Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (41 page)

When Catherine received the draft of the proposed document, she reacted cautiously. She did not directly contradict Bestuzhev or discourage his effort, but she did express reservations. If, later, she professed to find its pretensions excessive and its timing inopportune, she could only have been flattered at the central role awarded her. She thanked Bestuzhev verbally for his good intentions but told him that she regarded his plan as premature. Bestuzhev continued writing and revising, making additions and alterations.

Catherine understood that this enterprise was hazardous. On one hand, Bestuzhev was offering her a path that could lead to rule of the empire. On the other, she understood that discovery of this incriminating document could result in mortal danger for herself as well as for the chancellor. Elizabeth’s fury, if she read this document, would be a dreadful thing.

34
Catherine Challenges Brockdorff; She Gives a Party

I
N THE SPRING OF
1757, Catherine watched Brockdorff’s influence over her husband increasing. The clearest example of this was evident when Peter told her that he must send an order to Holstein to
arrest one of the duchy’s leading citizens, a man named Elendsheim, who had risen to the top through education and ability. Catherine asked why Elendsheim must be arrested. “
They tell me he is suspected of embezzlement,” Peter replied. Catherine asked who was accusing him. “Oh, nobody is accusing him because everyone in the country fears and respects him and that is exactly why I must have him arrested,” Peter explained. “As soon as that is done, I am assured that there will be a great many accusers.”

Catherine shuddered. “
If such things are done,” she said, “there will not be an innocent man left in the world. Any jealous person will be able to spread a rumor on the strength of which his victim will be arrested. Who is giving you such bad advice?”

“You always want to know more than other people,” Peter complained. Catherine replied that she asked because she did not believe that, on his own, the grand duke would commit such an injustice. Peter paced the room and then abruptly left. He soon returned and said, “
Come to my apartment. Brockdorff will explain this Elendsheim affair to you. You will be convinced why I must have him arrested.”

Brockdorff was waiting. “
Speak to the grand duchess,” Peter said. Brockdorff bowed. “As Your Imperial Highness orders me, I will speak to Her Imperial Highness.” He turned to Catherine “This is an affair that must be handled with great secrecy and prudence,” he said. “Holstein is filled with rumors about Elendsheim’s embezzlement and misappropriations. He has no accusers because he is feared, but when he is arrested, then there will be as many as one could wish.” Catherine asked for details. It turned out that Elendsheim, as head of the Justice Department, had been accused of extortion because after every trial, the loser complained that the other party had won only because the judges were bribed. Catherine told Brockdorff that he was trying to push her husband to commit a flagrant injustice. Using his logic, she said, the grand duke could have him, Brockdorff, locked up, and declare that the accusations would come later. As for litigation, she said, it was easy to understand why those who lost always claimed that they had lost because the judges were bribed.

Both men remained silent and Catherine left the room. Brockdorff then told the grand duke that everything she had said had sprung from her need to dominate; that she disapproved of everything that she, herself, had not proposed; that she knew nothing of the world or of political affairs; that women always liked to meddle in everything, and always spoiled whatever they meddled in; and that any serious measure was
beyond their ability. In the end, Brockdorff managed to overrule Catherine’s advice, and Peter sent an order to Holstein to arrest Elendsheim.

Catherine, disgusted, struck back, recruiting Lev Naryshkin and others to assist her. When Brockdorff walked past, they shouted,
“
Baba Ptitsa!”
—pelican—because they considered the bird’s appearance to be hideous and Brockdorff’s equally hideous. In her
Memoirs
, Catherine wrote, “
He took money from everyone, and he persuaded the grand duke, who always needed money, to do the same thing by selling Holstein orders and titles to anyone who would pay for them.”

Despite her efforts, Catherine was unable to weaken Brockdorff’s hold on Peter. She approached Alexander Shuvalov and told him that she considered Brockdorff dangerous company for a young prince, the heir to an empire. She advised the count to warn the empress. He asked whether he could mention Catherine’s name. She said yes, and added that if the empress wanted to hear it from her personally, she would speak with candor. Shuvalov agreed. Catherine waited, and eventually the count told her that the empress would find a moment to speak to her.

While she waited, Catherine became involved in Peter’s affairs in a positive way. One morning, Peter walked into Catherine’s room, closely followed by his secretary, Zeitz, who carried a document in his hand. “
Look at this devil of a fellow!” Peter said. “I drank too much yesterday and today I am still in a haze, but here he is bringing me papers he wants me to deal with. He even follows me into your room!” To Catherine, Zeitz explained, “Everything I have here only requires a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ It will not take a quarter of an hour.”

“Let’s see,” Catherine said. “Perhaps we can get through them more quickly than you think.”

Zeitz began to read aloud and as he spoke, Catherine said yes or no. Peter was pleased by this procedure, and Zeitz said to him, “You see, my lord, if you consented to do this twice a week, your affairs would not fall into arrears. These things are only trifles, but they must be attended to, and the grand duchess has just disposed of all of them with six Yes’s and six No’s.” From that day on, Peter sent Zeitz to Catherine whenever a simple yes or no was required of him. Eventually, she asked Peter to give her a signed order listing the matters she could decide without his permission. Peter obliged.

After this, Catherine mentioned to Peter that if he found decisions regarding Holstein burdensome, he should realize that they were only a small fraction of the work he would have when he was responsible for
the Russian empire. Peter reiterated that he had not been born for Russia, that he did not suit the Russians any more than they suited him. She suggested that he ask the empress to acquaint him with the administration of government affairs. Specifically, she urged him to ask to attend meetings of the empress’s council. Peter spoke to Alexander Shuvalov, who advised the empress to admit him to these meetings whenever she went herself. Elizabeth agreed, but in the end this turned out to be meaningless, because the empress went with him only once. Neither of them went again.

Looking back on these years, Catherine wrote, “
The great problem lay in the fact that I tried to stick as close as possible to the truth, while he left it farther and farther behind.” Peter’s most outlandish fabrications were personal and petty; often, she says, they originated in a desire to impress a young woman. Relying on this person’s innocence, he would tell her that when he was a boy, living with his father in Holstein, he was often placed in command of a detachment of soldiers and sent to round up a band of marauding Gypsies in the countryside near Kiel. Always emphasizing his own skill and valor, Peter described the brilliant tactics he had used to pursue, surround, engage, and capture these opponents, At first, he was careful to tell these stories only to people who knew nothing about him. Then, growing bolder, he told the tales in front of people who knew better, but on whose discretion he relied not to contradict him.
When he began to create these fictions in Catherine’s company, she asked him how long before his father’s death these events had occurred. As she remembered the conversation, Peter replied that it had been three or four years.
“Well,” she said, “you began very young, because three or four years before your father’s death, you were only six or seven years old. You were eleven when your father died and you were left in the guardianship of my uncle, the crown prince of Sweden. What also astonishes me,” Catherine continued, “is that your father, whose only son you were—you were a very delicate child at that age—should have sent you, his heir, at the age of six or seven, to fight brigands.” It was not she, Catherine concluded, but the calendar that discredited his story.

Still, Peter continued to come to Catherine for help. Because her future was tied to his, she did what she could. She treated him more like a
younger brother than a husband: she advised and scolded, listened to his confidences about his love affairs, and continued to assist in the affairs of Holstein. “Whenever he found himself at a loss,” Catherine said, “he would come running to me to get my advice, and then, having gotten it, be off again as fast as his legs could carry him.”

Eventually, Catherine realized that the empress did not approve of her efforts to help her husband. On the evening Elizabeth finally summoned Catherine for the interview that Catherine had asked for eight months earlier, the empress was alone. The first subject was Brockdorff. Catherine explained the details of the Elendsheim affair and gave the empress her opinion of Brockdorff’s harmful influence on her husband. Elizabeth listened without commenting. She asked for details of the grand duke’s private life. Catherine told her everything she knew. She started to speak again about Holstein, and Elizabeth interrupted her. “
You seem to be well-informed about that country,” she said coldly. Catherine understood that her narrative was producing a bad impression. She explained that she was well informed because her husband had ordered her to help him with the administration of his small country. Elizabeth frowned, remained silent, and then abruptly dismissed Catherine. The grand duchess was uncertain what would happen next.

In midsummer 1757, Catherine tried a different approach to appeasing her husband: she gave a party in his honor. For her garden at Oranienbaum, the Italian architect Antonio Rinaldi designed and built a huge wooden cart capable of holding an orchestra of sixty musicians and singers. Catherine had poetic verses written and set to music. She had lamps placed along the grand avenue of the garden, and then she screened off the avenue with an immense curtain behind which tables were set for supper.

At dusk, Peter and dozens of guests entered the garden and sat down. After the first course, the curtain concealing the illuminated grand avenue was raised. Approaching in the distance came the rolling orchestra on its giant cart, pulled by twenty oxen decorated with garlands. Dancers, male and female, performed beside the moving cart. “
The weather was superb,” Catherine wrote, “and when the cart stopped, it happened by chance that the moon hung directly over it, a circumstance which produced a wonderful effect and astonished the whole company.” The diners jumped up from the table to see. Then the
curtain dropped, and the guests returned to their seats for another course. A flourish of trumpets and cymbals announced an elaborate free lottery. On either side of the large curtain, a small curtain was raised, revealing brightly lit booths, with porcelain objects, flowers, ribbons, fans, combs, purses, gloves, sword knots, and other finery available. Once all of these items had been taken, dessert was served, and the company danced until six in the morning.

The party was a triumph. Peter and his entourage, including the Holsteiners, praised Catherine. In her
Memoirs
, she basked in her achievement. “
The Grand Duchess is kindness itself,” she records people as saying. “She gave presents to everyone; she is charming; she smiled and took pleasure in making us all dance, eat, and make merry.”

“In short,” Catherine purred, “I was found to possess qualities which had not been recognized before, and I thereby disarmed my enemies. This had been my goal.”

In June 1757, a new French ambassador, the Marquis de l’Hôpital, had arrived in St. Petersburg. Versailles was well informed about Elizabeth’s illnesses and Catherine’s growing influence, and the marquis was advised to “
please the empress, but at the same time to ingratiate himself at the young court.” When l’Hôpital paid his first ceremonial visit to the Summer Palace, it was Catherine who received him. She and her guest waited as long as possible for the empress to appear, but finally sat down together to supper and began the ball without her. It was during the White Nights, and the room had to be artificially darkened for guests to enjoy the full effect of the hundreds of candles. Finally, in the gentler light, Elizabeth appeared. Her face was still handsome, but her swollen legs did not permit her to dance. After a few words of greeting, she retired to the gallery and from there sadly watched the brilliant scene.