Great Catherine (28 page)

"Her Imperial Majesty Elizaveta Petrovna has fallen asleep in the Lord. God preserve our gracious sovereign, Emperor Peter the Third."

All in the assembled company fell to their knees, many weeping openly. Crossing themselves three times, they said their prayers, for the empress, and for her successor, and for the long-awaited return of peace.

Chapter Sixteen

■ iO« ■

CATHERINE KNELT AT THE FOOT OF THE EMPRESS'S BIER IN Kazan Cathedral, her body swathed in the heavy black of mourning, her face veiled. The hard, cold stones of the cathedral floor hurt her knees and her muscles were cramped and weary. Yet she stayed where she was hour after hour, keeping her head bowed, crossing herself, now and then lying prostrate in an apparent paroxysm of grief. These, she had been told, were the prescribed formalities of mourning to be observed by the wife of the new emperor, and she intended to carry them out to the letter.

The empress had been dead for nearly six weeks. Her body, embalmed and gowned in gleaming silver lace, a golden crown on her shrunken brow, stank so badly that the odor made Catherine gag, yet she did not dare to move away from the marble catafalque lest she be thought disrespectful. Fortunately the acrid scent of incense masked the stink of death; the smoke from swinging censors filled the cathedral as dozens of priests in gold-embroidered vestments circled the bier, repeating the prayers for the dead.

Mourners filed past in their hundreds, officials, ambassadors of foreign courts, priests and monks, the people of Petersburg. All took note of the black-clad kneeling figure, and many commented on her piety. Catherine had been faithful in her attendance on the

empress's body, despite the freezing weather and heedless of her own extreme discomfort. The same could not be said of her husband, now Peter III, who rarely made an appearance in the cathedral and never stayed long when he did. Peter, it was noted, did not kneel or pray or pay his respects to his late aunt, the woman who had made him emperor, but behaved like a schoolboy, insulting the priests and making everyone uncomfortable with his loud laughter and jokes, his constant flirtation with the ladies of his entourage.

Peter was indeed giddy with joy. Elizabeth's death left him exultant, and he made no effort to conceal his delight. At last, after twenty years of coercion, humiliation, indeed virtual incarceration, he was his own master, with no one to answer to, no rules to obey but those he made himself. For the first time in his adult life he was free of the looming shadow of the empress, no longer fearful of her whims or of her retribution, safe at last from the worry that she might designate someone other than himself heir to her throne. His long nightmare of submission was over. He could do anything he liked.

After six weeks of solemnities and prayers, Peter was impatient. He cared nothing for the decaying body lying on the marble catafalque and would gladly have ordered it taken away and dumped in a ditch. He refused to wear black, and disliked seeing other people wear it, especially his wife, whose presence beside his late aunt's bier was galling to him. Instead of observing the prescribed rites of mourning, Peter ordered his chamberlain to arrange huge feasts at the palace to celebrate his predecessor's demise. Hundreds of guests were invited, all of them ordered to leave off their mourning clothes and wear light colored gowns and coats and all their jewels. He presided at his feasts in his favorite uniform, that of a Prussian lieutenant general, giving offense to all the Russian officers in the room and to the many families who had lost sons and brothers, husbands and fathers in the war.

Yet, as Peter reminded his guests, the war was over. Emperor

Frederick was no longer the enemy, therefore toasts could and should be drunk to him. The new emperor's first official act, performed on the evening of his accession, had been to send swift couriers to the Russian generals in the field ordering them not to advance any farther into Prussian territory and to cease all hostilities. Prussian peace overtures were to be welcomed, and Prussian prisoners treated to banquets, loaded with gifts and sent home.

And there was more. The new emperor announced that the entire Russian army would be reformed. A new commander-in-chief was appointed—none other than Peter and Catherine's Uncle Georg (Catherine's former suitor), who lacked military experience but could be expected to enforce Germanic discipline. The Russian Life Guards were to be replaced by troops from Holstein. The green uniforms of the Russian footsoldiers would be exchanged for short tunics in Prussian blue. New drills would have to be learned, new formations, new commands—all of them borrowed from the Prussian army. Even the officers would have to put aside their pride and be instructed anew—and instructed in the ways of their late enemies.

The soldiers, particularly the Petersburg guardsmen who had surrounded the palace in the empress's last days to ensure Emperor Peter's unchallenged succession, began to regret their role in safeguarding him. They had heard how in private he referred to them as "janissaries" and impugned their valor. They sensed that he meant to break their spirit and make them into puppets, and German puppets at that. All their years of suffering, all their bravery and endurance, every foot of Prussian territory that they had won at huge cost, was to be sacrificed at the whim of the new emperor. They looked at him, a slight, ugly man in a tight blue coat with gold buttons, a ceremonial sword strapped to his thin waist, and they despised him. He was not one of them, and never would be. They followed his orders, but with secret loathing, and longed for the day when they could serve a Russian master once again.

To some, it appeared that Peter took on newfound stature with his assumption of power. The British ambassador Keith wrote to his superiors of the greater expediency he observed in the workings of the Russian government under Peter's command, and approved of how the emperor himself took charge, not leaving it to others, as his predecessor had, to make decisions regarding foreign affairs. Nor did Peter appear to be vindictive toward his former political enemies. He exiled no one, sent no one to the Fortress of Peter and Paul. He retained Michael Vorontzov as chancellor, despite Vorontzov's pro-French sympathies, and appeared to have an enlightened regard for the need for continuity in political affairs, except, of course, when it came to prosecuting the war.

Peter took actions of which even Catherine approved. He abolished the Secret Chancery, that dread machine of terror which had blighted or cut short so many lives. He opened the state prisons and released the late empress's enemies. He recalled those Elizabeth had exiled—all but Bestuzhev, who had been too closely allied with Catherine for comfort. He won over the nobility by issuing a law freeing them from obligations to serve as state officials, a burden they had borne since Peter the Great's reign. Overall, in his first months as emperor Peter surprised many people with his grasp of affairs and his sense of responsibility. Instead of looking to his wife to be his guide, he had become his own resource, and even displayed a modicum of maturity.

Yet Peter's old demons—drunkenness, waywardness, excitability and sudden, rabid anger—lurked in the corners of his life. He could not rein in his tendency toward dissipation. 'The life the emperor leads," wrote the French ambassador Breteuil, who had replaced L'Hopital, "is the most shameful imaginable. He spends his evenings smoking, drinking beer, and doesn't stop until five or six in the morning, nearly always falling-down drunk." Peter's long nights of indulgence left him to face the next day's work with a fuddled, aching head and, quite often, a savage temper. Catherine stayed out of his way as much as she could, but Eliza-

son

beth Vorontzov, who had in many respects taken over Catherine's former role, felt the full brunt of his merciless rancor.

Tumultuous quarrels erupted between the emperor and his mistress, sometimes in public. Breteuil, who was no friend to the new regime and was only too happy to record in detail the violent scenes he or his informants witnessed, described a dinner party at the home of the chancellor where Peter, Elizabeth Vorontzov and Catherine were all present.

Elizabeth was annoyed and on edge that evening because Peter, ever the philanderer, had found a new favorite, a seventeen-year-old courtesan named Mademoiselle Schaglikov. The hunchbacked Mademoiselle Schaglikov was no great prize—to the French ambassador she appeared "fairly pretty," but hardly a beauty—but she had the advantage of being fresher and younger than the reigning mistress, and certainly less irascible. By two in the morning Elizabeth could not contain her jealousy. She began making scathing remarks, and Peter, who had drunk a great deal, became abusive in response. Oaths, epithets, accusations flew down the length of the thick oak dining table. Everyone present, except perhaps Catherine, who was inured to her husband's outbursts, squirmed in discomfort, bracing themselves for an imperial tantrum.

Finally Peter stood, balancing unsteadily on swaying legs, and ordered Elizabeth to go home to her father's house. She wept, scolded, and dug in her heels. She knew just how to disconcert him; he faltered, still angry but irresolute. The battle of wills continued, but in the end Elizabeth won. By five in the morning, with the guests bleary-eyed and aggravated, the emperor and his mistress had made up their quarrel and were on the best of terms.

Four days later, however, a far more prolonged and furious dispute broke out between them. This time the abuse was so corrosive that even the hardened courtiers held their ears, and there was no reconciliation. For days a black cloud hung over the palace; everyone knew that Peter and his mistress were estranged, no one knew what retribution he might seek, or whether the

bitterness of this altercation might unhinge him. He redoubled his attentions to Mademoiselle Schaglikov, and sought consolation in his cups.

This was no ordinary quarrel. Elizabeth Vorontzov had raised a particularly galling issue, one that had rankled in Peter's mind for years. She had accused him of being impotent.

The succession was very much on Peter's mind as he began his reign. His predecessor had urged him to take an oath to protect his son, Paul, and he had complied. Yet Peter knew that Paul was not his son, but Catherine's. Catherine and Saltykov's. Peter wanted nothing to do with him. He refused even to see the boy, and his refusal caused comment. People whispered that if Elizabeth Vorontzov—or the hunchbacked Mademoiselle Schaglikov, or any of the other women Peter might favor with his attentions—were to have a child, the emperor would be justified in setting aside his wife and marrying the mother of his son or daughter. But if he was in fact impotent, such speculations were idle.

Peter wanted very much to put Catherine aside, yet he needed an heir, and if he could not father a child himself, he would either have to designate Paul as his successor (which was clearly distasteful to him) or find another suitable heir.

With these issues on his mind he went to visit the unfortunate Ivan, once Ivan VI, in his prison at Schliisselburg. That Ivan was a simpleton Peter already knew; now he discovered that the poor man was completely deranged. His disordered mind wandered in strange directions. He confided to Peter that he was not really Ivan, the man who had once, as an infant, been Emperor of Russia, but another man, an imposter. The real Ivan had been in heaven for many years. It must have been a peculiar scene, with the disturbed Peter confronting the demented Ivan, each of them a ruler, neither of them truly capable of rule. When their interview was over, Peter ordered Ivan brought to Petersburg, whether to keep him under stricter guard or because he contemplated naming him as his successor. Either way, the sad "imposter" might become important once again.

son

In a move that made Catherine understandably apprehensive, Peter also brought Sergei Saltykov to court. Saltykov had been in Paris, serving in a minor diplomatic post, and the urgent summons from Petersburg must have terrified him. He could easily imagine what Peter wanted from him: a formal admission that he had been Catherine's lover and that he was Paul's father.

As soon as Saltykov arrived in the Russian capital, in April of 1762, Peter took him into his personal cabinet and spent hours talking with him. Their conversation was private, and no doubt intense. Saltykov was well aware of the danger he was in. If he admitted the truth, and the emperor chose to be vindictive, he could have Saltykov executed—or imprisoned for life. Knowing the consequences of a full confession, Saltykov refused to say what Peter wanted to hear. A second discussion took place, and a third. Still the frightened but glib Saltykov protested that he and Catherine had not been lovers. Her child was not his. In the end Peter gave up. Saltykov would not provide the grounds he sought for declaring Paul illegitimate and divorcing Catherine.

Catherine was under great strain that spring. Her pregnancy was nearing its end. Her husband hated her and sought to rid himself of her, his mistress was halfway to replacing her. Although she had won a good deal of sympathy by her punctilious and self-effacing observance of the intricate religious rites following the late empress's death, and many among the clergy and people of Petersburg were favorably disposed toward her, Catherine stood essentially alone. Her political supporters, who were ready to mount a coup on her behalf, remained in the shadows, waiting for a signal from her—a signal she dared not give until she had delivered her child and recovered from the birth. In the meantime, she endured daily proofs of Peter's scorn and contempt and Elizabeth Vorontzov's haughty slights, becoming accustomed to being ignored and dishonored.