Catherine the Great
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42. THE BRIEF REIGN OF PETER 111
1 “I did not think”: Bain, Peter III, 40
2 “If, my little friend, you will take my advice”: Dashkova, 1:38
3 “The moderation and clemency”; Bain, Peter III, 49
4 “I can find nobody here”: Ibid.
5 “the chief instrument of the Prussian party”: Ibid., 56
6 “at a dinner”: Ibid.
7 “resolved to get free”: Ibid., 57
8 “We must make peace”: Ibid., 63
9 “honor of all the valiant officers”: Ibid., 74
10 “nothing was omitted”: Ibid.
11 “out of compassion”: Ibid., 77
12 “the maintenance of solemn engagements”: Ibid., 79
13 “Frankly, I distrust these Russians”: Ibid., 116
14 “If the Russians had wanted”: Ibid., 117
43. “DURA!”
1 “It does not appear”: Bain, Peter III, 123
2 “The empress is abandoned”: Ibid., 130
3 “pot-house wench”: Ibid., 126
4 “broad, puffy, pock-marked face”: Ibid.
5 “Dura!”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 27
6 “It was then that I began to listen”: Bain, Peter III, 192
7 “Your Majesty can have your revenge”: Ibid., 134
8 “You already know too much”: Kaus, 214
9 “Matushka, Little Mother, wake up!”: Anthony, 165
10 “Matushka, forgive us”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 29
11 “Heaven be praised!”: Dashkova, 1:81
12 “like a fifteen-year-old boy”: Ibid., 1:98
13 “I go now with the army”: Alexander, 9
14 “Didn’t I always tell you”: Bain, Peter III, 154
15 “We no longer have an emperor!”: Ibid., 160
16 “I accept the offer”: Ibid., 161
17 “I, Peter, of my own free will”: Kaus, 233
18 “like a child being sent to bed”: Ibid.
44. “WE OURSELVES KNOW NOT WHAT WE DID”
1 “the greatest misfortune of my life”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 31
2 “By what right”: Dashkova, 1:89
3 “I realized with unspeakable pain”: Ibid., 1:90
4 “I beg Your Majesty”: Peter’s letters from Ropsha to Catherine, Anthony, 176–77
5 “Matushka, Little Mother”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 32,
6 “His face wore an expression”: Oldenbourg, 252
7 “We ourselves know not what we did”: Kaus, 244
8 “My horror at this death”: Dashkova, 1:107
9 “On the seventh day of our reign”: Kaus, 246
10 “might spare her health”: Troyat, 139
11 “Peter III had lost the few wits”: Bain, Peter III, 191
12 “it teaches us to be sober”: Cronin, 156
13 “The empress was quite ignorant of this crime”: Haslip, 133
14 “What do they say in Paris”: Anthony, 180
45. CORONATION
1 “The least soldier of the guards”: Alexander, 67
2 “You only did your duty”: Cronin, 172
3 “I implore Your Majesty”: Dashkova, 1:97
4 “the Princess Dashkova played only a minor part”: Haslip, 144,
5 The exchange between Catherine and Betskoy is from Dashkova, 1:101–2, and Kaus, 240
6 “a woman of middle height”: Scott Thomson, 85–86
7 “the Lord has placed the crown”: Grey, 119
8 “I cannot go out”: Ibid.
46. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE CHURCH
1 “In the Treasury”: Waliszewski, 313
2 “an ignominious peace”: Kaus, 239
3 “no suitable costume”: Ibid.
4 “Concerning the peace”: Ibid.
5 “such a vast and limitless empire”: Haslip, 137
6 “Full reports will be brought to me”: Ibid.,
7 “Belonging herself to the nation”: Ibid.
8 “I cannot say that you are lacking”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 44
9 “the eye of the sovereign”: Ibid., 40
10 “In the Senate”: Ibid., 44–45
11 “You must know”: Ibid., 58
12 “sat like dumb dogs without barking”: Ibid., 116
13 “stretch out their hands”: Kaus, 254
14 “Our present sovereign”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 116
15 “Stop his mouth!”: Ibid. 301 Andrew the Liar: Ibid., 117
16 “You are the successors”: Kaus, 255
47. SERFDOM
1 “For sale, a barber”: Oldenbourg, 285
2 “Anyone wishing to buy”: Waliszewski, 304
3 “For sale: domestics and skilled craftsmen”: Grey, 122
4 “If we do not agree”: Ibid., 164
5 “There! You have the people free!”: Cronin, 262
6 “What has disgusted me”: Grey, 122
7 “I punished him”: Smith, Pearl, 105
8 “This is one of my fiddlers”: Ibid. 312 “a miracle of color”: Ibid., 70
9 “I had the most tender”: Ibid., 71
48. “MADAME ORLOV COULD NEVER BE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA”
1 “The men who surround me”: Haslip, 143
2 “Perhaps you are right”: Alexander, 74
3 “Tell Her Imperial Majesty”: Kaus, 271
4 “everyone should go about his own business”: Ibid., 273
5 “If the empress wants me to lay my head”: Haslip, 149
6 “It is my earnest desire”: Dashkova, 1:128
7 “There would never”: Smith, Love and Conquest, 9
8 “You will not be surprised”: Haslip, 178
49. THE DEATH OF IVAN VI
1 “Take care!”: Kaus, 277
2 “If the prisoner is insubordinate”: Ibid.
3 “The prisoner is somewhat quieter”: Ibid.
4 “painful and almost unintelligible stammering”: Ibid., 278
5 “The prisoner shall not be allowed”: Ibid., 280
6 “Release us”: Ibid.
7 “Compliance with your request”: Ibid.
8 “Make your own career, young man”: Ibid., 282
9 “Not long had Peter III possessed”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 35
10 “If the others agree”: Kaus, 285
11 “Where is the emperor?”: Alexander, 91
12 “See, my brothers”: Kaus, 285
13 “The ways of God are wonderful”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 36
14 “she left here with an air”: Waliszewski, 264
15 “As regards the insult”: Kaus, 287
16 “loyally performing their duty”: Ibid., 288
17 “The manifesto she has issued”: Troyat, 167
18 “It seems to me that if I were on the throne”: Ibid.
19 “I am tempted to say to you”: Ibid.
50. CATHERINE AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT
1 “Whatever style I possess”: Haslip, 157
2 “The victorious nation never profits”: Durant, 10:151
3 “Oh, mighty God, I believe”: Ibid., 9:750
4 “Tell them I am very sick”: Ibid., 10:133
5 “the highest and coldest garret”: Ibid.
6 “hanged, drowned, broken on the wheel”: Ibid., 9:731
7 “It took two hours”: Ibid., 9:733
8 “I shall be coming to Paris”: Ibid., 10:392
9 “For my part, I am consoled”: Ibid., 10:139
10 “He governed the whole civilized world”: Ibid., 9:784
11 “Since Voltaire died”: Anthony, 229
12 “these are family matters”: Gorbatov, 70
13 “I believe we must moderate”: Ibid.
14 “Semiramis of the North”: Durant, 9:448
15 “try to persuade the octogenarian”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 336
16 “in certain ways … a hundred”: Gorbatov, 177
17 “You and M. Diderot�
�: Durant, 9:719
18 “Go on, brave Diderot”: Ibid.
19 “It would be cruel”: Gooch, 60
20 “I prostrate myself”: Troyat, 177
21 “we are three who would build you altars”: Ibid., 178
22 “Thirty years of labor”: Ibid.
23 “I never thought”: Gorbatov, 156
24 “That door will be opened to you”: Oliva, 119
25 “my good lady”: Troyat, 207
26 “an extraordinary man”: Durant, 9:448
27 “I have listened”: Troyat, 207
28 “Now you sit beside Caesar”: Ibid., 209
29 “Madame, I am positively in disgrace”: Reddaway, 198
30 “Live, Monsieur”: Ibid., 199
31 “returned to her in chains”: Ibid., 200
51. THE NAKAZ
1 “one of the most remarkable political treatises”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 151
2 “Russia is a European state”: Ibid., 153
3 “it is much better to prevent than to punish crimes”: Reddaway, 225
4 “productive of nothing”: Ibid., 288
5 “The use of torture is contrary”: Ibid., 231
6 “without any sensible inconveniences”: Ibid., 232
7 “What right can give anyone authority”: Ibid., 244
8 “All punishments by which the human body”: Ibid., 227
9 “Some judges should be of the same rank”: Ibid., 232
10 “a civil society requires a certain established order”: Ibid., 256
11 “Why should they bother to be clean”: Haslip, 162
12 “These are axioms which will bring down walls”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 158
13 “I let them erase what they pleased”: Ibid.
14 “Since the Law of Nature”: Reddaway, 256
15 “I have decked myself out in peacock’s feathers”: Grey, 147
16 “I have robbed Montesquieu”: Troyat, 179
17 “would have been capable”: Troyat, 182
18 “the finest monument of the age”: Gooch, 67
19 “A masculine, nervous performance”: Troyat, 182
20 “I must warn Your Majesty”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 151
52. “ALL FREE ESTATES OF THE REALM”
1 “By this institution, we give to our people”: Alexander, 102
2 “you will receive a letter”: Ibid., 103
3 “There can be nothing more pleasant”: Ibid., 108
4 “These laws, about which so much has been said”: Ibid., 109
5 “There are so many objects”: Ibid.
6 “Here, the people along the Volga”: Ibid., 110
7 “The town rose high on a hill”: Kerensky, 3
8 “to glorify yourselves and your country”: Alexander, 112
9 “I brought them together to study laws”: Troyat, 181
10 “Have they really already lost”: Alexander, 115
11 “The peasant has his feelings”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 176
12 “The majority of votes”: Ibid., 159
13 “And have their throats cut from time to time”: Ibid., 160
14 “cannot have in present circumstances”: Ibid.
15 “A general emancipation”: Alexander, 116
16 “What had I not to suffer”: Anthony, 215
17 “The idea that the principal purpose”: Madariaga, Catherine, 34
53. “THE KING WE HAVE MADE”
1 “I am sending Count Keyserling”: Kaus, 262
2 “fortunate anarchy”: Alexander, 123
3 “There is a vast difference between melons”: Kaus, 264
4 “to resort, if need be, to force of arms”: Ibid., 265
5 “without the slightest mercy”: Alexander, 126 367 “Do not laugh at me”: Kaus, 263
6 “I beg you most urgently not to come here”: Coughlan, 228
7 “a thousand inconveniences”: Ibid.
8 “in the hands of the brothers Orlov”: Ibid., 229
9 “I beg of you to listen to me”: Kaus, 263
10 “the new king we have made”: Ibid., 266
54. THE FIRST PARTITION OF POLAND AND THE FIRST TURKISH WAR
1 “a real thunderbolt for the country and for me”: Coughlan, 233
2 “to prevent a quarter of their nation”: Gooch, 64
3 “what does one have to endure”: Alexander, 129
4 “at the risk of repeating myself”: Haslip, 182
5 “I cannot keep writing to you”: Ibid.
6 “in Poland one only has to stoop”: Anthony, 203
55. DOCTORS, SMALLPOX, AND PLAGUE
1 “If you go to a village”: Cronin, 167
2 “the same attention to cleanliness”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 560
3 “I am quite sick”: Alexander, 144
4 “It has been four years”: Ibid., 143
5 “You couldn’t cure a flea bite”: Cronin, 169
6 “Well done, ma’am!”: Ibid., 169
7 “You know I am a child”: Alexander, 145
8 “uncommon merit, beautiful, and immensely rich”: Ibid.
9 “I am very upset”: Ibid.
10 “Having this hour learned”: Ibid.
11 “of all that I ever saw of her sex”: Cronin, 168
12 “a secret everybody knows”: Alexander, 146
13 “except for some slight uneasiness”: Ibid., 147
14 “My objective was”: Ibid.
15 “our argumentative charlatans”: Ibid., 148
16 “fine and zealous”: Reddaway, 135
17 “The famous Eighteenth Century”: Ibid.
18 “We have spent a month in circumstances”: Alexander, 158
56. THE RETURN OF “PETER THE THIRD”
1 “freedom of the rivers”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 243
2 “I give eternal freedom”: Oldenbourg, 299
3 “If God permits me to reach St. Petersburg”: Kaus, 296
4 “this godless turmoil”: Alexander, 170
5 “The great sovereign”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 270
6 “Whomever you represent”: Kaus, 298
7 “a common highway robber”: Oldenbourg, 301
8 “exploits of a brigand”: Troyat, 213
9 “Marquis de Pugachev”: Alexander, 177
10 “this new husband who has turned up”: Haslip, 211
11 “for more than six weeks I have been obliged”: Grey, 162
12 “this motley crowd”: Alexander, 171
13 “What need is there to flog”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 249
14 “Orenburg has already been besieged”: Alexander, 171
15 “Leave the peasants”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 248
16 “the suspicion of foreigners”: Alexander, 174
17 “inhabited by all the good-for-nothings”: Ibid.
18 “Since you like hangings so much”: Ibid.
57. THE LAST DAYS OF THE “MARQUIS DE PUGACHEV”
1 “If God gives me power over the state”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 271
2 “Why does he call himself Tsar Peter?”: Cronin, 180
3 “Extremely shaken”: Alexander, 176
4 “the insolent windbag”: Ibid.
5 “You see, my friend, that Count Panin”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 264
6 “bad news travels faster than good”: Alexander, 177
7 “How dare you raise your hands”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 255
8 “infernal monster”: Oldenbourg, 302
9 “Sir, are you master or servant?”: Alexander, 178
10 “refrain from all questioning under torture”: Madariaga, Russia in the Age, 267
11 “Pugachev has lived like a scoundrel:” Oldenbourg, 304
12 “Please help to inspire everyone”: Alexander, 179
13 “they wanted to break Pugachev on the wheel”: Ibid.
14 “all that has passed to eternal oblivion”: Ibid., 180
1 “He must appear”: Kaus, 311
2 “good looking, amiable, and a complete nonentity”: Haslip, 198
3 “He is capable of killing me”: Oldenbourg, 310
4 “a kind of male cocotte”: Kaus, 313
5 “he must send Vasilchikov away”: Smith, Love and Conquest, 21
6 “It was a random choice”: Kaus, 311
59. CATHERINE AND POTEMKIN: PASSION
1 “If I become a general”: Soloveytchik, 43
2 “Sir Lieutenant General and Chevalier”: Smith, Love and Conquest, 8
3 “Any news at court?”: Soloveytchik, 67
4 “I do not understand what has reduced him”: Ibid., 68
5 “the state and yourself, Madam”: Ibid., 69
6 “he had conducted himself indiscreetly”: Smith, Love and Conquest, 9
7 “After a year spent in great sorrow”: Ibid., 9–10
8 “I remain unmotivated by envy”: Ibid., 18
9 “Sir Lieutenant General”: Ibid., 20
10 “Mr. Vasilchikov, the favorite”: Soloveytchik, 73
11 “The thing to do now, my sweet”: Ibid., 75
12 “I’m not surprised”: Smith, Love and Conquest, 19
13 “I don’t understand what kept you”: Ibid., 17
14 “I only ask you not to do one thing”: Ibid., 19
15 “I have parted from a certain excellent”: Soloveytchik, 78
16 “No, Grishenka”: Smith, Love and Conquest, 24
17 “There is no reason to be angry”: Ibid., 27
18 “Oh, my darling, you should be ashamed”: Ibid., 35
19 “Allow me, my precious dear”: Smith, Ibid., 78
20 “Does it appear, sir”: Soloveytchik, 101
21 “certain sacred and inalienable rights”: Montefiore, 139
22 “I kiss you and embrace you … dear husband”: Smith, Love and Conquest, 38
23 “pray come and cuddle with me”: Ibid., 40
60. POTEMKIN ASCENDING
1 “There has been no instance”: Soloveytchik, 107
2 “Do you remember how”: Ibid., 110
3 “I have noticed that your mother”: Smith, Love and Conquest, 61
4 “On Sunday, I happened to be seated”: Soloveytchik, 112
5 “As long as my bed remains”: Ibid., 119
6 “If there are no mistakes”: Smith, Love and Conquest, 50
7 “This is really too much!”: Soloveytchik, 131
8 “It is a hundred years”: Smith, Love and Conquest, 55
9 “The rebellion in a great part”: Soloveytchik, 143
61. CATHERINE AND POTEMKIN: SEPARATION
1 “My dear friend, I don’t know why”: Smith, Love and Conquest, 51