Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (94 page)

In the end, the question became moot. On the eve of departure, both grandsons developed chicken pox. Six doctors had to be summoned to testify to this fact before Catherine surrendered and agreed that her grandsons should stay home. Paul, too, remained behind, embittered because he had not been delegated any authority over anything during her absence.

On New Years Day 1787, Catherine received the diplomatic corps at the Winter Palace, and then drove to Tsarskoe Selo. At eleven in the morning on January 7, in brilliant sunshine and bitter cold, she left Tsarskoe Selo in the first of fourteen large, comfortable carriages mounted on broad runners to convert them into sledges. Catherine’s carriage had seats for six, and she began the journey riding with her current favorite, Alexander Mamonov, Lev Naryshkin, Ivan Shuvalov, and a lady-in-waiting. All were wrapped in soft furs, with bearskins draped over their laps. Behind her, other carriage-sledges carried the foreign ambassadors, members of the court, government officials, and her personal staff. Aware that, despite the traditional hostility between their two countries, they liked each other privately, she had placed the French and English ambassadors, Philippe de Ségur and Alleyne Fitzherbert (later Lord St. Helens), in the same carriage. One hundred twenty-four smaller sleighs and sledges followed, carrying doctors, apothecaries, musicians, cooks, engineers, hairdressers, silver polishers, washerwomen, and scores of other male and female servants.

In January in northern Russia, everything vanishes beneath a deep blanket of whiteness. Rivers, fields, trees, roads, and houses disappear, and the landscape becomes a white sea of mounds and hollows. On days when the sky is gray, it is hard to see where earth merges with air. On brilliant days when the sky is a rich blue, the sunlight is blinding, as if millions of diamonds were scattered on the snow, refracting light. In
Catherine’s time, the log roads of summer were covered with a smooth coating of snow and ice that enabled the sledges to glide smoothly at startling speeds; on some days, her procession covered a hundred miles. “
It was a time,” wrote Ségur, “when every animal stayed in its stable, every peasant by his stove, and the only sign of human life were the convoys of sleighs passing like small ships over a frozen sea.” In those northern latitudes at this time of year, daylight lasts no more than six hours, but this did not hinder Catherine’s progress. When darkness fell in the afternoon—as early as three o’clock on the first days of the journey—the road was illuminated by bonfires and blazing torches.

Travel did not alter Catherine’s daily schedule. She rose at six as she did in St. Petersburg, drank coffee, and then worked alone or with her secretary or ministers for two hours. At eight, she summoned her close friends to breakfast, and at nine, she entered her carriage to resume the journey. At two, she halted for midday dinner, then resumed an hour later. At seven, long after the fall of darkness, she stopped for the night. Usually, Catherine was not tired and would go back to work or join her companions for conversation, cards, or games until ten.

Speeding over the snow, Catherine shuffled the passengers in her sledge in order to shift topics and diversify her amusement. Frequently, Ségur and Fitzherbert were exchanged for Naryshkin and Shuvalov. Ségur, sophisticated and intelligent, a born storyteller, was her favorite. She laughed at most of what he said, but, at one point, he discovered the limits of her tolerance:

In Smolensk, the journey was delayed for four days by massive snowdrifts and by a feverish sore throat that had stricken Mamonov. But a letter from Potemkin, still in the Crimea, urged Catherine on: “
Here, the greenery in the meadows is starting to break through,” he said. “I think the flowers are coming soon.”

On January 29 the cavalcade reached Kiev, standing on the high, west bank of the Dnieper River. The empress, whose only previous visit had been forty-three years earlier when she was a fifteen-year-old grand duchess accompanying Empress Elizabeth, was welcomed with saluting cannon and pealing bells. Each ambassador was assigned his own palace or mansion, handsomely furnished, staffed with servants and stocked with excellent wines. At night, there were games, music, and dancing. Catherine often played whist with Ségur and Mamonov.

Potemkin arrived from the Crimea. At first, he remained in seclusion, away from all the excitement he had created, declaring that he intended to observe Lent in the company of monks rather than courtiers and diplomats. He chose the Pecherskaya Lavra, the famous Monastery of the Caves, hollowed out of the cliff rising from the river. Here, in a labyrinth of caves and low, narrow tunnels, seventy-three mummified saints lay in open niches, close enough for passersby to reach out and touch. Catherine, knowing Potemkin’s moods, warned, “
Avoid the prince when you see him looking like an angry wolf.” The cause of the prince’s behavior was worry; in overseeing this journey he had accepted an enormous responsibility, and the most difficult parts lay ahead.

Along with Potemkin, another new traveler joined the party at Kiev. This was Prince Charles de Ligne, a fifty-year-old Belgian-born aristocrat, now an Austrian field marshal in the service of Emperor Joseph II. Arriving from Vienna, Ligne was a welcome addition. A European cosmopolitan, at ease corresponding with Voltaire or Marie Antoinette, he was witty, wise, sophisticated, cynical, and sentimental, and, at the same time, diplomatic and discreet. A friend of sovereigns and princes, affectionate with equals, popular with inferiors, he put everyone at ease. He was delighted to be invited by Catherine, whom he later described as “
the greatest genius of her age.” Of all Catherine’s guests on the journey, Ligne remained most consistently in favor, not
only with Catherine but with everyone else. Catherine herself described him as “
the pleasantest company and the easiest person to live with that I have ever met.” When his master, friend, and confidant Joseph II joined the party, Ligne was asked to share the imperial carriage and overhear the conversation between the two monarchs. Ligne joined in when asked to do so; the other occupant, Alexander Mamonov, too bored to listen, slept.

Catherine and her guests remained in Kiev for six weeks. Thereafter, the journey was to be resumed in large galleys built for the voyage down the river. On April 22, cannon signaled that the ice on the river had cracked. At noon, the empress and her guests boarded seven opulently decorated and furnished Roman-style galleys, all painted in red and gold, with the Russian imperial double eagle emblazoned on their sides. Catherine’s galley, named
Dnieper
, had a bedroom hung with gold and scarlet silk brocade, a drawing room, a library, a music room, and a dining room. A private canopied deck offered her the opportunity to take the air while avoiding the sun. The six galleys following hers were almost as luxurious: also painted red and gold with interiors lined with expensive brocades. Potemkin’s galley housed the prince, no longer an “angry wolf,” two of his nieces and their husbands, and his new friend, the raffish soldier of fortune Prince Charles de Nassau-Siegen. This forty-two-year-old Franco-German, the impoverished heir to a tiny principality, had sailed around the world, fought on land and sea, married a Polish woman, and then come to Russia, where he had met Potemkin. Catherine was dubious. “
It is odd that you like Prince Nassau considering his universal reputation as a hothead,” she told Potemkin. “Still, it’s well known that he is brave.”

On the day of embarkation, with the galleys still tethered to the shore, Catherine invited fifty guests to dine on board the special dining galley. At three in the afternoon, the fleet cast off and headed downstream with the seven large galleys followed by eighty smaller vessels carrying three thousand people who serviced this unusual flotilla. At six, a smaller number of guests were rowed back to the empress’s private galley for supper; this became the habitual pattern during the days to come.

Under a blue sky, with the river sparkling in sunlight, painted oars dipped rhythmically into the river and this “Cleopatra’s fleet,” as Ligne christened it, moved down the Dnieper. Travel along the great river waterways was normal in Russia, but no one had ever seen anything like
this, and crowds of people stood on the banks, watching and waving as the galleys swept by. The fleet passed meadows carpeted with spring wildflowers, herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and villages with churches and houses gleaming with new paint. As the large galleys passed by, a swarm of little boats darted among the larger vessels, carrying visitors from one to another, transporting wine and food as well as musicians who played at meals and evening concerts. By day, Catherine would lie on the deck of her galley under her silken awning. For her guests and those passengers who were not on the empress’s working staff, the mornings were free and passengers visited one another, talked business, gossiped, and played cards. At midday, the empress’s galley fired a gun to announce dinner; sometimes it would be for only ten guests who were rowed to her galley; sometimes for fifty, summoned to the special dining galley. Often, the fleet stopped and anchored so that the passengers could picnic or simply walk along the riverbanks.

Six days brought the fleet to Kaniev, a point on the Dnieper where the east bank was Russian and the west bank Polish. Here Catherine was to meet Stanislaus Ponitowski, whom she had created king of Poland. The two had not seen each other since 1759, twenty-eight years earlier. Even now, at fifty-six, Stanislaus remained handsome, sensitive, cultured—and also well-meaning and weak. But Catherine was uneasy. At fifty-nine, she was aware of how the years had affected her own appearance, and she was not looking forward to subjecting herself to the gaze of a former lover.

When the fleet anchored off Kaniev, the king was rowed out to Catherine’s galley. The morning had seen gusts of wind and rain, and the king’s clothing was sodden when he came aboard. Catherine received him with state honors, and Stanislaus responded with his old sophistication. As king, he was forbidden by the Polish constitution to leave Polish soil; accordingly, he had assumed a temporary incognito. Bowing to those who received him on deck, he said, “
Gentlemen, the king of Poland has asked me to commend Count Poniatowski to your care.”

Catherine was cool. Stanislaus now seemed insipid, his manners too exquisite, his compliments excessively elegant and long-winded. As Catherine wrote to Grimm, “
It was thirty years since I’d seen him and you can imagine that we found each other changed.” She presented him to her ministers and foreign guests and then, walking stiffly, retired with him for a private half-hour talk. When they returned, her manner
was strained and his eyes were sad. At dinner, Ségur sat opposite the empress and the king and later he recorded, “
They spoke little, but each was watching the other. We listened to an excellent orchestra and drank the king’s health to a salvo of artillery fire.” On departing, the king, rising from the table, could not find his hat. Catherine handed it to him. Stanislaus thanked her and, smiling, said that it was the second article of headgear she had given him; the first had been the crown of Poland.

He tried and failed to persuade her to prolong her visit and remain his guest for several days. He had arranged dinners and a ball in her honor at a palace he had built especially for the occasion. She declined, having already resolved that their reunion should not exceed a single day. Stanislaus was told that she had to meet the Emperor Joseph II in Kherson, downstream; the emperor would be waiting and her schedule could not be changed. Potemkin, who liked Stanislaus, was annoyed, and warned her that her refusal would undermine the king’s position in Poland. Catherine was adamant: “I know of
our guest’s desire that I remain here for another day or two, but you yourself know that this is impossible, given my meeting with the emperor. Kindly let him know, in a polite manner, that there is no possibility of making changes in my journey. And moreover, as you yourself know, I find any change in plan disagreeable.” When Potemkin continued to argue, she grew testy: “The dinner proposed for tomorrow was suggested without any regard for what is possible.… When I make a decision there’s a reason for it … and so I’m leaving tomorrow as planned.… I’m truly tired of this!” To appease Potemkin, she permitted her guests to attend the first of Stanislaus’s balls, to be given that night, but she remained on her galley and watched the fireworks from the deck, attended by Mamonov. The following morning, the galley fleet sailed at dawn. To Potemkin, Catherine said, “
The king bores me.” She never saw Stanislaus again.

Meanwhile, downriver in Kherson, Joseph had arrived and was waiting. A man who loved to travel unencumbered, Joseph was once again traveling incognito as Count Falkenstein. With little baggage, and accompanied by a single equerry and two servants, he usually arrived early on his travels. In Kherson, he tired of waiting and decided to go upriver by land to meet Catherine in Kaidek, where her fleet of galleys would halt on reaching the first of the Dnieper cataracts. When the galleys arrived in Kaidek, Catherine was informed that Count Falkenstein was waiting
downriver at Kherson. Soon, further news arrived that he was already on his way by road to meet her. Determined not to be outdone, Catherine hastily disembarked and hurried by carriage to intercept her ally. The two met by the road, and, riding together in her carriage, returned the twenty miles to Kaidek. Joining her traveling party, Joseph insisted on maintaining his incognito, attending the empress’s levees with other gentlemen of the court, and always being introduced as Count Falkenstein. He was delighted to see his friend and army commander, Ligne, and to strike up a new friendship with Ségur. He spoke admiringly to the French ambassador about the vitality of the extraordinary woman ten years his senior who had become his ally, but he had few compliments for Mamonov. “
The new favorite is good-looking,” Joseph wrote, “but does not appear to be very brilliant and seems astonished to find himself in this position. He is really no more than a spoiled child.”