Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (46 page)

On May 23, 1758, almost six weeks after the meeting with Elizabeth, Alexander Shuvalov told Catherine that she should ask the empress, through him, for permission to see her children that afternoon. Afterward, Shuvalov said, she would have her second, long-promised private audience with the monarch. Catherine did as she was told and formally asked permission to see her two children. Shuvalov said that she could visit them at three o’clock. Catherine was punctual and remained with her children until Shuvalov arrived to tell her that the empress was ready. Catherine found Elizabeth alone; this time there were
no screens. Catherine expressed her gratitude,
and Elizabeth said, “
I expect you to answer truthfully all the questions I shall ask you.” Catherine promised that Elizabeth would hear nothing but the exact truth and that there was nothing she wanted more than to open her heart without reservation. Elizabeth asked if there really had been no more than three letters written to Apraksin. Catherine swore that there were only three. “Then,” Catherine wrote, “she asked for details about the grand duke’s mode of life.”

At this climactic moment, Catherine’s memoirs suddenly and inexplicably conclude. Her life continued for another thirty-eight years, and the rest of her story is told by her letters, political writings, official documents, and by other people—friends, enemies, and a multitude of observers, But no part of this story is more remarkable than Stanislaus Poniatowski’s description of the episodes involving Catherine and himself that followed in the summer of 1758.

40
A Ménage à Quatre

S
TANISLAUS
P
ONIATOWSKI
did not leave Russia and Catherine. He resisted departure by feigning illness, sometimes spending the entire day in bed. In the summer of 1758, when the young court moved to Oranienbaum, Poniatowski was with Elizabeth’s court at Peterhof, a few miles away. At night, disguised in his blond wig, he visited Catherine at Oranienbaum, where she received him in her separate, private pavilion.

Peter, absorbed with Elizabeth Vorontsova, never interfered in Poniatowski’s affair with his wife. An intervention was always a possibility, but when this happened, it was by chance. In July 1758, as Poniatowski told the story in his memoirs, the Shuvalovs and the French ambassador were pressing the empress to send him home, and the Polish government was insisting that he return. He knew that soon he would have to comply.

“Tell me the truth,” Peter said to Poniatowski, “because, if you do, then everything will be arranged. If not, you will go through some bad moments.”

“I cannot say that I have done something I have not done,” Poniatowski lied.

Peter went into another room to consult with Brockdorff. Returning, he said, “Since you refuse to talk, you will stay here until further orders.” He left and stationed a guard at the door. After two hours, Alexander Shuvalov appeared. Shuvalov, his face twitching, asked for an explanation. Instead of responding directly, Poniatowski took another approach: “I am sure you will understand, Count, that it is important to the honor of your court, as well as of myself, that all this should end as quickly as possible, and that you should get me out of here promptly.”

Realizing that a scandal of unknown dimensions was looming, Shuvalov agreed and said he would arrange it. He came back an hour later and told Poniatowski that a carriage was ready to take him back to Peterhof. The carriage was so shabby that, at six in the morning, and at a short distance from Peterhof, Poniatowski got out and walked to the palace, wrapped in his cloak, with the brim of his hat pulled down over
his eyes and ears; he thought this would arouse less suspicion than if he arrived in the disreputable vehicle in which he had just traveled. Reaching the building where his room was on the ground floor, he decided not to enter by the door; there was a chance of meeting someone. The windows were open to the summer night and Poniatowski climbed through the one he thought was his. He found myself in the room of his neighbor, General Roniker, who was shaving. The two stared at each other, then both burst out laughing. “Do not ask where I come from or why I arrive by the window,” Poniatowski said, “but, as a good compatriot, swear you will never mention it.” Roniker swore.

The next two days were uncomfortable for Catherine’s lover. Within twenty-four hours, his adventure was known to the whole court. Everyone expected that Poniatowski would be required to leave the country immediately. Catherine’s only hope of postponing her lover’s departure was to placate her husband. Setting aside her pride, she approached Elizabeth Vorontsova, who was delighted to have the proud grand duchess before her as a supplicant. Soon, Catherine managed to send Poniatowski a note saying that she had succeeded in conciliating her husband’s mistress, who would, in turn, appease the grand duke. This suggested to Poniatowski an approach that might make it possible for him to stay in Russia a little longer. At a court ball at Peterhof, he danced with Elizabeth Vorontsova, and while they performed a minuet, he whispered to her, “You know that you have it in your power to make several people very happy.” Vorontsova, seeing a further opportunity to place the grand duchess under obligation, smiled and said, “Come to the Mon Plaisir villa tonight an hour after midnight.”

At the appointed hour and place, Poniatowski met his new benefactress, who invited him in. “And there was the grand duke, very gay, welcoming me in a friendly and familiar way,” Poniatowski wrote later. “Are you not a great fool not to have been frank with me from the beginning?” Peter said. “If you had, none of this mess would have happened.”

Poniatowski accepted Peter’s reproof, and, changing the subject, expressed his admiration for the perfect discipline of the grand duke’s Holstein soldiers, guarding the palace. Peter was so pleased by this compliment that, after a quarter of an hour, he said, “Well, now that we are such good friends, I find there is someone missing here.” He went to his wife’s room, pulled her out of bed, leaving her only time to put a loose robe over her nightgown and a pair of slippers on her bare feet.
Then he brought her in, pointed at Poniatowski, and said, “Well, here he is! Now I hope everyone will be pleased with me.” Catherine, imperturbable, responded by saying to her husband, “The only thing missing is that you should write to the vice chancellor, Count Vorontsov, to arrange the prompt return of our friend to Russia.” Peter, enormously pleased with himself and his role in this scene, sat down and wrote the note. Then, he handed it to Elizabeth Vorontsova to countersign.

“Afterwards,” Poniatowski wrote, “we all sat down, laughing and chattering and frolicking around a small fountain in the room as though we had not a care in the world. We did not separate until four in the morning. Mad as it may seem, I swear that this is the exact truth. Next day, everyone’s attitude towards me was much nicer. Ivan Shuvalov spoke to me pleasantly. So did Vice Chancellor Vorontsov.”

Not only did this amiability continue; it was enhanced by Peter himself. “The grand duke made me repeat my visit to Oranienbaum four times,” Poniatowski said. “I arrived in the evening, walked up an unused staircase to the grand duchess’s room, where I found the grand duchess, the grand duke and his mistress. We had supper together, after which he took his mistress away, saying to us, ‘Well, my children, you do not need me any more, I think.’ And I was able to stay as long as I liked.”

No one seemed happier with this situation than Peter. It was his moment of triumph over Catherine. For many years, he had felt himself inferior to his wife. He had tried to humiliate her privately and in public. He had ignored her, shouted at her, ridiculed her, and betrayed her with other women. He had made condescending, usually inaccurate, remarks about her intrigues with other men. Now the moment had come when, with his mistress on his arm, he could smile across a table at Catherine and her lover on an equal basis. He was not embarrassed by being made a cuckold. Rather, for the first time in his life, he felt himself master of a situation. His complaisance was genuine; with nothing to hide, he exposed, and even gleefully helped spread, the scandal. Poniatowski no longer needed to wear a blond wig; there was nothing now to fear from Peter’s sentries. Why bother? Why worry? Everyone knew.

For Catherine, however, the situation was different. She had been ready to engage in escapades like slipping out of the palace at night in male clothing. But she did not enjoy sitting down to supper with her gossip-loving husband and his saucy, malicious mistress, listening to
their flighty conversation. It was not pleasant to see how much Elizabeth Vorontsova was enjoying the situation. Catherine was not cynical; she believed in love. The degrading of love, which pleased Peter, offended her. And she could not bear that Peter should consider Poniatowski as merely the male equivalent of Elizabeth Vorontsova. She regarded Poniatowski as a gentleman; Vorontsova she considered a trollop. Soon, a warning signal flashed in her mind. This nocturnal camaraderie was based on agreed, mutual adultery, and she realized that these episodes could spell a greater danger to her future than the hostility of the Shuvalovs. Even at the permissive court of Elizabeth, this arrangement between herself and Peter might be a barrier to her ambition. As Catherine feared, awareness of the ménage à quatre began to create a political scandal. L’Hôpital mentioned it when renewing his demands that Poniatowski be dismissed. Elizabeth understood that the reputation of her nephew and heir was being undermined. Poniatowski knew that he must go.

Saying goodbye, Catherine wept. With Poniatowski she had experienced the courtship of a gentle, cultured European. Afterward, her letters and his were filled with hope for a speedy reunion. Many years later, as empress of Russia, Catherine wrote to Gregory Potemkin, in whom she confided almost every detail about her previous life: “Poniatowski was loving and beloved from 1755 to 1758 and the liaison would have lasted forever if he himself had not got bored by it. On the day of his departure, I was more distressed than I can tell you. I don’t think I ever cried so much in my life.” In fact, Catherine’s blaming of boredom on his part was unfair. They both had recognized that the situation had become impossible.

Many years later, as king of Poland, placed on this throne by his former lover Empress Catherine II of Russia, Poniatowski included in his memoirs a brief sketch of Peter. It is a damning portrait, but it also has elements of understanding, even sympathy: