Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (107 page)

The way seemed clear for the betrothal ceremony, which was to be followed by a ball at the Tauride Palace. The families and the plenipotentiaries met at noon to witness the signing of the treaty. The Russians quickly discovered, however, that the clause regarding Alexandra’s religion was missing from the treaty text. Gustavus had removed it so that he could discuss the matter again with the empress. That afternoon, he refused to go beyond a promise that “
the grand duchess will never be troubled in her conscience with regard to religion.” Catherine interpreted this as a new commitment and suggested to the regent that the
couple go ahead with the formal betrothal. After consulting Gustavus, the regent agreed. “
With the church’s blessing?” asked Catherine. “Yes,” the regent said. “According to your rite.” Confident that the matter was settled, Catherine saw no need to continue her personal discussions with Gustavus and left the final drafting of the document to Platon Zubov.

At seven, Catherine entered the throne room and took her seat on the throne. Beside her stood the Orthodox metropolitan, Gavril; on a table lay two rings. Two armchairs, upholstered in blue velvet, awaited the king and his bride-to-be. Paul, Maria, and the entire imperial family were present. All eyes were on Alexandra, standing by her grandmother’s throne, waiting for her intended fiancé. Time passed … half an hour … then a full hour. Officials glanced at one another. Something was wrong; under Catherine II, the Russian court stressed promptness. At last the double doors opened. But it was not Gustavus, only a secretary who whispered to Zubov and handed him a paper. Zubov hurried out. The king had refused to sign the amended marriage contract in which he read the new clause reinserted by Catherine. He had reverted to his earlier position: that a queen of Sweden must be Lutheran. Zubov, increasingly desperate, tried to convince him to change his mind. Catherine, her family, and her court continued to wait.

Suspense filled the room. At first, Catherine was calm. Then, as time passed, her smile disappeared and her face became red. Nearby, her granddaughter was in tears. The hands of the clock passed nine and moved toward ten. At last the double doors opened. Zubov appeared and handed Catherine a paper. The king had changed his mind again. His last word was that he had given his word of honor that Alexandra would not be hindered in the practice of her religion, but that he would put nothing in writing and would not sign the marriage contract as long as it contained the clause Catherine demanded.

Catherine could scarcely believe what she was reading. Rising from her throne, she tried to speak, but her words were unintelligible. To some, it seemed that she was suffering from dizziness; others thought it was a mild stroke. The attack, whatever it was, was temporary, and, a minute later, she was able to announce, “His Majesty
King Gustavus is not well. The ceremony is postponed.” She left the room on the arm of Alexander. Although the regent sent an apology for his nephew’s behavior, Catherine was shaken. The next morning she reappeared and spoke briefly to the regent and the king. The regent was in despair, but Gustavus, “stiff as a ramrod,” kept repeating, “
What I have written, I have written. I will never change what I have written.”

Catherine refused to admit that a seventeen-year-old could defeat the empress of Russia in her own palace. More time, she decided, would overcome his stubbornness, and she insisted that Gustavus and his uncle remain in St. Petersburg for another two weeks. Gustavus agreed to an additional ten days but would not retreat from his position. In the end, there was no marriage.

Catherine’s humiliation and her effort to suppress her anger in public affected her health. Later, she learned that a strict Lutheran pastor had taught Gustavus that his subjects would never forgive him if he took a wife belonging to any but the Lutheran faith. Catherine also discovered that, during their long moments together, when the young king appeared to be wooing the young grand duchess, he was in fact attempting to convert her to Lutheranism. She wrote bitterly to Paul:

Alexandra, the bride-to-be, never completely recovered. After her grandmother’s death, her father, the new emperor, Paul, married her to a Hapsburg archduke. The marriage was unhappy, and at seventeen Alexandra died in childbirth. On November 1, 1796, Gustavus was crowned as King Gustavus IV. He subsequently married Princess Fredericka of Baden, a younger sister of Grand Duchess Elizabeth, the wife of Catherine’s grandson Alexander.

73
The Death of Catherine the Great

O
N
T
UESDAY EVENING
, November 4, 1796, Catherine appeared in public for the last time when a small number of close friends gathered at the Hermitage. One was Lev Naryshkin, who, more than
forty years before, had been proposed, along with Sergei Saltykov, as a potential father of the child Catherine urgently needed to bear, and, subsequently, had meowed like a cat to spirit her out of the palace at night to visit her lover Poniatowski. Now, still playing the role of court jester, Lev, costumed as a peddler, shuffled up to Catherine with a tray full of toys and trinkets, pretending to hawk them. His performance made her shake with laughter. She retired early, explaining that she had laughed so hard that she needed to rest.

The next morning, November 5, she rose at six, drank black coffee, and sat down to write. At nine, she asked to be left alone for a moment and went into her dressing room. She did not reemerge. Her attendants waited. Her valet knocked, entered the room, and saw no one. He waited a minute, then pushed on the door of the adjacent water closet. It was partially jammed. He and a maid forced the door open and discovered the empress unconscious on the floor against the door. Her face was scarlet and her eyes were closed. When he gently raised her head, she issued a low groan. He called for help and with other servants managed to carry and drag her into her bedroom. There, finding her limp body too heavy to lift onto her high bed, they placed her on a leather mattress on the floor. Dr. Rogerson arrived and opened a vein in her arm.

The empress was alive, but her eyes were closed and she did not speak. The officials who gathered agreed to send urgently for Grand Duke Paul. Platon Zubov immediately sent his brother Nicholas galloping to Gatchina to notify Paul. Soon after, nineteen-year-old Alexander, in tears, asked Count Fyodor Rostopchin to go to Gatchina and officially inform his father of what had happened; Alexander wanted to assure Paul that no one—and certainly not he—thought of seizing the throne. Rostopchin followed Nicholas Zubov on the road to Gatchina.

Nicholas Zubov arrived at Gatchina at 3:45 p.m. with the news that Catherine had probably suffered a stroke. Paul ordered a sleigh and left immediately with Maria for St. Petersburg. At a staging post on the road, halfway to the capital, they met Rostopchin. The count later recalled:

Paul and Maria arrived at the Winter Palace at 8:25 p.m. They were greeted by Alexander and Constantine, who had already changed into Prussian-style “Gatchina” uniforms with stiff, buttoned tunics and high boots. The grand duke found his mother lying on the leather mattress, motionless, her eyes closed. Kneeling, Paul kissed her hands. There was no response, and he and Maria sat down near her for the rest of the night.

Everywhere in the palace, the stricken woman became an object of pity and calculations. Would she recover? Would she at least regain consciousness long enough to disinherit Paul and name Alexander? Courtiers wondered whether to declare their allegiance. And to whom. And when. One who said nothing, sitting alone in a corner, shunned by everyone, was Platon Zubov.

The vigil lasted through the night. At dawn, the doctors told Paul that Catherine had suffered a stroke and that there was no hope. Paul sent for Bezborodko and told him to prepare a manifesto announcing his accession. At noon, the grand duke ordered Bezborodko to sort and seal the papers in his mother’s study under the supervision of his sons, then to lock the study and bring him the key. At five that afternoon, with Catherine struggling to breathe, Rogerson informed Paul that the end was near. Metropolitan Gavril administered the last rites, anointing Catherine with holy oil on the forehead, cheeks, mouth, breast, and hands.

Hours passed. No one spoke. At 9:45 on the night of November 6, 1796, thirty-six hours after she was stricken and without ever recovering consciousness, Catherine died. To courtiers assembled in an antechamber, an official announced, “
Gentlemen, the Empress Catherine is dead and His Majesty Paul Petrovich has deigned to mount the throne of all the Russias.”

On November 8, two days after his mother’s death, the new emperor went to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, where the coffin of the man
he believed was his father, Peter III, was opened. The body had not been embalmed, and the coffin contained only bones, dust, a hat, gloves, boots, and buttons. On December 2, a procession left the monastery to escort the coffin to the Winter Palace. Paul, his family, the court, and the diplomatic corps walked behind, through streets lined by the Guards regiments. A figure from the past also walked. Eighty-year-old Alexis Orlov, who had commanded the guard at Ropsha and written the note informing Catherine of her husband’s death, had been commanded by Paul to walk behind Peter’s casket, carrying Paul’s crown on a cushion held before him. Orlov endured this humiliation, his head erect, his face carved in stone. At the palace, Peter’s coffin was placed beside that of Catherine for a lying-in-state honoring both. On December 5, the two coffins were carried across the ice of the frozen Neva River to the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, where they were placed near the tomb of Peter the Great. They are there today.

Catherine believed in enlightened autocracy. Supporting her belief and the practice of it was the keen attention she paid to public opinion. It was with this in mind that she said to Diderot, “What I despair of overthrowing, I undermine.” Her wielding of absolute power rested on her sensitivity to the nuances of the possible. Years later, Potemkin’s aide, V. S. Popov, elaborated on this by telling the young Emperor Alexander I of a conversation he had once had with the empress:

She was aware that aspects of her personal life were criticized; her reply was that her life had been unique. “
Before I became what I am today, I was thirty-three years the same as other people. It is only thirty years since I have become what they are not, and that teaches one to live.”