The Memoirs of Catherine the Great (36 page)

At the beginning of September the Empress was at Tsarskoe Selo, where on the eighth of the month, the day of the Nativity of the Virgin, she went on foot from the palace to the parish church, which is only a stone’s throw from the north gate, to hear mass.
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The divine service had only just begun when the Empress, feeling unwell, left the church, descended the little flight of steps that lead at an angle toward the palace, and, having reached the bend at the corner of the church, fell unconscious onto the grass in the middle of, or rather, surrounded by, the crowd of people who had come from all the surrounding villages to hear mass for the feast day. No one in the Empress’s entourage had followed her when she left the church, but having been quickly alerted, the ladies of her entourage and her most trusted intimates ran to her aid and found her still and unconscious in the middle of the crowd, which was looking at her without daring to approach. The Empress was very tall and strong, and the sudden fall alone must have hurt her badly. She was covered with a white shawl, and doctors and a surgeon were sent for. The surgeon arrived first and could do no better than bleed her there on the ground amid and in the presence of all these people. But she did not wake up. The doctor took a long time in coming, being sick himself and unable to walk. He had to be carried in a chair. He was the late Kondoïdi, of Greek nationality, and the surgeon was Fousadier, a French refugee. Finally screens were brought from the court and a sofa, upon which she was placed, and by virtue of medicine and ministrations she somewhat came to, but upon opening her eyes she did not recognize anyone and asked almost unintelligibly where she was. All this lasted more than two hours, at the end of which the decision was made to carry Her Imperial Majesty on the sofa into the palace. One can imagine the consternation of all those who were attached to the court. The publicity of the affair added even more to the anxiety. Up until now, her state of health had been kept very secret, and in this one moment the illness had become public. The following morning I learned of these circumstances at Oranienbaum from a note that Count Poniatowski sent to me. I immediately went to tell the Grand Duke, who knew nothing of it, because everything was always kept from us with the greatest care, and more particularly, anything regarding the Empress personally. It was usual, however, that when we were not in the same location as the Empress, every Sunday one of the gentlemen from our court was sent to inquire about her state of health. We did not fail to do this the following Sunday and we learned that for several days the Empress had not recovered full use of her tongue and that she continued to speak with difficulty. It was said that during her fainting attack, she had bitten her tongue. All of this made us think that her weakness was due more to convulsions than to fainting.

At the end of September we returned to the city. As I began to grow heavy because of my pregnancy, I appeared no more in public, believing that I was closer to giving birth than I really was. This annoyed the Grand Duke, because when I did appear in public, very often he claimed to be unwell so as to stay in his apartment, and since the Empress too appeared rarely, the court days, parties, and balls at the court fell to me. But when I was not there, His Imperial Highness was harassed to go so that someone could fulfill the official duties. His Imperial Highness therefore resented my pregnancy and, one day in his room in the presence of Lev Naryshkin and several others, got it in his head to say, “God knows where my wife gets her pregnancies. I really do not know if this child is mine and if I ought to recognize it.” Lev Naryshkin ran to my room to share this remark with me immediately. I was naturally alarmed and said, “You are all impudent fools. Make him swear that he has never slept with his wife and tell him that if he makes this oath, you will go immediately to share it with Alexander Shuvalov and the grand inquisitor of the empire.” Lev Naryshkin indeed went to His Imperial Majesty and asked him for this oath, to which he received the response, “Go to the devil and do not speak to me anymore about this.” The Grand Duke’s remark, made so imprudently, angered me greatly, and from that moment I saw that I had a choice among three equally dangerous paths:
primo,
to share the Grand Duke’s fortune, whatever it might be;
secondo,
to be exposed constantly to everything it might please him to devise for or against me;
tertio,
to take a path independent of all events. To put it more clearly, it was a question of perishing with him, or by him, or else of saving myself, my children, and perhaps the state from the disaster that all this Prince’s moral and physical faculties promised. This last choice seemed to me the surest. I therefore resolved to continue, as much as I could, to give him all the advice I could summon for his well-being, but never to be stubborn to the point of angering him as I had done before when he did not follow my advice; to open his eyes to his true interests every time the occasion would present itself, and the rest of the time, to shut myself up in a very dull silence, and at the same time to cultivate my reputation with the public so that it would see in me the savior of the commonweal if the occasion arose.

In October I received notice from Bestuzhev that the King of Poland had sent letters of recall to Count Poniatowski. Count Bestuzhev had a heated argument about this with Count Brühl and the Saxon cabinet and was angered that he had not been consulted as previously about this matter. He finally learned that it was the Vice Chancellor Count Vorontsov and Ivan Shuvalov who, through Monsieur Prasse, the resident minister of Saxony, had plotted the whole affair. Indeed, this Monsieur Prasse often seemed informed about numerous details, which astonished people, who wondered where he had learned them. Several years later the channel was discovered. He was the very secret and very discreet lover of the wife of the Vice Chancellor Count Vorontsov, Countess Anna Karlovna, née Skavronskaya. She was very close to the wife of the master of ceremonies, Samarin, and it was at the wife’s home that the Countess would see Monsieur Prasse. Chancellor Bestuzhev seized the letters of recall that had been sent to Count Poniatowski and sent them back to Saxony under the pretext that certain formalities had not been observed.

In the night of December 8 to 9, I began to feel labor pains. I sent Madame Vladislavova to inform the Grand Duke as well as Count Alexander Shuvalov, so that he could inform the Empress. After some time, the Grand Duke came into my room dressed in his Holstein uniform, in boots and spurs, with a sash around his waist, with an enormous sword at his side, and immaculately groomed. It was about half past two in the morning. Quite amazed by this costume, I asked him the reason for such exquisite finery. He replied that it was only in times of need that one knew one’s true friends, that in this outfit he was ready to act according to his duty, that the duty of an officer of Holstein was to defend according to his oath the ducal house against all its enemies, and that as I found myself in difficulty, he had run to my aid. One might have thought that he was joking, but not at all; what he said was very serious. I easily understood that he was drunk and I advised him to go to bed so that the Empress, when she came, would not have the double displeasure of seeing him drunk and armed from head to toe in his Holstein uniform, which I knew she detested. I had a great deal of trouble making him leave, but Madame Vladislavova and I persuaded him with the help of the midwife, who assured him that I would not give birth quite yet. Finally he left, and the Empress arrived. She asked where the Grand Duke was. We told her that he had just left and would certainly return. When she saw that the labor pains were coming less often and the midwife said that this could last for several more hours, she returned to her apartment and I went to bed, where I slept until the following day. I got up at my usual time, here and there feeling labor pains, after which I would be without pains for whole hours. Toward dinner time I was hungry and had some dinner brought to me. The midwife was seated next to me, and seeing my voracious appetite, she said, “Eat, keep eating. This dinner will bring us good luck.” Indeed, having finished the meal, I arose from the table, and the very moment that I got up, I was seized by such a pain that I let out a great cry. The midwife and Madame Vladislavova seized me under the arms and put me on the sickbed, and we sent for the Grand Duke and the Empress. They had hardly entered my room when I gave birth on December 9 between ten and eleven at night to a girl, and I begged the Empress to permit us to give the child her name.
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But she decided that the child would have the name of Her Imperial Majesty’s older sister, the Duchess of Holstein Anna Petrovna, the Grand Duke’s mother. He seemed very happy about the birth of this child. In his apartment, he had grand celebrations for it and had others held in Holstein, and received all the congratulations that were made to him with shows of happiness. Six days later the Empress held this child over the baptismal font, and she brought me an order to the cabinet to give me sixty thousand rubles. She sent the same amount to the Grand Duke, which increased his satisfaction even more.

After the baptism, the celebrations began. It is said that there were some very beautiful ones. I did not see any of them. I was in my bed all alone, without a living soul for company, except for Madame Vladislavova, because as soon as I had given birth, not only had the Empress this time, like the last time, taken the infant into her apartment, but also under the pretext of the rest that I needed, I was left abandoned like a poor wretch. No one set foot in my apartment, nor even asked or sent to ask how I was doing. Like the first time, I suffered greatly from this abandonment. This time I had taken all possible precautions against the drafts and the room’s other drawbacks, and as soon as I had given birth, I got up and went to lay down in my own bed. Since no one dared to come see me except secretly, here too I did not lack forethought. My bed was almost in the center of a rather long room. The windows were to the right of the bed. To the left of it there was a side door that led to a kind of wardrobe that also served as an antechamber and was quite packed with screens and chests. Between my bed and this door I had set up an immense screen that hid the prettiest alcove that I could have imagined, given the locale and the circumstances. In this alcove there were a sofa, mirrors, portable tables, and a few chairs. When the curtain on that side of my bed was drawn, one saw nothing at all; when it was open, one saw the alcove and those who were in it. Those who entered the room saw only the large screen. When someone asked what was behind the screen, we would say the commode. But in fact this was within the screen itself, and no one was curious to see it, and we could have shown them the commode without revealing the alcove that this screen covered.

1759

Poniatowski’s recall to Poland; Catherine’s private party; triple
wedding; arrest of Bestuzhev-Riumin endangers Catherine;
his plan for succession after Elizabeth’s death includes Catherine;
her secret communications with Bestuzhev-Riumin discovered;
she burns her papers; she fears her removal; her letter to Elizabeth;
her philosophical self-portrait; removal of Mme. Vladislavova;
she sends for her confessor to plead her cause with Elizabeth;
her two conversations with Elizabeth

On January 1, 1759, the court’s celebrations ended with a very grand fireworks display between the ball and dinner.
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As I was still confined, I did not appear at court. Before the fireworks, Count Peter Shuvalov decided to come to my room to show me the plan for the fireworks display. A short time before they were set off, Madame Vladislavova told him that I was sleeping, but that nevertheless she would go to see. It was not true that I was asleep, only that I was in my bed and had my usual very small circle, which was at the time, as before, Mesdames Naryshkina, Seniavina, Izmailova, and Count Poniatowski. Since his recall he had been claiming to be ill, but was coming to see me, and these women liked me well enough to prefer my company to the balls and parties. Madame Vladislavova did not know exactly who was with me, but she had much too good a nose not to suspect that there was someone. I had told her early in the evening that I was going to bed out of boredom, and thereafter she had come in no more. After the arrival of Count Peter Shuvalov, she came to knock on my door. I drew my curtain on the screen side and told her to come in. She entered and gave me Count Peter Shuvalov’s message. I told her to have him come in. She went to find him, and meanwhile my friends behind the screen nearly died laughing at the utter outrageousness of this scene, where I was going to receive the visit of Count Peter Shuvalov, who would be able to swear that he had found me alone in my bed when there was only a curtain that separated my merry little circle from this personage, so important at the time, the oracle of the court, who possessed the Empress’s trust to an eminent degree. Finally he entered and brought me his plan for the fireworks display; he was at the time the grand master of artillery. I began by making him my excuses for having made him wait, having only, I said, just woken up. I rubbed my eyes a little, saying that I was still quite sleepy. I lied so as not to contradict Madame Vladislavova, after which we had a conversation that was rather long, so much so that he seemed to me eager to leave so as not to make the Empress wait for the beginning of the display. Then I dismissed him and he left, and I again opened my curtain. My company was beginning to get hungry and thirsty from laughing. I said, “Very well, you will have something to drink and eat. It is fair that for your indulgence in keeping me company, you should not die either of hunger or of thirst in my home.” I again closed my curtain and I rang. Madame Vladislavova came, and I told her to bring me supper, that I was dying of hunger and there should be at least six good dishes. When the meal was ready, it was brought. I had everything put next to my bed and told the servants to leave. Then my famished friends behind the curtain came out to eat what they found. The gaiety added to their appetite. I admit that this soiree was one of the maddest and most joyful that I have had in my life. When dinner had been gobbled up, I had the leftovers taken away in the same way the food had been brought. I think my servants were rather amazed at my appetite. Toward the end of the court supper my group withdrew, also very pleased with the soiree. Count Poniatowski always wore a blond wig and a cloak to go out, and when the guards asked him “who goes there,” he said he was a musician of the Grand Duke. On that day this wig made us laugh a great deal. This time, after the six weeks’ confinement, my churching ceremony was held in the Empress’s little chapel, but except for Alexander Shuvalov, no one attended it.

Toward the end of carnival, all the celebrations in town ended and there were three weddings at the court: that of Count Alexander Strogonov with Countess Anna Vorontsova, daughter of the Vice Chancellor, was the first, and two days later that of Lev Naryshkin with Mademoiselle Zakrevskaia, which was on the same day as that of Count Buturlin with Countess Maria Vorontsova.
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These three young ladies were the Empress’s maids of honor. On the occasion of these three weddings a bet was made at the court between the Hetman Count Kirill Razumovsky and the Minister from Denmark, Count d’Osten, about which of the three grooms would be cuckolded first, and it happened that those who had bet it would be Strogonov, whose new wife seemed the ugliest at the time, the most innocent and the most infantile, won the bet.

The day before the weddings of Lev Naryshkin and Count Buturlin was a day of unfortunate events. For a long while already it had been whispered that Grand Chancellor Bestuzhev’s position was shaky, that his enemies were gaining the upper hand. He had lost his friend General Apraksin. Count Razumovsky the elder had long supported him, but since the Shuvalovs’ favor had begun to grow, he hardly got involved in anything anymore except to ask, when the occasion presented itself, for some little favor for his friends or relatives. The Shuvalovs and Mikhail Vorontsov were also spurred on in their hatred for the Grand Chancellor by the ambassadors from Austria, Count Esterhazy; and France, the Marquis de l’Hôpital. The latter believed Count Bestuzhev more favorable toward Russia’s alliance with England than with France. The Austrian ambassador conspired against him because Bestuzhev wanted Russia to respect its treaty of alliance with the Court of Vienna and to give aid to Maria Theresa, but did not want Russia to act as the main warring party against the King of Prussia. Count Bestuzhev thought as a patriot and was not easy to manipulate, whereas Mikhail Vorontsov and Ivan Shuvalov were in the pocket of the two ambassadors to the point that fifteen days before Grand Chancellor Count Bestuzhev was disgraced, the Marquis de L’Hôpital, Ambassador from France, went to the home of Vice Chancellor Vorontsov with a dispatch in hand and said to him, “Monsieur Count, here is a dispatch from my court that I have just received, which says that if in fifteen days’ time the Grand Chancellor has not been replaced by you, I must address myself to him and deal only with him henceforth.” This inflamed the Vice Chancellor, and he went to Ivan Shuvalov’s home, and they made it seem to the Empress that her glory was suffering because of Count Bestuzhev’s great stature in Europe. She ordered that a meeting be held that very evening and that the Grand Chancellor be called to it. He sent word that he was ill. Whereupon, this illness was viewed as disobedience and he was told to come without delay. He came and was arrested in the middle of the meeting, all his functions, titles, and orders were stripped from him without a living soul being able to articulate for what crimes or misdeeds the first personage of the empire was being so despoiled, and he was sent back to his mansion as a prisoner.
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As all this had been prepared in advance, a company of grenadiers from the guard had been ordered to come. While they had been marching along the Moika, where Counts Alexander and Peter Shuvalov had their houses, the soldiers had said, “Thank God we are finally going to arrest those cursed Shuvalovs, who do nothing but increase their monopolies.” But when the soldiers saw that it was about Count Bestuzhev, they showed their displeasure, saying, “It is not he but the others who trample the people.”

Although Count Bestuzhev was arrested in the very palace where we occupied a wing, not very far from our apartments, they were so careful to hide everything that was happening from us that we learned nothing about it that evening. On the following day, Sunday, when I awoke, I received a note from Lev Naryshkin that Count Poniatowski sent me through him, a channel that had already been suspect for quite a while. The note began with these words: “Man is never without resources. I am using this channel to warn you that yesterday evening Count Bestuzhev was arrested and stripped of his functions and titles, and with him your jeweler Bernardi, Elagin, and Adadurov.” I was bowled over by these lines, and after reading them I told myself that I must not delude myself into thinking that this affair did not concern me more directly than it seemed. Now, to understand this a commentary will be necessary. Bernardi was an Italian jewel merchant who did not lack intelligence and whose profession gave him entrée to all the best houses. I think that there was not a single one that did not owe him something and to which he did not render some small service or other. As he came and went everywhere continually, he was also sometimes charged with commissions between houses. A message in a note sent with Bernardi arrived more quickly and more surely than with servants.
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Thus Bernardi’s arrest concerned the whole city because he had commissions from everyone including me. Elagin was the former adjutant of the Grand Master of the Hunt Count Razumovsky who had had the guardianship of Beketov. He had remained devoted to the house of Razumovsky and through them to Count Bestuzhev. He had become the friend of Count Poniatowski. He was a trustworthy man of integrity. When one gained his affection one did not easily lose it. He had always shown devotion to and an obvious liking for me. Adadurov had formerly been my Russian language teacher and had remained very devoted to me. I had recommended him to Count Bestuzhev, who had begun to trust him only two or three years earlier and who in the past had not liked him, because Adadurov had formerly been in the service of the procurator, Prince Nikita Iurevich Trubetskoi, Bestuzhev’s enemy. After reading this note and after the thoughts that I have just described, a flood of ideas, each more unpleasant and sadder than the last, arose in my mind. With a dagger in my heart, so to speak, I got dressed and went to mass, where it seemed to me that most of those whom I saw had faces as long as mine. No one said a word to me that day, and it was as if people were unaware of the event. I did not say a word either. The Grand Duke had never liked Count Bestuzhev. He seemed to me rather joyful that day, but discreetly kept his distance.

That evening we had to go to the wedding. I got dressed again and attended the blessing of the marriages of Count Buturlin and Lev Naryshkin, then went to supper and the ball. During this I went up to the marshal of the wedding, Prince Nikita Trubetskoi, and under the pretext of examining the ribbons on his marshal’s baton, I said to him in a low voice, “What are these fine things? Have you found more crimes than criminals or do you have more criminals than crimes?” At this he said to me, “We have done what we were ordered to do, but as for the crimes, we are still looking for them. So far what we have uncovered does not bode well.” When I finished speaking with him, I went to speak with Marshal Buturlin, who said to me, “Bestuzhev has been arrested, but at present we are looking for the reason why.” Thus spoke the two head commissioners, named with Count Alexander Shuvalov by the Empress to examine the arrested men. At this ball I saw Stambke from a distance and thought he appeared to be suffering and discouraged. The Empress did not appear at either of these two weddings, neither at the church nor at the banquet.

The following day Stambke came to see me and told me that he had just been given a note from Count Bestuzhev, who wrote Stambke to tell me to have no worries about what I knew, that he had had time to throw everything in the fire and that he would inform Stambke about his interrogations by the same channel when he underwent them. I asked Stambke what this channel was. He told me that a hunting-horn player of the Count had given him this note, and that it was agreed that in the future, they would place their communications to each other in a marked spot among some bricks not far from Count Bestuzhev’s house. I told Stambke to be very careful that this sensitive correspondence not be discovered, but though he seemed to me to be in great anguish himself, nevertheless he and Count Poniatowski continued to communicate. As soon as Stambke left, I called Madame Vladislavova and told her to go to the home of her son-in-law Pugovishnikov and give him the note I was writing. In this note there were only these words: “You have nothing to fear, there was time to burn everything.” This calmed him, for it seemed that since the Grand Chancellor’s arrest he had been more dead than alive.

Here is the reason for his fear, and what Count Bestuzhev had had time to burn. The Empress’s sickly state and frequent convulsions could not fail to turn all eyes toward the future. Because of both his position and intelligence, Count Bestuzhev was certainly not among the last to reflect on this situation. He knew of the antipathy against him that had long been cultivated in the Grand Duke. He was very aware of the feeble capacities of this Prince, born the heir to so many crowns. It is natural that this statesman, like any other, felt the desire to maintain his position. It had been several years since he had seen me throw off the bad impressions of him that had been instilled in me. Moreover, since then he had regarded me personally as perhaps the only individual in whom the public could place its hope when the Empress passed away. This and other similar reflections led him to form the plan whereby upon the Empress’s death, the Grand Duke would be declared the rightful Emperor and at the same time, I would be declared as sharing the government with him. All public offices were to be maintained, and Bestuzhev would be appointed lieutenant colonel of the four guard regiments and president of the three Colleges of the Empire, that of Foreign Affairs, the College of War, and the admiralty. His ambitions were therefore excessive. He had sent me the draft of this manifesto written in Pugovishnikov’s hand via Count Poniatowski, with whom I had agreed to reply to Bestuzhev orally that I thanked him for his good intentions toward me, but that I regarded the affair as difficult to execute. He had had his draft written and revised several times, had changed it, expanded it, and shortened it. He appeared very busy with it. To tell the truth, I regarded his plan as rambling nonsense and as bait that the old man threw me to gain more and more of my affection. But I did not take this particular bait, because I saw it as harmful to the empire, which would have been torn apart with each domestic dispute between me and my husband, who did not love me. However, as I did not yet see the need arising, I did not want to contradict an old man who was persistent and uncompromising when he had taken something into his head. And so he had had time to burn his plan and had informed me so as to calm those of us who knew about it.