The Memoirs of Catherine the Great (31 page)

I gathered my forces to appear in public at Christmas. I actually attended the divine service, but in church I was seized by shivering and pains throughout my body, so that back in my apartment, I undressed myself and lay on my bed, which was nothing but a chaise longue that I had placed in front of a blocked-off door. It seemed to me that no draft penetrated through it, because along with a portiere lined with wool there was also a large screen, but in fact I believe this door gave me all the colds that afflicted me that winter. The day after Christmas, my fever was so high that I was delirious. When I closed my eyes, I saw only the poorly drawn figures on the tiles of the stove that was at the foot of my chaise longue, the room being small and narrow. As for my bedroom, I hardly went into it because it was very cold due to the windows that opened to the east and north over the Neva River. The second reason I was exiled from my bedroom was the proximity of the Grand Duke’s apartment, where during the day and part of the night there was always a racket similar to that of barracks. Moreover, as he and his entourage smoked a great deal, there was the unpleasant smoke and odor of tobacco. The entire winter I therefore remained in this miserable, narrow little room, which had two windows and a
trumeau,
and in total may have been seven or eight arshins long by four wide, with three doors.
¹¹⁰

1755

Catherine’s troubles with Saltykov and offensive against the
Shuvalovs; she sees her son a third time; Peter’s Holstein troops at
Oranienbaum; Catherine’s gardener predicts her great future; the
arrival of Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams and Count
Poniatowski, who courts her; Catherine’s pregnancy;
a secret night out with friends

Thus began the year 1755. From Christmas to Lent there were nothing but celebrations at the court and in the city. The birth of my son continued to be the occasion. By turns everyone vied with everyone else to give the most beautiful dinners, balls, masquerades, illuminations, and fireworks possible. I attended none of these, under pretext of illness. Toward the end of carnival Sergei Saltykov returned from Sweden. During Saltykov’s absence, all his news and the dispatches from Count Panin, at the time the Russian envoy to Sweden, were sent to me by Grand Chancellor Count Bestuzhev through Madame Vladislavova, who received them from her son-in-law, the Grand Chancellor’s head clerk, and I sent them back by the same channel. I also learned by this same channel that as soon as Sergei Saltykov returned, it had been decided to send him to Hamburg as the Russian minister to replace Prince Alexander Golitsyn, who was being sent to the army. This new arrangement did not diminish my sorrow. When Sergei Saltykov had returned, he sent Lev Naryshkin to tell me that I should indicate, if I could, a way for him to see me. I spoke about this to Madame Vladislavova, who consented to this interview. He was supposed to go to her residence and from there to mine. I waited for him until three in the morning, but he did not come. I was in mortal agony over what could have kept him from coming. I learned the following day that he had been dragged by Count Roman Vorontsov to a meeting of Freemasons. He claimed that he had not been able to get away without causing suspicion. But I questioned and probed Lev Naryshkin so much that I saw clear as day that he had failed to come due to a lack of enthusiasm and consideration for me, without any regard for what I had suffered for so long solely out of affection for him. Lev Naryshkin himself, although his friend, found little or no excuse for him. In truth, I was very angry. I wrote him a letter in which I complained bitterly about his conduct. He replied and came to my residence. It was not hard for him to appease me, because I was very willing to be appeased. He persuaded me to appear in public.

I followed his advice and I appeared on February 10, the Grand Duke’s birthday and Shrovetide.
¹¹¹
For this day I had made a superb outfit of blue velvet embroidered in gold. As I had had much time for reflection in my solitude, I resolved to make those who had caused me so many sorrows understand that they were answerable to me, that no one mistreated me with impunity, and that cruel conduct would not gain my affection or approbation. Consequently I never failed to show the Shuvalovs how they had disposed me in their favor. I treated them with bitter scorn, I made others aware of their nastiness, their stupidity, I ridiculed them, and everywhere I could, I always had some barb to throw at them, which would then race through the city, and provide malicious amusement at their expense. In a word, I avenged myself on them in every manner I could devise. In their presence I never failed to praise those whom they disliked. As there were a great many people who hated them, I did not lack for loyal allies. The Counts Razumovsky, whom I had always loved, were more flattered than ever. I redoubled my compliments and politeness toward everyone except the Shuvalovs. In a word, I drew myself up and walked with my head high, more like the leader of a very large faction than a humiliated or oppressed person. The Shuvalovs never knew on which foot to dance. They huddled together and resorted to courtiers’ ruses and intrigues.

During this time a gentleman from Holstein, Monsieur Brockdorff, who had once before tried to enter the country, appeared in Russia, having previously been turned back at the Russian border by the Grand Duke’s advisers at the time, Brümmer and Bergholz, because they knew him to be a man of very bad character and given to intrigue.
¹¹²
This man appeared at exactly the right moment for the Shuvalovs. As a duke of Holstein with a chamberlain’s key from the Grand Duke, he had access to the residence of His Imperial Highness, who in any case was favorably disposed to every clod who came from that country. This man found his way into Count Peter Shuvalov’s entourage, and here is how. In the inn where he lodged, he met a man who only left the inns of Petersburg to go to the home of three rather pretty German girls named Reiffenstein. One of these girls enjoyed the support of Count Peter Shuvalov. The man in question was called Braun. He was some kind of shady dealer in all manner of things. He brought Brockdorff to the girls’ home, where he met Count Peter Shuvalov. Shuvalov made solemn declarations of devotion to the Grand Duke and eventually got around to complaining about me. At the first opportunity Monsieur Brockdorff reported all this to the Grand Duke, who was urged to bring his wife back to her senses, so to speak.

To this end, one day after we had had lunch, His Imperial Highness came into my room and told me that I was becoming intolerably haughty and that he knew how to bring me back to my senses. I asked him what he meant by haughty. He told me that I held myself very erect. I asked him if to please him, one had to keep one’s back bent like some great master’s slave. He grew angry and told me that he well knew how to bring me back to my senses. And I asked him, how? At this he put his back against the wall and drew his sword halfway out and showed it to me. I asked if this meant he wished to fight me. In that case, I would need one too. He put his half-drawn sword back into its scabbard and told me that I had become dreadfully nasty. I asked him, “In what way?” He stammered, “Well, with the Shuvalovs.” I replied that this was only recrimination and that he would do well not to speak of what he did not know or understand. He continued, “You see what happens when you do not trust your true friends—you regret it. If you had trusted me, you would have benefited.” I said to him, “But trust you how?” Then he began to say things that were so extravagant and nonsensical that I, seeing that he talked nonsense pure and simple, let him speak without responding and exploited what seemed to me an auspicious pause to advise him to go to bed because I saw clearly that wine had addled his reason and completely stupefied any common sense. He followed my advice and went to bed. At that time he was already beginning to smell almost continually of wine mixed with smoking tobacco, which was literally intolerable for those who went near him.

That same evening, while I was playing cards, Count Alexander Shuvalov came to convey from the Empress that she had forbidden the ladies to include in their finery many kinds of ribbon and lace as specified in the decree. To show him how His Imperial Highness had chastened me, I laughed in his face and told him he could have dispensed with notifying me of this decree because I never wore any ribbons or lace that displeased Her Imperial Majesty, that besides, I did not make beauty or finery the source of my merit, for when one was gone, the other became ridiculous, and only character endured. He listened to the end, twitching his right eye as was his habit, and left with his usual grimace. I pointed this out to those who were playing with me by imitating him, which made the group laugh.

Some days later the Grand Duke told me that he wanted to ask the Empress for money for his dealings in Holstein, which continued to get worse and worse, and that Brockdorff advised him to do this. I saw clearly that this was bait set for him by the Shuvalovs to raise his hopes. I said to him, “Is there no other way to handle this?” He replied that he would show me what the Holsteiners were reporting to him about the situation. This he in fact did, and after seeing the documents he showed me, I told him that it seemed to me that he could manage without begging for money from Madame his aunt, who had given him one hundred thousand rubles less than six months before and might again refuse him, but he held to his position and I to mine. It is certain that for a long time he was made to hope he would get it and he received nothing.

After Easter we went to Oranienbaum.
¹¹³
Before we left, the Empress allowed me to see my son for the third time since his birth. I had to pass through all of Her Imperial Majesty’s apartments to arrive at his bedroom. I found him suffocating from the heat, as I have already recounted. Upon arriving at the Oranienbaum estate, we saw something extraordinary. His Imperial Highness’s Holstein retinue continually preached to him about the deficit, and he was told by everyone to cut down this useless retinue, which in any case he could see only furtively and in small groups. He suddenly decided and made so bold as to have an entire detachment of Holstein troops come. This was again a scheme of that miserable Brockdorff, who pandered to this Prince’s dominant passion. He had made it known to the Shuvalovs that in granting their tacit approval to the Grand Duke for this plaything or bauble, they would assure themselves of his favor forever, that they would keep him occupied and would be sure of his approval for everything else that they would undertake. The Empress detested Holstein and everything that came from it, and had seen that such military playthings had undone the Grand Duke’s father, Duke Karl Friedrich, in the eyes of Peter I and of the Russian public.
¹¹⁴
It seems that at first the affair was kept hidden from her or that she was told it was a minor matter that was not worth discussing, and besides, Count Alexander Shuvalov’s presence alone was enough to keep things from getting out of hand. Sailing from Kiel, the detachment landed at Kronstadt and came to Oranienbaum. The Grand Duke, who during the time of Choglokov had worn the Holstein uniform only in his room and somewhat furtively, was already wearing this uniform every day but court days, though he was a lieutenant colonel in the Preobrazhensky regiment and in addition had a regiment of cuirassiers in Russia. On Monsieur Brockdorff ’s advice, the Grand Duke kept the transport of these troops completely hidden from me. I admit that when I learned of it, I shuddered at the terrible impression that the Grand Duke’s action would make on the Russian public, and indeed, on the mind of the Empress, since I was not at all unaware of her sentiments. Monsieur Alexander Shuvalov watched this detachment pass the balcony of Oranienbaum twitching his eye; I was next to him. Personally he disapproved of what he and his relatives had agreed to tolerate. The Oranienbaum castle was guarded alternately by the Ingerman regiments and that of Astrakhan. I learned that when they saw the Holstein soldiers pass by, they had said, “These cursed Germans have all been sold to the King of Prussia. A troop of traitors has been brought to Russia.” In general the public was shocked by their arrival. The most devoted subjects shrugged their shoulders, the most moderate found the affair ridiculous. Basically it was a very imprudent bit of childishness. For my part, I held my tongue, and when it was mentioned to me, I clearly implied that I did not at all approve, that in fact no matter how I looked at it, I regarded it as thoroughly harmful to the Grand Duke’s well-being, for what other opinion could one have after examining the matter? His pleasure alone could never compensate for the harm that this would do him in public opinion. But His Imperial Highness, full of enthusiasm for his troops, went to lodge with them in the camp he had had set up and did nothing but drill them thereafter. They had to be fed, and no one had even thought of this. However, the matter was pressing and there were a few arguments with the Marshal of the Court, who was not prepared to meet the request. Finally he gave in, and court lackeys along with castle guards from the Ingerman regiment were employed to carry food from the palace kitchen to the camp for the new arrivals. This camp was not very close to the household, and nothing was given to either the lackeys or the soldiers for their trouble. One can imagine the fine impression that such a wise and prudent arrangement must have made. The soldiers of the Ingerman regiment said, “Here we are, the valets of these cursed Germans.” The court servants said, “We are employed to serve a bunch of worthless peasants.” When I saw and learned of what was happening, I very firmly resolved to keep myself as far away as I could from this dangerous child’s game. The gentlemen of our court who were married had their wives with them. This made for a rather large group, and the gentlemen had nothing to do with the Holstein camp, from which His Imperial Highness no longer budged. As I was therefore amid this group of people from the court, I would go for walks with them as often as I could but always in a direction away from the camp, to which we gave a wide berth.

At the time, I took it into my head to make a garden at Oranienbaum, and since I knew that the Grand Duke would not give me an inch of land for this, I asked Princess Golitsyna to sell or give me a piece of uncultivated land, two hundred yards in length and long abandoned, which they owned, right next to Oranienbaum. This land belonged to eight or ten people in their family, and they gave it to me willingly, asking nothing to boot. I thus began to draw up plans for building and planting, and as this was my first foray into plants and buildings, it became an enormous project. I had an old French surgeon named Guyon, who, seeing this, said, “What good is all this? Remember what I say. I predict that one day you will abandon this project.” His prediction came true, but at the time, I needed an amusement, and this was one that exercised the imagination. At first, I employed the gardener of Oranienbaum, Lamberti, to plant my garden. He had served the Empress when she was still a Princess on her estate of Tsarskoe Selo, from which she had him moved to Oranienbaum. He dabbled in predictions, and among others, one about the Empress had come true. He had predicted to her that she would ascend to the throne. This same man said to me and repeated as often as I wished that I would become Sovereign Empress of Russia, that I would see sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons, and I would die at a grand old age of more than eighty. He did more. He set the year of my ascension to the throne six years before it occurred. He was a very curious man who spoke with an assurance that nothing could deter. He claimed that the Empress wished him ill because he had predicted what had happened to her and that she had sent him from Tsarskoe Selo to Oranienbaum because she feared him, with no throne anymore to promise her.