Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (45 page)

The day after going to the theater, Catherine began a long wait for the empress’s reply to her letter. She was still waiting several weeks later when Count Shuvalov announced one morning that the empress had
just dismissed Madame Vladislavova. After a burst of tears, Catherine gathered herself and replied that, of course, Her Majesty had the right to appoint or dismiss whomever she pleased, but that she was grieved to find, more and more, that all who came near her were doomed to become victims of Her Majesty’s disfavor. In order that there be fewer victims, she asked Shuvalov to appeal to the empress to put a quick end to this situation in which she only made other people miserable. She begged to be sent back to her family immediately.

That evening, after a day of refusing to eat, Catherine was alone in her room when one of her younger maids of honor came in. In tears, the young woman said,
“We all are afraid that you will sink under these afflictions. Let me to go to my uncle—he is your confessor as well as the empress’s. I will speak to him and tell him everything you wish, and I promise that he will speak to the empress in a way that will please you.” Trusting her, Catherine described what she had written to the empress. The young woman saw her uncle, Father Theodore Dubyansky, and returned to tell Catherine that the priest advised the grand duchess to announce during the middle of the night that she was seriously ill and wanted to confess, and to ask that he, her father confessor, be sent to her. This way, he would be able to tell the empress what he had heard from Catherine’s own lips. Catherine approved this plan, and between two and three in the morning, she rang her bell. A maid entered and Catherine said that she was dangerously ill and wished to make her confession. Instead of her confessor, Count Alexander Shuvalov hurried into the room. Catherine repeated her request for the priest. Shuvalov sent for doctors. When they arrived, she told them that she needed spiritual, not medical, assistance. One of the doctors felt her pulse and reported that it was weak. Catherine whispered that it was her soul that was in danger; that her body no longer needed doctors.

Eventually, Father Dubyansky arrived, and he and Catherine were left alone. The black-robed priest with a long white beard sat by her bed and they talked for an hour and a half. She described to him the past and present state of her affairs, the grand duke’s behavior toward her, the Shuvalovs’ hostility, how they were poisoning the empress’s view of her, and the constant dismissal of her servants, particularly those who were most devoted to her. For these reasons, she said, she had written to the empress and begged to be sent home. She asked the priest to help her. He said he would do his best. He advised her that she should continue asking to be sent home, and he said that she would
certainly not be sent away because they could not justify this dismissal in the eyes of the public. He agreed that the empress, having chosen her at a tender age, had largely abandoned her to her enemies; and said that Elizabeth would do far better to dismiss Elizabeth Vorontsova and the Shuvalovs. Moreover, he said, everyone was crying out at the Shuvalovs’ injustice in the affair of Count Bestuzhev, of whose innocence everyone was convinced. He concluded by telling Catherine that he would go immediately to the empress’s apartment, where he would sit and wait until Her Majesty awakened in order to speak to her and urge her to speed up the interview with Catherine she had promised. Meanwhile, he added, Catherine should remain in bed, which would reinforce his argument that the affliction and grief to which she was being subjected might cause her grave harm unless some remedy was found.

The confessor kept his promise and described Catherine’s condition so vividly to Elizabeth that she summoned Alexander Shuvalov and ordered him to inquire whether the grand duchess’s health would allow her to come and talk to her the following night. Catherine told Count Shuvalov that for such a purpose she would summon all her remaining strength.

39
Confrontation

O
N THE EVENING
of the following day—it was April 13, 1758, a week before Catherine’s twenty-ninth birthday—Alexander Shuvalov told Catherine that after midnight he would come to escort her to the empress’s apartment. At half past one, he arrived and said that the empress was ready. Catherine followed him through the halls, which seemed empty. Suddenly, she caught a glimpse of Peter ahead of her, also on his way, it seemed, toward his aunt’s apartment. Catherine had not seen him since the night she had gone to the theater by herself.

In the empress’s apartment, Catherine found her husband already present. Approaching Elizabeth, she fell on her knees and begged to be sent home to Germany. The empress tried to make her get up, but Catherine remained on her knees. Elizabeth, appearing to Catherine to be more sad than angry, said, “
Why do you wish me to send you home?
Remember that you have children.” Catherine’s answer was prepared: “
My children are in your hands and could not be better placed. I hope you will not abandon them.” Elizabeth asked, “How shall I explain such a step to the people?” Again, Catherine was ready: “
Your Imperial Majesty will tell them, if you see fit, all the reasons that have brought upon me your displeasure, and the hatred of the grand duke.” “But how will you manage to live at your family’s home?” the empress continued. “I will do as well as I did before you did me the honor of choosing me and taking me away,” Catherine replied.

The empress again insisted that Catherine rise; this time, Catherine obeyed. Elizabeth paced back and forth. The long room where they were meeting had three windows, between which stood two dressing tables holding the empress’s gold toilet service. Large screens had been placed in front of the windows. From the moment she entered, Catherine suspected that Ivan Shuvalov and perhaps others were hidden behind these screens; later, she learned that Ivan Shuvalov had, indeed, been there. Catherine also noticed that one of the basins on the dressing tables contained folded letters. The empress approached her and said, “
God is my witness to how I wept when you were so dangerously ill on your arrival in Russia. If I had not loved you, I would not have kept you here.” Catherine thanked the empress for her kindness. She said that she would never forget these things and would always consider it the greatest of personal misfortunes that she had incurred Her Majesty’s displeasure.

Elizabeth’s mood suddenly changed; she seemed to revert to a mental list of grievances drawn up in preparing for the interview. “
You are dreadfully haughty,” she said. “You imagine that
there is no one so clever as you.” Again, Catherine was ready: “If I ever had such a conceit, Madame, nothing would be more likely to destroy it than my present situation and this very conversation.”

As the two women were talking, Catherine noticed that Peter was whispering to Alexander Shuvalov. Elizabeth saw this too and walked over to them. Catherine could not hear what the three of them were saying until her husband raised his voice and cried out, “
She is dreadfully spiteful and very obstinate.” Catherine, realizing that she was the subject, said to Peter, “If you are speaking of me, I am glad to tell you in the presence of Her Imperial Majesty that I am indeed spiteful to people who advise you to inflict injustice, and that I have become obstinate because I have seen that, by yielding, I have gained nothing but your
hostility.” Peter appealed to his aunt: “Your Majesty can see how malicious she is by what she is saying.” But Catherine’s words were making a different impression on the empress. Catherine saw as the conversation progressed that, although Elizabeth had been advised—or had resolved—to be severe with her, the empress’s attitude was wavering.

For a while, Elizabeth continued to criticize. “
You meddle in many things that do not concern you. How could you, for instance, presume to send orders to General Apraksin?” Catherine replied, “I, Madame? Send orders? Never has such an idea entered my head.”

“How can you deny it?” Elizabeth said. “Your letters are there in the basin.” She pointed to them. “You know that you were forbidden to write.”

Catherine knew that she must admit to something. “It is true that I transgressed in this respect and
I beg Your Majesty’s forgiveness. But as my letters are there, these three letters will prove to Your Majesty that I never sent him any orders. In one of them, I told him what was being said of his behavior.”

Elizabeth interrupted, “
And why did you write this to him?”

Catherine replied, “Because I took an interest in the general, whom I liked very much. I begged him to follow your orders. The two other letters contain only congratulations on the birth of his son and New Year’s greetings.”

“Bestuzhev says there were many others,” Elizabeth said.

“If Bestuzhev says this, he lies,” Catherine responded.

“Well, then,” the empress said, “since he is lying about you, I will have him put to torture.” Catherine replied that, as sovereign, she could do what she liked, but that she, Catherine, had never written more than those three letters to Apraksin.

Elizabeth walked up and down the room, sometimes silent, sometimes addressing herself to Catherine, sometimes to her nephew or Count Shuvalov. “
The grand duke showed much bitterness towards me, seeking to anger the empress against me,” Catherine wrote in her
Memoirs
. “But because he went about this stupidly and displayed more passion than justice, he failed. She listened with a kind of involuntary approval to my responses to my husband’s remarks. His behavior became so objectionable that the empress came up to me and said in a low voice, ‘
I have many more things to say to you, but I do not want to make things worse between the two of you than they are already.’ ” Seeing this sign of goodwill, Catherine whispered back, “And I, too, find it difficult
to speak, in spite of my great desire to tell you all that is in my mind and heart.” Elizabeth nodded and dismissed everyone, saying that it was very late. It was three o’clock in the morning.

Peter left first, then Catherine, followed by Shuvalov. Just as the count reached the door, the empress called him back. Catherine returned to her rooms and had started to undress when there was a knock on her door. It was Alexander Shuvalov. “
He told me that the empress had spoken to him for some time, and had instructed him to tell me not to worry too much, and that she would have another conversation with me, alone and soon.” She curtsied to Count Shuvalov and asked him to thank Her Imperial Majesty, and to hurry the moment of the second conversation. He told her not to speak of this to anyone, especially the grand duke.

Catherine was certain now that she would not be sent away. While waiting for the promised second interview, she kept mostly to her room. From time to time, she reminded Count Shuvalov that she was anxious to have her fate decided. On April 21, 1758, her twenty-ninth birthday, she was having dinner alone in her room when the empress sent word that she was drinking to Catherine’s health. Catherine sent back her gratitude. When Peter learned of the empress’s message, he sent a similar greeting. Poniatowski reported that the French ambassador, the Marquis de l’Hôpital, had spoken admiringly of her determination, and said that her resolution not to leave her apartment could only turn to her advantage. Catherine, taking l’Hôpital’s remark as the treacherous praise of an enemy, decided to do the opposite. One Sunday, when no one was expecting it, she dressed and left her apartment. When she entered the anterooms where the ladies- and gentlemen-in-waiting of the young court were assembled, she saw their astonishment at seeing her. When Peter arrived, he was equally surprised. He came up and spoke to her briefly.