their governors thought. It was now time, she considered, to marry
Alexandrina, her granddaughter, although the Princess was but fourteen.
The Empress had been scarcely older than this when she received a
proposal of marriage and accepted it, although her father had feared
to send so young a daughter to Russia. Catherine remembered that young
girl with a great deal of affection and sympathy. “Tell me truly,”
she once burst out in a letter to Grimm, “wouldn’t it be charming if
an Empress could remain all her life long only fifteen years old?” It
remained always the most vivid year of her life, the year in which she
had told her dear Papa good-bye and had set out to seek her fortunes in
Russia. And now the charming young Alexandrina had reached that ideal
age. Her grandmother had already selected a husband for her.
To say that the Empress had selected a husband for her is to put it too
mildly. Catherine had once said of herself with absolute truth that
whenever she wanted a thing she was obliged to want it most terribly.
She now wanted to marry her granddaughter to the grandson of Ulrica,
the sister of Frederick the Great. A few days after Catherine’s
betrothal in Petersburg, Frederick had married his sister Ulrica to
the Crown Prince of Sweden. Ulrica’s marriage had had one advantage
which Catherine’s had lacked; the Queen of Sweden had not been obliged
to abandon the religion of her fathers and revert to a pagan church.
Ulrica had remained a devout Lutheran all her life.
Her son, Gustav the Third of Sweden, was a man of fashion, an exiled
Parisian obliged to live in Stockholm. Gustav was a fop in his habits
and a weathercock in his politics. The skeleton in his closet was that
his son and heir was not his son. Gustav was an unhappy, complaining
man, devoted to his mother yet at odds with her. He was finally
assassinated when his son, Gustav the Fourth, was only sixteen. It was
this son, said to be a bastard, whom Catherine the Great chose to be
the husband of her granddaughter Alexandrina. Her heart was set on the
marriage.
Gustav the Fourth was seventeen when he came to the Russian court
at the Empress’s invitation as a suitor for the hand of the Russian
Princess. He was a serious young man who had reverted to the piety of
his grandmother Ulrica. The young King was accompanied by his uncle,
the Duke of Sudermania, an inexplicable man who concealed his hand
so well during the ensuing drama that his part in the development of
events remains forever hidden. He was, like his nephew, an ardent
Protestant; but he was also a Freemason and a Martinist, a believer
in all the mystical cults of the eighteenth century which the Empress
disliked and her son embraced. Sudermania could not have been as
indifferent to his nephew’s actions as his outward demeanor indicated.
But it is doubtful whether he had any real responsibility for the
fiasco of the Empress’s plans. Gustav’s course was so consistent with
his character that no other explanation than native bent seems to be
necessary.
Catherine’s entertainment of her Swedish guests was regal past all
precedent. The court flowered in a succession of balls and festivities
the like of which had not been seen since the first visit of Prince
Henry to Russia. Gustav was impeccable as to form. The late King of
Sweden, his putative father, had been the glass of fashion and the
son, in spite of his ingrowing piety, bore the mark of Paris. The
Grand Dukes, Alexander and Constantine, seemed uncouth by comparison
with this solemn young man whose manners were so meticulously perfect.
Gustav was an assiduous reader of the Bible, to which he was accustomed
to turn for counsel whenever he found himself in any difficulty. If
the Empress had had the advantage of modern psychology, she would have
known her Swedish Prince at once for a repressed youth and an elusive
bridegroom. But not having this advantage, she pressed onward to the
goal on which she had set her heart and plunged headlong and unprepared
into the greatest failure of her life. As she said, she was more than
half in love with the young man herself.
The marriage contract was all but signed. Only one point of difference
remained to be settled, the future religion of the Princess. Catherine
had stipulated that the girl should be allowed to keep her faith, and
should be permitted to have her Russian confessor and her Russian
chapel in the Swedish palace. The young King demurred. On the surface,
all went well. Zubov and Markov, who drew up the contract for the
Empress, presented an amiable exterior and the Swedish Prince appeared
non-committal.
It is at this point that Zubov is said to have advised the Empress
badly. He is supposed to have induced her to stand out for impossible
terms and to be responsible for the bad diplomacy she exhibited on
this occasion. It is extremely unlikely that this was true. Zubov
was as little responsible for the Empress’s attitude as Sudermania
was accountable for the King’s. In the crisis which developed
before the eyes of all the court, the actual contestants were the
seventeen-year-old King and the sixty-seven-year-old Empress. It was a
life and death contest. They had joined battle over an issue supremely
precious to both of them and neither could endure to lose.
The Empress was extremely romantic about the whole business. She
commanded the young couple to kiss each other in her presence and
made airy remarks about wishing to capture the handsome bridegroom
for herself. In fancy she re-lived her own betrothal, hoping in
Alexandrina’s marriage to redeem all the undesirable features of her
own. Her granddaughter should have not merely half a dozen chemises but
every luxury that a bride could wish and above all she should be saved
the ordeal of changing her religion. No doubt Alexandrina would just
as soon have changed her creed as not, but Catherine could not picture
this indifference. She had forgotten for the time being that she and
her fifteen-year-old granddaughter were not one.
On the evening when the marriage contract was to be signed, the
Empress shone like a sun on her throne. She had assembled for the
occasion the whole grand world of Petersburg. Church and State
surrounded her in full regalia. The bishops stood at attention, in
their embroidered robes covered with pearl and smaragd, while military
messengers in bright velvet breeches flashed back and forth and
Princesses in wide satin skirts curtsied before the smiling Grandmother
on her throne. Thousands of candles shone upon the scene. The hall had
been prepared for the bedazzlement of Europe, for the Empress in her
imagination faced not merely the eyes of her own courtiers but the eyes
of all the courts of Europe. Whatever happened here was not intended to
happen privately.
Slowly there crept into the atmosphere of the room a suggestion of
suspense. At moments conversation ceased and the company looked around
expectantly. But a glance at the imperturbable figure in the purple
mantle and the smiling, confident eyes beneath the diamond crown was
sufficient to reassure the company and to restore the atmosphere of
ease. The Princess Alexandrina had appeared but Gustav of Sweden for
some unaccountable reason still remained invisible. The Russian court
had been accustomed to mysterious delays under the Empress Elisabeth,
but Catherine’s régime had taught them to expect more promptness and
dispatch. But even the Empress Elisabeth expected a bridegroom to be
prompt. The time dragged slowly along until at last the tall English
clocks showed ten. Still the Empress betrayed no anxiety as she faced
the question now apparent in all eyes.
At last Zubov appeared and whispered something in her ear. With
difficulty she rose, took his arm, and passed through the room to her
own chamber. As the door closed behind her, she fell to the floor
unconscious. It is said that she had fainted but it is more probable
that she succumbed to a slight stroke of paralysis. Zubov had brought
the ultimatum of the King. Gustav would not sign the marriage contract
as long as it contained the clause which permitted Alexandrina to
retain the Russian religion.
The Empress would not admit herself defeated. To be beaten by a
seventeen-year-old boy was unthinkable. She needed a little time to
bring the youth around and to overcome a stubbornness which she had
underestimated. She arranged a ball and commanded Alexandrina, who
had cried until her eyes were red, to don her finery and go on as if
nothing had happened. “Why do you weep?” she wrote on a scrap of paper.
“What is put off is not lost. Wash your eyes with ice and your ears
too, and take Bestushev’s drops. Nothing is lost. It is I who was ill
yesterday. You are vexed about the delay. That is all.”
Alexandrina obeyed her grandmother. The King also attended the ball.
But the two young things no longer met as formerly; the King was
punctilious and the Princess was self-conscious, and even Grandmamma
was not so gay and airy as she had been. She insisted on keeping the
recalcitrant young man two weeks longer and refused to consider the
negotiations closed even after he had departed for Stockholm with his
uncle. Her hopes died hard and when they were dead she kept the corpse
about, unable to inter it.
To the Empress, the shock of defeat was dreadful. She was accustomed
to success, and failure of any kind was unendurable. Almost
apologetically she wrote to her son Paul: “The fact is the King
pretended that Alexandrina had promised him to change her religion and
take the sacrament in the Lutheran way, and that she had given him her
hand on it.... She told me with the candor and naïveté natural to her
how he had told her that on the coronation day she would have to take
the sacrament with him, and that she had replied, ‘Certainly, if I can,
and if Grandmamma consents.’ And after that he spoke to her about it
again, and she always referred him to me. I asked her if she had given
her hand to the King by way of promise on this point. At that she cried
with a sort of instinctive fright, ‘Never in my life.’”
The Princess Alexandrina wilted like the proverbial jilted maiden of
the village. After her grandmother’s death she was married by her
father to a Prince of Austria, where after a brief unhappy married
life she died in childbirth. She was always morbid, spiritless, and
complaining. The instinctive fright of which her grandmother spoke
never left her. All of the Empress’s family were lacking in normal
aggressiveness. Her lovers, her son, her grandchildren whom she brought
up were all in some degree afflicted by the same instinctive fear which
the Princess Alexandrina showed. Catherine the Great, like others of
her kind, did not succeed in imparting greatness to her descendants.
4
After the Swedish King’s departure, the Empress’s health grew worse.
There were days when her poor swollen legs would not support her at
all and she suffered tortures with them. The summer at Czarskoe Selo,
where she was always at her best and happiest, did not help her. When
she walked to the little audience chamber where she received her
ministers, she no longer leaned on Plato Zubov alone but required an
attendant on the other side as well. She took the air in her wheeled
chair along the blue-walled arcade as far as the agate pavilion and
then back again, not an easy journey for a woman, who had she not been
herself, would have been bed-ridden. In the month of August she saw
a shooting star and said that it foretold her death. She had grown
suddenly and darkly superstitious.
Returning to Petersburg in the autumn, she put herself in the hands
of a notorious quack named Lambro-Cazzioni. Her doctors were more
astonished than offended. The Empress who had searched Europe for
scientific physicians, who had brought men like Rogerson, Weikard, and
Dimsdale to Russia, and who had introduced vaccination by offering
herself as a subject, had suddenly gone back to shamanism. She closed
her doors on all the reputable doctors and admitted the magician only.
Lambro-Cazzioni was a lesser kind of Cagliostro, the charlatan whom
she had satirized in her comedies and abused in her correspondence, a
breeder of the kind of superstition which she and other enlightened
spirits of her age had lived to exterminate. Pathetically she submitted
to all the drastic remedies that her healer recommended. A daily
foot-bath of ice-cold sea-water was a part of his régime and he went
himself daily to fetch the water for the patient’s use. At first, the
Empress seemed to improve. She appeared at the little Hermitage again
and joined in the gaiety, laughing until her sides ached.
On the morning of November the sixth, she rose as usual at six o’clock,
drank her customary five cups of coffee, and set forth cheerfully on
the routine of the day. She saw her lover and her secretaries, and
gave her usual orders. Then she asked to be left alone for a moment
and retired to her dressing-room. The attendants in the antechamber
waited more than the usual length of time for their summons, but it
never came. When her private secretary finally entered the apartment,
he found her lying unconscious before the door of her water closet.
She had had a stroke of paralysis. They dragged the mattress from the
bed and laid the dying woman upon it, for she was too heavy to be
lifted. This gasping animal, which had once been the Empress, lay on
her mattress and struggled with death while the hands of the clock went
around three times. The following evening she died.
After Peter the Great, the Romanovs had all been buried in the fortress
of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Catherine had deviated from this custom
when she ordered the body of the late Czar, Peter the Third, to be
laid in the Alexander Nevsky monastery at the opposite end of the
city. Although it seems strangely out of keeping with her ambitious
temperament, she herself did not wish to be buried beside Peter the
Great. Four years before her death, she wrote these instructions
concerning her burial place: “In case I should die in Czarskoe Selo,
lay my body in the churchyard of Sofia. If in the city of Petersburg,
in the cathedral or the burial church of the Nevsky Cloister. If in
Pella, bring me along the waterways to the Nevsky Cloister. If in
Moscow, bring me to the Donskoy Cloister or to the town churchyard
near by. If in Peterhof, to the Sergei Cloister. If in some other
place, to a churchyard near by.
“The coffin shall be borne by horse guards only and no one else. My
body shall be clothed in a white dress, with a golden crown on the
head on which my name shall be written. Mourning shall be worn for six
months but not longer; a little is best. After the first six weeks,
the people’s amusements shall be opened. After the burial, betrothals,
weddings, and music shall be allowed.
“My library with all my manuscripts and all my papers, I bequeath to my
dear grandson, Alexander Pavlovich; likewise my jewels; and I bless him
from my heart and from my soul. A copy of this shall be put away in a
safe place to insure its fulfilment, so that sooner or later shame and
disgrace shall overtake those who do not carry out my will.
“It is my intention to place Constantine on the throne of the Greek
Oriental Empire. For the welfare of the Russian and Greek Empires, I
recommend that the Princes of Württemberg be removed from the counsels
of these empires which should have as little to do with them as
possible; also that the two half-Germans shall be removed.”
The Empress was buried in the Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul
beneath a white marble slab like that which covers all the Czars of
Russia who followed Peter the Great. Beside her lies the body of Peter
the Third, brought there by her son a short time after her burial.
She had prepared an inscription for her gravestone and this is what she
wished to have it say:
Here lies
CATHERINE THE SECOND
born in Stettin on April 21 / May 2, 1729.
In the year 1744 she went to Russia to marry Peter III. At the age of
fourteen, she made the threefold resolution, to please her consort,
Elisabeth, and the Nation.
She neglected nothing in order to succeed in this.
Eighteen years of boredom and solitude caused her to read many books.
When she ascended the throne of Russia, she wished to do good and
tried to bring happiness, freedom and prosperity to her subjects.
She forgave easily and hated no one.
She was good-natured, easy-going; was of a cheerful temperament,
republican sentiments, and a kind heart.
She had friends.
Work came easy to her; she loved sociability and the arts.
The instructions of the Empress were not followed; her wishes, not
obeyed. The cold white slab which covers her conveys no word of her
last message to posterity.
INDEX
Adadurov, 141
Adolph Friedrich of Holstein, 53
d’Alembert, 269
Alexander, Grand Duke, later Alexander I, 259, 279, 284-285, 294
Alexandrina, Princess, 208, 315-321
Alexei Michaelovich, 40, 212
Alexei Petrovich, 38, 48
Anna Ivanovna, Empress of Russia, 45, 47, 96
Anna Leopoldovna, 45, 46, 102, 164
Anna Petrovna, 13, 45
Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick, 45, 52
Apraxin, General, 141-146
Arsenii of Rostov, 311
August the Strong, 132
Babet, nickname of Elisabeth Cardel, 24
Bariatinsky, Prince Feodor, 167, 173, 174, 175, 309
Bergholz, 173
Bestushev, 55, 73, 90, 104, 135, 141, 181
Bibikov, 166, 215
Bilbassov, 51, 142, 143, 155, 194, 259
Bjelke, Madame, 208
Bobrinsky, Alexei Gregorevich, 159, 268
Bolhagen, 23
Branicky, Countess, 242, 248, 264
Brockdorf, Herr, 126, 129
Bruce, Countess, 208, 234
Brückner, 170, 228, 275
Brümmer, 57, 62, 64, 173
Burgoyne, General, 281
Cagliostro, 296
Cardel, Elisabeth, 24-26, 28, 34, 284
Casimir, Jan, 197
Catherine I, 41, 44, 45, 46, 49
Catherine the Great,
Baptised Sophie Auguste Friedrike, (Fike), Princess of Zerbst, 11
Birth, 10
Education, 22
Childhood, 32
Meeting with Frederick the Great, 67
Journey to Russia, 66-71
Arrival in Russia, 71
Conversion to Greek faith, 80-83
Enters the Greek Church, 84-88
Sophie Auguste Friedrike becomes Catherine Alexeievna, 85
Marriage, 96-100
Relation to Saltikov, 118
Gives birth to an heir, 120
Relations with Peter III, 126, 130
Birth of Grand Duchess Anna, 137
Complicity in the Apraxin affair, 141-146
Birth of Bobrinsky, 159
Manifesto of 1762, 169
Revolution of 1762, 161-180
Coronation, 183-184
Foreign Policy, 180, 193, 251
Manifesto of Silence, 187
Partition of Poland, 195-204
Census of Russia, 204-206
Reign, 207
Reforms affecting women, 208-211
Foundling Hospital, 209
Domestic Policy, 211-216
Instruction for a Code of Laws, 212
Attitude toward serfdom, 215
Campaign against smallpox, 216-222
Crimean journey, 248-249
Acquisition of Crimea, 250-251
The French Revolution, 251, 311-315
Pugachev’s Rebellion, 312
Turkish Wars, 251-259
Favorites, 231-237, 259-262
Relation with Poniatovsky, 133-139
Attempted marriage with Orlov, 184-188
Relation with Potiomkin, 237
Relation with Zubov, 301-308
Birth of Grandsons, 279
Education of Grandsons, 281-287
Writings, 292-299
Comedies, 295
Failure of the Swedish Marriage, 315-321
Death, 323-325
Charles XII of Sweden, 8
Chernichev, Andrei, 259
Chetardie, 91
Chitrovo, 186
Choglokov, Maria, 104, 118, 236
Choiseul, 193
Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, 4-6, 21, 29, 69, 76-79,
88, 112
Constantine, Grand Duke, 280, 282
Courland, 21, 195
Crimean journey, 248-249
Czarskoe Selo, 101, 221, 271, 305
Czartorisky, Adam, 198
Dashkov, Countess Catherine, 154, 162, 170, 208, 244
Dashkov, Prince, 302, 303
Diderot, 180, 233, 306
Dimsdale, Dr. Thomas, 217, 322
Elisabeth Petrovna, Empress of Russia,
Birth, 47
Revolution of 1741, 49-55
Relations with Princess of Zerbst, 58, 88-89, 150
Appearance, 75
Death, 151-152
Eudoxia, First Wife of Peter the Great, 41
Fike, nickname of Sophie Auguste Friedrike, later Catherine the
Great, 11
de Fraigne, Marquis, 147
Frederick the Great, 14, 29, 60, 65, 67, 78, 81, 93, 128, 132, 148,
196-204, 217, 226, 272
Frederick William I, 3, 32
Friedrich August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, 11, 147
Fokshani, Congress of, 222, 254
Gatchina, 223, 279
George of Holstein, 63, 157, 165, 170, 242
Godunov, Boris, 38
Granovitaya Palata, 184
Grimm, 227, 266, 274, 293, 306
Gustav III of Sweden, 257, 316
Gustav IV of Sweden, 316
Gyllenborg, Count, 23
Hedwig Sophie, Provost of Quedlinburg, 15
Henri le Grand, 84, 231
Henry, Prince of Prussia, 14, 202, 203, 241, 272, 275-277, 314
Hermitage, The Little, 307
Homburg, 12
Ivan the Terrible, 38
Ivan VI, Ivanushka, 45, 46, 53, 158, 164, 312
Johann Ludwig, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, 5
Johanna Elisabeth, Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, 58
Johanna Elisabeth, Princess of Holstein-Gottorp, 6-9, 20, 65, 70,
75, 89, 147-151
Jones, John Paul, 256-257
Karl Peter Ulrich, Duke of Holstein, later Grand Duke Peter
Feodorovich, later Peter III, 9, 13, 53
Kayserling, Count, 197
Khayn, Fräulein, Lady in Waiting to the Princess of Zerbst, 18
Kiev, 86
Kolmogory, 103
Kolomenskoe Palace, 47, 213
Kosciuszko, 204
Krasnoe Selo, 102
Kremlin, 40, 158, 183, 220, 225
Kruse, Madame, 99, 108, 113
Kutchuk-Kainardi, Peace of, 254
Lanskoy, 239, 260, 261
LeBrun, Madame Vigée, 306
Lestocq, 49, 52, 61, 89, 92, 114
von Lieven, Madame, 310
de Ligne, Prince, 247
Luther, Martin, 4, 14, 29
Machiavelli, 194
Mamonov, 238, 239, 260
Mardefeld, 58, 81, 93
Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, 49, 120, 196, 201, 203
Marie Feodorovna, Grand Duchess, 278-279, 281
Masson, Major, 43, 209, 211, 286
von Mengden, Julie, 46, 102
Menshikov, 38, 41
Mirovich, 312
Molière, 34, 294
Monplaisir, 164, 171
Montesquieu, 211
Morals in Russia, 41-44
Moscow, 190, 219
Narishkin, Leo, 308, 313
Natalie Alexeievna, Grand Duchess, 273
Natalie Narishkin, 40
Nicholas, Grand Duke, later Nicholas I, 287
Oranienbaum, 110, 138, 173
Orlov, Alexei, 165, 166, 173, 175-179, 186, 224, 291
Orlov, Gregory, 152, 161, 167, 184, 191, 213, 215, 217, 220-224,
239, 300
Otchakov, 275
Panin, Nikita, 55, 163, 168, 174, 182, 186, 212, 268, 270-271
Partition of Poland, 195-204
Passeck, 166, 175
Paul I,
Birth, 118-120
Appearance, 122, 266, 296
Infancy, 124
Health, 182
Baptised Peter Feodorovich, 130
First Marriage, 271-273
Second Marriage, 276-279
Melancholia, 287-292
Journey through Europe, 288-289
Mysticism, 290
Conspiracy against his life, 226
Death, 292
Pavlovsk, 279, 281
Peter Feodorovich, Grand Duke of Russia, 53
Peter II, 47
Peter III,
Birth, 8
Baptised Karl Peter Ulrich, Duke of Holstein, 9
Education, 55-57
Karl Peter Ulrich, Duke of Holstein becomes Peter Feodorovich,
Grand Duke of Russia, 53
Marriage, 98
Relations with Catherine the Great, 94, 126, 130, 153, 160
_Folie militaire_, 127, 130
Government of Holstein, 131
Accession, 153
Reign, 156-159, 180
Deposition, 171-179
Death, 178, 179
Peter the Great, 3, 8, 38, 39, 44, 47, 81, 190, 207, 252
Petersburg, 189
Poniatovsky Stanislas, King of Poland, 128, 133-139, 181, 197-204,
236
Potiomkin, Gregory, Prince of Tauris, 191, 235, 237-258, 262-265,
300
Potiomkin Villages, 247
Prascovia Feodorovna, 103
Prascovia Nikitichna Vladislav, 113
von Prinzen, Baroness, 66
Protassov, Countess, 208, 234
Pugachev, 312
Razumovsky, Alexei, 89, 116, 126, 185
Razumovsky, Kyril, 126, 162, 167
Reformation, The, 15, 29
Religion in Russia, 42, 87
Repnin, Prince, 258, 310
Ribas, Admiral, 268
Rimsky-Korsakov, 260
Rogerson, 209, 234, 322
Romanov, House of, 38
Ropsha, 174
Rumiantsov, General, 253, 256
Rurik, House of, 38
Saltikov, Sergei, 117-119, 121, 124, 179, 236
Schlözer, 196
Seven Years War, 93, 141
Sheremetiev, Count, 153, 183, 192
Shuvalov, Alexander, 142
Shuvalov, Ivan Ivanovich, 117, 119, 135, 150
Smolny, 210
Sophie Alexeievna, 40
Sophie Auguste Friedrike, later Catherine the Great, 11
Sophie Christina, Canoness of Gandersheim, 5, 15, 17
Stehlin, 56, 61, 128, 172
Stenka Rasin, 312
Stettin, 3, 20
Streltsi, The, 40
Stroganov, Count, 161, 192
Suvarov, General, 242, 256, 310
Sylvester, the Monk, 38, 39
Tchesme, Battle of, 222
Terem, 43, 46
Todorsky, Simon, 82, 84
Treaty of Westminster, 134
Troitsky Monastery, 86, 91, 184
Trubetsky, Prince, 172, 182
Turkish Wars, 251-259