Alexander II

by Edvard Radzinsky

  By the next day, Shuvalov knew everything from his agents. The tsar hailed a fiacre outside the palace and drove to rue Bas-du-ramparts, near the palace. He let the cab go and consulted a piece of paper, apparently with an address, under the lamppost. At last he entered the courtyard of the nearest house.

  He quickly realized he had the wrong address, but he couldn’t figure out how to get out of the courtyard. The gates had swung shut and would not budge. Tossing the portfolio with the cash on the ground, the emperor vainly struggled with the door to the street. He was trapped. The agent (who was supposed to guard the tsar unobtrusively) finally came over and pointed to the rope hanging by the gate. A pull on the rope opened it.

  The happy emperor was freed. He vanished next door, where a certain someone lived. It was the start of his happiest week in Paris. It turned out that the omniscient Third Department knew very little about her. The secret police primarily watched the tsar and were required to know everything about him; the careers of many people depended on it. But Shuvalov, like the court, had underestimated the tsar. They thought he was open and simple. The “strong secretiveness” remarked upon by the perceptive de Custine allowed him to keep his affair private for a long time.

  His mystery woman would outlive Alexander by many years. She would see his death and then learn of the death of the tsar’s family. She died in 1922 in a villa in Nice, the heroine of one of the most dramatic affairs in the history of the lusty Romanov men, an affair that was one of the factors in the demise of the empire. After the revolution, the Bolsheviks found very frank erotic drawings of a female nude, of her body, which drove the emperor wild until his dying day.

  Alexander II was forty years old when he first saw her. He was observing military maneuvers near Poltava on the 150th anniversary of Peter the Great’s victory over the Swedish king Charles XII. Alexander was staying at the estate of retired guards captain Prince Mikhail Dolgoruky. The Dolgoruky line went back to the Rurik princes and even had a saint, Prince Mikhail Chernigovsky, a legendary warrior who was a prince in Novgorod and grand prince of Kiev in the thirteenth century, tortured to death by the Tatars of the Golden Horde.

  Prince Dolgoruky was well-married to a wealthy landowner. After a marvelous lunch, the emperor went for a walk in their vast park. He met a walking doll, in a pink cape and with a thick chestnut braid.

  “And who are you, my child?”

  The doll answered seriously, “I am Ekaterina Mikhailovna.” Despite the adult use of name and patronymic, she was twelve.

  “And what are you doing here?”

  “Looking for the emperor,” she replied just as seriously.

  She never forgot that first meeting, although he probably never gave it a second thought.

  Four years later, old Adlerberg, his minister of the court, brought him a letter from the girl’s mother. Prince Mikhail had died, having managed to go through one of the major fortunes in Russia. He left the family penniless, but he did pass along one thing: good looks. Four handsome sons and two beautiful daughters were now impoverished.

  Alexander did not leave the noble family in misery; he took them under his wing. The double-mortgaged estate where he had met “Ekaterina Mikhailovna” was taken under royal care. He paid for the children’s education: The boys were sent to the prestigious Page Corps and military schools, and Ekaterina and her sister went to the Smolny Institute for Noble Young Ladies. Their mother, Princess Vera, moved to St. Petersburg and rented a small apartment with her remaining funds.

  The Smolny Institute, “that lovely hothouse,” as Karamzin called it, was a type of convent, a finishing school where the future wives of Russian aristocrats were brought up. “An excess of education” (that is, natural sciences and literature) was considered not only unnecessary, but dangerous. Music, sewing, domestic management, dancing, etiquette, choral singing, and cooking were the subjects of the institute. Classes spent hours on court ceremonies, such as “the ceremony of kissing the hands of August Persons on holidays.”

  That ceremony, developed by Paul I himself, called for “a deep bow, then bending one knee, make a precise kiss on the hand of the Emperor. Then it is proper to do the same to the Empress. And depart, backing up.”

  There was also “Reception of August Persons.” “You must make a deep bow and curtsy from the waist, and afterward pleasantly say a phrase of greeting in French.”

  These things were rehearsed for hours.

  On an autumn day in 1864, Katya needed all that knowledge. The August Persons came to Smolny and the emperor saw her again.

  The petite young woman (she was of average height, but she always seemed small to the very tall Alexander) with thick chestnut hair looked up at him with her enormous eyes, made her bow and curtsy, and spoke her French greeting in a trembling voice.

  He was smitten. Since every new love showed on his face, everyone noticed, including the empress. But they did not pay particular attention. He was continually falling in love. The mistresses changed so quickly that even the Third Department stopped watching the women. They saw that the beauties had no influence on state affairs. Their sole function was to end up in the tsar’s bed and vanish soon afterward.

  Interestingly, the last dangerous mistress, Alexandra Dolgorukaya, was also from the same line and was a distant relative of Katya’s.

  The director of Smolny knew her job. Katya was given a hint of her good fortune, but for some reason she did not appreciate her luck and was in no hurry to fall into Alexander’s arms, as a good, and more important, poor subject should do. The tsar took steps. A relative of the director, a Mme Vera Shebeko, a “very pleasant and charming lady,” went into action.

  Mme Shebeko called on Katya’s mother in her poor apartment and told her that fortune smiled upon them. In view of the family’s hopeless finances, Katya had the opportunity to assure her own situation and that of the whole family. And really, what else did the future hold for her? Rich men in St. Petersburg did not marry beauties as a rule. They married money. Poor graduates of Smolny usually stayed on to become teachers there, and usually became old maids.

  Shebeko warned Princess Vera: Katya was very pretty, but so many young beauties dreamed of finding a place in the tsar’s heart that she had better act swiftly. She became a friend of the family and soon received permission from Katya’s mother to give the girl advice. Quite delicately (as befitted the age and the family) she pushed Katya toward the tsar’s bed. But Katya remained oddly slow to understand. She clearly liked the tsar and she was thrilled when he visited her in Smolny Institute hospital during her illness. (The tsar had come incognito, and the hospital was guarded like a military outpost.)

  But still, nothing. And then, to the total surprise of Shebeko and Princess Vera, the tsar became even more enamored of the girl. He began taking walks with her in the Summer Garden. Girls were allowed to leave Smolny only on the weekend, but the tsar wanted daily walks. So her mother and Mme Shebeko asked Katya to leave the institute.

  She did it gladly, because she needed the walks with the tsar, too. But they did not go beyond taking walks. She and the tsar walked next to each other, the dog ran in front, and behind them followed his adjutant. The other park visitors began whispering, “The tsar is taking his mademoiselle out for an airing.”

  They had to change the venue for their meetings. Now they walked in the parks on the islands. The Don Juan’s platonic affair continued. They walked and they kissed under the trees. The tsar’s carriage would bring her home. The lovers looked happy—the seventeen-year-old girl and the forty-eight-year-old tsar. He was approaching fifty and behaving like a schoolboy.

  Katya was appointed lady-in-waiting to the empress. This was the usual spot for the tsar’s mistresses. But even when she became a lady-in-waiting, she did not become his lover. The tsar was burning with desire, but for some reason did not make demands. Once again, it was up to Vera Shebeko to explain things to Katya delicately—to no avail.

  The young woman also did not appear
in court. That was not because the tsar was protecting the empress, who had long grown accustomed to having ladies-in-waiting who were his mistresses. No, it was Katya who did not want to be presented to the court. It was the secret of the affair that neither her mother nor Vera Shebeko could understand. She was different.

  Alexander’s reforms affected the Smolny Institute as they did the entire country. The winds of change burst into that conservative institution, bringing with it the well-known pedagogue Ushinsky, who reformed the curriculum. Literature and mathematics were now taught, and young ladies were given a real education. And even though Ushinsky was eventually forced out of the institute, his spirit, as well as the instructors he had hired, remained. Celebrated works of literature and well-known characters from them, once banned, were now taught and discussed. During their walks, the little beauty from the institute told the tsar about the world he himself had helped create and of which he knew almost nothing. It was the world of the new Russia. Katya was the product of his perestroika, and that is why she was not interested in being in the court.

  Social position, wealth, intrigues—the main values of the tsar’s mistresses—were a waste of time for her. She saw the court with the same unforgiving eyes as that other intelligent young woman, Anna Tyutcheva. “This is an empty world…it comes alive only in evening light…. Only evening gives it a mysterious beauty. Only one word rules this world—toilette. In that vain sea of lace and precious stones you can be only one more dressed-up doll. You have to be dressed up continually—for the tsar, going to a ball, or for God, going to the palace chapel…. Here even God is treated like a boring host who is giving a ball. They visit him…and immediately forget about him.”

  Like the rest of her generation, Katya dreamed of devoting herself to something very important. The tsar fell in love with her completely, totally, forever. But like all the girls in St. Petersburg society, she had heard much about his love affairs, and she feared becoming one in a long series.

  The eventual consummation came out of pity for him, so powerful in young women like her. Hadn’t he been through two terrible years, starting at the beginning of 1865 when his beloved son had died, and later there was the assassination attempt in the Summer Garden—making her realize what it would be to lose him. Her own mother had died in May 1866, and she was all alone.

  It happened in July 1866, on the day of the anniversary of his late parents’ wedding. There is a small hunting palace with columns and a classical portico on the road between Peterhof and St. Petersburg, on a small hill called Babigon. It stands to this day. Its windows open on the domes of a distant church, a pond, and green expanses.

  It is said that his uncle, Alexander I, used this romantic spot for his assignations. The building had a surprise like the palaces of Louis XVI: When a small pedal in the dining room was pressed, a table set for two rose through the floor to the strains of a minuet.

  The tsar settled her in the small palace with Vera Shebeko. To the end, Katya considered Vera a selfless patron of their affair. She had trusted her. The anniversary was being celebrated in Peterhof, in the Big Palace. The parade, which Nicholas I had so enjoyed in his day, was followed by a formal dinner and fireworks. That night, the emperor galloped to Katya in Babigon.

  What happened that night is hidden from us, except for the words he spoke in the dark bedroom, where her naked, youthful body lay. “Now you are my secret wife. I swear that if I am ever free, I will marry you.” She knew he was telling the truth and that was why he had chosen his father’s wedding day to be their first time.

  The very next day the court knew she had been deflowered. Apparently Vera Shebeko had spread the word, so that her own important position would be known as the friend of the tsar’s favorite. The tsar was amazed to see how much Katya suffered from the gossip. What she feared had come to pass. Not allowed to be his secret wife, she was his recognized mistress.

  In order to spare her the intrusive gossip, he decided to send her out of St. Petersburg. This was done delicately. His brother, Mikhail, was married to a cheerful and beautiful Italian marquise, whom Katya liked very much. The marquise invited Katya on a trip to Naples to see her family.

  Once Katya left, the court and the Third Department had their own explanation. They decided that it was the usual story. The inexperienced girl had bored the tsar immediately, and the affair was over. Vera Shebeko interpreted it that way, too. Soon after Ekaterina’s departure, she told the tsar about the difficult position of her younger sister, Maria Dolgorukaya. She asked him to help her, too. The tsar agreed to see her. Maria was also a beauty, and Shebeko expected the usual result. But to her great surprise, the tsar gave the beauty money, and asked for nothing.

  An even greater surprise for Vera Shebeko followed. The tsar wrote to Naples almost daily. He summoned Mme Shebeko and sent her to Paris to rent a house not far from the Elysée Palace. The lovers had decided to meet in Paris.

  The affair with Dolgorukaya was a blow for Shuvalov. He had missed a very important part of the tsar’s life. He now demanded total surveillance on the tsar and his mistress. In a brief time, the chief of the secret police would be able to assess the young woman’s influence on the tsar and the danger of that influence—for Shuvalov himself and for the throne.

  In the meantime, Alexander’s visit to Paris went according to plan: The next day a reception and dinner in his honor were held in Versailles. Bismarck has described similar dinners at Versailles with Napoleon III’s pathetic court. Once the VIPs had eaten and began leaving the dining room, they were met by hungry second-rate guests, who showed an appalling lack of manners. Gentlemen in gold-trimmed uniforms and lovelies in lavish Parisian gowns pushed and shoved, cursing and even fighting to get to the food. Alexander could have quoted Bismarck’s comment, “Gone are the days of the Louises, when the French court was the school of politeness and manners for all of Europe.”

  Every night the hired fiacre brought her to the Elysée Palace.

  In Paris, Alexander became very youthful. Passion is the magical elixir of Mephistopheles, and it worked on the tsar. But during a happy walk in the Tuileries, so the memoirs of contemporaries recount, he had his palm read by a gypsy, who saw seven attempts on his life—six times his life would hang by a thread; the seventh attempt would be the last.

  The prediction of so many assassination attempts (if in fact, there was a prediction) had to seem crazy to Alexander. But a second attempt on his life occurred right in Paris. He had attended a military show at Longchamp with Napoleon and Wilhelm. On the way back, as a demonstration of his friendship, Alexander got into the carriage with Napoleon. It was not needed: Uncle Willy understood on whose side Russian neutrality lay. Bismarck even permitted himself a threat, saying that Prussia was a powerful friend of its friends and a powerful enemy of its enemies. When this was related to Alexander, he merely smiled.

  They were traveling in an open carriage. Napoleon sat next to Alexander, behind them the tsarevich and Vladimir. The carriage was crawling along in the Bois de Boulogne through a heavy crowd. When they reached the Grand Cascade, a man came out of the crowd on the side where the French emperor was sitting. The man quickly raised his pistol and Alexander heard a bullet whiz by. And then a second shot. The coachman struck the horses and the carriage dashed forward, the crowd leaping back.

  Alexander thanked God and wondered how the man could have missed at that range. He was told that Napoleon’s riding master had reacted quickly when he saw the man and pushed aside his arm.

  That evening, Alexander received Empress Eugenie. She wept and begged him not to shorten his visit. Next came the French emperor with the details. The criminal was a Pole, of course—an émigré named Anton Berezovski, twenty years old. He had been seeking an opportunity for the last few days. Fortunately, he was a bad shot. His double-barreled pistol exploded from too much gunpowder, changing the bullets’ trajectories. The riding master had done nothing. The next day, they brought him the prisoner’s statement. The Pole m
ade a full confession. He said that he had always wanted to kill the tsar, but had never spoken of it and had acted alone.

  The French newspapers commiserated with the assassin. Alexander was furious. Why had he come to protect them if those senseless people hated Russia so much? No wonder his father detested the eternally rebellious French. Now he no longer loved beautiful France. He applauded his son’s sentiment, “I hope we’ll be leaving this den soon?”

  The tsar was determined to complete the scheduled visit, so that no one would dare think that the tsar of all Russia could be scared off by one Pole’s pistol. Empress Eugenie sweetly tried to sit next to him on the street side of the carriage, but he, naturally, asked her never to do that.

  Back in St. Petersburg he learned the results of the trial. The tsar had been sure that his would-be assassin would be condemned to death and then he would be required to make the obligatory gesture of mercy, asking for a pardon. But the French spared him this hypocritical gesture. Berezovski’s lawyer, to the courtroom’s applause, abused Russia, and helped his client. The Pole was given a life sentence, and the newspapers gleefully guessed that he would soon be released.

  Alexander had returned to St. Petersburg with the firm conviction that Russia would be better off having a union with Germany. The French and Sevastopol were one of the reasons for his father’s death. He should have never forgotten that. He was punished for it by the Pole. In what now would inexorably happen to France he saw the hand of providence, punishing the French emperor for his past injustice. He was sure that Napoleon III’s days were numbered.

  He was right. Prussia attacked France and destroyed it. His father’s old enemy, Napoleon III, surrendered at Sedan. But the results would have dire effects for the Romanov dynasty. The mighty German Empire would now arise on Russia’s borders, with its motivating idea of “marching on the East.”