The Memoirs of Catherine the Great (17 page)

In the Winter Palace the Grand Duke and I were lodged in the apartments that had been used for my wedding celebration. The Grand Duke’s was separated from mine by an immense staircase, which also served the Empress’s apartment. For me to go to his apartment or for him to come to mine, we had to cross the landing, which especially in winter was not the most convenient thing in the world. Nevertheless, he and I would make this journey several times a day. In the evening I would go to play billiards in his antechamber with the Grand Chamberlain Bergholz while the Grand Duke frolicked in the other room with his horsemen.

1746

Peter a poor husband; Peter spies on Elizabeth; her reprimand;
changes in Peter’s and Catherine’s entourages; the Chernyshev
“a fair”; Catherine’s melancholy; trip to Riga

My billiard matches were interrupted by the departure of Messieurs Brümmer and Bergholz, whom the Empress dismissed from the Grand Duke’s entourage at the end of winter, which was spent in masquerades in the principal houses of the city, which were at that time very small. The court and the entire city attended these regularly. The last one was given by the Master General of Police Tatishchev in a house that belonged to the Empress and that was called Smolny Dvorets. The middle of this wooden house had been consumed by a fire, and there remained only the three-story wings. There was dancing in one, but to dine, we had to pass through the courtyard and snow in the month of January; after dinner we had to make the same trip. Back at the house, the Grand Duke went to bed, but the next day he awoke with a severe headache, which kept him from getting up. I sent for the doctors, who stated that he had an extremely high fever. Toward evening he was taken from my bed into my audience chamber, where after being bled, he was placed in a bed that had been prepared for him. He was seriously ill and was bled more than once. The Empress came to see him several times a day and was grateful for my tears.

One evening while I was reading my evening prayers in a little oratory near my dressing room, I saw Madame Izmailova, whom the Empress held dear, enter.
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She told me that the Empress, knowing that I was deeply pained by the Grand Duke’s illness, had sent her to tell me to have faith in God, to worry myself no more and that she would not abandon me under any circumstances. She asked me what I was reading; I told her that it was the evening prayers. She took my book and told me that I would ruin my eyes reading such small characters by candlelight. I asked her to thank Her Imperial Majesty for her kindness toward me and we parted very affectionately, she to report on her commission, I to go to bed. The following day, the Empress sent me a prayer book with big letters, to preserve my eyes, she said.

Although it adjoined mine, I went to the room in which the Grand Duke had been placed only when I thought I would not be a burden, because I noticed that he did not much care whether or not I was there and that he preferred to be with members of his entourage, whom in truth I did not much care for. Besides, I was not accustomed to passing my time all alone with men. At this point, Lent arrived and I made my devotions the first week. In general at that time I was in a devout frame of mind. I saw clearly that the Grand Duke loved me little; fifteen days after the wedding he had again confided to me that he was in love with ’demoiselle Karr, the Empress’s maid of honor, since married to a Prince Golitsyn, Equerry to the Empress.
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He had said to Count Devier, his chamberlain, that there was no comparison between this girl and myself. Devier had maintained the opposite, and the Grand Duke had gotten angry with him. This scene practically occurred in my presence, and I noticed his sulkiness. In truth, I told myself that life with this man would certainly be very unhappy if I allowed myself tender feelings that were so ill repaid, and that to die of jealousy was of no benefit to anyone. I endeavored to conquer my pride, to not be jealous at all of a man who did not love me, but the only way to not be jealous was to not love him. If he had wanted to be loved, it would not have been difficult for me. I was naturally inclined toward and accustomed to fulfilling my duties, but for this I would have needed a husband endowed with common sense, and this man did not have any.
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I had fasted the first week of Lent. The Empress informed me on Saturday that I would please her if I fasted again the second week; I responded to Her Majesty, begging her to let me fast all of Lent.
^‡
The Marshal of the Empress’s court, Sievers, son-in-law of Madame Kruse, who had brought this message, told me that the Empress had been truly pleased by this request and that she granted it. When the Grand Duke learned that I was continuing to fast, he scolded me harshly. I told him that I could not do otherwise; when he was better, he pretended to be sick for a long time thereafter so as not to leave his room, where he was happier than in public court ceremonies. He appeared only the last week of Lent, when he made his devotions.

After Easter he had a marionette theater set up in his room and he invited many people, even ladies. This made for the most insipid spectacle in the world. The room in which this theater was located had a door that had been walled up because it led to another which opened onto the Empress’s apartment, where there was a mechanical table that one could raise and lower in order to eat there without servants.
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One day the Grand Duke, in his room preparing his so-called spectacle, heard conversation in the other, and in his rash eagerness, he took from the theater a carpenter’s tool that was used to make holes in boards and began to drill the boarded door full of holes so that he could see everything that was happening, namely the dinner that the Empress was having there. The Grand Master of the Hunt Count Razumovsky, in a brocaded house robe (he had taken medicine that day), and a dozen other of the Empress’s closest confidants were dining there with her. His Royal Highness, not content to enjoy the fruits of his clever labor alone, called his entire entourage so they could amuse themselves by looking through the holes that he had just made with such industry. He did more: when he and those around him had had their fill of this indiscreet pleasure, he invited Madame Kruse and me and my ladies to come to his apartment to see something that we had never seen. He did not tell us what it was, apparently so as to arrange for us a pleasant surprise. Because I did not come quickly enough to satisfy him, he took Madame Kruse and my ladies; I arrived last and found them sitting before the door, where he had set up benches, chairs, and stools for the comfort of the spectators, so he said. As I entered, I asked what this was; he ran to me and told me what was happening. I was horrified and indignant at his temerity, and I told him that I wanted neither to look nor to take part in this scene, which would surely bring him grief if his aunt learned of it, and I told him that it would be hard for her not to find out because he had shared his secret with at least twenty people; all those who had been willing to look through the door, seeing that I did not wish to do the same, began to walk away, one by one.
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The Grand Duke himself became a little sheepish about what he had done and went back to working with his marionette theater, and I returned to my room. We heard no mention of anything until Sunday, but that day for some reason I arrived a little later than usual at mass. Back in my room, I was going to remove my court dress when the Empress entered looking slightly flushed and very irritated. Since she had not been at mass in the chapel but had attended the divine service in her little private chapel, as soon as I saw her, I approached her as was my custom to kiss her hand, since I had not yet seen her that day. She kissed me, sent for the Grand Duke, and while waiting scolded me for having come late to mass and for preferring finery to the good Lord. She added that during the reign of Empress Anna, although she had not resided at the court but in a house a good distance from it, she had never failed to perform her duties and had often risen before dawn to fulfill them.
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Then she sent for my chamber valet in charge of wigs and told him that if in the future he coiffed me so slowly, she would have him dismissed. When she had finished with all this, the Grand Duke, who had undressed in his room, entered in a dressing robe, night-cap in hand, looking quite joyful and carefree, and ran to kiss the hand of the Empress, who kissed him and began to ask him where he had found the temerity to do what he had done, that she had gone into the room with the mechanical table, that she had found the door full of holes, and that all these holes opened toward the place where she normally sat, that apparently in doing this he had forgotten everything that he owed her, that she could only consider him ungrateful, that her own father Peter I had also had an ingrate for a son, whom he had punished and disinherited,
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that at the time of the Empress Anna, she had always shown her the respect owed to one who wore a crown and who was anointed by God, that that Empress did not tolerate pranks and had those who failed to show her respect locked in the fortress, that he was nothing but a little boy and that she would show him how to behave. At this he began to get angry and wanted to reply to her, and to that end he stammered a few words, but she ordered him to be silent, and got so angry that she no longer controlled her fury, which often happened when she got upset, and she insulted him and said all kinds of shocking things, showing him as much disdain as anger. We were both stupefied and speechless, and although this scene was not aimed directly at me, I had tears in my eyes. She noticed this and said to me, “What I say is not meant for you. I know that you did not take part in what he did and that you neither looked nor wanted to look through the door.” This just observation calmed her a little and she fell silent, and indeed it was difficult to add anything to what she had just said. After this she said good-bye and left for her apartment extremely red in the face and with her eyes flashing. The Grand Duke returned to his apartment, and I removed my dress in silence, ruminating on all that I had just heard. When I was undressed, the Grand Duke came to find me, and he said to me in a tone that was half contrite and half sarcastic, “She was like a fury and did not know what she was saying.” I replied, “She was in an extreme fit of anger.” We discussed what we had just heard, after which we dined together alone in my room.

When the Grand Duke had returned to his apartment, Madame Kruse entered my room and said to me, “One must admit that today the Empress acted like a real mother.” I saw that she wanted to make me talk, and because of that I was silent. She continued, “A mother gets angry and scolds her children and then it passes. Both of you should have said to her, ‘
, we beg your pardon, mother,’ and you would have disarmed her.” I told her that I was overwhelmed and astounded by Her Majesty’s fury and that all I was able to do at that moment was listen and be silent. She left my room, apparently to go make her report. For my part, the
“I beg your pardon, mother”
that would disarm the Empress’s anger stayed in my head, and thereafter I had occasion to use it with success, as will be seen later.

Sometime before the Empress dismissed Count Brümmer and the Grand Chamberlain Bergholz from their functions in the Grand Duke’s service, when I left my rooms earlier than usual one morning and went into the antechamber, Brümmer, who was nearly alone, used the occasion to talk to me. He begged and urged me to go into the Empress’s dressing room every morning, since upon her departure, my mother had obtained permission for me to do this, a privilege that I had taken little advantage of up until then because this prerogative greatly bored me.
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I had gone there one or two times and had found the Empress’s ladies, who little by little had withdrawn so that I remained alone. I told him this; he told me that this meant nothing and that I had to continue. To tell the truth, I understood nothing of this courtier’s perseverance; it might be useful for his purposes, but it did nothing for me to stand about in the Empress’s dressing room and still less to be a burden to her. I shared my disgust with Count Brümmer, but he did everything he could to persuade me, without success. I was happier in my own apartment, especially when Madame Kruse was not there. That winter I discovered that she was quite partial to drink, and as she was soon marrying off her daughter to Marshal of the Court Sievers, either she would go out or else my servants would find the means to get her drunk and then she would go to sleep. This would rid my room of this cantankerous Argus.
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Count Brümmer and Grand Chamberlain Bergholz having been dismissed from the Grand Duke’s service, the Empress named General Prince Vasily Repnin to attend the Grand Duke. This nomination was surely the best thing the Empress could do, because Prince Repnin was not only a man of honor and of probity, but he was also an intelligent and very gallant man, full of sincerity and loyalty. For my own part, I could only praise Prince Repnin’s conduct; as for Count Brümmer, I did not have great regrets. He bored me with his endless political discussions, which smacked of intrigue, while the honest and military character of Prince Repnin inspired trust in me. As for the Grand Duke, he was enchanted to be free of his tutors, whom he hated. Upon parting from him, however, they instilled in him a great fear that they were leaving him at the mercy of Count Bestuzhev’s plots, the mainspring of all these changes, which were made under the plausible pretext of His Imperial Highness attaining his majority in his Duchy of Holstein. Prince August, my uncle, was still in Petersburg and overseeing the administration of the Grand Duke’s hereditary lands.