My mother told her everything that she knew about it, after which the Empress ordered her driver to go, and we too continued our journey and arrived in Novgorod around morning. It was a Sunday. I went to mass, after which we had lunch, and when we were going to leave, Chamberlain Prince Golitsyn and gentleman of the bedchamber Count Zakhar Chernyshev, who were coming from Moscow and going to Petersburg, arrived; my mother became angry with Prince Golitsyn, as he was traveling with Count Chernyshev, who had committed I know not what treachery. She claimed he was a dangerous man whom we should avoid and who fabricated stories at will. She gave both the cold shoulder, but since this rejection caused us deadly boredom, and since we had no choice as they were more educated and better conversationalists than the others, I did not participate in this sulking, which brought me several angry reproaches from my mother.
Finally we arrived in Petersburg, where we were lodged in one of the houses adjoining the court.26 The palace at that time not being large enough for even the Grand Duke to stay there, he occupied a house located between the palace and ours. My apartment was to the left of the stairs, my mother’s to the right. As soon as my mother saw this arrangement, she became angry, primo, because it seemed to her that my apartment was better furnished than hers; secondo, because hers was separated from mine by an adjoining room. In fact each of us had four rooms, two in front and two on the courtyard. Thus the rooms were equal, identically furnished in blue and red cloth, but here is what upset her the most. In Moscow, Countess Rumiantseva had brought me the plan of this house on the part of the Empress, forbidding me to speak of it and counseling me on where we should reside. There was no choice to make, as the two apartments were the same. I said this to the Countess, who made me understand that the Empress would prefer that I have my own apartment rather than lodging, as in Moscow, in the same one as my mother. This arrangement pleased me as well because I was quite uncomfortable in my mother’s apartment and in truth, the intimate company that she had assembled pleased me all the less when I saw as clear as day that no one liked these people. My mother caught wind of the plan that I had been shown; she spoke to me about it and I told her the whole truth about how it had happened. She scolded me for having kept it secret from her. I told her that I had been forbidden to speak about it, but she did not find this reason satisfactory, and in general I saw that day by day she grew more irritated with me and that she had fallen out with just about everyone, so that she hardly ever came to lunch or dinner, but was served in her apartment. For my part, I visited her three or four times a day.
1745
Catherine’s education; her mother’s continued political di ficulties;
Catherine’s personal entourage; her wedding; her mother’s
departure; dismissal of Mlle. Zhukova from her court
I used the rest of the time to learn Russian and play the harpsichord, and I bought myself books, so that at fifteen years of age I was isolated in my room and rather studious for my age. At the end of our stay in Moscow, a Swedish embassy arrived, led by Senator Cederkreutz.27 A short time later, Count Gyllenborg arrived as well, to announce to the Empress the marriage of the Royal Prince of Sweden, my mother’s brother, with a Prussian princess.28 We knew Count Gyllenborg. We had seen him in Hamburg, where he had come with many other Swedes upon the departure of the Royal Prince for Sweden. He was a man of great intelligence who was no longer young and whom my mother esteemed greatly. For my part, I was somewhat in his debt because in Hamburg, seeing that my mother paid little or no attention to me, he had told her that she was wrong and that I was certainly a child far beyond my years. Once in Petersburg, he came to visit us, and as in Hamburg, where he had always told me that I had a very philosophical turn of mind, he asked me how my philosophy was faring in the whirlwind in which I had landed. I told him what I was doing in my room. He told me that a philosopher of fifteen could not yet know herself and that I was surrounded by so many pitfalls that it was greatly to be feared that I would stumble unless my soul was of an utterly superior mettle, that I had to nourish it with the best readings possible, and to this end he recommended to me: Plutarch’s lives of illustrious men, the life of Cicero (by Middleton) and The Cause of the Grandeur and Decline of the Roman Republic by Montesquieu.29 I immediately sent for these books, which were difficult to find in Petersburg at that time, and I told him that I was going to compose my portrait such as I knew myself so that he could see whether or not I knew myself.30 I actually did put in writing my portrait, which I entitled “Portrait of the Philosopher at Age Fifteen,” and I gave it to him. Many years later, namely in the year 1758, I found this work and was astonished by the depth of self-knowledge that it contained. Unfortunately I burned it that same year along with all my other papers, fearing to keep a single one in my apartment during the unfortunate affair of Count Bestuzhev. Count Gyllenborg returned my work to me a few days later; I do not know if he had a copy made. He joined to it a dozen pages of reflections concerning me, in which he attempted to fortify in me spiritual strength and firm will as well as other qualities of heart and mind. I read and reread his words a number of times, I absorbed them and resolved quite seriously to follow his advice. I promised this to myself, and when I have promised myself something I cannot recall ever having failed to do it. Later I returned Count Gyllenborg’s pages to him as he had asked me, and I swear that they greatly aided in forming and fortifying the mettle of my mind and my soul.
At the beginning of February the Empress returned with the Grand Duke from Shotilova. As soon as we were told that she had arrived, we went to greet her and met her in the great hall between four and five in the evening, more or less in darkness. Despite this I was almost frightened to see the Grand Duke, who had grown a great deal but whose physiognomy was unrecognizable. All of his features were enlarged, his face was still completely swollen, and one saw that he would doubtless be quite scarred. As his hair had been cut, he wore an immense wig that disfigured him all the more. He approached me and asked if I found it hard to recognize him. I stammered my congratulations on his recovery, but in truth he had become hideous.
The ninth of February marked a year since my arrival at the Russian court. On February 10, 1745, the Empress celebrated the Grand Duke’s birthday; he began his seventeenth year. She dined with me alone on the throne; the Grand Duke did not appear in public that day nor for a long time thereafter. There was no hurry to exhibit him in the state in which smallpox had left him. The Empress complimented me a great deal during this dinner.31 She told me that the letters that I had written in Russian to her in Shotilova had brought her great pleasure (in truth, they were composed by Monsieur Adadurov, but I had copied them in my hand) and that she knew I was studying hard to learn the language of the country. She spoke to me in Russian and wanted me to respond in this language, which I did, and then she was happy to praise my good pronunciation. She let me know that I had become prettier since my illness in Moscow. In a word, during the entire meal she only sought to show me signs of her generosity and affection. I returned to my apartment from my dinner very gay and very happy, and everyone congratulated me on this meal. The Empress had brought to her apartment the portrait of me that the painter Caravaque had begun, and she kept it in her room. It is the same one that the sculptor Falconet brought with him to France; it was a vivid likeness of me at that time.32 To go to mass or the Empress’s apartment, my mother and I had to pass through the Grand Duke’s apartment, which was near my own; consequently, we saw him often. He would also come to my apartment in the evening to pass the time, but without any eagerness. On the contrary, he was quite happy to find some pretext to avoid this and stay in his apartment, left to his usual childishness, of which I have already spoken.
Shortly after the arrival of the Empress and the Grand Duke in Petersburg, my mother suffered a violent disappointment that she could not hide. Here is what happened. Prince August, my mother’s brother, had written to her in Kiev to communicate his desire to come to Russia. My mother had
been informed that the only objective of this journey was to have Prince August receive the administration of Holstein when the Grand Duke attained his majority, the date of which some sought to move up. In other words, in the name of the Grand Duke, now of age, they wished to remove guardianship from the elder brother, who had become Royal Prince of Sweden, in order to transfer the administration of Holstein to Prince August, the younger brother of my mother and of the Royal Prince of Sweden. This plot had been hatched by the Holstein party, allied with the Danes, in opposition to the Royal Prince of Sweden, because the Danes could not pardon this Prince for having gained Sweden at the expense of the Royal Prince of Denmark, whom the Dalecarlians had wanted to elect as the successor to the Swedish throne. My mother responded to her brother Prince August from Kozelets that instead of joining in these plots, which pushed him to act against his brother, he would do better to act in the service of Holland, where he was, and to be killed with honor, than to conspire against his brother and join his sister’s enemies in Russia. My mother meant by enemies Count Bestuzhev, who supported this plot in order to undermine Brümmer and all the other friends of the Royal Prince of Sweden, guardian of Holstein for the Grand Duke.33 This letter was opened and read by Count Bestuzhev and by the Empress, who were not at all happy with my mother and already very upset with the Royal Prince of Sweden who, led by his wife, the King of Prussia’s sister, had let himself be ruled by all the interests of the French party, which were completely contrary to those of Russia. They condemned his ingratitude and accused my mother of lacking love for her younger brother for having written that he should get himself killed, an expression they found harsh and inhumane, while with her friends, my mother boasted of having used a firm and well-turned expression. The result of all this was that with no regard for my mother’s wishes, or rather, to hurt her and spite the entire Holstein-Swedish party, Count Bestuzhev obtained permission for Prince August of Holstein to come to Petersburg unbeknownst to my mother.34 When she learned that he was on his way, my mother was extremely angry and distressed, and received him coldly, but he, pushed by Bestuzhev, went his own way. The Empress was persuaded to receive him well, which she did in public; however, this did not last and could not last, as Prince August was by himself not a distinguished person. His appearance alone did not speak well for him. He was very small and badly proportioned, with little intelligence, hot tempered, and in addition, was ruled by his entourage, who were themselves nothing at all. Her brother’s stupidity, to put it frankly, greatly upset my mother; in a word, she was almost desperate over his arrival. Count Bestuzhev killed many birds with one stone when he took hold of this Prince’s mind with the help of his entourage. He could not fail to see that the Grand Duke hated Brümmer as much as he did; Prince August did not like him either, because he was devoted to the Prince of Sweden. Under the pretext of a family relationship and as a Holsteinian, the Prince ingratiated himself with the Grand Duke by continually talking to him about Holstein and discussing his approaching majority with him, so that the Prince brought him to the point where he pressed his aunt and Count Bestuzhev to move forward the declaration of his majority. To do this required the consent of the Roman Emperor, who was at that time Charles VII of the House of Bavaria, but he died while all this was going on, and the affair dragged on until the election of Francis I.35 Having received Prince August rather badly and having shown little consideration for him, my mother thereby diminished the little respect that the Grand Duke had retained for her.
At the same time, Prince August as well as the old chamber valets, favorites of the Grand Duke, apparently so feared my future influence that they often discussed with this Prince the manner in which he should treat his wife. Romberg, a former Swedish dragoon, told him that his wife didn’t dare breathe in front of him or meddle in his affairs, and that if she simply wanted to open her mouth he ordered her to be quiet, that it was he who was the master of the house, and that it was shameful for a husband to let himself be dominated by his wife like a ninny. The Grand Duke was naturally as discreet as a cannon blast, and when he had a heavy heart and something on his mind, he could not wait to recount it to those with whom he was accustomed to speak, without considering to whom he spoke. Indeed, His Imperial Highness himself recounted all these remarks to me with complete openness the first moment he saw me. He always innocently believed that everyone was of his opinion and that there was nothing more natural. I took good care not to share his remarks with anyone, but I did not fail to reflect seriously on the destiny that awaited me. I resolved to show great consideration for the Grand Duke’s confidence so that he would at least view me as someone he could trust, to whom he could say everything without any consequences. I succeeded in this for a long time.
Otherwise, I treated everyone as best I could and made it my task to earn the friendship or at least to lessen the enmity of those whom I suspected of being evilly disposed toward me. I showed no preference for any side, did not meddle in anything, always had a serene air, much kindness, attentiveness, and politeness for everyone, and because I was naturally quite cheerful, I saw with pleasure that from day to day I gained the affections of the public, who regarded me as an interesting child who was not without intelligence. I showed great respect to my mother and unlimited obedience to the Empress, the greatest consideration for the Grand Duke, and I sought with the greatest earnestness the public’s affection.36
Upon my arrival in Moscow, the Empress had given me ladies- and men-in-waiting, who made up my court. Shortly after her arrival in Petersburg, she gave me Russian ladies-in-waiting so as to facilitate, she said, my active use of the Russian language. This suited me greatly. They were all young, the oldest being around twenty. These girls were all lively, so that from that moment on, I did nothing but sing, dance, and frolick in my room from the moment I awoke until I fell asleep. In the evening after dinner, I would call my three ladies, the two Princesses Gagarina and Mademoiselle Kosheleva, into my room, where we would play blindman’s bluff and all sorts of other games suitable to our age. All these girls were mortally afraid of Countess Rumiantseva, but since she played cards either in the antechamber or her residence from morning until night, leaving her chair only to relieve herself, she hardly ever came to my apartment. Amid all these pleasures, I had a whim to assign the care of my effects to my ladies. I put my money, my expenses, and my laundry in the hands of Mademoiselle Schenk, the chambermaid whom I had brought from Germany. She was a grumpy and silly spinster who was greatly displeased by our gaiety. Moreover, she was jealous of all her young companions, who were going to share her functions and my affection. I gave the keys to my jewels to Maria Petrovna Zhukova. Having more intelligence and being more joyous and frank than the others, she began to enter into my favor. I entrusted my clothing to my chamber valet, Timofei Evreinov, and my lace to Mademoiselle Balk, who later married the poet Sumarokov. My ribbons were put in the care of Mademoiselle Skorokhodova the elder, since married to Aristarque Kashkin. Her younger sister Anna was given nothing because she was only thirteen or fourteen. The day after I made this nice arrangement, in which I had exerted my rightful authority in my chambers without consulting a single person, there was a play in the evening. To get there it was necessary to pass through my mother’s apartment. The Empress, the Grand Duke, and the entire court came. A small theater had been built in a manège that had been used during the time of the Empress Anna by the Duke of Courland, whose apartment I occupied.37 After the play, when the Empress had returned to her residence, Countess Rumiantseva came into my room and told me that the Empress disapproved of the arrangement I had made in distributing the care of my effects between my ladies, and that she was ordered to take the keys from Mademoiselle Zhukova and give them to Mademoiselle Schenk, which she did in my presence, after which she departed and left Mademoiselle Zhukova and me with long faces, and Mademoiselle Schenk gloating over the confidence that the Empress had shown her. She began to comport herself arrogantly with me, which made her more foolish than
ever and less likeable than she already was.
The first week of Lent, I had a very strange encounter with the Grand Duke. One morning while I was in my room with my ladies, who were all very devout, listening to matins being sung in the antechamber, I received a messenger from the Grand Duke. He had sent his dwarf to ask me how I was feeling and to tell me that because it was Lent he would not come to my apartment that day. The dwarf found us all listening to the prayers and strictly observing Lent according to our rite. I communicated to the Grand Duke through his dwarf the usual compliments and he departed. Back in his master’s chamber, the dwarf—either because he was truly impressed by what he had seen or because he wished to encourage his dear lord and master, who was less than devout, to do the same, or out of thoughtlessness—began to praise highly the devout life that reigned in my apartment and with this, he made the Grand Duke very upset with me. The next time I saw the Grand Duke, he began by ignoring me. After I asked him the reason for this, he scolded me severely for what seemed to him the extreme devotion to which I was given. I asked him who had told him about this, whereupon he said that his dwarf was an eyewitness. I told him that I did no more than was proper and that everyone submitted to it, and that one could not disregard it without scandal, but he was of the opposite opinion. This dispute ended as most do, which is to say that each retained his point of view, and His Imperial Highness, having no one else but me with whom to talk during mass, little by little stopped snubbing me.
The Memoirs of Catherine the Great Page 13