I waited for this conversation a long time. I remember that April 21, my birthday, I did not go out. While having dinner, the Empress informed me through Alexander Shuvalov that she was drinking to my health. I thanked her for deigning to remember me on the day, I said, of my unfortunate birth, which I would curse if on the same day I had not received baptism.159 When the Grand Duke learned that the Empress had sent this message to me that day, he decided to send me the same message. When they came to give me his compliments, I got up and with a very deep bow, I expressed my thanks. After the parties for my birthday and the Empress’s coronation day, which were four days apart, I again remained in my room without going out until Count Poniatowski sent me notice that the French Ambassador, Marquis de L’Hôpital, highly praised my firm conduct and said that this decision to not leave my apartment could only turn to my advantage. Taking this remark as devilish praise from an enemy, I then decided to do the opposite of what he praised, and one Sunday, when it was least expected, I dressed myself and left my private apartment. At the moment that I entered the apartment in which the ladies and gentlemen were, I saw their astonishment at seeing me. A few minutes after my appearance, the Grand Duke arrived. I saw his astonishment too, displayed on his physiognomy, and as I spoke to the group, he participated in the conversation and addressed a few remarks to me, to which I responded in a natural tone.
Meanwhile, on April 17, Prince Charles of Saxony came to Petersburg for the second time. The Grand Duke had received him the first time he had been to Russia in a sufficiently gentlemanly style. But this second time, His Imperial Highness believed himself justified in behaving without any manners toward him, and here is why. It was not a secret to the Russian army that at the battle of Zorndorf, Prince Charles of Saxony had been one of the first to flee. It was even said that he had continued this flight without stopping until Landsberg. Now, having heard this, His Imperial Highness decided that as the man was an avowed coward, he would not speak to him, nor did he want anything to do with him. There is every indication that the Princess of Courland, the daughter of Biron, of whom I have already often had occasion to speak, contributed more than a little to this, because at the time, people had begun to whisper that the plan was to make Prince Charles of Saxony a Duke of Courland, which greatly angered the Princess of Courland, whose father was still held at Yaroslavl.160 She conveyed her animosity to the Grand Duke, over whom she had maintained some influence. At the time, this Princess was promised for the third time, to Baron Alexander Cherkasov, whom she in fact married the following winter.161
Finally, a few days before going to the country, Count Alexander Shuvalov came to say on behalf of the Empress that I should request through him to see my children that afternoon and that afterward, leaving their room, I would have this second, long-promised interview with the Empress.162 I did as I was told, and in the presence of many people I told Count Shuvalov to ask Her Imperial Majesty for permission to see my children. He left, and when he returned, he said that at three o’clock I could. I was very punctual. I stayed with my children until Count Alexander Shuvalov came to tell me that the Empress was available. I went to her room. I found her all alone, and this time there was no screen in the room. She and I could therefore speak freely. I began by thanking her for the audience that she was according me, telling her that the very gracious promise of it that she had deigned to make had in itself brought me back to life. After this, she said to me, “I demand that you tell me the truth about everything I shall ask you.” I replied by assuring her that she would hear only the most exact truth from my mouth and that I asked no more than to open my heart to her without any restriction of any kind. Then she asked me again if truly there had been only these three letters written to Apraksin. I swore this to her with the greatest truthfulness, for indeed it was so. Then she asked me for details about the Grand Duke’s life.
NOTES
1 Catherine wrote “sollicisme” (correctly, solécisme) instead of “syllogisme.” A solecism is, ironically, an incorrect form or usage. A syllogism is a logical statement with a major and minor premise and a conclusion.
2 In 1725, Anna (1708–28), by his second wife, Catherine I (1684–1727), the daughter of Peter I, “the Great” (1672–1725), married Karl Friedrich (1700–39), Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, heir to the Swedish throne. Peter III was born on February 21 (N.S.), and his mother died on May 15, 1728 (N.S.).
3 F. W. von Bergholz’s Journal of Kamerjunker Bergholz, written by him in Russia during the reign of Peter the Great from 1721 to 1725 was first published in Anton Friedrich Büsching’s Magazin für die neue Historie und Geographie, v. XIX–XXII (Halle, 1785–87).
4 In August 1743, the Treaty of Åbo ended a war begun by Sweden in July 1741 during the succession struggle after Empress Anna’s death in 1740. Under the guise of supporting Empress Elizabeth during her coup, Sweden hoped to regain Baltic territory lost to Russia in the Treaty of Nystadt (1721). However, Elizabeth attacked, taking part of Finland, which she ceded in the Treaty of Åbo in exchange for naming her candidate to the Swedish throne. Adolf Friedrich (born 1710), prince-bishop of Lübeck (1727–50) and king of Sweden (1751–71), was Catherine’s maternal uncle. In 1750 in a letter, Catherine secretly reassured her mother that “the interests of my dear uncle are mine.” SIRIO 1 (1871): 72.
5 Karl Adlerfelt translated into French and published a journal by his father, Gustavus Adlerfelt (1671–1709), chamberlain to Charles XII (1682–1718). Histoire militaire de Charles XII, roi de Suède: depuis l’an 1700, jusqu’à la bataille de Pultowa en 1709, 4 vol. (Amsterdam, 1740).
6 Catherine crossed out the following: “He did not have an entirely bad heart, but a weak man usually does not” (750). In her early memoir, Catherine wrote that in 1739, “there for the first time I saw the Grand Duke, who truly was handsome, amiable, and well mannered; indeed, they hailed this eleven-year-old child, whose father had just died, as a miracle” (443). Catherine first mentions wine in part 1 of the middle memoir, in a later addition possibly made in 1790–91 (see introduction) (20).
7 Dragoon guards were mounted infantry.
8; Elizabeth I (Dec. 18, 1709 to Dec. 25, 1761) succeeded Ivan VI on November 25, 1741; her coronation was on April 25, 1742.
9 The Greek or Russian Orthodox faith became the official religion in Russia in 982. Although Peter the Great had put the Church under the administrative control of the government in a process of secularization that continued throughout the eighteenth century, the royal family carefully observed church fasts, rituals, and holidays.
10 Count Nikita Ivanovich Panin (1718–83) became ambassador to Denmark in 1747 before moving to Sweden for twelve years; in 1760 he became governor to Catherine’s son, Grand Duke Paul, and in 1762, a senior member of the College of Foreign Affairs. He opposed Catherine’s coup, supporting instead her son Paul for the throne. In a humorous piece, Catherine wrote that Panin would die “if he ever hurries” (653).
11 Elizabeth’s fiancé was Karl August, Prince of Holstein-Gottorp (1706–27), Catherine’s maternal uncle.
12 He converted on November 7, 1742.
13 The wife of Prince Ludwig-Wilhelm of Hessen-Hamburg was Anastasia Ivanovna Trubetskaia (1700–55), whose mother was Irina Grigorevna Naryshkina (1669–1749), second cousin of Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina, Peter the Great’s mother.
14 Baron Ivan Antonovich Cherkasov (1692–1758), father of Baron Alexander Ivanovich Cherkasov, to whom Catherine dedicated part 2 of her middle memoir.
15 Catherine’s maternal and Peter’s paternal grandfathers, Christian August (1673–1726), Prince Bishop of Lübeck, and Friedrich IV (1671–1702), Duke of Holstein, respectively, were brothers.
16 On August 31, 1743, the Lopukhin family was flogged with the knout and sent to Siberia for an alleged plot against Elizabeth; four, including Natalia Fedorovna Lopukhina (née Balk-Polev), had their tongues cut out. The Lopukhins were the family of Peter I’s first wife, Evdokia Lopukhina.
17 Troitsa (Tr
inity) Monastery of St. Sergei (1422), 25 miles NE of Moscow, in Zagorsk. ‡ Bloodletting, or phlebotomy, is an ancient medical art that became hugely popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The Greeks thought that the elements of the body were analogous to those of the earth, made up of air, water, earth, and fire, and for centuries it was believed that good health depended on the balance of the four bodily humors: phlegm, yellow bile, black bile, and blood. Purging, starving, vomiting, and bloodletting were used to restore a proper balance.
18 The St. Petersburg Gazette reported that Elizabeth gave her a diamond brooch and earrings worth 50,000–60,000 rubles when Catherine was first bled, and Peter gave her a watch set in diamonds (March 15, 1744) (719).
19 France restored relations with Russia in 1739, and de La Chétardie was the French envoy from 1739 to 1742, when he supported Elizabeth’s coup for the purpose of furthering France’s interests in Russia, which centered on weakening Russia’s alliance with Austria, France’s enemy. De La Chétardie left on June 6, 1744.
20 The celebrations were on July 15, and they departed on July 26, 1744.
21 Catherine writes “Koselsk,” or “Kozelsk” in the Kaluga Gubernia, but means Kozelets, in the Chernogov Gubernia by Kiev, where Elizabeth’s favorite and secret husband, Alexei Razumovsky, had grown up.
22 They arrived in Moscow on September 20, 1744.
23 Under Empress Anna, Elizabeth had her unlimited yearly support cut to 30,000 rubles annually.
24 As Grand Duchess, Catherine outranked Princess Johanna at public ceremonies.
25 December 15, 1744.
26 December 27, 1744.
27 October 8, 1744.
28 The Royal Prince of Sweden Adolf Friedrich married Princess Luise Ulrike (1720–82), sister of Frederick the Great. Count Henning Adolf Gyllenborg (1713–75) was the nephew of the Swedish foreign minister, Karl Gyllenborg.
29 Plutarch’s Parallel Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (100 A.D., probably in the 1559 French translation by Jasques Amyot, Les vies des hommes illustres comparées l’une avec l’autre par Plutarque), The Character and Conduct of Cicero, considered, from the history of his life, by the Reverend Dr. Middleton (1741, probably in the 1743 French translation by Abbé Prévost, because the German translation by T. J. Dusch appeared only in 1757–59), and Baron de Montesquieu’s (1689–1755) Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (1734) (Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence).
30 In part 1 of the middle memoir, Catherine writes: “I promised him to read them and actually did look for them; I found the life of Cicero in German and read a couple of pages; then I was brought The Cause of the Grandeur and Decline of the Roman Republic [sic]. When I began to read, it led me to reflect, but I could not read it straight through because it made me yawn, but I said: what a fine book, and tossed it aside to continue getting dressed. I was not able to find Plutarch’s life of illustrious men; I read it only two years later” (61).
31 Dinner is in the afternoon and supper in the evening.
32 Louis Caravaque (1684–1754) lived in Russia (1716–54) and painted numerous portraits of Elizabeth and her family. On Diderot’s recommendation, the sculptor Etienne-Maurice Falconet (1716–91) came to St. Petersburg (1766–78), where he made the equestrian statue of Peter the Great (named the Bronze Horseman, after Alexander Pushkin’s poem), unveiled in 1782 with the Latin inscription, “To Peter I from Catherine II.”
33 On the heels of the recent war with Sweden, which had concluded with the Treaty of Åbo in 1743, Bestuzhev worked to limit Sweden’s power.
34 Prince August Friedrich (1711–85) arrived in February 1745.
35 Peter attained his majority on June 17, 1745. Charles VII (1697–1745) was the elector of Bavaria (1726–45) and Holy Roman Emperor (1742–45). Francis I (1708–65) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1745 to 1765.
36 Catherine first made this resolution in part 1 of her middle memoir and later in her epitaph (57).
37 Empress Anna’s favorite, Ernst Johann Bühren (Biron), Duke of Courland.
38 Princess Elisabeth (December 17, 1742, to March 3, 1745).
39 July 17, 1745.
40 On her relations with the Empress, Princess Johanna wrote to her husband: “Our farewell was very touching; it was almost impossible to take leave of Her Imperial Majesty, and this great monarch for her part did me the honor of being deeply moved.” But the English Ambassador Hyndford’s dispatch reads: “When she said farewell, she fell at the Empress’s feet and begged her with a burst of tears to forgive her if she had in any way offended Her Majesty. The Empress told her that it was too late to think of that now, and that if she had always been so humble it would have been better for her” (Anthony, 158–59).
41 Anastasia Mikhailovna Izmailova (née Naryshkina) was lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth.
42 Ekaterina Alexeevna Karr married Prince Peter Mikhailovich Golitsyn.
43 Catherine began part 2 of her middle memoir with a similar discussion. ‡ The Great Fast lasts seven weeks before Easter, the holiest holiday, and is regularly observed by most people. The other major fasts are the six-week Christmas fast, the St. Peter’s fast (from May 31 to June 29), and the Assumption fast (from August 1 to 15). Meat and dairy were forbidden, while fish, vegetables, and bread were allowed. No marriages were performed during fasts. Elizabeth was religious, while Catherine observed Church rituals but was not religious.
44 Called a hermitage table in part 2 of the middle memoir (83).
45 According to part 2 of the middle memoir, Catherine looked once to please Peter (83).
46 At this time, Elizabeth lived under the threat of being sent to a convent.
47 Alexei escaped to Austria, from where Peter the Great had him lured back to Russia and imprisoned, where he was tortured, and died.
The Memoirs of Catherine the Great Page 36