Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (39 page)

Six months earlier, these reversals would have been unthinkable; now they were reality. Frederick had overturned his own alliances, forcing other powers to realign theirs; when they did, a new diplomatic
structure rose up in Europe. Once these arrangements were made, Frederick was ready to act. On August 30, 1756, his superbly trained, well-equipped Prussian army marched into Saxony. The Prussians quickly overwhelmed their neighbor, and then incorporated the entire Saxon army into their own ranks. Saxony was an Austrian satellite, and the Franco-Austrian treaty, the ink scarcely dry on its pages, now inexorably brought Louis XV to Maria Theresa’s aid. And once Russia’s longtime ally Austria was involved, Empress Elizabeth joined Austria and France against Prussia. This maneuvering had not improved Hanover’s security, however. Freed from the threat of seizure by Prussia, the electorate now stood exposed to danger from both France and Austria.

When Count Bestuzhev sent a note to the British embassy informing Hanbury-Williams of Russia’s adherence to the new anti-Prussian alliance between France and Austria, the ambassador was stunned. The newly signed treaty with England, which he had just negotiated with Bestuzhev, had to be set aside, although it was never formally repudiated.
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Hanbury-Williams found himself in the topsy-turvy position of being expected by London to further the interests of Britain’s new ally, Frederick of Prussia, whom he had originally been sent to Russia to undermine. In this way, the grand reversal of alliances among the European powers was mirrored in miniature by the reversal Hanbury-Williams was forced to make in his own objectives and efforts in St. Petersburg.

The Englishman did his best. He became a diplomatic acrobat. Frederick had no envoy in St. Petersburg; Hanbury-Williams secretly offered to take on the role himself. By using the diplomatic pouch destined for his colleague the British ambassador in Berlin, he would endeavor to keep the Prussian king informed of what was happening in the Russian capital. He would also attempt, through his St. Petersburg connections, to ensure that no serious Russian military effort would be made in the coming war. The most important of these connections, now that Bestuzhev was lost to him, was Catherine. He and the grand duchess had shared an intimate correspondence and many sparkling
conversations; he had given her thousands of pounds; he boasted to the Prussians that she was his “dear friend”; he suggested that he could use her to delay any Russian advance.

The ambassador was betraying his confidante. Catherine knew that the Anglo-Russian treaty was moribund, but she did not know that her friend was secretly assisting Russia’s enemy, and that he had used her name as a potential ally in this intrigue. He was deluding everyone, including himself. In January 1757, Catherine expressed her true feelings in a letter to Bestuzhev: “
I have heard with pleasure that our army will soon … [march]. I beg you to urge our mutual friend [Stepan Apraksin] when he has beaten the King of Prussia, to force him back to his old frontiers so that we may not have to be perpetually on guard.”

The truth was that, before his departure, Apraksin had frequently visited the grand duchess and had explained to her that the poor state of the Russian army made a winter campaign against Prussia inadvisable and that it would be better to delay his campaign. These conversations were not the stuff of treason; Apraksin had had similar conversations with the empress, with Bestuzhev, and even with foreign ambassadors. The difference was that Catherine had been commanded by the empress to avoid involvement in political and diplomatic affairs. Perhaps the grand duchess had ignored this command and discussed the matter with Hanbury-Williams, but, if so, she did it unaware that she was speaking not just to her intimate English friend but to someone who would pass along her words to the king of Prussia.

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Poniatowski

S
TANISLAUS
P
ONIATOWSKI
, the young Polish nobleman to whom Catherine had been introduced on the night she met Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams, was one of the adornments of the European aristocracy. His mother was a daughter of the Czartoryskis, one of Poland’s great families. She had married a Poniatowski, and Stanislaus was her youngest son. The young man was adored by his mother and patronized by her brothers, his uncles, two of the most powerful men in Poland. Politically, the family hoped, with Russian support, to end the rule of
the elected king, Augustus III, a Saxon, and establish a native Polish dynasty.
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At eighteen, Stanislaus had begun touring the capitals of Europe, accompanied by a retinue of servants. He carryied with him an impressive portfolio of introductions. In Paris, he was presented to Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour; in London to George II. He had already met Charles Hanbury-Williams, and when the diplomat was appointed English ambassador to Russia, he invited Stanislaus to accompany him as his secretary. The young man’s mother and uncles were pleased; the offer provided the Czartoryskis a means of strengthening their own diplomatic footing in St. Petersburg, and simultaneously gave Stanislaus a chance to begin his public career. Once in the Russian capital, Hanbury-Williams gave his young secretary complete confidence: “He let me read the most secret despatches and code and decode them,” said Stanislaus. Sir Charles rented a mansion on the bank of the Neva River to use as an embassy, and the two men lived together, sharing a view across the water of the Peter and Paul Fortress and its golden four-hundred-foot cathedral spire.

Stanislaus Poniatowski, three years younger than Catherine, could not compete in male beauty with Sergei Saltykov. He was short, his face heart-shaped, his eyes shortsighted and hazel. He had prominent eyebrows and a tapering chin, but he spoke six languages, his charm and conversation made him welcome everywhere, and, at twenty-three, he was a model of the young, sophisticated European aristocrat. He was the first of this type to stand before Catherine, and he represented in person the brilliant world for which the writings of Madame de Sévigné and Voltaire had stimulated her taste. He spoke in the language of the Enlightenment, could talk playfully on abstract questions, be dreamily romantic one day and childishly frivolous the next. Catherine was intrigued. Two qualities, however, Stanislaus lacked. There was little originality and no real gravitas in this young Pole, deficiencies that Catherine came to recognize and accept. In fact, no one recognized
these limitations better than Stanislaus himself. In his memoirs he confessed:

For a man of his sophistication, he was, in many respects, extraordinarily innocent. He had promised his mother not to drink wine or spirits, not to gamble, and not to marry before the age of thirty. Further, by his own account, Stanislaus had another singularity, odd enough in a young man just come from social triumph in Paris and other European capitals:

In a word, he came to Catherine a virgin.

Poniatowski had other qualities appealing to a proud woman who had been rejected and discarded. His devotion showed her that she could inspire more than simple lust. He expressed admiration not merely for her title and beauty but also for Catherine’s mind and temperament, which both he and she recognized as superior to his own. He was affectionate, attentive, discreet, and faithful. He taught Catherine to know contentment and security as well as passion in love. He became a part of her process of healing.

At the beginning of this love affair, Catherine had three allies. One
was Hanbury-Williams; the others were Bestuzhev and Lev Naryshkin. The chancellor made clear that he was willing to befriend Poniatowski on Catherine’s behalf. Naryshkin quickly stepped into the same role of friend, sponsor, and guide for the new favorite that he had performed during Catherine’s affair with Saltykov. When Lev was in bed with fever, he sent Catherine several elegantly written letters. The subjects were trivial—pleas for fruit and preserves—but they were written with a style that quickly told Catherine that Lev himself was not the author. Later, Lev admitted that the letters were written by his new friend Count Poniatowski. Catherine realized that, for all his travels and apparent sophistication, Stanislaus was still a shy, sentimental young man. But he was Polish and romantic, and here was a young woman isolated and trapped in a miserable marriage. It was enough to capture him.

This is how Catherine appeared in his eyes :

Several months were to pass before the unpracticed lover gathered sufficient courage to act. Even then, but for the persistence of his new friend Lev, the reluctant suitor might have been content to worship from a distance. Eventually, however, Lev deliberately placed Stanislaus in a situation from which the Pole could not retreat without risking embarrassment to the grand duchess. Unaware of what had been arranged, he was led to the door to her private apartment. The door was ajar. Catherine was waiting inside. Years later, Poniatowski remembered, “
I cannot deny myself the pleasure of recalling the clothes I found her in that day: a little gown of white satin with a light trimming of lace, threaded with a pink ribbon for its only ornament.” From that moment, Poniatowski later wrote, “my whole life was devoted to her.”

Catherine’s new lover proved to be free of the smiling self-confidence
that had led her to capitulate to Saltykov. In this matter, Catherine was dealing with a boy—charming, well traveled, and well spoken, but still a boy. She knew what needed to be done, and, once his hesitation was overcome, she guided the handsome, virginal Pole into manhood.

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A Dead Rat, an Absent Lover, and a Risky Proposal