Great Catherine

by Erickson, Carolly, 1943-

  For three hours the flames burned high. The empress, who had been in another palace when the fire began, hurried back to survey the damage and supervise the vain attempt to extinguish it. "With all the coolness of mind imaginable," wrote one who saw her there, Elizabeth gave orders, clutching her relics and icons and praying for divine intervention. Her prayers were in vain. Most of her valuables were reduced to ashes, and it would be months, perhaps years, before they could be replaced.

  Night fell but the orange glow of the fire made a false twilight that lingered in the vicinity of the palace for many hours. As each blackened timber collapsed, showers of red sparks rose into the dimness, until of the once splendid structure nothing but charred embers remained. The sharp stink of burned wood hung in the air, acrid and pungent, clinging to the clothes and hair and faces of those who had escaped the fire as they went about the task of salvaging what they could from the ruins. While they worked, the rats and mice swarmed in chattering hordes over the sodden goods in the courtyard.

  For Catherine, her spirits low and her energies depleted, the burning of the royal palace may have symbolized a larger tragedy. She had been in Russia for nine years, and in all that time she had achieved little. Like the great palace, her life was in a state of collapse, her marriage a farce, her affair with Sergei Saltykov a betrayal of the love that still eluded her, her attempts at motherhood a disaster. As she watched the massive structure burn, she must have been tempted to see in the blazing destruction the wreckage of all her hopes.

  Chapter Eleven

  SIX WEEKS AFTER FIRE DESTROYED THE GOLOVIN PALACE IN November of 1753, Empress Elizabeth presided over a grand New Year's banquet at a new palace she had had built in the interim. She had ordered workmen to take the great wooden beams from three other mansions and use them to erect a suite of apartments into which she moved in the last days of the old year. Moscow carpenters were accustomed to building rapidly; when the empress commanded, they obeyed. The structure was raised, walls of fresh green wood fitted into place, stoves installed, kitchens and storerooms constructed, furnishings brought in. By New Year's Day the palace was fit for holding court, and the empress sat in state under the royal canopy, her plump figure glittering with jewels, with Peter and Catherine beside her.

  Elizabeth was "very cheerful and garrulous" on that afternoon, Catherine recalled in her memoirs. Though she had been suffering from a bad cough and had largely lost her appetite, she managed to conceal her illness, and looked better than she had in some time. She could no longer dance a minuet without having to lie down and rest for a long time afterwards, and climbing stairs had become too much for her. Special lifts were constructed that took her from one floor of her palaces to another, and when she visited the mansions of her wealthiest subjects, these had to be fitted out with mechanical devices to haul her from the entry hall up to the ballroom. But as long as she remained seated, the weakness in her legs was not apparent, and on this New Year's Day it was easy to forget that only recently her life had been despaired of and preparations had been made for an imminent change of reigns.

  Long trestle tables filled the grand salon, and hundreds of courtiers sat in rows on hard benches, dining and drinking, with the empress's sharp eyes upon them.

  "Who is that thin woman there?" she asked Catherine at one point, indicating where the woman sat. 'The ugly one, with the long neck like a crane." The question was disingenuous; the empress knew perfectly well that the woman was Martha Shafirov, Peter's mistress, whom she herself had placed among Catherine's waiting women. One of her attendants informed her of the woman's name. She burst out laughing and leaned over toward Catherine. 'That reminds me of a Russian proverb," she said. "Long necks are only good for hanging."

  "I couldn't help but smile at this example of the imperial malice and sarcasm," Catherine recalled later. "It didn't go unnoticed; the courtiers overheard it and it got repeated so often that by the time I got up from the table I discovered that many people had already heard it."

  Tweaking Catherine about Martha Shafirov gave the empress pleasure. She knew that Peter had been dallying with Martha— and, given her army of spies, she may well have known that Sergei Saltykov was carrying on an affair with Martha's sister, behind Catherine's back—and the reference to hanging was a very pointed one. Elizabeth enjoyed reminding people of her power, and indeed there was hardly a soul at the New Year's banquet who did not feel the oppressive weight of her authority and her potential vindictiveness.

  On her good days, the empress was still formidable. She controlled her ministers, setting them against each other and keeping them off balance while profiting from their labors and their advice. Despite her distaste for the work of governing she kept herself more than adequately informed; she knew, for example, that her revenues were increasing, and that the gold and silver mines in Siberia were producing ore at a great rate. It seemed to her that there was more than enough money to pay for the enormous new Winter Palace she had ordered her Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli to begin work on, and for the hundreds of new gowns she had bought to replace those lost in the fire. On her good days, Elizabeth reveled in her power, her wealth, her young lovers. On her bad days, however—and they now far outnumbered the good—she was full of fears.

  For the Young Court was gaining influence. Everyone knew that Elizabeth's power, however awesome, was on the wane, and that of the grand duke and grand duchess was slowly rising. All the personnel of the court, from the most exalted ministers to the lowliest clerks, were aware that when the empress died, the new rulers would make sweeping changes in the government and the royal household. And they wanted to protect themselves and their positions by gaining the favor of the powers that were soon to be.

  Foreign ambassadors residing at the Russian court speculated in their secret dispatches on precisely how and when the new regime would take over once the empress was out of the way. They assumed that Catherine would play a major role in that new regime—unless her husband found a means of ridding himself of her. Catherine, not Peter, was the obvious choice to succeed Elizabeth. She had intelligence, shrewdness and common sense; she had an evident stubbornness and force of will that made Peter look frail by comparison. But she had one overwhelming disadvantage: she was still childless.

  Within weeks after the New Year's banquet, however, Catherine was once more pregnant by Sergei Saltykov, and this time she was determined not to lose the baby. The empress gave orders that Catherine was to be protected and sheltered. Yet she sent her to live in an ancient drafty house with huge porcelain stoves so old that their walls were almost transparent and so full of holes that, when they were lit, sparks flew out and started small fires. Only constant vigilance on the part of the servants prevented a major disaster. Ill with morning sickness, her eyes smarting and burning from living in smoke-filled rooms, Catherine began her pregnancy with a constant sore throat and high fever. Boredom compounded her suffering, and she spent many a dull afternoon and long evening waiting in vain for a visit from Sergei, who seemed to have deserted her.

  Toward the end of April Nicholas Choglokov died, his end deliberately hastened, it was whispered, by inattentive doctors in the pay of his political enemies—chiefly Ivan and Alexander Shu-valov. Alexander Shuvalov, "the terror of the court, the city and the entire empire," in Catherine's phrase, replaced Choglokov as head of Peter's establishment. Catherine went in dread of Shuvalov, not only because of the fear he inspired as head of the Secret Chancery but because of the grotesque tic that convulsed the right side of his face whenever he was gripped by strong emotion. The sight of Shuvalov's hideous grimace made Catherine shudder, and in an age when it was widely believed that whatever affected the mother affected her unborn child, the empress's choice of Shuvalov as the presiding spirit in the ducal household makes one question the sincerity of her concern for her niece.

  Soon afterwards Catherine received another blow. Maria Choglokov was removed from court and it was said her place would soon be taken by Countes
s Rumyantsev, a troublemaker and gossip whose spiteful talk had injured Johanna many years earlier. The countess was a "sworn enemy" of Sergei Saltykov and no friend to Princess Gagarin, Catherine's closest companion. The meaning of her appointment was clear to Catherine, who "lost all patience" and cried bitterly at this "great misfortune." She felt certain that the countess would blacken her name, and do her great injury, and she begged Alexander Shuvalov to forestall the appointment.

  The empress relented, and no more was heard of Countess Rumyantsev. Yet Catherine still had to endure the constant unwanted companionship of the gruesome Shuvalov, and a midwife was now assigned to watch her every move. In May the court traveled to Petersburg by slow stages, spending twenty-nine days on the road. On this journey Catherine was spared the rough jostling that had led to her first miscarriage, but she suffered nonetheless, confined for endless weeks with Shuvalov and his aggressive, impertinent wife and prevented from seeking even a brief passing conversation with Sergei, who was among the mounted escorts.

  At last they arrived in the capital and for the next two months Catherine was wretched with apprehension, certain that Sergei would soon be sent away and fearing, in her most melancholy hours, that he might actually welcome the separation. She felt abandoned, ill-used, and utterly lovesick. "I was never without a tear in my eye and a thousand fears took possession of me," she wrote. She tried to throw off her dark mood by taking long walks, but could find no consolation.

  When she entered her ninth month she learned that a birth chamber was being prepared for her within the empress's own suite. It was a severe shock. Clearly the empress intended closely to supervise every aspect of Catherine's labor and delivery. Catherine would be completely at her mercy. She was not to be allowed to give birth in her own bedchamber, in the presence of those dearest to her; she was to be deprived of friends, familiar possessions, familiar surroundings.

  Alexander Shuvalov took her to see the birth chamber—a bare, bleak room furnished with a few plain pieces covered in crimson damask. Cold air off the Neva swept in through two large ill-fitting windows that didn't close properly. A tiny anteroom, also sparely furnished, opened off the main chamber. There were no comforts, nothing was being arranged for the new mother's ease or to help see her through the ordeal she would soon have to face.

  "I saw that I would be isolated there," Catherine wrote, remembering her reaction, "without any sort of company, as wretched as a stone." Even Peter, whose companionship she normally loathed, would not be nearby, and this dismayed her. She blamed the disfigured Shuvalov, and complained to Princess Gagarin and Sergei. Both seemed concerned, but could do nothing.

  After all, the baby she carried was a great treasure, the heir to the throne of the Romanovs. The child's birth would be something akin to a hallowed event, eagerly awaited and prayed for, a sign of divine favor upon Russia and her people. Catherine was to be the mere vessel through which the blessed gift would be bestowed. Her comfort or discomfort was of no significance in the light of the higher purpose she served. To suggest otherwise might be to call down the wrath of the empress.

  Full of dread and misgivings, her heavy body unwieldy, Catherine was put to bed in the drafty birth chamber on the night of Tuesday, September 19. After several hours she awoke in pain, and the midwife was summoned. Her labor had begun.

  Peter was awakened, along with Alexander Shuvalov—who sent word to the empress that Catherine's time had come. Elizabeth threw a cloak over her nightdress and came into the birth chamber, where Catherine lay on a hard pallet beside her bed, struggling and writhing in intense pain. On throughout the night the empress kept vigil, praying to her icons for a safe delivery, while the midwife prodded Catherine's belly and noted the frequency of the spasms that convulsed her.

  All morning Catherine's agony continued, until at about midday the child was born at last. The midwife held him up: a boy, well formed and apparently healthy. As soon as he was washed and wrapped tightly in long strips of linen and flannel, following the Russian custom, the empress called in her confessor and told him to give the baby the name Paul. Catherine had not been consulted about the name; her wishes would not in any case have been considered significant. Paul had been the name of Elizabeth's brother, the first child born to Peter the Great and his second wife Catherine. He had not survived childhood.

  As soon as the confessor finished his prayers the empress took the baby and, beckoning to the midwife to follow her, swept out of the room. Peter and the Shuvalovs also followed, leaving Catherine alone except for a single attendant, Madame Wladislava, who was so afraid of acting without the express orders of the empress that she neglected Catherine completely.

  "I remained on my bed of misery," Catherine recalled in her memoirs. "I had sweated a great deal. I begged Madame Wladislava to change my linen, to put me to bed. She told me that she didn't dare." When Catherine asked for a drink of water she received the same response. For three hours Catherine lay where she was, cold, thirsty, and miserable, while the chill draft played across her sweat-stained coverlet. Madame Wladislava sent for the midwife, but the empress would not let her leave the newborn baby. Finally Alexander Shuvalov's wife looked in on Catherine, and was shocked to see her still lying on the hard pallet, in the same condition she had been in hours earlier. "It's enough to kill her!" she cried, and immediately went for the midwife. Half an hour later the midwife returned and ministered to her patient, putting her in her bed.

  Even then, however, no one came to see her, and the neglect wounded Catherine deeply. Tears of anger and self-pity flowed freely as more hours passed and she remained in isolation. Rejoicing was going on all around her, in the empress's apartments, in the streets outside the palace, in Peter's room, where he devoted himself to carousing in celebration. But the mother of the heir to the throne had no part in the revelry. Stiff and sore, her breasts swollen with milk, full of longing to see the child that had been taken from her, she developed a high fever and a throbbing pain in her left leg.

  The following day was much the same. Catherine "did nothing but cry and groan" in her bed, complaining to Madame Wladislava about her aching leg, watching the door and hoping that someone would at least send a servant to see how she was. But her only visitor was Peter, who came in for a moment and then left, saying that he was pressed for time.

  "I didn't want to complain, or to give cause for complaint," she wrote. "I had too much pride. Even the idea of being in a wretched state was insupportable to me." She tried—through her tears—to maintain her dignity, but her suffering was acute. Hours passed. She heard artillery booming out across the river, all the bells in the city's hundreds of churches split the air with their ceaseless ringing. But the one sound she must have craved, the sound of her baby son's cries, was denied her.

  On the third day following the birth one of the empress's ladies came in, not to inquire about Catherine's health, but to ask Madame Wladislava the whereabouts of the satin cape the empress had been wearing during her childbed vigil. The cape was found in the antechamber, and the attendant disappeared with it.

  As Catherine was to discover later, there was an uproar in the empress's apartments. During the search for the cape, a packet of roots entwined with human hair had been found underneath the bolster of Elizabeth's bed. It was a charm, a thing of witchcraft. The empress erupted in hysteria. Next to assassination, she feared most becoming the target of sorcery. She recoiled from the packet as if from a snake, and ordered the hateful thing destroyed.

  All the bedchamber women came under harsh scrutiny. Which of them had been doing black magic? Which of them had dared to place this wicked work of enchantment so close to the imperial head?

  Suspicion fell on one of the empress's favorite waiting women, Anna Dmitrievna Dumachev, whose long friendship with her mistress made the Shuvalovs fear her. Anna was arrested, along with her husband and two young sons. She admitted, perhaps under torture, that she had concealed charms near the empress's person in order to bind the two of them t
ogether in friendship, and had also dosed the empress with adulterated Hungarian wine.

  These admissions spread panic in the imperial bedchamber. For a time, even baby Paul was forgotten in the scramble to eradicate every evidence of witchcraft and purge the household of suspect servants. (Anna and her children were sent into exile; her husband, mad with terror, slit his throat with a razor.) By the time order was restored, several more days had passed and Catherine was beginning to heal.

  All her concern was now focused on her son. She was desperate to hear whether or not he was thriving, and found a way to get word about him by secret means. For her to inquire directly about his welfare was all but forbidden, as it was taken to imply a criticism of the empress. She learned, to her dismay, that soon after birth he had developed ulcerated sores around his mouth, making it hard for him to suckle and thus imperiling his life. The sores eventually healed, but he was not out of danger. The nurses and old women who surrounded him all but smothered him with their unhealthy attentions. The empress herself ran to him— limping on her weak legs—whenever he cried, and he was kept in an overheated room, swaddled in flannel, under piles of coverlets of velvet and black fox fur.

  Catherine was not allowed to attend the baptismal ceremony for Paul, but the empress did visit her afterward in order to present her with a draft on the imperial treasury, to be redeemed for a hundred thousand rubles, and a small cask of jewels. The jewels were scanty and of relatively little value—a necklace, a pair of earrings and two rings, all set with inferior stones and of undistinguished workmanship—but the treasury draft was very welcome, as Catherine had exhausted her allowance and was heavily in debt. She looked forward to receiving the actual coins. But when in due course the cabinet secretary, Baron Czercassov, appeared to honor the treasury draft he was empty-handed. The hundred thousand rubles intended for Catherine had in fact been paid to Peter, he explained; hearing that Catherine was to receive a large gift, Peter demanded one of equal size, and as there was not enough ready money in the treasury to cover both gifts, Catherine would have to wait for hers.