Terrible Tsarinas: Five Russian Women in Power (2 page)

General Repnin, outraged by this impertinence, sought to drive out the intruders, but Ivan Buturlin had already gone up to a window and was moving his hand in a queer way. At this signal, drum rolls resounded from afar, accompanied by fifes playing martial music. Two regiments of the Guard, convened in haste, were waiting in an inner court of the palace for the order to intervene. While they noisily penetrated the building, Repnin, crimson-faced, howled: “Who dared… without my orders…?” “I followed those of Her Majesty, the Empress,” answered Buturlin, without leaving the window.

This demonstration by the army stifled the last of the protesters’ exclamations. In the meantime, Catherine had slipped away. She had been sure of her victory from the first comments. In the presence of the troops, the Lord High Admiral Apraxin had Makarov confirm that no will existed that opposed the assembly’s decision and, thus reassured, he concluded good-naturedly, “Let us go and offer our homage to the reigning empress!” The best arguments are those of the saber and the gun. Convinced in the wink of an eye, the Generalité, princes, senators, generals and ecclesiastics submissively moved toward the apartments of Her very new Majesty.

In order to conform to legal procedures, Menshikov and Buturlin promulgated a proclamation that same day certifying that “the very serene Prince Peter the Great, emperor and sovereign of all the Russias,” had wished to regulate the succession of the empire by having “his dear wife, our very gracious Empress and Dame Catherine Alexeyevna [crowned],… because of the great and important services that she has rendered to the advantage of the Russian Empire…” At the bottom of the proclamation one may read, “Presented to the Senate, in St. Petersburg, January 28, 1725.3

The publication of this document aroused no serious opposition among the notables nor the general public; and Catherine began to breathe more easily. The deal was done. For her, it was a second birth. When she thought back to her past as a soldiers’ whore, she was dizzied by her elevation to the rank of legitimate wife, then of sovereign. Her parents, simple Livonian farmers, had died of the plague one after the other, when she was still very young. After wandering through the countryside, famished and all in tatters, she was taken in by the Lutheran pastor Gluck, who employed her as a maidservant. But, an orphan with a tempting figure, she quickly betrayed his tutelage and ran off, sleeping in the camps of the Russian army that had come to conquer Polish Livonia. She rose in rank from one lover to another, until she became the mistress of Menshikov, then of Peter himself. If he enjoyed her, it was certainly not for her education, for she was practically illiterate and she spoke execrable Russian; but he had many occasions to appreciate her valiancy, her spirit and her great allure. The tsar had always sought out women who were well-endowed in flesh and simple in spirit. Even if Catherine was often untrue to him, even if he was fed up with her betrayals, he returned to her even after the worst quarrels. The notion that the “break up” was final, this time, left her feeling both punished and relieved.

The fate that was in store for her seemed extraordinary, not only because of her modest origins but because of her gender, which historically had been relegated to secondary roles. No woman before her had ever been empress of Russia. From time immemorial, the throne of that immense land had been occupied by males, according to the hereditary line of descent. Even after the death of Ivan the Terrible and the confusion that followed, neither the impostor Boris Godunov nor the shaky Fyodor II nor the theory of the false Dmitris that plagued the “Time of Troubles” had changed anything in the monarchical tradition of virility.

It took the extinction of the house of Rurik, the founder of old Russia, for the country to resign itself to having a tsar elected by an assembly of boyars, prelates and dignitaries (the “Sobor”). Young Mikhail Fyodorovich, the first of the Romanovs, was chosen. After him, imperial power was transmitted without too many clashes for nearly a century. It was only in 1722 that Peter the Great, breaking with tradition, decreed that the sovereign should thenceforth designate an heir however seemed best to him, without regard for the dynastic order. Thus, thanks to this innovator who had already upset his country’s ways from top to bottom, a woman of no birth or political qualification had the same rights as a man to assume the throne. And the first to benefit from this inordinate privilege would be a former servant, a Livonian by origin and a Protestant at that, who became Russian and Orthodox late in the game and whose only claims to glory were acquired in the sack. Is it possible that the hands that had so often washed the dishes, made the beds, bleached the dirty linen and prepared the swill for the army rabble would be the same ones that tomorrow, scented and bearing rings, would sign the
ukases
upon which hung the future of million subjects, frozen with respect and fear?

Day and night, the idea of this formidable promotion haunted Catherine’s mind. The more she wept, the more she felt like laughing. Official mourning was to go on for forty days. All the ladies of quality vied in prayers and lamentations; Catherine held her own superbly in this contest of sighing and sobbing. But suddenly, another grief struck her heart. Four weeks after the demise of her husband, while the entire city was preparing his sumptuous funeral, her younger daughter Natalya (six and a half years old) succumbed to measles. This inconspicuous, almost insignificant death, coming on top of the tremendous impact of the death of Peter the Great, fully convinced Catherine that her fate was exceptional, in suffering as well as in success. She immediately decided to bury on the same day the father, wreathed in glory of historic proportions, and the little girl who had never had time to taste the happiness and the constraints of a woman’s life. Announced by heralds at the four corners of the capital, the double funeral was to take place on March 10, 1725, in the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul.

All along the route of the procession, the facades of the houses were draped in black. Twelve colonels of high stature bore His Majesty’s imposing coffin, which was sheltered to some extent from the gusts of snow and hail by a canopy of gilt brocade and green velvet. Natalya’s little coffin accompanied it under a canopy of gilt fabric decorated with plumes of red and white feathers. Behind them the priests advanced, preceding a host of sacred banners and icons. Finally came Catherine I, in deep mourning, her gaze lowered. The inevitable Serene Prince Menshikov and the Lord High Admiral Apraxin supported her faltering steps. Her daughters Anna and Elizabeth were escorted by the Grand Chancellor Golovkin, General Repnin and Count Tolstoy. All the highes t dignitaries, the greatest members of the nobility, the most decorated generals, and the foreign princes and diplomats who were visiting the court, followed the cortege, arranged according to seniority, heads bared, treading to the rhythm of funeral music punctuated with drum rolls. The guns thundered, the bells tolled, the wind caught at the wigs of the high and mighty - who had to hold onto them with their hands. After two hours of walking in the cold and the storm, the arrival at the church seemed like a deliverance. The immense cathedral suddenly looked too small to contain this exhausted and tear-stained crowd. And then, in the nave illuminated by thousands of candles, another torment began. The liturgy was crushingly slow. Catherine called on all her reserves of energy not to weaken. With equal fervor, she bade farewell to the prestigious husband who had made her a gift of Russia and to the innocent child whom she would never again see smiling as she awoke from sleep.

But, if Natalya’s death wrung her heart like the sight of a bird fallen from the nest, that of Peter exalted her like an invitation to the astonishments of a legendary destiny. Born to be last, she had become first. Whom should she thank for this fortune, God or her husband? Or both, according to the circumstances? Plunged into this solemn interrogation, she heard the voice of the archbishop of Pskov, Feofan (Theophanes) Prokopovich, pronouncing the funeral oration. “What has befallen us, O men of Russia? What are we seeing? What are we doing? It is Peter the Great whom we are burying!” And, in conclusion, this comforting prophecy: “Russia will go on as he molded it!”

At these words, Catherine raised her head. She had no doubt that, in uttering this sentence, the priest was transmitting a message to her from beyond the tomb. By turns exalted and frightened at the prospect of the days to come, she found herself stifling in the crowd. But, exiting the church, she found the square looked vaster, emptier, more inhospitable than before. The snow was coming down harder. Even though flanked by her daughters and friends, Catherine felt acutely alone, lost in an unknown land. It was as though the absence of Peter had paralyzed her. It would take all her courage to face the reality of a Russia with no future and no master.

Footnotes

1. According to legend, Monomakh’s Cap (the oldest crown in the Russian treasury) was a gift from the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachus to his grandson Vladimir II Monomakh, grand prince of Kiev (1113-1125).

2. Villebois:
Mémoires secrets pour servir à l’histoire de la cour de Russie
.

3. In the 18th century, Russia was still using the Gregorian calendar, so that this date is 11 days behind the date shown by the Julian calendar currently in use.

Catherine I was almost fifty. She had lived so much, loved so much, laughed so much, drunk so much - but she was never satisfied. Those who knew her during this period of ostentatious pleasure described her as a large, rotund woman, heavily made up, smiling, with a triple chin, a ribald eye and gluttonous lips, garishly dressed, overloaded with jewels and not necessarily entirely clean.

However, while everyone denounced her appearance as a camp-follower masquerading as a sovereign, opinions are more varied when it comes to her intelligence and decision-making ability. She barely knew how to read and write; she barely spoke Russian (and with a Swedish-tinged Polish accent, at that); but from the first days of her reign she displayed a creditable intention to emulate her husband’s thinking. She even learned a little French and German in order to improve her understanding of foreign policy issues. And she relied on the common sense that she inherited from a difficult childhood. Some of her interlocutors found her more human, more understanding than the late tsar. That being said, she was conscious of her lack of experience and consulted Menshikov before making any important decision. Her enemies claimed, behind her back, that she was entirely beholden to him and that she was afraid of dissatisfying him through any personal initiative.

Was she still sleeping with him? Even if she had never deprived herself of that pleasure in the past, it is unlikely that she would have persevered at her age and in her situation. Avid for fair and flourishing flesh, she had no need to restrict herself to the pleasures that may be available in the arms of an aging partner. With complete freedom to choose, she changed lovers according to her fantasies and did not spare any expense when it came to rewarding them for their nights of prowess. The French ambassador, Jacques de Campredon, enjoyed enumerating some of these transitory darlings in his
Memoirs
: “Menshikov is no longer anything but an advisor,” he writes. “Count Loewenwolde appears to have more credit. Sir Devier is still among the most outstanding favorites. Count Sapieha has also stepped up to the job. He is a fine young man, well-built. He is often sent bouquets and jewels… There are other, second-class favorites, but they are known only to Johanna, a former chambermaid of the tsarina and agent of her pleasures.”

At the many suppers she held to regale her companions in these tournaments of love, Catherine drank like a sailor. At her command, ordinary vodka (
prostaya
) was alternated, on the table, with strong French and German liquors. She quite often passed out at the end of these well-lubricated meals. “The tsarina was rather ill from one of these debaucheries that was held on St. Andrew’s Day,” noted the same Campredon in a report to his minister, dated December 25, 1725. “A bleeding set her up again; but, as she is extremely plump and lives so very irregularly, it is expected that she will have some accident that will shorten her days.”1

These binges of drinking and lovemaking did not prevent Catherine from conducting herself like a true autocrat whenever she recovered her wits. She scolded and slapped her maidservants for a peccadillo, bellowed at her ordinary advisers, and attended without a misstep the tiresome parades of the Guard; she rode on horseback for hours at a time, to soothe her nerves and to prove to one and all that her physical stamina was beyond dispute. Since she had a sense of family, she brought in brothers and sisters (whose existence Peter the Great had always chosen to ignore) from their remote provinces. At her invitation, former Livonian and Lithuanian peasants, uncouth and awkwardly stuffed into formal clothing, disembarked in the salons of St. Petersburg. Titles of “Count” and “Prince” rained down on their heads, to the great scandal of the authentic aristocrats. Some of these new courtiers with calloused hands joined the rest of Her Majesty’s dinner crowd in the conclaves of good humor and licentiousness.

Nonetheless, however keen she may have been for this dissolute debauchery, Catherine always set aside a few hours to deal with public affairs. Certainly, Menshikov continued to dictate decisions in matters affecting the interests of the State, but, from one week to another, Catherine gained in confidence and began to stand up to her mentor, sometimes to the point of disputing his opinions.

While recognizing that she would never be able to do without the advice of this competent, devoted, wily man, she convinced him to convene around her a High Privy Council, including not only Menshikov but several other characters whose fidelity to Her Majesty was notorious: Tolstoy, Apraxin, Vice Chancellor Golovkin, Ostermann… This supreme cabinet relegated the traditional Senate to the sidelines, where they no longer discussed any questions of primary importance. It was at the instigation of the High Council that Catherine decided to ease the fate of the Old Believers, who were persecuted for their heretical beliefs; to create an Academy of Sciences according to the desires of Peter the Great; to accelerate the beautification of the capital; to pursue the construction of the Ladoga Canal; and to equip the expedition of Danish navigator Vitus Behring, who was bound for Kamchatka. These wise resolutions mixed oddly in the tsarina’s turbulent mind with her penchant for sex and alcohol. She was voracious and well-disciplined by turn, hotly sensual and coldly lucid.