Rebel Princess (29 page)

That cheering, waving multitude was the reward of twenty years of patience, of her wretched marriage and persecuted youth. With this destiny in mind she had endured and schemed and cheated; for this she had risked her life and come to St. Petersburg that morning, rather than take the coward's recourse and flee to Sweden while she still had time.

A great flood of feeling overwhelmed her as she stood on the cathedral steps, a tide of emotion beside which her former loves and fears dwindled to insignificance, the shallow reflexes of a nature as yet unfulfilled.

Her lovers Saltykov, Poniatowsky, even Gregory in all his magnificent sensual power … what were they to her compared with this?… There in that roaring crowd she saw the symbol of her country; her love for them and their need of her was the true fulfillment of her life, the last gratification of mind and body which no mere man could hope to give her.

Every church bell in the city had begun to peal as she raised her fingers to her lips and blew a kiss to the multitude, before descending once more to enter her carriage.

Catherine's drive to the Winter Palace was a triumphal march, a procession through streets packed tight with people, while the coach traveled at the slowest walking pace. An escort of soldiers protected the new Empress from the enthusiasm of the populace, who thrust and struggled to get a glimpse of the woman bowing and smiling at them through the window. In places the crush was so great that it threatened to halt and perhaps overturn the carriage until the guards began clearing a path with kicks and blows.

Inside the Winter Palace a crowd of excited courtiers had assembled and the first to run forward and greet Catherine was Princess Dashkov. Crying with happiness, she flung herself into the Empress's arms, too overwhelmed with emotion and relief to remember the dictates of ceremony. For some moments the two women embraced, laughing and talking at once, while the Dashkovo held on to her beloved friend and gazed into her face.

Scores of her intimates clustered around Catherine, kissing her hand, showering their congratulations upon her, until among them she saw a familiar face and hurried forward extending both hands to greet him.

He tried to kneel to her, but she would not permit it; she put her arms around him and kissed his cheek before the eyes of the whole court.

“Dear Leo,” she said, “my dear, faithful friend. It only needed you to share this day with me and now my cup of happiness is full.”

Catherine looked at him and smiled. Now, when the reins of power had passed to her, she would be able to reward with wealth and honors a devotion unlikely to be matched by any other.

Later she supped, ordering the table to be placed by an open window within full view of the crowd still massed in the palace square, and raised her wine glass in acknowledgment of their delighted cheers.

All her innate showmanship and talent for stage management rose to the fore during those early hours of her revolution, so that she studied every word and movement to attain the right effect. No hint of violence, of anything save spontaneity, must reach those crowds who called her name with such enthusiasm. She must appear to them a savior, placed on the throne by their own wish, while all rightful claimants to the Russian crown still lived.…

That afternoon the Senate was assembled and, with Panin at her side, Catherine sat down at her first Council. The oath of loyalty to her was taken at once, and with a unanimity which made her smile behind her fan; she had done well to flatter Panin, for in return he had kept his word. Not a voice was raised against her.

At regular intervals the meeting was interrupted by messages sent back by the guards posted along the roads out of the city, and reports from armed boats patrolling the Neva at Catherine's orders.

While the Senate debated the best method of dealing with him, the Empress's soldiers kept watch for the telltale cloud of dust which must herald the approach of Peter Feorodovitch and his army, marching on treacherous St. Petersburg to regain his throne.

Catherine and Gregory had closed the roads and placed troops on every bridge leading out of the city, but despite these measures and the speed with which they were enforced, word had reached the Emperor at Oranienbaum that his capital was in the throes of an armed rising.

Deaf to the advice of Chancellor Vorontzov, who counseled him to assemble his private army of Holsteiners and march on St. Petersburg without delay, Peter wasted precious time in violent ravings and abuse, coupled with the determination to ride not on the mutinous city, but to nearby Peterhof, where no one could persuade him that he would not find Catherine waiting quietly as she had been bidden. Contrary to Orlov's fears, Passek's arrest had not been reported, his captors had delayed until the morning, only to find themselves in the hands of Catherine's troops.

At Peterhof, the Czar declared obstinately, would lie the root and the remedy of all unrest. There they would have his most dangerous enemy in custody, and Peter voiced his intention of having her executed within the hour of their arrival.

With Elizabeth Vorontzov at his side, he made the short journey to the Old Palace, followed by his main force of Holstein troops. His confidence and rage covered an abyss of foreboding and fear, so deep that he dared not hesitate and recognize it.

Preceded by his guards, he ran into the Monplaisir Pavilion, dragging the Vorontzova by the hand, shouting to Catherine to show herself. Only a scattering of white-faced servants appeared to answer his summons, and to admit that they had not seen the Czarina since the previous night and that she was nowhere to be found.

Peter paused at last in her bedroom, surveying the unmade bed and heaps of discarded clothing which proclaimed the evidence of flight. He was trembling in every limb and the sweat ran down his disfigured face. For a moment he stood there in silence, swallowing repeatedly as his mouth dried with terror. He swung round at last, his features distorted out of all semblance of control.

“She's gone!” he yelled. “I tell you she's escaped! Now do you see how right I was! Now do you see that I ought to have killed her long ago! You wouldn't let me, you fool!” he continued, shrieking at the Chancellor, his finger stabbing the air in accusation. “Now God knows where she is. God knows what evil she is working against me!”

The Chancellor coughed. He knew Peter and the punishments he was capable of inflicting when in the grip of frenzy. He moved quickly aside as Marshal Münnich, one of Peter's court and experienced soldier, hurried into the room.

“Your Majesty, I have news!” The Czar almost sprang at him.

“You have found her?” he demanded.

“No, Sire. A messenger has just reached us from Oranienbaum. The Empress is in St. Petersburg. The rising is in her name. She has been proclaimed autocrat and the Senate have formally deposed you this afternoon. It is the vilest treason!”

“So she heads a revolution against me, me the rightful ruler! She and the sniveling curs in the Senate depose me, do they? What of the army, Marshal?”

“I fear they have gone over to her cause.”

“Then my capital city has betrayed me utterly, my soldiers have proved themselves the swine and cowards I always deemed them. Come now, Chancellor, what do you suggest we do? Has that fertile brain of yours no plan for overcoming all these things?”

Vorontzov shook his head.

“Well, I have not been idle in these last moments,” the Emperor continued. “I have a plan which should do justice to your talents as my wife's escape does justice to your judgment. We will compose a letter to my wife; we will demand that she and all the other traitors shall surrender. Who knows, they may be lawful at the end, they may read it and submit! What say you, Chancellor?”

Vorontzov shrugged. As well might Peter try to extinguish a fire with spittle, but it would hardly do to argue with him at that mement.

“It is a good plan, Your Majesty!”

“I am glad that you approve.” Peter Feodorovitch began to snigger. “For as soon as it is written, I shall commend you to the care of my men for escort and they will set you down at the gates of St. Petersburg, where you can deliver the message to the gentle Catherine with your own hands. Perchance she will surrender without putting you to death for all the wrongs she owes you in the past.”

He watched the color draining out of his minister's face and began to rock with laughter. “Hurry now and write out my demands! You must proceed without delay.”

No sooner had the door closed behind Vorontzov than Marshal Münnich approached his sovereign.

“I beg Your Majesty to be serious. The position is most grave. We must take action quickly.”

Peter faced him, his unsteady humor vanished, his hands tearing nervously at his cravat.

“I am not afraid,” he said thickly. “I am a soldier. Danger does not frighten me. We Germans are worth a hundred of these Russian dogs. I will fight her. I will stay here with my army and fight to the death!”

Even as he spoke his heart contracted with fear. He spoke of fighting, he who had never fired a shot in anger, even as he talked of death, when his flesh crept with terror at the thought of finality and darkness.

Münnich gestured impatiently.

“That is impossible. Peterhof could never withstand a siege, it was built for pleasure, not for war. We would be annihilated. Take my advice, Sire, and set sail at once for Kronstadt. The navy will be loyal to you, and from there you can make plans to sail down the Neva and attack St. Petersburg from the river!”

Peter stamped to the window; he was shaking violently and a torrent of confused thoughts raced through his burning brain. Suggestions were pouring in upon him, for others had joined the Marshal and were adding their pleas to his. He did not know what to do or where to turn. Catherine was within a few miles, gathering an army, taking his crown, alienating his subjects. How could he go to Kronstadt and leave the protection of these walls?

“No,” he repeated. “No; I will stay here and fight. I am not afraid.…”

It was almost evening when his resistance collapsed, when the atmosphere of terror and confusion which had invaded his supporters destroyed his last reserves of pretense.

Vorontzov had gone, white-faced and speechless, to his doom at Catherine's hands. The court had eaten a makeshift meal, its eyes fixed on the Czar who sat scowling and grimacing vacantly into the empty air, deaf to the entreaties of his mistress to take a little food, holding out his glass at ever shorter intervals for a lackey to refill with wine.

Only then, with the trembling Elizabeth Vorontzov clinging to his arm, did he consent to yield to Münnich's advice and embark on the royal yacht for the imperial naval base at Kronstadt.

Most of the journey he spent in comfortable oblivion, his head in his mistress's lap, the wine fumes dulling fear and consciousness, until the swaying motion of the vessel changed as she dropped anchor and Peter awoke to find Kronstadt was reached at last.

The harbor lay in darkness; a few pinpoints of light glowed faintly from the fortress building, and from the ship's deck a sailor's voice rang out, echoing across the silent water.

“Ahoy there! Open the harbor!”

The answer came from the port's protecting bastion.

“Who goes there!”

Peter had obeyed Münnich's summons and climbed on deck. It was he who answered, his words shrill and quavering as he stood shivering in the chill night air.

“It is I! The Emperor!”

From the watch tower of the bastion he heard a derisive angry yell.

“There is no Emperor! Long live the Empress Catherine! Move off or we fire!”

Peter caught at the rail, his legs giving under him. They were too late. Catherine had got to Kronstadt first and the navy too had betrayed him.

Seeing his distress the Marshal came to his side at once.

“Order them to open the harbor! Command them in the name of their rightful Czar! Show strength, Sire! They will lift the barriers, I swear they will lift them! Then sail in and land, no one will dare to lift their hand against you once they see you face to face!”

Peter Feodorovitch held on to the rail, breathing deeply, shuddering and gasping with fear. He had never wanted to leave Peterhof; he had never wanted to sail to this damnable treacherous place. Now they counseled him to sail in and put foot upon the shore, to deliver himself to his enemies in the belief that the sight of him would suddenly restore their loyalty when he knew them to be horrible and thirsting for his blood, when he had always known better than to trust his people!

“No, no,
no!
” he whimpered, and the last word was a scream of terrified refusal. “I will not go in! They will kill me, they are only waiting to kill me. Out of my way, damn you, let me pass! Draw up the anchor and set sail at once! For God's sake, Marshal, get me back to Oranienbaum where I shall be safe!”

Münnich stood back helplessly, while his sovereign staggered to the companionway and almost fell down the steps in his eagerness to take shelter.

The soldier turned away in disgust and gave orders to move on; delay under such circumstances would only expose them to cannon fire from the garrison at Kronstadt. They departed with such haste that the anchor chain snapped.

While Münnich and the rest of the Czar's entourage spent the night hours of the return journey pacing the deck, watching the sky growing lighter and the reign of Peter the Third drawing to a close, Peter Feodorovitch remained below, sobbing and cursing with terror, held close in Elizabeth Vorontzov's arms, hidden in the deepest hold of the vessel.

Catherine Alexeievna was in her boudoir in the Winter Palace, holding private counsel with Panin. For the moment her doors were closed against both Gregory and the Princess Dashkov, who each persisted in deluging her with contrary advice and confusing the issue by displays of jealousy over the attention which the Empress showed the other.

Clearly, even at this early stage, there would not be room for Orlov and the Dashkova among Catherine's intimates, and the prospect of having to separate herself from the princess was a painful one in the light of all her loyalty and devotion.