Secret Lives of the Tsars (8 page)

For Peter, though, Catherine was perfect. She remained earthy and unpretentious, an oasis of serenity in the tsar’s otherwise chaotic life, the mother of eleven of his children (only two of whom survived into adulthood),
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and the only true source of comfort and support he had. The numerous letters that passed between the couple when they were apart reflect their mutual tenderness, humor, and understanding.

Though Catherine was Peter’s one true love, he remained casually unfaithful to her while she good-naturedly indulged his meaningless affairs. She knew she held the tsar’s heart (if not his fly) and was wise enough to recognize that challenging him was a sure way to lose it. This unique facet of their relationship was reflected in an exchange from June 1717, while Peter was undergoing mineral water treatments in Spa:

“There is nothing to write to you about, only that we arrived here yesterday safely, and as doctors prohibit domestic fun [that is, sex] while drinking the water, I have sent my mistress back to you, for I would not have been able to resist the temptation if I had kept her here.” In her response, Catherine wryly noted that the mistress was not sent away because
of doctor’s orders but because she had a venereal disease, “and I have no desire (and heaven forbid!) to have this mistress’s lover [Peter] come home in the same condition as she.”

Catherine’s tolerance of the tsar’s infidelities was a simple result of her inferior position, but her indulgence may also have been informed by her own reputed extramarital dalliances—one of which would explode into a spectacular scandal. But not before Peter paid Catherine the ultimate tribute and had her crowned as his tsarina.

It was a magnificent event, infused with all the pomp and ceremony Peter normally abhorred. He even dressed for the occasion, replacing the utilitarian work clothes he preferred with a sky-blue caftan embroidered in silver, red silk stockings, and a hat with a white feather. Catherine was even more spectacularly arrayed in a purple gown trimmed with gold, with an ermine-lined brocade mantle around her shoulders, and diamonds shimmering in her hair.

As the bells of Moscow tolled amid thundering cannon fire, the royal couple appeared atop the Kremlin’s Red Staircase—sight of the horrors Peter witnessed as a young boy—and proceeded across Cathedral Square to the Cathedral of the Assumption, where Ivan the Terrible was first crowned in 1547. There, in the light of hundreds of candles, they took their places upon two jewel-encrusted thrones. As the elaborate ceremony reached its climax, Peter took the crown—constructed specially for the occasion and consisting of thousands of diamonds, pearls, and other precious stones, including an enormous ruby as large as a dove’s egg—and turned to the gathered audience, proclaiming, “It is Our intention to crown Our beloved consort.” He then placed the crown upon Catherine’s head and handed her the orb. Symbolically,
though, he refrained from giving his wife the scepter, the ultimate symbol of royal power.

“One cannot help wondering at God’s Providence whereby the empress
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has been elevated from the lowly position into which she was born and in which she lived to the pinnacle of human honors,” noted Friedrich Wilhelm von Bergholtz, a courtier and guest from Holstein.

Peter had indeed raised his stalwart companion high, but what did it signify? Some historians have suggested that he was officially designating Catherine as his heir. All his sons, including the ill-fated Alexis, were dead, and he had already decreed several years before that the traditional rules of succession would no longer apply; that henceforth the tsar would have the absolute power to determine who would rule after him. But, problematically, Peter never explicitly named Catherine as his heir. It was this omission that left biographer Lindsey Hughes to conclude:

In the absence of direct evidence of Peter’s intentions on the succession in May, 1724, the coronation should perhaps be taken at face value as what Peter said it was: a ceremony to honour Catherine. In terms of public recognition, it went hand in hand with Peter’s creation of a Western-style court for his wife. It was a rebuke to those who muttered about Catherine’s unsuitability as an empress and yet another demonstration of Peter’s will.

Viewed from another angle, this crowning of a foreign peasant woman as empress was an example of Peter’s upside down world, the “mock” universe of his own devising
which he used to exert his authority and disorientate people.
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Whatever Peter’s motive in crowning Catherine, he may well have come to regret it, for just weeks later emerged unseemly revelations about the empress’s secretary and confidant William Mons—described by the Danish envoy Hans Georg von Westphalen as “among the most handsome and elegant people whom I have ever seen.” He was also believed to be Catherine’s lover. Mons certainly had a lucrative business selling his influence with the empress, who in turn had the tsar’s ear. But was he really sleeping with her? Peter seemed to think so, for after having Mons executed for corruption, he ordered his head preserved in a jar and sent to Catherine—apparently as some kind of perverse keepsake.

Tensions ran high between the royal couple in the wake of the Mons affair. “They almost never talk to each other,” reported Jean Lefort in a dispatch to the elector of Saxony; “they no longer eat together, they no longer sleep together.” Peter was said to have been so enraged that he smashed a valuable vase.

“Thus will I do to you and yours!” he roared at Catherine, who reportedly replied, “You have just destroyed one of the most beautiful ornaments of your house. Does that give it any more charm?”

The empress herself was devastated by the death of her confidant and possible lover. “Her relations with Mons were common knowledge,” reported the French envoy, “and although
she tries hard to hide her grief, it is nevertheless evident on her face and in her manner of behavior. All of society tensely awaits what will become of her.”

What became of Catherine was entirely unexpected. Instead of falling into disgrace, or worse, she emerged as Russia’s next monarch—an empress in her own right, wielding all the power of an autocrat—for shortly after the Mons affair was exposed Peter the Great lay dying.

A great power vacuum loomed and two mighty factions struggled to fill it. On one side were the “new men,” many of whom Peter had raised high from the humblest origins. Led by the tsar’s close companion Alexander Menshikov (in whose household Peter had found Catherine shortly after her capture), they aimed to maintain power by placing Catherine on the throne. Opposing them were members of the nobility and others who had seen their ancient rights and privileges eroded under Peter’s radical regime. Bound by tradition, these men believed the dying tsar’s grandson, Peter, son of the doomed Alexis, was the legitimate heir.

Ultimately the decision rested with the Russian Imperial Guard, with whom Peter had replaced the rebellious
streltsy
. “The decision of the Guards is law here,” the French envoy accurately reported. And the Guards were with Catherine (the first of a parade of sovereigns they would install—or depose—according to their will). She had accompanied them on many a military campaign, struggling by their side, and in the process earned their loyalty and affection. Now, called by Menshikov and other members of his party, they surrounded the palace where the debate over the succession raged.

Suddenly a loud roll of drums came from the courtyard, drawing the opposing statesmen to the windows. Prince Repnin, president of the College of War and a member of the
aristocratic party, reacted furiously, demanding to know why the Guards were there without his order. The commander of the Guard, who had entered the debate chamber, responded coolly, “What I have done, Your Excellency, was by the express command of our sovereign lady, the Empress Catherine, whom you and I and every faithful subject are bound to obey immediately and unconditionally.” With that, many of the Guard present tearfully cried out, “Our father is dead, but our mother still lives!”

Seizing the momentum, Menshikov raised his voice above the crowd. “Long live our most august sovereign Empress Catherine!”

“Viva Empress Catherine!” the Guards cheered.

Then, according to Count Bassewitz, “these last words were immediately resounded by all those present, each wanting to appear to the rest as if he were joining in of his own free will, and not merely imitating the example of others.”

Thus, on February 8, 1725, the former peasant captive Martha Skavronskaya became Empress Catherine I, autocrat of All the Russias. It was a relatively brief, uneventful reign, with Menshikov in charge and Catherine bombed throughout most of it. The French envoy Jacques de Campredon noted that her “amusements constitute almost daily drinking bouts which take place in the garden and continue the whole night through and well into the next day, and involve persons whose duties require them to always be present at court.”

The empress could have been her dead husband in drag, so all-consuming was her taste for alcohol. She even revived Peter’s “All-Drunken Synod,” and presided over it with a relish that would have made him proud. Catherine was often the last one standing at these booze-filled gatherings, teetering off to bed at dawn, only to wake up and start swilling once
again. Her expense ledgers for Hungarian wine, Danzig schnapps, and other libations told their own story of excess. But the empress never paid any attention to expense, or to her health, for that matter—even as the constant drinking took its terrible toll.

Just over two years after ascending the throne, the forty-three-year-old peasant empress was dead.

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Legend has it that Peter called for a writing tablet and managed to scrawl, “Leave everything to …” before dropping the pen in a sudden fit of tremors.

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Livonia is now split between Latvia and Estonia.

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According to some accounts, she was married to a Swedish soldier who went off to war shortly after the wedding and was never heard from again.

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Menshikov came from the humblest origins, some said as a pie seller, but in the world of Peter the Great, a man’s background had no bearing—only his talent and potential. The tsar met Menshikov when both were mere boys and was immediately impressed by his great wit and intelligence. The two became instant friends, and, as Robert K. Massie wrote, “Menshikov employed his great charm and his variety of useful talents to make himself one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in eighteenth-century Europe.” Even after Menshikov was revealed to be an avaricious plunderer of the state, the normally implacable Peter managed to forgive him. The tsar’s grandson, Peter II, would prove to be far less indulgent, however (see footnote on
this page
).

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Peter and Catherine’s two surviving daughters were Anne of Holstein, mother to the future Emperor Peter III (see
Chapter 6
), and Elizabeth, who became empress of Russia in 1741 (see
Chapter 5
).

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Peter proclaimed Russia an empire in 1721 and he became emperor (a title henceforth interchangeable with tsar). Catherine thus received the title of empress.

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This “mock” universe pervaded much of Peter the Great’s reign, where, for example, the autocratic tsar often took a lower rank to his subjects in arenas such as the military and in the “Drunken Synod, where instead of being Prince-Pope, he served as deacon (see previous
chapter
).