The Memoirs of Catherine the Great

by Catherine the Great

  It was known that the day after the evening of his arrest, a group had worked on a manifesto in Ivan Shuvalov’s chambers and that Master Volkov, Count Bestuzhev’s former head clerk and now first secretary of the commission, had had to write it. In 1755, Volkov had fled from his home and after wandering in the woods, had turned himself in. They wanted to publish this manifesto to inform the public of the reasons that had obliged the Empress to act as she had against Grand Chancellor Count Bestuzhev. Thus this secret conventicle, racking its brain to find offenses, conspired to say that the crime was lèse-majesté, because Bestuzhev had sought to sow discord between Her Imperial Majesty and Their Imperial Highnesses.146 Without an indictment or judgment, on the day following his arrest they wanted to send him to one of his estates and strip him of the rest of his possessions. But there were those who thought that it was extreme to exile someone without evidence of a crime or a judgment, and that despite the expectation of finding crimes they nevertheless had to be sought, and that whether they were discovered or not, it was still necessary to have the prisoner, who had been stripped of his functions, titles, and orders for reasons unknown, undergo the judgment of the commissioners.147 Now these commissioners, as I have already said, were Marshal Buturlin, Procurator General Prince Trubetskoi, General Count Alexander Shuvalov, and Master Volkov, the secretary. The first thing that the commissioners did was order, through the College of Foreign Affairs, the Russian ambassadors, envoys, and employees at foreign courts to send copies of the dispatches that Count Bestuzhev had written them since he had been in charge of foreign affairs. This was so as to find incriminating evidence in his dispatches. It was said that he wrote only what he wanted, and things contradictory to the orders and wishes of the Empress. But as Her Imperial Majesty neither wrote nor signed anything, it was difficult to act against her orders, and as for verbal orders, Her Imperial Majesty was hardly in the position to give any to the Grand Chancellor, who went entire years without having the opportunity to see her. Strictly speaking, verbal orders delivered by a third party could be misinterpreted, and were as vulnerable to bad delivery as they were to miscomprehension. But nothing came of all this except the order that I mentioned, because I think that none of the employees took the trouble to go through their twenty-year-old archive and copy it to look for crimes by the man whose instructions and directions these same employees had followed, since they might thereby find themselves implicated, with the best intentions in the world, in what might be found reprehensible in this correspondence. Moreover, the sending of such archives alone would cost the crown considerably, and once they arrived in Petersburg, there would have been enough to try the patience of a good number of people over several years in order to find and disentangle something that was perhaps not even there. Once sent, this order was never carried out. The affair itself grew tiresome and was brought to an end after a year by the manifesto they had begun to compose the day following the Grand Chancellor’s arrest.148

  The afternoon of the day that Stambke had come to see me, the Empress told the Grand Duke to send Stambke back to Holstein, because his secret contacts with Count Bestuzhev had been discovered and he deserved to be arrested. But out of consideration for His Imperial Highness and as his minister, he remained free on the condition that he be dismissed at once. Stambke was sent away immediately, and with his departure my handling of the affairs of Holstein ended.149 The Grand Duke was made to understand that the Empress did not judge it right that I was involved in them, and His Imperial Highness was himself rather partial to this opinion. I do not remember very well whom he chose afterward to replace Stambke, but I think it was a certain Wolff. Then the Empress’s Minister formally asked the King of Poland for the recall of Count Poniatowski, one of whose notes to Count Bestuzhev had been found. In truth it was quite innocent, but nevertheless addressed to a so-called prisoner of the state. As soon as I learned of Stambke’s dismissal and Count Poniatowski’s recall, I did not foresee anything positive for me, and here is what I did. I called my chamber valet, Shkurin, and told him to gather all my account books and everything among my effects that might even resemble a document and bring it to me. He executed my order with zeal and precision. When everything was in my room, I dismissed him. When he had left, I threw all these books and papers into the fire, and when I saw them half consumed, I again called for Shkurin and said to him, “Witness that all my accounts and papers are burned, so that if you are ever asked where they are, you can swear to have seen them burned here by me.” He thanked me for the consideration that I showed him and told me that a quite extraordinary change had just occurred in the prisoners’ guard. Since the discovery of Stambke’s correspondence with Count Bestuzhev, he was being watched more closely, and to this end Sergeant Kolyshkin had been moved from Bernardi’s home and had been put in the room and near the person of the former Grand Chancellor. When Kolyshkin realized this, he requested that he be given some of the soldiers attached to him when he was guarding Bernardi. And so the most trustworthy and intelligent man that Shkurin and I had was placed in Count Bestuzhev’s room, moreover without having lost all his secret contacts with Bernardi. Meanwhile, the interrogation of Count Bestuzhev was under way. Kolyshkin introduced himself to Count Bestuzhev as a man entirely devoted to me, and in fact he rendered him a great many services. Like me, he was deeply convinced that the Grand Chancellor was innocent and the victim of a powerful cabal; the public was convinced too.

  I saw that the Grand Duke had been frightened and that he had been made to suspect that I was not unaware of Stambke’s correspondence with the prisoner of the state. I saw that His Imperial Highness hardly dared talk to me and avoided coming into my room, where I was moreover completely alone, not seeing a living soul. I myself avoided having people come, for fear of exposing them to some misfortune or trouble. At court, fearing that I would be avoided, I refrained from approaching all those who I thought might be implicated. During the last days of carnival, there was going to be a Russian play at the court theater. Count Poniatowski begged me to come because the rumor was beginning to circulate that they were preparing to send me away to prevent me from appearing in public, and I know not what else. Each time I did not appear at the theater or at court, everyone was intrigued to know the reason for it, perhaps as much out of curiosity as out of the concern they had for me. I knew that Russian theater was one of the things His Imperial Highness liked least and that to speak of going to it was enough to greatly displease him. But this time the Grand Duke joined to his dislike of the national theater another motive and minor personal objective. He was not yet seeing Countess Elizabeth Vorontsova in his apartment, but since she stayed in the antechamber with the other maids of honor, His Imperial Highness had conversations with or courted her there. If I went to the theater, these maidens were obliged to follow me, which would upset His Imperial Highness, who would find no other recourse than to go drink in his apartment. Without regard for his situation, as I had decided that day and given my word to go to the theater, I told Count Alexander Shuvalov to order my carriages. Count Shuvalov came to see me and told me that my plan to go to the Russian play did not please the Grand Duke. I replied to him that as I did not count among His Imperial Highness’s company, I thought it would not matter to him whether I was alone in my room or in my loge at the theater. He left twitching his eye as he always did when he was bothered by something. Sometime later the Grand Duke came into my room. He was terribly angry, shrieking like a banshee, saying that I enjoyed upsetting him and that I had decided to go to the theater because I knew he did not like this kind of spectacle. I explained to him that he was wrong not to like it. He told me that he would forbid them to give me my carriage. I told him that I would go on foot, and that I could not guess what pleasure he took in making me die of boredom alone in my room, where I had my dog and my parrot as my only company. After we had both argued for a long while and spoken very loudly, he left angrier than ever, and I persisted in going to the theater. As the hour of the pl
ay neared, I sent to ask Count Shuvalov if the carriages were ready. He came to see me and told me that the Grand Duke had forbidden them to be given to me. At this I got good and angry, and I said that I was going on foot and that if the ladies and gentlemen were prohibited from following me, I would go all alone, and that moreover, I would complain in writing to the Empress about both the Grand Duke and him. He said to me, “And what will you say to her?” “I will tell her,” I said, “the manner in which I am treated and that you, in order to arrange a rendezvous with my maids of honor for the Grand Duke, encourage him to prevent me from going to the play, where I may have the happiness of seeing Her Imperial Majesty, and moreover, I will beg her to send me back to my mother’s home because I am sick and tired of the role that I am playing, alone and abandoned in my room, hated by the Grand Duke and not at all loved by the Empress. I desire only my rest, and I no longer want to be a burden to anyone, nor to bring misfortune to whomever approaches me and especially my poor servants, so many of whom have already been exiled because I wished them well or was good to them. You should know that I am going to write to Her Imperial Majesty straight away and then I will see whether or not you take my letter to her yourself.” The man was frightened by the determined tone I took.

  He left and I began to write my letter to the Empress in Russian, making it as moving as I could. I began by thanking her for all the favors and kindness with which she had showered me since my arrival in Russia, saying that unfortunately, events proved that I had not merited them, because I had incurred the Grand Duke’s hatred and the very marked disfavor of Her Imperial Majesty. Seeing my misfortune and that I was withering with boredom in my room, where I was deprived of even the most innocent pastimes, I begged her to put an immediate end to my unhappiness by sending me away to my family in whatever manner she judged fitting. Since I did not see my children, although I lived with them in the same household, it made no difference to me whether I was in the same place they were or a few hundred leagues away. I knew that her care for them surpassed what my feeble abilities would permit me to give them. I dared to ask her to continue to care for them, and trusting in this, I would spend the rest of my life with my family, praying to God for her, the Grand Duke, my children, and all those who had done me good and ill. But because of sorrow, my health was reduced to such a state that I had to do what I could to at least save my life, and to this end I was beseeching her to allow me to take the waters and from there go to my family’s home. Having written this letter, I sent for Count Shuvalov, who upon entering told me that the carriages that I had asked for were ready. I told him, while giving him my letter for the Empress, that he could tell the ladies and gentlemen who did not want to follow me to the theater that I excused them. Count Shuvalov received my letter twitching his eye, but since it was addressed to the Empress, he was utterly obliged to take it. He also relayed my words to the maidens and gentlemen, and it was His Imperial Highness himself who decided who should go with me and who should stay with him. I passed through the antechamber, where I found His Imperial Highness ensconced with Countess Elizabeth Vorontsova, playing cards in a corner. He rose and she too when he saw me, something that he never did, moreover. I responded to this formality with a very deep curtsy and went my way. I went to the theater, where the Empress did not appear that day. I think that my letter prevented her. Upon returning from the theater, Count Shuvalov told me that Her Imperial Majesty informed me that she herself would have an interview with me. Apparently Count Shuvalov gave an account both of my letter and of the Empress’s response to the Grand Duke, for though from that day on he did not set foot in my room again, nevertheless he did everything he could to be present at the interview that the Empress was having with me, and it seemed that they could not refuse him. I waited calmly in my apartment. I was deeply convinced that if they had been thinking of sending me back or frightening me with the possibility, the step that I had just taken completely disrupted the Shuvalovs’ plan. In any case, this plan would meet the most resistance in the mind of the Empress herself, who was not at all inclined toward such blatant acts. Moreover, she still remembered the former disagreements in her family and would certainly not have wished to see them rekindled in her lifetime. There could only be a single mark against me, which was that her nephew did not seem to me to be the most lovable of men, just as I did not seem to him to be the most lovable of women. The Empress felt exactly as I did about her nephew, and she knew him so well that for many years already she had not been able to pass a quarter hour with him anywhere without feeling disgust, anger, or sorrow. In her room, when conversation turned to him, she spoke either through bitter tears about the misfortune of having such an heir or else while showing her contempt for him, and would often give him epithets that he deserved only too well. I have had proofs of this in hand, having found among her papers two notes written in the Empress’s hand to I know not whom. One appeared to be for Ivan Shuvalov and the other for Count Razumovsky, and in them she cursed her nephew and sent him to the devil. In one there was this expression: and in another she said, 150

  In any case my decision was made, and I viewed my being sent home or not with a very philosophical eye. In whatever situation it should please Providence to place me, I would never find myself without those resources that intelligence and talent give to each according to his natural abilities, and I felt the courage to rise and fall without my heart and my soul feeling either pride or vanity or, in the opposite case, shame or humiliation. I knew that I was human, and therefore a limited being incapable of perfection. My intentions had always been honest and pure, as I had understood from the very beginning that to love a husband who was not amiable, nor took any pains to be so, was a difficult thing, if not impossible. At least I had given both to him and his interests the sincerest devotion that a friend and even a servant could give to his friend and master. My advice had always been the very best I could devise for his welfare. If he did not follow it, this was not my fault but that of his judgment, which was neither sound nor just. When I came to Russia, and during the first years of our union, had this Prince shown the least desire to make himself bearable, my heart would have been opened to him. When I saw that of all possible objects I was the one to whom he paid the least attention, precisely because I was his wife, it is not at all strange that I found this situation neither pleasant nor to my taste, and that it bothered and perhaps even pained me. This latter sentiment, that of pain, I suppressed infinitely more than all the others. My soul’s natural pride and mettle made the idea of being unhappy intolerable to me. I would say to myself, “Happiness and misery are in the heart and soul of everyone. If you feel misery, rise above it, and act so that your happiness does not depend on any event.” I had been born with this turn of mind and endowed with very great sensitivity, and an appearance that was at the least very interesting and pleasing at first sight, without art or affectation. My disposition was naturally so accommodating that no one was ever with me a quarter of an hour without falling comfortably into conversation, chatting with me as if they had known me for a long time. Naturally indulgent, I easily won the trust of those who dealt with me, because everyone felt that the strictest probity and goodwill were the impulses that I most readily obeyed. If I may dare to use such terms, I take the liberty to assert on my own behalf that I was an honest and loyal knight,151 whose mind was infinitely more male than female. But for all that, I was anything but mannish, and in me others found, joined to the mind and character of a man, the charms of a very attractive woman. May I be pardoned this description in recognition of the truth of this confession, which my self-esteem makes without covering itself with false modesty. Besides, this writing itself should prove what I say about my mind, my heart, and my character.

  I have just said that I was attractive. As a result, I was already halfway along the road to temptation, and it is the essence of human nature that in such a situation the other half will not go untraveled. For to tempt and to be tempted are very close to each
other, and despite the finest moral maxims engraved in the mind, when sensibility joins in, by its very presence, one is already infinitely further from these maxims than one thinks. Even now I still do not know how one can prevent sensibility from appearing. Perhaps flight alone can remedy this. But there are cases, situations, circumstances where flight is impossible, for how can one flee, avoid, or turn one’s back in the middle of a court? The very action would cause gossip, but if you do not flee, there is nothing as difficult in my opinion as escaping what profoundly pleases you. Everything that they will tell you to the contrary will only be prudishness, and not drawn from the human heart. No one holds his heart in his hand and restrains or releases it by closing or opening his hand at will.152

  I return to my narrative. The day after the play, I declared that I was unwell and did not go out anymore, waiting calmly for Her Imperial Majesty’s decision about my humble request. However, the first week of Lent I judged it fitting to attend services to show my devotion to the Greek Orthodox faith.153 The second or third week of Lent brought me another bitter disappointment. One morning after I had risen, my servants informed me that Count Alexander Shuvalov had sent for Madame Vladislavova. This seemed somewhat strange to me. I waited anxiously for her return, but in vain. Around one in the afternoon, Count Alexander Shuvalov came to tell me that the Empress had seen fit to remove Madame Vladislavova from my service. I burst into tears and replied to him that Her Imperial Majesty was certainly free to remove from me or place with me whomever she pleased, but that I regretted seeing more and more that all those who came near me were as many victims doomed to the disfavor of Her Imperial Majesty. So that there would be fewer unfortunates, I begged and beseeched him to appeal to Her Imperial Majesty to put an end as soon as possible to the state to which I was reduced, in which I only made others miserable, by sending me home to my family. I assured him again that Madame Vladislavova would not be of any use in shedding light on anything, because neither she nor anyone else was in my confidence. Count Shuvalov wanted to speak, but seeing my sobs, he began to weep with me and told me that the Empress would speak to me personally on the subject. I begged him to hasten the moment, which he promised to do. Then I went to tell my attendants what had just happened and told them that if any duenna I happened to dislike took the place of Madame Vladislavova, she should be prepared to receive from me every imaginable mistreatment, including even blows. I begged them to repeat this to whomever they pleased, so as to repulse all those that they might want to place in my service from rushing to accept the position, for I was tired of suffering. Seeing that my mildness and patience had brought about nothing but to make everything around me go from bad to worse, I was consequently going to change my behavior thoroughly. My servants did not fail to repeat what I told them to.