Empress Catherine II of Russia

“ Not seeing any advantage to Russia in helping the king of Prussia in his war against the German emperor and his allies, Catherine did not consider it necessary to assist the latter. “I am of tolerably martial tastes,” said she, in the first days after her accession to the throne, to one of the ambassadors to the Russian court, “but I will never begin war without a cause; if I begin war, it will not be as the empress Elizabeth did—to please others, but only when I find it favourable for myself.” These words are characteristic of all Catherine’s further foreign policy ”

“ The party opposed to Bestoujeff were in favour of France, her protégée Sweden, and the king of Prussia. The Marquis de la Chétardie was the soul of this party; the courtiers from Holstein its prominent personages. They had gained over Lestocq, one of the principal actors in the revolution which had placed Elizabeth on the throne of Russia. He had a large share in her confidence. He had been her surgeon since the death of the Empress Catherine I, to whose household he had also been attached, and had rendered essential services to both mother and daughter. ”

“ If the Empress seemed to us in a very bad temper during mass, this disagreeable evidence of want of attention, to say no more, did not leave us in the best of humours either. At the other great festivals, when she dined on the throne, we had the honour of dining with her; this time she repelled us publicly. Returning alone in the carriage with the Grand Duke, I told him what I thought of this, and he said that he would complain of it. On reaching home, half dead with cold and fatigue, I complained to Madame Tchoglokoff of having caught cold. The next day there was a ball at the wooden palace ”

“ CATHERINE [springing energetically out of bed and seating herself on the edge of it] . Flogged! I! A Liberal Empress! A philosopher! You are a barbarian, Naryshkin. [She rises and turns to the courtiers.] And then, as if I cared! [She turns again to Naryshkin.] You should know by this time that I am frank and original in character, like an Englishman. [She walks about restlessly.] No: what maddens me about all this ceremony is that I am the only person in Russia who gets no fun out of my being Empress. ”

“ Catherine II. had mounted the throne of Russia—the Empress who, according to Masson, had but two passions, which she carried to the grave—"her love of man, which degenerated into libertinage; and her love of glory, which degenerated into vanity." A woman with the brain of a man and the heart of a courtesan, Catherine's fickle affection had flitted from one lover to another, until now it had settled on Gregory Orloff, the handsomest man in her dominions, whom she was more than half disposed to make her husband. ”

“ But she was greatly deceived; every one conspired to exclude her. From the first few days after her arrival I foresaw what would happen, and for this reason: One evening, while they were at cards in the Empress’ apartment, her Majesty continued moving from room to room without fixing herself anywhere, as was her custom; Madame l’Annois, hoping, no doubt, to pay her court to her, followed her wherever she went. Madame Tchoglokoff seeing this, said to me, “See how that woman follows the Empress everywhere; but that will not continue long, she will very soon drop that habit of running after her.” ”

“ I said, “the manner in which I am treated, and that you, in order to secure for the Grand Duke a rendezvous with my maids of honour, encourage him to prevent my going to the theatre, where I might, perhaps, have the pleasure of seeing her Imperial Majesty; and besides this, I will beg of her to send me back to my mother, because I am weary of, and disgusted with, the part I play here: left alone and deserted in my room, hated by the Grand Duke, and not liked by the Empress, I want to be at rest, and a burden to no one ”

“ The evening of this day, during which I had wept a great deal, walking up and down my room, much agitated both in mind and body, one of my maids, named Catherine Ivanovna Cheregorodskaya, came into my bed-room, where I was quite alone, and said to me very affectionately, and with many tears, “We are all very much afraid you will sink under these afflictions; let me go to-day to my uncle—he is your own confessor as well as the Empress’—I will talk to him, and tell him everything you wish, and I promise you he will speak to the Empress in a manner that will give you satisfaction.” ”

“ The evening before, she went to sleep at the Kremlin. We stayed at the Sloboda, in the wooden palace, and received orders to go to mass at the cathedral. At nine o’clock in the morning we started from the wooden palace in the state carriage, our servants walking on foot. We traversed the whole of Moscow, step by step—the distance through the city being as much as seven verstes—and we alighted at the cathedral. A few moments after the Empress arrived with her retinue, wearing the small crown on her head, and the imperial mantle, borne as usual by her chamberlains. ”

“ In a low voice he turned the conversation to the subject of the dull life we led, and said, that notwithstanding all this, people contrived to prejudice us in the mind of the Empress; that a few days before, her Imperial Majesty had said at table that I was overwhelmed with debt; that every thing I did bore the stamp of folly; that for all that I thought myself very clever—an opinion, however, in which no one else shared, for nobody was deceived in me, my stupidity being patent to all; and therefore that it was less necessary to mind what the Grand Duke did than what I did. ”

“ The rest of his time was literally passed, in the company of his valets, in acts of childishness unheard of at his age, for he played at puppets.
My mother took advantage of the absences of the Empress to go and sup at the neighbouring mansions, and especially at that of the Prince and Princess of Hesse-Homburg. One evening when she had ridden out there, I was sitting, after supper, in my room, which was on a level with the garden, one of the doors leading into it, when I felt tempted by the fine weather. I proposed to my maids and my three ladies of honour to take a walk in the garden ”

“ The Empress Anne died, leaving the crown, as we have just said, to a child only a few months old, under the Regency of her lover Biren. The Duke of Courland was all-powerful. Despising everything Russian, he wished to civilize us with the lash. In the hope of strengthening himself, he destroyed with a cold-blooded cruelty hundreds of men, and drove into exile more than twenty thousand. Marshal Munich got tired of this; he was a German as well as Biren, and besides a good soldier. One day, the Princess of Brunswick, the mother of the little Emperor, complained to him of the arrogance of Biren. ”

“ The Master of the Hounds, Count Razoumowsky, in a brocaded dressing-gown, dined with her—he had taken medicine that day—and there were, besides, some dozen persons of those most in the confidence of the Empress. The Grand Duke, not content with enjoying the fruit of his skilful labour himself, must needs call all who were about him to share in the pleasure of looking through the holes which he had bored with so much diligence. ”

“ This rendered Madame Tchoglokoff furious against her husband. She returned home and abused him. He fell upon his knees and begged her pardon, and made use of all his influence over her to soothe her anger. The brood of children which they had also helped to patch up their difference; but their reconciliation was never sincere. Disunited in love, they remained connected by interest. The wife pardoned her husband; she went to the Empress, and told her that she had forgiven everything, and wished to remain with him for the sake of her children. ”

“ I am not a child.” Madame Tchoglokoff threatened that the Empress would send him to the Fortress. At this he cried bitterly; and they went on answering each other in the most outrageous terms that passion could dictate; in fact, they both acted as if they had not between them a grain of common sense. At last, Madame Tchoglokoff departed, saying that she would report the conversation to her Imperial Majesty word for word. ”

“ The Empress remained at Zarskoe-Selo during a considerable portion of the Carnival. Petersburg was nearly deserted, for most of its residents lived there from necessity rather than choice. While the court was at Moscow, and also when on its return to St. Petersburg, all the courtiers were eager to obtain leave of absence for a year, six months, or even a few weeks. The officials, such as senators, and others, did the same; and when they were afraid of not succeeding, then came the illnesses, real or feigned, of husbands, wives, fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters, or children ”

“ She did more; she related to the Empress all that had passed. It would seem as if Madame Tchoglokoff had received a reproof, for she lowered her tone very considerably with me. Indeed, there was much need of this being done, for I began to feel a great tendency to melancholy. I felt totally isolated. The Grand Duke, at Reval, took a passing fancy for a Madame Cédéraparre. As usual, he did not fail to confide the matter to me immediately. I had frequent pains in the chest, and at Catherinthal a spitting of blood, for which I was bled. ”

“ After this, I entered into a rather long conversation with him, so much so even, that he appeared anxious to leave, in order not to keep the Empress waiting for the commencement of the fireworks. I then dismissed him. He took his departure, and I again drew aside the curtain. My company, from laughing so heartily, was beginning to feel hungry and thirsty. “Very well,” I said, “you shall have something to eat and drink; it is only fair that while you are kind enough to give me your company, you should not die of hunger or thirst.” ”

“ After some stay in the house of Peter I, we were ordered to the Summer Palace, which was built of wood. Here new apartments had been prepared for us, one side of which faced the Fontanka, then a muddy marsh, while the other opened on a miserable and narrow yard. On Whit-Sunday, the Empress sent me word to invite Madame d’Arnheim, the wife of the Saxon Envoy, to accompany me. She was a tall woman, very well made, about five-and-twenty or six-and-twenty years of age, rather thin, and anything but handsome, for she was much and deeply marked by the small-pox ”

“ I asked him if the Empress would return soon. He said, “I cannot speak to you; they make too much noise in the hall; let me come into your room.” I replied, “That I will not do.” He was outside the door and I within, holding the door half open as I spoke to him. An involuntary impulse made me turn my head in the direction opposite to the door at which I stood, and I saw behind me at the other door of my dressing-room, the Chamberlain, Count Divier, who said to me, “The Grand Duke wishes to see you, madam.” ”

“ During this winter, the Princess Gagarine, maid of honour, died of a burning fever, just as she was to be married to the Chamberlain Prince Galitzine, who subsequently married her younger sister. I regretted her very much, and during her illness I went several times to see her, notwithstanding the representations of Madame Tchoglokoff. The Empress replaced her by her elder sister, since married to count Matiuschkine. She was then at Moscow, and was sent for accordingly. ”

“ At the masquerades which the Grand Duke gave at Oranienbaum, I never appeared otherwise than very simply dressed, without jewels or ornaments. This, too, had a good effect with the Empress, who neither liked nor approved of these fêtes at Oranienbaum, which really became orgies; and yet she tolerated them, or at least did not forbid them. I was informed that her Imperial Highness said, “These fêtes give no more pleasure to the Grand Duchess than they do to me; she goes to them dressed in the simplest manner possible, and never sups with the crowd admitted to them.” ”

“ When the forty days of my confinement were over, the Empress, on occasion of the churching, came a second time into my chamber. I had risen from my bed to receive her, but she saw that I was so weak and exhausted, that she made me sit down during the prayers which were read by her confessor. My child was brought into the room; it was the first time I had seen him since his birth. I thought him very pretty, and the sight of him raised my spirits a little; but the moment the prayers were finished, the Empress had him carried away, and then left me. ”

“ None of her attendants had followed her when she left the church; but being soon apprised of her condition, the ladies of her suite, and her other intimate attendants, ran to her assistance, and found her without consciousness or movement in the midst of the crowd, who gazed upon her without daring to approach. The Empress was tall and powerful, and could not fall down suddenly without doing herself a good deal of injury by the mere fall. They covered her with a white handkerchief, and went to fetch the physician and surgeon. ”

“ But the supreme misfortune of the last Empress of Russia, a misfortune for which she was not responsible, was the fact of her having been married to a being who was too weak to lead her, too selfish to understand her, too cruelly inclined to sympathize with her; who at the same time did not acquire sufficient authority over her to inspire her with respect for his individuality as a man and for his position as a Sovereign. Had she been the wife of Alexander III., it is likely that she would have turned out entirely another woman from the one which she ultimately became ”