Empress Catherine II

“ I showed no leaning to any side, nor meddled with anything; always maintained a serene air, treated every one with great attention, affability, and politeness, and, as I was naturally very gay, I saw with pleasure that from day to day I advanced in the general esteem, and was looked upon as an interesting child, and one by no means wanting in mind. I showed great respect for my mother, a boundless obedience for the Empress, and the most profound deference for the Grand Duke; and I sought with the most anxious care to gain the affection of the public. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ At last the Empress fixed the 21st of August for the ceremony. As the day came nearer, I became more and more melancholy. My heart predicted but little happiness; ambition alone sustained me. In my inmost soul there was a something which never allowed me to doubt for a single moment that sooner or later I should become the sovereign Empress of Russia in my own right.
The marriage was celebrated with much pomp and magnificence. In the evening I found in my room Madame Krause, sister of the head lady’s-maid to the Empress, who had placed her with me as my head lady’s-maid. ”

“ The Empress Elizabeth had recalled this Duke from Siberia, whither he had been exiled under the regency of the Princess Anne. There, the Duke was living with his wife, his sons, and his daughter. This daughter was neither handsome nor pretty, nor well made, for she was humpbacked, and rather small; but she had fine eyes, much intelligence, and a singular talent for intrigue. Her parents were not very fond of her; she pretended, indeed, that they constantly ill-treated her. One day she fled from home, and took refuge with the wife of the Waiwode of Yaroslav, Madame Pouchkine. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ He enclosed to the Empress a letter from Catherine to him, “to be preserved as a relic, since she would one day be canonised.” “May God inspire the King of England,” he said, “to acknowledge the error into which the Enemy of Mankind has led him, and amend his past conduct; otherwise it must follow that his disobedience to the Pope’s injunction and his infidelity to God once proved, he will be deprived of his kingdom and the execution of the sentence committed to his Imperial Majesty. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Good women have never made successful rulers, as a rather cynical Russian said to me, à propos of the Empress Catherine. The nobility disliked her because she kept aloof from them. The glitter and the pomp of court life which the Russian aristocracy loved, the consideration which monarchs are expected to show for the social predilections of their subjects were disregarded by her. Living in perpetual fear, her nerves were shattered. All her interests centred in her family and in the unbending conviction of a German princess that the divine right of kings is a dogma. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ MEMOIRS
OF THE
EMPRESS CATHERINE II.
WRITTEN BY HERSELF.
PART I. FROM 1729, THE YEAR OF HER BIRTH, TO 1751. FORTUNE is not so blind as people think. Her movements are often the result of precise and well-planned measures, which escape the perception of common minds; still oftener are they the result of personal qualities, character, and conduct. ”

“ Her abilities forced even her husband to rely on her judgment. When in difficulty he ran to her and flattered her with the name of Madame La Ressource—Madame Quick Wit—which did not prevent him from insulting and even kicking her when the immediate need of her help was over. In 1758 he endeavoured to turn the empress Elizabeth against her, and for a time Catherine was in danger. She faced the peril boldly, and reconquered her influence over the sovereign, but from this time she must have realized that when the empress was dead she would have to defend herself against her husband. ”

“ This unfortunate man, however, only reigned six months, having been dethroned and put to death by order of his wife, who became Empress of Russia under the title of Catherine II. However unjustifiable the means may have been by which Catherine became possessed of the throne, and in mere justice to her we must remember that she had been brutally treated by her husband, and was in hourly expectation of being immured for life in a dungeon by his orders, she exercised her power to the advantage of the country. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the time of the Empress’s death her lover was Gregory Orloff, a very dashing young officer: a young man of superb and colossal frame, of features that fascinated women and of the time-honoured habits of dissipation.
If we are to understand the character of Catherine, we must endeavour to regard these irregularities with her eyes. It is sheer nonsense to seek to put her on a moral level with Elizabeth or any other aristocratic Russian dame who mingled amours with prayers, and equally venerated monks and lovers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”