Great Catherine (51 page)

Feeling invincible, Catherine received Gustavus's representative Count Markov. The count presented her with a formal letter from the young king in which he stated his final position on the subject of Alexandra's religion. He would not agree in writing to her retaining Orthodox worship, Gustavus said, but he was willing to make an informal oral promise to that effect.

Catherine was astonished. She turned beet red. Her mouth dropped open and one side of her face suddenly sagged, her mouth twisting grotesquely. Her servants rushed forward in concern, yet there was little they could do but watch in alarm while their mistress slowly revived. It was several minutes before her high color abated and she was able to speak.

She had suffered a stroke. Her women told the footmen, who

told the chamberlains, who spread the terrible news throughout the palace. Within an hour all Petersburg knew of the empress's affliction. She was very ill. Another stroke might come at any time. She might not last a day, a week. Surely the end was near.

The guards regiments were put in readiness for an imminent change of reigns. Frightened courtiers met in secret to make plans for how to handle the crisis of the empress's death, which they felt must come soon. Factions formed, strategies were plotted. Zubov, terrified about his future, wrung his hands and said his prayers.

The empress, recovering from her attack, felt dizzy and groggy, yet she was determined to carry on with her plans. The betrothal ceremony that was to unite Alexandra and Gustavus was not canceled, despite Gustavus's intractability. Catherine wanted to see Alexandra betrothed, to assure herself that she had not been bested.

On the appointed evening, September 11, the courtiers gathered at six o'clock in the throne room. Catherine made her way slowly to her throne, her obesity draped in brocade. The glittering stars of three Orders gleamed on her chest. On her head was a small crown. Something in her gait, and the swift, sudden shifts between pallor and ruddiness in her sunken cheeks betrayed her recent severe illness. Alexandra, uneasy but smiling and arrayed in bridal robes, sat beside her grandmother, awaiting her husband-to-be.

But Gustavus never came. Hours passed. Enraged at what she considered to be a monstrous insult, the empress sat stonily on her throne, her anger steadily mounting, her cheeks alternately pale and crimson. Finally, realizing that the king was never going to arrive, she stumbled out of the room and had the courtiers dispersed.

In coarse, vulgar language Catherine abused the Swedes, reserving her choicest insults for the vain, stiff young king. Gossip said she lashed out at one of the Swedes with her scepter, not once but twice.

The violence and vulgarity were unlike Catherine, and in all probability they were a result of brain damage following her stroke. She was not herself. Over the next weeks insomnia dogged her, she felt ill and confused at times. It was difficult for her to think clearly. She tried to carry on as usual but could not. She missed meals, did not attend mass, fell asleep at odd and inconvenient times. Her government functioned but just barely; Zubov was incapable of taking over, and the other officials, while dismayed by the empress's condition, and gravely concerned about the succession, were gratified at the thought that her unworthy minion would soon be ousted.

On the morning of November 5, the empress got up and put on her white silk dressing gown. She looked rested, and joked with her maid that she felt twenty years younger, and might even plan another tour of the Crimea when the weather improved.

She ordered her morning coffee and went to sit at her work-table, where she began reading documents concerning the French invasion of Italy and a young general named Bonaparte. The evening before, she had learned of an Austrian victory over the French, so her hopes were high as she scratched away with the first of her daily supply of quill pens. Probably she had a dog beside her, or in her lap. Perhaps she paused to feed the birds outside her window. She worked on, undisturbed, for several hours in the cold room, while above her head a candle burned under an icon of Our Lady of Kazan.

At nine-thirty or so the chamberlain Zotov began to wonder whether something might be wrong. The empress always rang her bell to summon him before nine. Could she have forgotten? Could she be in need of anything?

Cautiously he knocked at the door of her bedroom, and then, when there was no answer, he went inside. The room was empty. He called out, and quickly went to the water-closet that adjoined the main room. There, on the floor, was the empress, her gown crumpled immodestly around her legs, her face blood-red and her cap awry. Zotov called for help and, with the aid of several other

men, was able to heft the groaning old woman into the bedroom and onto a leather mattress on the floor.

Doctors made futile efforts to revive the empress, who soon lost consciousness. She was bled from her arm, medicines were poured down her throat, other medicines administered rectally. Her aged, fleshy body was pummeled and subjected to indignities she would never have permitted had she been awake and alert. Alexander took charge, as Paul was not at the palace but on his estate at Gatchina several hours' ride away. A trusted messenger was sent to tell Paul what had happened, but he did not arrive in the capital until nearly nine o'clock that evening.

By then the doctors had declared that the empress would not survive. The palace chaplain placed the holy wafer on her tongue and anointed her convulsing body with holy oil on face and hands. He intoned the solemn prayer for the dying, as everyone in the room knelt to add their own prayers to his.

The empress, Mother of the Fatherland, was passing. Only a miracle could save her. Those who had served her for decades, even those who had felt the sting of her irascibility, were greatly saddened. Weeping servants and officials filled the long, chill corridors of the Winter Palace, waiting for news from the doctors.

All night Catherine lay on her mattress, her breathing rough and raw. Her family gathered around her, Alexander and Con-stantine, Paul and Maria, the younger children allowed in for a few moments at a time. Paul began giving orders, and was obeyed. The transfer of power had begun. Catherine's papers were gathered up and given to her successor.

Hour by hour, throughout the day of November 6, the death-watch went on. The empress's eyes were closed, she did not speak, but her vital old body struggled mightily against death. Spasms wrenched her belly, she gasped for breath like a great beached fish. At times, a vile, stinking black liquid poured from her mouth, filling the room with a terrible stench. Finally, just before ten o'clock, a last, loud rattle came from her throat. Then all was still, save for the sound of weeping.

Almost at once the thousand bells of Petersburg began to toll. Solemnly, reverently, their huge voices boomed out across the city, now in unison, now in random clangor, announcing the sad message that the great Catherine was with God. Hearing it, her subjects knelt and crossed themselves, their faces wet with tears. Most of them could remember no other ruler. Few of them looked forward to the reign of the Emperor Paul.

For three weeks Catherine's embalmed body lay in state in the throne room of the palace, covered in a gown of fine silk with an immensely long furlined train. A black velvet tent was erected over her casket, and soldiers and family members stood guard nearby while thousands of mourners filed past. Thousands more attended her lengthy public funeral in the first week of December, watching the imperial casket as it was conveyed across the ice-covered Neva to the Cathedral of Peter and Paul, traditional resting place of the sovereigns of Russia.

Catherine's casket did not make its final journey alone. Paul gave orders that Peter Ill's body, disinterred from its tomb in the Nevsky Monastery, be brought to the cathedral and reburied beside that of his late wife. It pleased the new emperor that his mother and putative father, so violently estranged in life, should lie side by side through eternity.

A Note on Sources •+.

THE BIOGRAPHER SEEKING TO UNDERSTAND THE PERSONAL-ity and inner life of Catherine II is unusually fortunate in having at hand Catherine's own memoirs, in versions written at different times in her life. A close reading of the memoirs, written in indifferent but highly expressive and individualistic French, reveals a great deal about their author, her tastes and views, her priorities and outlook on life. Unfortunately, the memoirs cease before Catherine became empress. For the period of her reign, the biographer can draw on Catherine's other writings and letters, the dispatches of visiting ambassadors, letters and memoirs of contemporaries, both Russian and European, contemporary descriptions of Russian society and the Russian court by travelers, and political and administrative documents.

For the reader in search of further reliable information about Catherine there are few books in English that offer anything like an authentic portrait of the empress; most either trivialize or romanticize her achievements or echo the distorted image of her invented by French revolutionary propagandists. John T. Alexander's Catherine the Great, Life and Legend (Oxford University Press, 1989) is a sober and scholarly if somewhat dry political history of Catherine's reign, with insights into her temperament.

ex

-*Q—-

Adadurov, Vasily, 52, 175, 176 Adolf (Swedish king), 18, 23, 24, 29, 106 Albertine of Holstein-Gottorp, 18, 20 Alembert, Jean le Rond d', 236 Alexander (Catherine's grandson), 335,

345, 351, 366-67, 377, 378-79, 382 Alexandra (Catherine's granddaughter),

345, 377, 378, 380 Alexei, Father, 214, 215 Alexis, Emperor of Russia, 290 Alexis Gregorevich (Catherine's son by

Orlov), 202, 246, 282, 351 Anhalt-Zerbst, 2-3, 20 Anna Ivanovna (Russian empress), 18, 23,

144 Anna Leopoldovna (Russian regent), 83,

188 Anna Petrovna (Catherine's daughter), 174,

175, 184, 185 Anna Petrovna (Peter the Great's daughter), 13, 18, 174 Apraxin, Stepan, 111, 113, 146, 157, 178 Arnheim, Madame, 108 August of Anhalt-Zerbst, 95 Austria, 70, 186, 187, 190, 312, 333, 336,

350, 353; see also Joseph II; Maria

Theresa

as Catherine's protector, 122-23, 142,

143, 156, 158, 161 recall from exile, 254, 255 retirement, 258

succession concerns, 91, 92, 101, 108 Bestuzhev, Michael, 51 Betsky, Ivan, 61, 64, 65, 66, 369 Bezborodko (secretary), 333, 358 Bibikov, Vasily, 210, 298, 299 Bielke, Madame, 316 Black Sea fleet, 355-56 Blackstone, Sir William, 314 Bobrinsky, Alexis Gregorevich. See Alexis

Gregorevich Boerhave, Dr., 47, 48, 66, 67, 86, 123,

124 Breteuil (French ambassador), 197, 198,

200-201, 206, 212, 254-55 Britain, 144-45, 157, 170, 312, 331, 344 Brockdorff, Colonel, 149, 150, 167, 178 Bruce, Countess (Praskovia Rumyantsev),

263, 285, 328, 330-31 Brummer, Otto von, 19, 27-28, 29, 30,

32, 36, 71, 92-93 Buckingham, Lord, 229, 253-54, 262, 264,

266-67 Buturlin, General, 190, 192

Balk, Matriona, 114, 116

Baryatinsky, Feodor, 226

Baturin, Yakov, 112-13

Beccaria, Cesare, 270

Bentinck, Countess of, 21-22, 60

Berenger (French ambassador), 227

Berlin, 12, 14-15, 186

Bernardi (jeweler), 175, 176

Bestuzhev, Alexei, 37, 82, 108, 111, 171 anti-Prussian policies, 31, 38, 49, 56, 70 arrest and exile, 175-76, 178, 182, 187, 197

Cardel, Babette, 5-10, 18, 24, 30 Cardel, Madeleine, 4-5 Caroline of Hesse-Darmstadt, 284 Casanova, Giovanni, 261 Catherine II (the Great)

accomplishments as empress, 310-12, 325 affair with Orlov, 181, 188-89, 246, 249,

264-65, 279, 287-88, 319 affair with Poniatowski, 160-63, 171,

319 affair with Potemkin, 303-6, 307-8, 312-16, 318-21

385

Ind

ex

Catherine II, (continued)

affair with Saltykov, 114, 115-26, 131-

32, 133, 142, 200, 318 affair with Vassilchikov, 287-89, 301-4,

318 affairs with young men, 321, 326-30,

332, 337-40, 344, 360-63, 364, 365,

370, 372-74, 376-77 aging, 285-86 appearance, 2, 23, 40, 66, 73, 94-95,

106, 139, 142-43, 147, 183, 214, 262,

266, 285, 325-26, 350, 372 belief in own destiny, 160, 212, 254 betrothal and marriage, 27-29, 31-40,

54, 55, 68-70, 72-76; see also Peter HI books and reading, 104, 105, 127, 140-

41, 183, 269, 314, 339, 372, 377 childbirths, 134-39, 140, 172-74, 175,

201-2 childhood, 1-20 children, 184-85; see also Alexis Gre-

gorevich; Anna Petrovna; Paul I conspiracies against, 113, 229-30, 250-

51, 253, 257, 260-61, 274-75, 283,

286-87 coronation, 237, 245-50 coup against Peter, 210-24 courtiers, 262-64

daughters-in-law, 284-85, 322-24, 358 death and burial, 381-83 education, 4-5, 7-9, 18; see also subhead

books and reading above and Elizabeth's death, 191, 192, 194-96 Elizabeth's feelings for. See under Elizabeth as Elizabeth's logical successor, 131, 158—

60 emphasis on work, 319-20 and Enlightenment thought, 18, 183-84,

232-33, 235-37, 272, 291-93, 350 father. See Christian August of Anhalt-

Zerbst fear of divorce, 168, 172, 185, 199, 200,

201 feelings about power, 141-42, 250, 302 foreign policies, 312, 336, 376; see also

Russo-Turkish wars; Sweden grandchildren, 335, 336, 339, 345, 351,

358, 366-67, 370, 377, 378 guardian, 91-96, 101 hatred of Moscow, 239-41 heir. See subhead succession below

illnesses, 6-7, 46-49, 83, 86-87, 104,

106, 125-26, 138, 316, 363, 365, 377 impressions of, 147-49, 182-84, 254,

262, 325-26, 343 intelligence, 10, 11, 14, 104, 147, 148,

183 legal code, 270-72, 273-75 Lutheranism, 7-9, 32-33, 46, 49-50 manifesto of power, 211, 217-18 memoirs, 5, 163, 370-71 mother. See Johanna of Holstein-Gottorp name change from Sophia to Catherine,

53-54 and Orthodox church, 45-46, 48, 50,

52-53, 95, 216, 218-19, 259-60, 378-

89 persona, 23, 45, 104, 107, 313, 342-43,

374-75, 375 Peter's murder, 226-29, 236, 256, 281 philosophical inquiry, 183, 272, 292-93 political principles, 183-84, 232-37, 250 Potemkin's influence, 317, 327-28 pregnancies, 121-22, 124, 131-36, 160-