When they met in the Winter Palace, Potemkin pulled Harris into the Empress’s private apartments as if they were his own and the two chatted there all evening.26 They obviously caroused together. ‘I gave a soupe dansant about three weeks ago to Prince Potemkin and his set,’ Harris told his sister Gertrude in 1780, at which they drank ‘three bottles of the King of Poland’s tokay and a dozen of claret and champagne’. Harris claimed he drank only water.
* * *
—
This Anglo-Russian friendship intensified the diplomatic intrigue in Petersburg as the other diplomats frantically watched, eavesdropped and bribed to discover what they were talking about. The surveillance and espionage was so obvious it must have been comical, and we can almost hear the rustle of curtains and the flicker of eyes at keyholes. The French were most alarmed. Corberon was reduced to spying constantly on Potemkin’s various houses: he noted down that Harris had a tent in his garden ‘seating ten’ that he claimed was a gift from Potemkin. Catherine’s doctor, Rogerson, was definitely ‘Harris’s spy’, Corberon even called on Potemkin to accuse him of enmity towards France. He then ‘took from his pocket a paper from which he read a list of the several times’ Harris had been seen socializing with Potemkin. The Prince abruptly ended this otiose conversation by saying he was busy. Harris probably heard about this encounter from his spy, the Prince’s omnipresent niece–mistress, Alexandra. The Englishman became so close to her that Corberon accused him of courting. The Prussians were also watching. ‘For a month, the table and house of the British Ambassador are filled with the relations and creatures of the favourite,’ Goertz told Frederick on 21 September 1779.27
This elegant skulduggery reached a new low when Harris delivered his second memorandum to Potemkin, who was said to have languidly placed it in his dressing-gown pocket or ‘under his pillow’. Somehow, it was removed and given to the French chargé, Corberon, and thence to Panin. The Chevalier de la Teyssonière, basse-cour hanger-on, played some part, but it was another Frenchwoman, a mistress of the Prince and a governess of his nieces, Mademoiselle Guibald, who actually stole the document. It was later claimed that Panin then added notes contradicting the British arguments and left it on Catherine’s desk so that she would believe the notes were Potemkin’s advice. This is obviously designed to give Potemkin’s house a disorderly air, hence most historians have dismissed it, and Guibald, as legends. Catherine would certainly have known Potemkin’s handwriting and views, making the notes an unlikely detail. But Teyssonière was certainly skulking around Potemkin’s Court and Tatania Engelhardt’s letters to her uncle reveal that Miss Guibald did exist. Besides, virtually every member of Potemkin’s household would have been receiving bribes from somebody, which is probably why Guibald was not dismissed. She remained in Potemkin’s household for years after. The story may have some truth after all.28
* * *
—
Serenissimus did not spend all his time with Harris. In the midst of this intrigue, a European phenomenon arrived in Petersburg. The soi-disant Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, accompanied by a pretty wife and posing as a Spanish colonel, set up shop as a healer, purveyor of the Egyptian Masonic rite, alchemist, magus and necromancer. The famous charlatan’s real name was probably Giuseppe Balsamo of Sicily, but this squat, swarthy and balding Sicilian with black eyes and a throbbing forehead clearly possessed plenty of chutzpah and charisma.
The Age of Reason had undermined Religion, but there was a natural yearning for spirituality to fill the void. This was one reason for the fashion for Freemasonry, manifested in both rationalist and occult varieties. The latter spread rapidly in all its esoteric diversity – hypnotism, necromancy, alchemy, Kabbalism, preached in cults such as Martinism, Illuminism, Rosicrucianism and Swedenborgism. These ideas were propagated through Masonic lodges and by a remarkable series of healers and charlatans. Some like Swedenborg, Mesmer and Lavater were magi whose knowledge of human nature, if not healing powers, helped people in an era when doctors and scientists could explain little.29 Many were just charlatans like the lover Casanova and the notorious George Psalmanazar, travelling Europe deceiving innocent noblemen with their tales of the Philosopher’s Stone and the Fountain of Youth. They always presented themselves as exotically titled men of wealth, taste and mystery. Each offered an enticing mixture of common sense, practical medical advice, promises of eternal youth, guides to the after-life – and the ability to convert base metals, and even urine, into gold.
Their doyen, the so-called Comte de Saint-Germain, who claimed to be almost two thousand years old and to have witnessed the Crucifixion in his youth (his valet remembered it too), impressed Louis XV by creating, out of ether, a diamond worth 10,000 livres. A substantial chunk of Europe’s aristocracy at this time was somehow involved in these cults of Freemasonry.
Cagliostro had dazzled Mittau, capital of Courland, but he then had to leave swiftly. Now he hoped to reproduce his success in Petersburg. As Catherine told Grimm, the hierophant ‘came at a good moment for him when several Masonic lodges wanted to see spirits…’. The ‘master sorcerer’ duly provided as many as required, along with all sorts of tricks involving disappearing money, sales of mysterious potions and ‘chemical operations that don’t work’. She especially laughed at his claim to be able to create gold out of urine and offer eternal life.
Nonetheless Cagliostro conducted healings and won a distinguished following for his Egyptian Masonic rite. Corberon and courtiers like Ivan Yelagin and Count Alexander Stroganov ardently subscribed to the necromancer’s powers. Many Russian nobles joined Masonic lodges. Some gradually evolved into something like an anti-Catherinian opposition, which explained her deep suspicion of Freemasonry.
Potemkin attended some of Cagliostro’s seances but never believed in them, remaining one of the few senior courtiers who did not become a Mason. He and Catherine thoroughly enjoyed joking about Cagliostro’s tricks.30 Potemkin’s real interest was in Countess Cagliostro. Serenissimus is said to have enjoyed an affair with the hierophant’s wife, born Lorenza, renamed Serafina and sometimes calling herself Princess di Santa Croce. This may have damaged Cagliostro more than he realized. Catherine teased Potemkin about the time he spent at their house: perhaps he should learn to keep Cagliostro’s spirits in check…Did she mean the ersatz Princess–Countess?31
So often did he call on Cagliostro’s luxurious, indebted establishment that, according to legend, one of Potemkin’s highborn Russian mistresses decided to bribe the adventuress to give him up. In one of those poignant, almost respectful meetings between noblewoman and courtesan, the former paid Serafina 30,000 roubles, quite a sum, to leave. Potemkin was flattered. He told Cagliostro’s girl that she could stay, let her keep the money – and paid back the full amount to the noblewoman. Some silly legends32 claim that the ‘noblewoman’ was the Empress herself.
Debts and truth had a way of catching up with such characters, even in that louche century. Soon afterwards, the Spanish Ambassador complained that Cagliostro was neither grandee of Spain nor colonel. Catherine cheerfully told Grimm that the sorcerer and his ‘Countess’ had been thrown out of Russia.*8
* * *
—
When Panin summoned Harris in early February 1780 to read him a rejection of the British proposals for an alliance, Sir James rushed over to Potemkin to learn the reasons. Potemkin clearly (for once) stated that Catherine’s fear of ‘embarking on a fresh war was stronger even than her thirst for glory’. Harris did not seem to hear. Potemkin explained that the new favourite, Lanskoy, was desperately ill, which had ‘unhinged’ the Empress. Sir James believed him when he claimed: ‘My influence is temporarily suspended.’ Harris criticized these ‘timid resolutions’, at which ‘The Prince caught fire’ and boasted that before he slept he ‘would have a trial of skill whether there was in the empire any influence more powerful than his’. Harris was most encouraged, but typically Potemkin became ill and did not
receive him again for weeks.
Serenissimus then confided in the credulous Englishman that the Empress was an over-cautious woman capable of feminine hysteria about her mignons. Potemkin himself alternated between expressions of political impotence and explosions of bombast. He attacked Panin, that ‘indolent and torpid minister’ – while himself lying in bed in the middle of the day. Harris was almost bewitched by Potemkin’s friendship, flamboyance and apparent honesty.33
In February 1780, Serenissimus summoned Harris to announce, ‘with an impetuous joy analogous to his character’, the despatch of an armament of fifteen ships-of-the-line and five frigates ‘to protect Russian trade’. But Potemkin must have known that this was a fatal blow to Harris’s entire mission.34 It was the sequel to Catherine’s successful mediation in the War of the Bavarian Succession. Britain claimed the right to detain neutral ships and condemn their cargo, but had made the mistake of detaining Russian ships. This maritime highhandedness angered neutrals, including Russia. In March 1780, Catherine therefore declared the principles of neutral rights at sea in her so-called ‘Armed Neutrality’, designed to puncture British arrogance, increase the Russian merchant navy and raise her prestige. Harris would have to offer more to get Russian attention.
* * *
—
Sir James wondered if Potemkin had been bribed by France or Prussia. At the same time, the French and Prussians suddenly thought Potemkin had been bribed by the English. This venal paranoia unleashed an orgy of bribery which must have seemed like manna from heaven to the greedy servants of Petersburg who were its main beneficiaries.
Harris was sure Corberon had bribed all the ‘valets de chambre and inferior agents in the Russian houses…being chiefly French’. Versailles was indeed determined to keep Russia out of the war and it was willing to throw money around St Petersburg to fix it – the French even boasted they had enough to buy Potemkin.35 ‘I almost suspect my friend’s fidelity has been shaken,’ Harris confided to Viscount Stormont, Secretary of State for the North. Corberon was already telling Versailles that Harris disposed of a credit of £36,000 and had paid 100,000 roubles to Potemkin. Orlov-Chesmensky accused the Prince of receiving 150,000 British guineas. Harris thought France was paying £4,000/5,000 to Panin’s family.
At the end of March 1780, Harris could contain himself no longer. If the French were bribing ‘my friend’, then Britain should outbid them with a ‘similar bait’. The bribe market in St Petersburg now boomed like a bourse. Reminding Stormont that he was dealing with a ‘person immensely wealthy’, Harris suggested ‘as much as Torcy proposed, but without success, to Marlborough’.36 Even the paymaster of Europe must have gulped.*9 The Prussians and Austrians were also paying court to Potemkin. Harris observed the Prussian envoy in daily conferences with Potemkin and heard he was again offering Courland or ‘to insure him in the case of the Empress’s demise for his person, honours and property’ – that is, in the event of Paul’s succession. The Austrians on the other hand were rumoured to be offering him another principality.37
Was Potemkin being bribed or not? The elephantine sums of 100,000 roubles or 150,000 guineas were mentioned in late 1779, but research into ‘the Secret Service Funds’ shows that, by November, Harris had drawn only £1,450 and was later told off for spending £3,000. Even put together, this might have pleased Sashenka Engelhardt, but was not even table money for the Prince himself. Harris’s doubts ‘disappeared’ – he realized that Potemkin’s ‘immense fortune places him above the reach of corruption’. Rich men can often be bribed with a little bit more, but Harris was probably right when he said that Potemkin could ‘only be attained by strict attention to his humour and character’. This was emphasized when Catherine gave her friend £40,000 sterling, according to Harris, to thank him for his help on the Armed Neutrality. It was a huge sum, but ‘so spoilt is this singular man that he scarcely considers it worth thanks’. The Prussian Goertz agreed that Potemkin was unbribable: ‘riches can do nothing – his are immense’.
Panin put all these figures into context when he disdainfully asked, ‘Do you really believe that £50,000 sterling is enough to buy Prince Potemkin?’ When Potemkin heard the rumour that Harris had given him two million roubles, he despised the very idea. The Englishman was convinced of Potemkin’s nobility. Serenissimus was too proud and too rich to be bribed.38
Potemkin’s tactics were telling on Panin. Both believed the other was receiving bribes. This led to a tumultuous confrontation at the Council when Potemkin accused Panin of accepting French money or, as he put it, ‘the portraits of Louis XVI’ are excellent to ‘bet at whist’. Panin exploded that if he needed them, guineas were easier to get. Presumably Panin believed Potemkin was getting more than that laughable £50,000. The Empress was called to restore the peace.39
Harris decided to find out if Serenissimus really supported an English alliance, so he bribed ‘the favourite secretary of Prince Potemkin…also the secretary to the Empress’. This was probably Alexander Bezborodko, who was becoming Catherine’s leading factotum in foreign affairs as Panin dwindled. Stormont agreed on the offer of £500, though he added that it was rather a lot. When it came to it, Harris was fleeced of nearer £3,000, though he did get closer to the reality of Potemkin’s policy. Bezborodko revealed that the monarchs of Europe, from Frederick to Joseph, were bombarding Potemkin with offers of thrones and money. No offer swayed him. He was not really zealous in the English cause, except when roused by rivalry with Panin. The ‘spy’ added that Potemkin lived by the ‘impulse of the moment’ and was quite capable of ‘adopting the political principles of every country’ but was keenest at that moment on Austria. There, at last, was the truth.40
The diplomats had already heard Potemkin talking about real plans in the south. Even when discussing English fleets, Harris observed that Potemkin’s ‘mind is continually occupied with the idea of raising an Empire in the East’ and it was he ‘alone who heated and animated the Empress for this project’.41 Catherine was indeed infected with Potemkin’s exciting visions. When she talked to Harris, she ‘discoursed a long while…on the ancient Greeks, of their alacrity and superiority…and the same character being extant in the modern ones’.42 Corberon, who had heard it too, did not exaggerate when he wrote that ‘romantic ideas here are adopted with a fury’.43 But the diplomats did not understand the significance of Potemkin’s ‘romantic ideas’ – his ‘Greek Project’ – that so excited Catherine. Serenissimus’ mind was not on London, Paris, Berlin or Philadelphia. It was on Tsargrad, the city of emperors – Constantinople. The dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire was to be the dominating theme of the rest of his life and the foundation of his greatness.
Skip Notes
*1 Potemkin showed off many of Kingston’s treasures at his ball in 1791, described in Chapter 32. The Hermitage today, which holds much of the contents of Potemkin’s collections, is spotted with the former belongings of the Duchess of Kingston. Garnovsky was to be cursed for his avarice, for the Emperor Paul threw him into a debtor’s prison and he died poor in 1810.
*2 The Peacock Clock is one of the centrepieces of today’s Hermitage Museum. It still performs every hour on the hour.
*3 This now stands in the Menshikov Palace, part of the Hermitage, and is played at midday on Sundays. In its music, we can hear the sounds of Potemkin’s salon two centuries ago.
*4 There was a special Scottish relationship with Russia. The Scots often became Russianized. Empress Elisabeth’s Chancellor Bestuzhev was descended from a Scotsman named Best; Count Yakov Bruce was descended from Scots soldiers of fortune; Lermontov, the nineteenth-century poet, from a Learmond named ‘Thomas the Rhymer’.
*5 One Browne cousin was a field-marshal in the Austrian army, while George Browne joined Russian service, was captured by the Turks, sold thrice in Istanbul and then became governor of Livonia for most of Catherine the Great’s reign, dying in his nine
ties. Field-Marshal Count Lacey became Joseph II’s most trusted military adviser and correspondent, while another, Count Francis Antony Lacey, was Spanish Ambassador to Petersburg and Captain-General of all Catalonia.
*6 The British Cabinet Noir was much feared because it was based in George III’s Electorate of Hanover, a crossroads allowing it to intercept mail from all over Europe.
*7 Indeed, ‘travailler pour le roi de Prusse’ was a popular euphemism for ‘working without salary’.
*8 After Petersburg, Cagliostro toured Europe, causing a sensation everywhere, more like a pop star than a magus, but in Paris he became involved, through his patron the Cardinal de Rohan, in the Diamond Necklace Affair, the sting which so damaged Marie-Antoinette. Napoleon named it as one of the causes of the French Revolution. Cagliostro was actually found innocent in the trial that Marie-Antoinette so foolishly demanded and Louis XVI so rashly allowed, but he was ruined. He died a prisoner in 1795 in the Italian Papal fortress of San Leone.
Catherine the Great & Potemkin Page 33