Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (83 page)

For a person with an orderly German mind who exercised strict self-control, the emotional intensity Catherine experienced with Potemkin was both liberating and distracting. She had to choose between drawn-out, draining sexual pleasure and her duties as a ruler. She tried to have both, and both ran concurrently in her mind. She was not free to be with him whenever she wanted; she compensated by secretly surrounding herself with thoughts of him; she did this while reading papers
or listening to officials delivering reports, hour after hour. Because she was not free to spend these honeymoon days alone with him, Catherine poured her love onto these little scribbled slips of paper.

Potemkin, too, was immersed in passion, but he was uneasy about something else. He realized that he owed his new preeminence exclusively to the empress, and that just as she had summoned and then dismissed Vasilchikov, so, too, she could, at any moment, replace him. There was, of course, a climactic step that would change his status. His plan was extravagant, impracticable—perhaps only a daydream: he wanted to legalize their union by marriage. He spoke to her about it soon after he became the official favorite, and it was a measure of his power over her that she considered it. For Catherine, it would not have been easy; she was wary of surrendering power. This time, because of her love for Potemkin, she may have agreed.

If there was a marriage, this is a widely believed version of how it happened:

No one was to know. But to be a proper Orthodox ceremony, it had to include a chuch, a priest, and witnesses. These arrangements were made. On June 8, 1774, after a dinner in honor of the Izmailovsky Guards, Catherine, wearing the uniform of the regiment, and accompanied only by a favorite maid, set out in a boat from the Fontanka Canal, crossed the Neva River to the Vyborg side, and entered an unmarked carriage, which took her to the St. Sampsonovsky Church. There, Potemkin, wearing his general’s uniform, was waiting. Only five people were present: Catherine, Potemkin, her maid, her chamberlain, and Potemkin’s nephew Alexander Samoilov. The marriage was performed.

Is this story true? No documents have ever been seen, but there are other forms of evidence. In 1782, Sir Robert Keith, the British ambassador to Austria, walking with Emperor Joseph II, asked about the rumors. “
Does it appear, sir, that Prince Potemkin’s weight and influence is diminished?” “Not at all,” the emperor replied, “but they have never been what the world imagined. The empress of Russia does not wish to part with him, and for a thousand reasons, and as [with] many connections of every sort, she could not easily get rid of him even if she wished to.” Why, if Potemkin were merely a favorite, could Catherine not get rid of him? She had gotten rid of Orlov, who, with his brothers, had put her on the throne, and who was also the father of her son, Bobrinsky. A marriage, however, had created a different situation. Perhaps this was what the emperor was saying.

Ambassadors, as well as emperors, like to pose as having inside knowledge. Philippe de Ségur, the French ambassador in St. Petersburg, told Versailles in 1788 that Potemkin had “
certain sacred and inalienable rights which secure the continuance of his privilege.… A lucky chance enabled me to discover it, and when I have thoroughly researched it, I shall on the first occasion inform the king.” No such occasion presented itself. The French Revolution broke out a year later, Ségur returned home, and five years later the king, Louis XVI, was guillotined.

The strongest written evidence appears in the language of Catherine’s daily messages to Potemkin beginning in the late spring of 1774. She addresses him as “dear husband” and “my master and tender spouse” and signs herself “your devoted wife.” She never called any other lover, before or after Potemkin, “husband,” or referred to herself as his “wife.” In June and July 1774, immediately after the marriage—if one occurred—she wrote,
“I kiss you and
embrace you with all my body and soul, dear husband.” A few days later: “Dearest darling, dear spouse,
pray come and cuddle with me. Your caresses are so sweet and pleasing.”

The history of Russia offers the strongest evidence of all. After their physical passion had dimmed, Catherine and Gregory Potemkin continued a special relationship that was often incomprehensible to everyone around them. Marriage would provide an explanation. If they were secretly married and still deeply cared for each other but had agreed on a modus vivendi, it could account for the unique authority wielded by Potemkin in Catherine’s Russia for the rest of his life. During this time—over fifteen years—he received and returned Catherine’s devoted loyalty and affection. This was true even when both were sleeping with other people.

60
Potemkin Ascending

P
OTEMKIN SOARED
in rank and power. His appointments as adjutant general to the empress and lieutenant colonel of the Preobrazhensky.
Guards had been the first visible signs of this ascent, and a stream of titles, honors, and privileges soon followed. On May 6, 1774, Sir Robert Gunning reported to Whitehall, “
There has been no instance of so rapid a progress as the present one. Yesterday, General Potemkin was admitted to a seat on the Privy Council.” A month later, he was appointed vice president of the College of War and governor-general of New Russia, an immense stretch of territory north of the Crimea and the Black Sea. For his services in the Turkish war, he was awarded a diamond-studded sword and a miniature portrait of the empress set in diamonds to be worn over his heart, a gift previously awarded only to Gregory Orlov. One after another, he received the highest grades of Russian and foreign decorations: first, on Christmas Day 1774, the Order of St. Andrew, the highest order in the Russian empire; then came the Black Eagle from Prussia, the White Eagle from Poland, the White Elephant from Denmark, and the Holy Seraphim from Sweden. Catherine was not universally successful in decorating her hero. Austria declined to make him a Knight of the Golden Fleece because he was not a Roman Catholic, and attempts to obtain the Order of the Garter from Great Britain were flatly refused by King George III. The University of Moscow, which had expelled him for laziness, gave him an honorary degree. When Potemkin spoke to one of the professors who had been active in having him dismissed, he asked, “
Do you remember how you got me kicked out?” “At the time, you deserved it,” the professor replied. Potemkin laughed and slapped the old man on the back.

Catherine sent him jewels, furs, porcelain, and furniture. His food and wine were charged to her at a cost of one hundred thousand rubles a year. The five daughters of his widowed sister, Maria Engelhardt, were brought to court; all five were created maids of honor. Catherine was attentive to Potemkin’s mother. “
I have noticed that your mother was most elegant, but that she has no watch,” she said at one point. “Here is one I ask you to give her from me.”

When Potemkin first asked to be brought onto the Imperial Council, he was rebuffed. Describing what happened next, a French diplomat wrote:

Potemkin understood that his rise stirred jealousy and that his future depended not only on his relationship with Catherine but on what he achieved in his work. The court quickly realized that this new favorite would be neither a puppet like Vasilchikov nor an amiable, indolent fixture like Gregory Orlov. Courtiers then divided into those who attempted to ingratiate themselves with the new figure and those who opposed him.

Nikita Panin was between these two groups. He had opposed Potemkin’s rapid advancement, but his hatred of the Orlovs was greater than his wariness of the ambitious newcomer. Potemkin at first sought to win Panin’s favor for its own value and because it was a path to conciliation with Grand Duke Paul. Panin owed his permanent influence to his years as Paul’s childhood tutor and his role in bringing Catherine to the throne. It was this, not his present position at the College of Foreign Affairs, that enabled Panin to continue living at the palace. “
As long as my bed remains in the Palace, I shall not lose my influence,” he said. Potemkin’s efforts to reach out to Paul and the old councillor had mixed results. As long as Potemkin avoided Panin’s privileged domain of foreign relations, relations between the two remained correct. Paul, however, was so opposed to everyone personally close to his mother that Potemkin’s efforts in this direction were fruitless.

During the spring of 1774, with the Turkish war continuing and the Pugachev rebellion still unresolved, Potemkin was given additional assignments. Catherine ordered that all papers and correspondence regarding the rebellion be addressed to him. Soon, his days were occupied with drafting documents, writing letters, and helping her think through the decisions she had to make. She consulted him about everything from important state affairs to trivial personal matters. He was now correcting her Russian spelling, grammar, and style, not only in official documents but in personal letters: “
If there are no mistakes,” she wrote to him, “please return the letter and I will seal it. If there are some, kindly correct them. If you want to make any changes, write them
out.… Either the ukase and the letter are perfectly clear, or else I am stupid today.” Meanwhile, outside the palace, Potemkin was dealing with military, financial, and administrative questions at the College of War. He involved himself in decisions on strategy, establishing recruiting quotas, designing soldiers’ uniforms, purchasing horses for the army, and drawing up lists of candidates for military honors and decorations. He attended meetings of the Imperial Council, where, increasingly, he began to challenge the arguments and decisions of his older colleagues.

Catherine was impressed and pleased by his efforts, but she complained that they were taking too much of his time. She was not seeing him enough. “
This is really too much!” she protested. “Even at nine o’clock I cannot find you alone. I came to your apartment and found a crowd of people who were walking about, coughing, and making a lot of noise. Yet I had come solely to tell you that I love you excessively.” Another time, she wrote, “
It is a hundred years since I saw you. I do not care what you do, but please arrange that there should be nobody with you when I come. Otherwise, this day will be unbearable; it is sad enough as it is.”

Despite love, war, and rebellion, theology and church matters still absorbed Potemkin. He would leave an important political or military meeting to take part in a theological discussion. Any cleric, eminent or obscure, Russian Orthodox, Old Believer, Catholic priest, or Jewish rabbi, was received. He liked to surround himself with new and interesting people and never missed a chance of talking to men and women who had traveled; he stored away what they told him. His relations with foreign diplomats were less close because he felt that it was important to remain on good terms with Panin. At the same time, he was not completely uninvolved. On the anniversary of Catherine’s accession to the throne, the diplomatic corps was entertained at a lavish supper at Peterhof. Potemkin, not Panin, was the host.

His first opportunity to reveal his talent for grand-scale showmanship came at the beginning of 1775, when Catherine celebrated the end of the Turkish war. It was Potemkin who persuaded her to stage these celebrations in Moscow, Russia’s ancient capital and the heart of the empire, and he became the producer and master of ceremonies of parades, fireworks, illuminations, balls, and banquets. It was in this role that Potemkin had a serious altercation with Nikita Panin. Catherine had given Potemkin instructions regarding honors for the war heroes of
the Russian army, and Nikita Panin believed that his brother, General Peter Panin, was to receive insufficient recognition. Potemkin was forced to admit that the empress herself had made the decision and that he was carrying it out. The argument soon moved on to Potemkin’s increasingly frequent incursions into Panin’s traditional domain, foreign affairs. Panin was annoyed that at meetings of the council, Potemkin had questioned, and sometimes contradicted, his opinions. When a report arrived concerning disturbances in Persia, and Potemkin suggested that it might be in Russia’s interest to encourage these disturbances, Panin declared that he would never be a party to such a policy. Potemkin rose and walked out of the room.