Catherine the Great

by Robert K. Massie

  She began by seeking support and goodwill. Even before she learned of Peter’s death at Ropsha, she showered those who had put her on the throne with promotions, decorations, money, and property. Gregory Orlov was given fifty thousand rubles; Alexis Orlov was given twenty-four thousand rubles; each of the other three Orlov brothers received half that much. Catherine Dashkova was awarded a pension of twelve thousand rubles a year plus a gift of twenty-four thousand rubles to pay her husband’s debts. Nikita Panin and Kyril Razumovsky each received life pensions of five thousand rubles a year. Catherine’s faithful valet, Vasily Shkurin, who had burned down his house to distract Peter during the birth of Catherine’s child Alexis Bobrinsky and then had taken the infant into his family to care for him, was raised to the nobility. The young officer of the Horse Guards, Gregory Potemkin, who had ridden out of the ranks to give his sword knot to Catherine before she led the march to Peterhof, was promoted. All the soldiers of the Petersburg garrison were given half a year’s pay, a sum adding up to 226,000 rubles.

  Nor did Catherine forget those earlier friends and allies whom Elizabeth in her final years had removed from power and exiled, partly because she thought them too close to Catherine. On the day after her accession, the new empress sent a messenger to Alexis Bestuzhev, the former chancellor who had been the first to imagine her on the throne and who, during interrogation and four years of banishment, had remained silent for her sake. He was summoned back to St. Petersburg, met by Gregory Orlov twenty miles outside the capital, and rode in an imperial coach to the Summer Palace, where Catherine embraced him and announced the restoration of all his titles. She gave him a suite of rooms in the Summer Palace, with all meals furnished from her own kitchens, and, later, an ornate carriage and a large house with a magnificent wine cellar. On August 1, she issued a special manifesto proclaiming his innocence of all the charges levied against him in 1758 and named him the first member of the new imperial council she intended to form. His annual pension was to be twenty thousand rubles.

  She was magnanimous to former opponents, never retaliating against supporters of her former husband or other adversaries, personal or official. Elizabeth Vorontsova, Peter III’s mistress, who had urged that Catherine be sent to a convent so that she, Vorontsova, might become Peter’s wife and future empress, was quietly sent to Moscow, where the empress bought her a house. When Elizabeth married a Muscovite nobleman and quickly produced a child, Catherine became the godmother. Peter’s Holstein relatives, including Catherine’s uncle and former suitor, Prince George of Holstein, were quickly repatriated to Germany. Peter’s Holstein soldiers followed.

  Knowing that she needed the assistance of every available person of administrative ability and experience, she drew around her a number of men who had sided with her husband. Many of Peter’s high-ranking officials had already come over to her during the climax of the coup. Michael Vorontsov was retained in his position as chancellor; Prince Alexander Golitsyn remained vice-chancellor, and Prince Nikita Trubetskoy kept his post as president of the College of War. To eighty-year-old Field Marshal Münnich, who, as the coup was unfolding, had urged Peter III to put himself at the head of his troops and march on Petersburg to seize Catherine and retake his throne, the new empress remarked, “You only did your duty.”

  As Catherine was winning allegiance and service from former opponents, she was having difficulty pleasing some of her friends. Her triumph was scarcely achieved when jealousies sprang up among those claiming credit. Each believed that the recognition and reward he or she received was insufficient compared to what others had been given. The most dissatisfied was Princess Catherine Dashkova, who had assumed that she was about to become the new empress’s principal adviser, riding in the imperial coach, enjoying a permanent seat at the imperial table. Her complaints were ill-placed; Catherine had treated Dashkova with unusual generosity. Upon her accession, the empress had given Dashkova thousands of rubles and, in addition, a large annual pension. She immediately promoted Dashkova’s husband to colonel and gave him command of the Horse Guards, the army’s elite cavalry regiment. The young couple moved into an apartment in the Winter Palace and dined almost every day with the empress. However, these imperial favors were not enough for a young woman who regarded herself as the pivotal figure in this chapter of Russian history.

  Catherine attempted to make Dashkova understand that their relationship had changed; that there must now be a limit to the claims of friendship. The nineteen-year-old princess continued to make demands and put herself forward. In drawing rooms she spoke loudly of the new policies and reforms she had in mind. To foreign ambassadors, she boasted of her influence over the empress and Count Panin, claiming that she was their closest friend, their confidante, their inspiration.

  Catherine Dashkova’s ambition extended beyond possible realization; her rudeness beyond deference, courtesy, and common sense. When the empress presented her with the Order of St. Catherine, Dashkova, instead of receiving the honor on her knees, handed the ribbon back, saying loftily, “I implore Your Majesty not to give me this decoration. It is an ornament I do not prize and, as a reward, [it] has no value for me. My services, however they may appear in the eyes of some individuals, never have and never can be bought.” Catherine listened to this impertinence; then, forbearing, she embraced Dashkova and placed the order around her shoulders. “At least let friendship have some rights,” she said, “and may I not have the pleasure of giving a dear young friend a memento of my gratitude.” Dashkova fell to her knees.

  Before long, the friendship became a burden. The Dashkova legend was carried to Paris by Ivan Shuvalov, who praised the princess in a letter to Voltaire. Writing to Poniatowski, Catherine begged him to correct the error and inform Voltaire that “the Princess Dashkova played only a minor part in events. She was not trusted because of her family, and she was neither liked nor trusted by the leaders of the coup who told her as little as they could. Admittedly, she has brains, but her character is spoiled by her willfulness and conceit.” A few months later, in another letter to Poniatowski, she said she could not understand why Ivan Shuvalov had told Voltaire “that a girl of nineteen had changed the government of Russia.” The Orlovs, she said, “had something else to do than put themselves at the command of a little scatterbrain. On the contrary, to the last moment she was kept from knowing the most essential part of this affair.”

  Catherine had an easier task dealing with another supporter eager to be given exaggerated credit. Count Betskoy, an elderly chamberlain and friend of Catherine’s mother, whose role in the coup had been limited to distributing money to some of the Guards already won over by the Orlovs, was to be presented with three thousand rubles and the Order of St. Andrew. At the ceremony, he dropped to his knees and asked the empress to declare before witnesses to whom she owed her crown.

  Surprised, Catherine replied, “I owe my accession to God and to the will of my people.”

  “Then I have no right to wear this mark of distinction,” said Betskoy, and he started to remove the Order of St. Alexander that she had draped on his shoulder.

  Catherine asked why he was doing this.

  “I am the unhappiest of men,” he explained. “I am unworthy to wear this order because Your Majesty does not acknowledge me as the sole author of her success. Did I not raise the guards and throw money to them?”

  Catherine thought he was joking. Seeing that he was serious, she brought her sense of humor to bear. “I admit that I owe my crown to you, Betskoy,” she said, and smiled soothingly. “And that is why I wish to receive it from your hands alone. It is to you whom I confide the task of making it as beautiful as possible. Now I instruct you to see that a crown is made for me. I put at your disposal all the jewelers in the country.” Conquered and beaming, Betskoy stood, bowed, and went to work.

  During this first summer of her reign, the subject looming largest in Catherine’s mind was her coronation. Among the many blunders of Peter’s brief reign, none had been more foolishly
shortsighted than his refusal to have himself crowned in the Moscow Kremlin, or even to set a date for the ceremony. Catherine did not make this mistake. She understood the religious and political importance of this solemn act of consecration in Moscow, the repository of Russia’s national heritage, the holy city where every tsar and empress had been crowned. Moscow was the city most Russians still regarded as their capital; nothing so meaningful could be left to the artificial, Westernized capital forcibly built by Peter the Great. She understood that she would never feel secure on the throne until the crown had been placed on her head in the Kremlin and the people of Moscow had accepted her as empress. In addition, the ceremony would enable her to distribute more titles, decorations, and gifts, thereby purchasing additional favor from her new subjects.

  On July 7, the same day that Peter III’s death was announced, Catherine proclaimed that she would be crowned in Moscow in September. Prince Nikita Trubetskoy was placed in charge of preparations and sent ahead with fifty thousand rubles for preliminary expenses. As the time came closer, six hundred thousand rubles’ worth of silver coins were charged to the empress’s privy purse, packed into 120 oaken barrels, and sent to Moscow, where they would be used as largesse and thrown to the crowds.

  On August 27, Catherine put seven-year-old Paul on the road to Moscow in the care of his tutor, Nikita Panin. Five days later, she followed. At a relay post halfway to Moscow, the empress caught up with her son, whom she found in bed, shaking with fever. The following day, the fever dropped, but Panin urged the empress to delay her travel until the boy was fully recovered. Catherine was torn; she wanted to stay with Paul, but she hesitated to disrupt the timing of the elaborate coronation program in Moscow. Ultimately, feeling the importance of the ceremony as confirmation of her accession, she decided to go ahead and enter Moscow by herself, if necessary, on the appointed day. Panin was told to follow as soon as the boy’s health permitted. As soon as Catherine announced this decision, Panin declared that the boy was better and well enough to travel.

  Muscovites lined their streets with green fir branches, hung strings of evergreens across their doorways, and draped silken sheets and Persian carpets from balconies and windows. Along the four-mile passage from the city gate to the Kremlin, four triumphal arches were erected. Viewing stands were built at intersections and in the principal squares to permit Muscovites and the thousands of people from the countryside crowding into the city to see the empress as she passed by. The mood of the city was buoyant; besides pageantry and feasting, the coronation meant a three-day holiday, the distribution of largesse, the lifting of fines and taxes, and pardons for lesser offenses.

  On September 13, the day Catherine made her ceremonial entrance into the city, bright sunlight sparkled on the city’s gilded onion domes. At the head of the procession rode squadrons of the Horse Guards, the sun flashing off their helmets; next came a cavalcade of the high nobility wearing gold braid and crimson sashes. Catherine’s gilded carriage, drawn by eight white horses, followed. The uncrowned empress, smiling and bowing, acknowledged the cheering crowds; when Paul was seen sitting beside her, the cheers were even louder.

  On September 22, the day of the coronation, saluting cannon began to thunder at five in the morning when a crimson carpet was laid down the steps of the Kremlin’s historic ceremonial outdoor Red Staircase. At nine, Catherine, wearing a dress of silver brocade, trimmed with ermine, appeared at the top of the staircase and slowly descended the steps. At the bottom, she bowed to the crowd in the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square and a priest touched her forehead with holy water. She said a prayer, rows of priests kissed her hands, and, walking between lines of soldiers of the Imperial Guard, she came to the door of the Assumption Cathedral.

  Beneath the domes of its five golden cupolas, the interior of the fifteenth-century cathedral glowed with light. Its four massive internal columns, its walls and its ceiling were covered with luminous frescoes; before the altar stood the great iconostasis, a golden screen of painted icons studded with jewels. From the central dome hung a gigantic chandelier weighing more than a ton. Before Catherine, in front of the iconostasis, stood ranks of the high clergy: the Metropolitan Timofey, archbishops, bishops, archimandrites, and other priests. From their miters glittered more diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls. Light, filtering down from the cupolas and flickering from thousands of candles, reflected off the surfaces of the jewels and the golden icons.

  Catherine walked to the dais draped in red velvet at the center of the cathedral, mounted its six steps, and seated herself on the Diamond Throne of Tsar Alexis. Observing Catherine at that moment, the new English ambassador, the Earl of Buckinghamshire, saw “a woman of middle height, her glossy, chestnut-colored hair massed under the jeweled crown.… She was beautiful, and the blue eyes beneath were remarkable for their brightness. The head was poised on a long neck, giving an impression of pride, and power, and will.”

  The ceremony lasted four hours. Catherine listened as the archbishop of Novgorod described the revolution of June 28 as the work of God and said to her that “the Lord has placed the crown on your head.” Next, Catherine personally arrayed herself with the symbols of imperial power. She removed her ermine cloak and draped another cloak of imperial purple over her shoulders. Traditionally, a Russian sovereign crowned himself or herself. Catherine lifted the huge nine-pound imperial crown produced for her under the supervision of Ivan Betskoy and settled this ultimate symbol of sovereignty on her brow. Shaped like a bishop’s miter, it was crusted with a cross of diamonds surmounting an enormous 389-carat ruby. Below, set in an arch supporting the cross and in the band surrounding the wearer’s head, were forty-four diamonds, each an inch across, surrounded by a solid mass of smaller diamonds. Thirty-eight rose pearls circled over the crown on either side of the central arch. When this glittering masterpiece was in place, she picked up the orb with her left hand, the scepter with her right, and calmly looked out at the cathedral audience.

  The final sequence in the ceremony was the acknowledgment that the coronation represented a pact between God and herself. He was the master; she was the servant, now solely responsible for Russia and its people. She was anointed with holy oil on the forehead, the breast, and the hand, and then passed through the doors of the iconostasis into the inner sanctum. She kneeled and, with her own hand, took the communion bread from the plate and administered the sacrament to herself.

  The ceremony concluded, the newly crowned and consecrated empress walked from the Assumption Cathedral across the Kremlin square to two ancient, smaller cathedrals, the Archangel Michael and the Annunciation, to kneel before the tombs of previous tsars and a collection of holy relics. She mounted the Red Staircase and turned and bowed three times to the crowd while, from the cannon, more thunder rolled across the city. This sound, amplified by the ringing of thousands of bells in the towers and churches of Moscow, made it impossible for a man to speak to his neighbor.

  In the Palace of Facets, Catherine accepted the congratulations of the nobility and the foreign ambassadors. She distributed gifts and honors; Gregory Orlov and his four brothers were created counts; Dashkova became a lady-in-waiting. That night, Moscow glowed with fireworks and special illuminations. At midnight, Catherine—thinking no one would see her—walked alone to the head of the Red Staircase to gaze out over the Kremlin and the city. The crowd, still standing below in Cathedral Square, recognized her and began to cheer. This reaction continued. Three days later, she wrote to the Russian ambassador in Warsaw, “I cannot go out, nor even put my face to the window, without the acclamations beginning all over again.”

  The eight and a half months Catherine spent in Moscow after her coronation appeared on the surface to be a prolonged carnival, with the court and the nobility competing in the splendor of their balls and masquerades. It was not an easy time for Catherine, however. Some of her problems were familiar: Princess Dashkova complained that Gregory Orlov, who had been placed in charge of banquet arrangements, had decreed that
precedence in all ceremonies be based on military rank. As the wife of a mere colonel, Dashkova was relegated to a subordinate seat among people she considered inferiors. Catherine attempted to remedy this situation by promoting Prince Dashkov to the rank of general, but Dashkova continued to grumble.

  Paul was stricken again by fever. It was his third serious illness of the year, and the doctors knew neither the cause nor how to treat it. In early October, her son’s illness became acute, and, as the news spread, Catherine remained beside his bed. She was concerned not only for Paul but for the effect his illness might have on her own future. She never forgot his superior right to the throne; she knew that Panin and others had preferred that she become regent rather than empress; she had seen the warm reception Paul had received from the Moscow crowds as he rode through the streets at her side. If now, only three months after the sudden death of her husband, her son were also to die, she knew that she would be blamed. Her fears were relieved on October 13, when Paul rose from his bed, and she was able to leave Moscow to make the pilgrimage to the Troitsa (Troitskaya-Sergeeva) Monastery expected of every newly crowned Russian sovereign. In the great white-walled fortress, famous throughout Russia as a place of unique holiness, she received a monarch’s blessing.