochondria and black moods,” he wrote to Prince Henry. “It may
be so.... But the inaction to which I am condemned makes the part
excusable.” Two years after his second marriage, which had lifted his
spirits temporarily, he was again writing to Prince Henry, “Permit me
to write you often, my heart has need to unburden itself, especially in
the sad life that I lead.” After abruptly closing his letter, he adds,
“My tears prevent me from continuing.”
Paul was not yet twenty-five years of age when he was writing in
this despondent strain. He was already the victim of pessimism and
melancholy, any intensification of which might lead him beyond the
bounds of mental health. Brückner says that Paul was eccentric in his
behavior, his moods, and his ideas from the very cradle. In middle age
he was called insane. Paul’s wife, Marie Feodorovna, considered him
so. “There is no one,” she wrote, “who does not every day remark the
disorder of his faculties.” For years before the Empress died, it was
reported throughout Europe that her son was mad.
Here was an extraordinary coincidence. If Paul was not the son of Peter
the Third as had been whispered at the time of Paul’s birth, whence
came the similarity in their morbid tendencies? The unfortunate Grand
Duke seemed to be following in the footsteps of the late Czar. Peter
certainly had a severe mental twist with passionate preferences and
prejudices which the Grand Duke imitated. In his sequestered life at
Gatchina he cultivated the personal habits and tastes of the murdered
Peter. He professed, for instance, the same partiality for Frederick
the Great and accomplished what Peter had longed for but had never
attained: he saw the Prussian idol in the flesh. When Paul and his
wife made the grand tour of Europe in 1781, they visited Frederick
in Berlin. It was a memorable meeting for several reasons. Frederick
the Great for the first time in many years had a new suit made--new
throughout. It was a great concession from the Potsdam recluse and
miser, an eloquent testimonial of respect for the painted lady of
Petersburg who was, incidentally, not so friendly toward Prussia as she
once had been. The King’s new clothes were the talk of Berlin.
As a topic of conversation, they were only superseded by the Hamlet
story. A special production of Hamlet had been announced in the Grand
Duke’s honor but the director of the theatre withdrew the piece at the
last moment as inappropriate for the occasion. The public was agog
with curiosity and the sensitive self-pitying Paul became the focus
of an over-wrought and over-acted romance of public sympathy. For
several days Paul’s picture of his own tragedy hung before the German
public; Berlin saw him as a Russian Hamlet whose father had been a
martyr partly for his love of Prussia. All this was extremely bad for
the melancholy Grand Duke, for whom any picturesque enhancement of his
misfortunes added an element of danger to that already inherent in
his habitual brooding. The comparison with Hamlet was grateful to him
for every reason, but most of all for the reason that Hamlet was his
father’s own son. If the public identified Paul with Hamlet, it meant
that they accepted him as the son of Peter the Third. This aspect of
the drama represented something that Paul was obliged to believe. To
doubt it meant for him unendurable suffering, to be escaped at every
cost.
As a baby in the cradle, Paul was a sensitive creature, starting and
trembling at every sound. He was devotedly nursed by the Empress
Elisabeth and oppressed by her hysteria. After her death he was
dependent on Panin, a man who dreamed dreams and made no effort to
realize them. Panin’s tutelage was not a course in courage and Paul’s
situation especially required it. He was constantly in fear of being
poisoned, in fear of being found out for a bastard, in fear of losing
his claim to the throne of the Romanovs. His relations with his
mother were always unsympathetic and after his second marriage they
became unfriendly. Paul had no interest in politics and ascribed his
indifference to the selfishness of the Empress who jealously excluded
him from any participation in affairs of state. But he was far too shy
and impractical by temperament to engage in politics in any form; to
organize, to compromise, to adjust means to ends were not within his
capacity.
He was, on the other hand, profoundly attracted by the mystical
movements of his age. By this method he became connected with the
protestant religions of Europe, an alliance which was not consistent
with his future position as head of the Greek Church. It will be
remembered that Peter the Third could never wholly abandon the religion
of his native Holstein and remained to the end hostile to Russian
orthodoxy. Paul developed the same tendency to ally himself with
strange and rebellious faiths. He became a Freemason, a Martinist,
and a Knight of Malta. The Eighteenth Century was prolific in mystic
cults at the same time that it took its place in history as the age
of enlightenment. As Catherine the Great was identified with all the
movements for enlightenment, her son was identified with all the forms
of obscurantism which flourished side by side with the new rationalism.
Catherine was displeased with Paul’s alliance with black magic and
prided herself on being free from any leanings toward superstition.
When she was a very old woman, her latent credulity burst out; but
her lapse at the eleventh hour need not deprive her of her position
as one of the shining leaders of the age of reason. Paul always
belonged in the other camp, the camp of the credulous, by virtue of his
temperament. He might have found a kind of peace there if destiny had
not called him to play an active part in life.
After he became Czar his morbid ideas waxed and led him into many
grotesque and extreme acts. Like Hamlet, he thought his first duty
was to avenge his father. Although Peter had been dead for more than
thirty years, he had the grave opened, the corpse exposed to public
view, and an impressive funeral acted out. The Czar had been buried in
the Alexander Nevsky monastery, while all the other Czars of Russia
after Peter the Great had been buried in the Fortress of Saint Peter
and Saint Paul. An elaborate funeral procession transported the dead
Peter from his old to his new resting-place. As the sarcophagus was
borne along the Nevsky Prospect, Alexei Orlov followed immediately
after as chief mourner. This was the crown of Paul’s revenge, to expose
the murderer to the condemnation of the world.
Gregory Orlov was dead but fortunately for Paul’s mad drama his brother
remained to play the sinister rôle which Paul had invented for him.
What the aged Orlov thought of as he trudged along behind the corpse
of the man he had struck down thirty-four years ago is matter for
speculation. From what we know of Alexei’s character, he was probably
not occupied with remorseful thoughts. Perhaps he was thinking of the
strong fish-soup with which he was going to revive his weak old legs
when the Czar’s fine funeral was over. Perhaps he was thinking that
Paul was as mad as Peter had been, and wondering at the coincidence.
The resemblance between the fate of Catherine’s husband and her son was
carried out to the end. As Emperor, Paul’s morbid suspicions increased
and his reprisals against those whom he suspected aroused fear and
hatred on every hand. His dread of persecution called forth actual
persecution where none had formerly existed. Soon a conspiracy began
to take shape among his enemies, headed by the Zubov brothers, Plato
and Valerian. The last chapter of Peter’s history was repeated. After
a brief reign of only four years, Paul was murdered one night by a
band of conspirators who said that he was a dangerous lunatic and had
to be put out of the way. There is every reason to suppose that his
son and successor, Alexander the First, was aware of the conspiracy
against his father’s life, and more definitely aware than Catherine
had been when Peter had been assassinated at Ropsha. One of the things
which Alexander had learned from his extraordinary grandmother was to
overlook a murder which could not be prevented and make the best of the
consequences. In both cases the consequences entitled them to ascend
the throne over the dead body of their predecessors.
5
Catherine the Great loved to write. She rose at six o’clock every
morning and occupied herself with literary work during the three
hours or so which intervened before her Russian servants began to
rub their sleepy eyes. She had Spartan methods of awakening herself.
First she washed her face and ears with ice; then she drank five cups
of the strongest coffee ever brewed. She sat down beside her candle
with her pen and wrote in a large free flowing hand, instructions,
correspondence, memoirs, fables, histories, comedies. Her output was
voluminous. She did not wait to finish one piece before she began
another, and the first remained forever unfinished. Everything she
wrote is a fragment. She wrote her memoirs in the 70’s, and then
wrote them all over again in the 90’s. She set down a fragment
of autobiography for Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, another for
Poniatovsky, and another for Potiomkin. She was not meticulous as to
the kind of paper and such things, as may be seen from her notes in
the Russian archives which are scribbled literally on scraps of paper,
anything which came to hand. Her mind shook itself out loosely in the
track of a swiftly moving pen.
Whatever she wrote was closely related to the affairs of the day. It
was addressed to some particular person or based on some concrete
experience. The evolution of her literary expression can be roughly
traced like this: during her thirties, she wrote on political subjects
and matters of state; during her forties, she wrote her memoirs and
corresponded with Voltaire and Grimm; during her fifties, she wrote
allegories, chronicles, and comedies; and in her sixties, she turned to
reminiscences again, producing the version of her life which she wanted
posterity to read. She grew less and less abstract as the years went by.
After the birth of her two grandsons, the Empress had an outburst of
imaginative writing. For several years she addressed all her writings
to the little Grand Dukes. “The Legend of the Czarevich Chlor” was
written for Alexander when he was five years old. Her Russian history,
which fills two volumes, pictures a primitive age with appropriate
simplicity. She moralizes scarcely at all, for the lives of the Knazia
Veliki do not point the right kind of moral.
Catherine’s little histories are a narrative of constant wars between
the Russians and the Greeks; swift and vivid sketches of nomadic
princes and large families of brothers warring against each other for
a heritage. The story of Princess Olga who went to Constantinople and
was there baptized is told enthusiastically and at length. Olga tried
to convert her son but he would not be converted because he said the
other men would not like it. She had to wait until her grandson, whom
she reared, grew to manhood before she could make her influence felt.
It was her grandson who Christianized Russia.
This legend was very popular with Catherine and her grandson Alexander.
With her globes, the Empress showed the little boy how the hordes of
the Genghis Khan had passed across the lands of Russia and where the
Scythians had met the Greeks. These lessons made her intimacy with
little Alexander the happiest of her life. She collected her writings
into a so-called Library for the Grand Dukes. To be sure, the projected
Library was never completed; nor was the history of Russia brought
down beyond the thirteenth century. So far as her Russian history was
concerned, it was a pity that the author left only a fragment. She had
a gift for lively compact narrative and the reader feels a distinct
disappointment when the story breaks off suddenly before the arrival of
the Tartars.
Her faithfulness to history is easy to explain. The artist had found
a new love. She had suddenly discovered comedy. The Empress had taken
to writing plays in the manner of Molière. An anecdote often told to
show the affection existing between Alexander and his grandmother tells
how the boy, at the age of eight, gave a performance of a five-act
comedy composed by Catherine. In the deeper layers of her memory the
works of Molière had been lying long unnoticed. Suddenly the latent
memories so long bedded there in forgetfulness and silence began to
germinate. At about the same age which Monsieur Alexander had now
grown to be, Catherine had once fed upon the plays of Molière because
her governess, Babet Cardel, had known them all by heart. As she sat
teaching her eight-year-old grandson, the tastes and interests of
that age in her own life began to stir and assert themselves within
her. Catherine was not content as Babet had been to give her pupil
ready-made comedies however masterly. She preferred to compose comedies
herself for Alexander. Promptly she fell to work and swiftly were her
plays completed. This time there were no fragments; the brevity of the
product was exactly suited to her temperament. She wrote seven pieces
in one year, and then abandoned the field altogether, perhaps because
the Turkish Wars became too engrossing.
Her comedies all deal with one subject in the same manner. They are
satires on the sentimental and superstitious traits of human nature.
Her titles show how faithfully she adhered to her theme. The Charlatan,
The Dupe, The Siberian Shaman, Family Discord Through False Suspicions,
No Good Without Evil were the most popular. Their plots and characters
show that the author is something of a psychologist and a good deal of
a satirist. It is noticeable that the weaknesses which she especially
satirizes are characteristic of the behavior of her son Paul.
At the time when Catherine wrote her comedies there was no longer any
pretense of sympathy between the mother and son. The disintegration of
Paul’s character had progressed so far that he had withdrawn himself
from all the world except those whom his mother called charlatans and
shamans. The Empress identified her son with all superstitious folk
and castigated the whole tribe in her comedies. She rarely mentioned
Paul directly in her memoirs and her correspondence. In the intimate
family history which fills her letters to Grimm, his name never
occurs. Her hatred found an outlet in her satirical comedies. Here
she indirectly exposed his notorious weaknesses and held them up to
ridicule. She despised his character as she despised his looks. Paul
resembled the Calmuck type in physique and countenance. Short of
stature and snub-nosed as he was, his mother could not look at him
without being reminded of the Saltikov side of his heredity. Anyone who
reads through her literary works will be struck by the number of times
the Empress refers to the ghastly ugliness of the Calmuck type. She
could not get away from it.
The comedies of Catherine the Great were regarded as a great
contribution to the campaign against obscurantism. She stepped
forth as the Saint George of enlightenment striking down the dragon
of superstition. Her satire was leveled against the Martinists,
the Freemasons, and the Alchemists; she battered at all groups and
organizations that had a secret understanding and talked mysteriously
about the problems of life and death. Fortunately for her interest,
which had no great tolerance for abstractions, a flesh-and-blood
antagonist was raised up to stimulate and increase her energies. The
famous Cagliostro decided to make a visit to Petersburg, believing that
Catherine the Great would favor his cult. But he had reckoned without
his Empress. Catherine was never tired of abusing him, both during
and after his sojourn in Russia. When he was imprisoned in France in
connection with the affair of the diamond necklace, she exulted in
the most unbecoming manner. Some of her strongest and least lady-like
language was poured out on the head of the talented magician, whom, by
the way, she had never even seen. To Grimm, she wrote, “I have read
the memoir of Cagliostro which you have sent me and if I had not been
already persuaded that he was a French charlatan, his memoir would have
convinced me. He is a rogue and blackguard and he ought to be hanged.”
She was so greatly interested in this man that it must have cost her
a great effort to deny him an audience during his stay in Russia. “M.
Cagliostro,” she wrote, “arrived here at a very favorable moment for
him, at a time when many lodges of Freemasons, infatuated with the
principles of Swedenborg, desired with all their power to see spirits.
They therefore ran to Cagliostro who said that he was in possession of
all the secrets of Doctor Falk, intimate friend of Duke Richelieu, who
had once sacrificed to him in the very midst of Vienna a black goat....
M. Cagliostro then produced his marvellous secrets of healing. He
pretended to draw quick-silver from a gouty foot and was caught in the
act of pouring a teaspoonful of mercury into the water into which he
was going to put the gouty member....
“Later on, racked by debts, he took refuge in the cellar of Monsieur
Yelagin ... where he drank all the wine, champagne, and English beer
that he could get.... Monsieur Yelagin, annoyed by his brother rat in
the cellar and by the thought of all the wine, and beer ... gave him an
old _invalide_ to accompany him as far as Milan. This is the history
of Cagliostro in which there is nothing exceptionally marvellous. I
have never seen him near or far,--nor have I had any temptation to do
so, for I do not love charlatans. I assure you that Rogerson thinks of
Cagliostro as much or less than Noah’s Ark. Prince Orlov, contrary to
his custom, has not made much of Cagliostro. He makes fun of him as of
those who from mere curiosity run to see him, and he has contributed
but little to change into wine the water of the shameless partisans of
this poor devil. But since the more stupid and ignorant the charlatans
are the more impression they create in the great cities, it is to be
supposed that Cagliostro will be in his element in Paris....”
From the vehemence of the Empress’s condemnation, one suspects that she
did not state a fact when she declared that she had no temptation to
see him. And she was far from having finished with the subject. Two of
her comedies, The Liar and The Dupe, were based on Cagliostro’s visit,
and The Siberian Shaman was inspired, though not avowedly, by the same
theme. Several of her plays were a great success when produced in
Petersburg, and The Liar and The Dupe took in more than twenty thousand
roubles. The public was titivated by the Empress’s satire and intrigued
by the timeliness of her literary attack on the most notorious
character in Europe.
No one asked the Grand Duke Paul and his consort, the Gartenlaube lady
of Pavlovsk, what they thought of the Empress’s dramatic efforts. No
one asked Paul and Marie about anything. The Empress overlooked them
completely. Whenever she referred to her successor, the reference was
to her grandson. “Monsieur Alexander will finish this and that,” she
would write. “Not in my time, but in that of Monsieur Alexander.” She
tried to forget the existence of the Grand Duke Paul.
[Illustration]
XII
SHE GROWS OLD