Terrible Tsarinas: Five Russian Women in Power (4 page)

Admittedly, since 1721 she had been promised to Peter Sapieha, palatine of Smolensk, and she was said to be madly in love with her fiancé. But that detail did not stop Catherine. If everyone’s feelings were taken into account before asking for the blessing of a priest, no one would ever marry anybody! The tsarina abruptly decided to break the engagement of these turtle doves, since it stood in the way of her wishes, and to marry the tsarevich Peter Alexeyevich and the young Maria Alexandrovna Menshikov.

In compensation, Peter Sapieha would be offered one of Her Majesty’s great-nieces, Sophia Skavronska. Meanwhile, moreover, Sapieha had been admitted to the very accessible bed of Catherine, on several occasions, and she was thus able to verify the virile qualities of the man she intended for her young relative. Sapieha, who knew how to get along in life, did not protest against the switch in fiancées; Catherine and Menshikov were pleased to think they had settled the matter so handily. Only the unfortunate Maria Alexandrovna was left to cry over her lost love and to curse her rival, Sophia Skavronska.

At the other end of the business, Anna and her husband, Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein, were equally dismayed by the possibility of a marriage that, under the pretext of promoting the interests of Peter Alexeyevich, would in fact serve to reinforce the hegemony of his future father-in-law, Menshikov, and would put even more dis tance between the throne and Peter the Great’s two daughters. Considering themselves to have been sacrificed, but for different reasons, Anna and Elizabeth threw themselves at their mother’s feet and begged her to give up the idea of this scandalous engagement that, all things considered, was satisfactory only to the instigator, the devious Menshikov. His sworn enemy, Count Tolstoy, supported them in their recriminations; he was enraged at the notion that he would see his direct competitor institutionalizing his authority by marrying his daughter to the heir to the Russian crown. Catherine appeared to be disturbed by this chorus of lamentations, and promised to think things over; she dismissed everyone without having made the least decision nor having made the least promise.

Time went by and Anna’s and Elizabeth’s consternation grew greater by the day, while Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein found less and less tolerable the arrogance shown by Menshikov, who felt sure of his imminent victory. People in the city were already talking, openly, about the impending marriage of the tsarevich with the noble and beautiful young lady, Maria Menshikov. And quietly, they were saying that the father of the intended had received fabulous sums from various people who were anxious to secure his protection in the years to come. Some, however, remembered that just a few months before, following a temporary illness, the worried tsarina had implied that after her death it was her younger daughter, Elizabeth, who should inherit the crown. This wish now seemed to have been forgotten completely. Elizabeth was upset by her mother’s apparent repudiation but, being of a reserved nature, she forbore to counterattack. Her brother-inlaw Duke Charles Frederick was less accommodating. Although the cause appeared desperate, he intended to fight to the end for Anna and himself. Come what may, he wanted to extract from his mother-in-law a will in favor of his wife.

However, by now Catherine was too weak to entertain such an unsettling discussion. Secluded in her apartments in the Winter Palace, she had difficulty speaking and even putting together her thoughts. Behind her back, it was whispered that Her Majesty’s premature senility was the price to be paid for her excesses in food, drink and lovemaking. Johann Lefort, Saxony’s top diplomat in St. Petersburg, wrote to his government on March 8, 1727, in picturesque and suggestive French: “The Tsarina apparently is suffering a severe attack of swelling of the legs, all the way up to the groin, which cannot bode well; this [ailment] is considered to be of bacchic origins.”4 Despite of the doctor’s warnings, Catherine’s son-in-law baited her with questions regarding her intentions. But she was unable to answer him, nor even to understand him. On April 27, 1729, she complained of a painful pressure in the chest. Her eyes were wild, and she became delirious. Having taken a cold look at her, Charles Frederick called in Tolstoy: “If she passes away without having dictated her will, we are lost! Can’t we persuade her to designate her daughter, immediately?”

“If we have not already done so, it is too late now!”5 the other answered.

The empress’s friends and family members watched for 48 hours, waiting for her to draw her last breath. Her daughters and Peter Sapieha were at the bedside. She would hardly regain consciousness when the blackouts returned, longer each time and more profound. Menshikov was kept current, hour by hour, on the state of the tsarina. He convoked the Supreme Privy Council and set about drafting a testamentary proclamation that the Empress would only have to sign, a mere little bit of scribble, before dying. Under the authority of the Serene Prince, the members of this restricted assembly agreed on a text stipulating that, according to the express will of Her Majesty, the tsarevich Peter Alexeyevich, still a minor and promised in marriage to Miss Maria Menshikov, would, at the proper time, succeed the Empress Catherine I and would be assisted, until he came of age, by the Supreme Privy Council instituted by her. If he should die without posterity, the document specified, the crown would redound to his aunt Anna Petrovna and to her heirs; then to his other aunt, Elizabeth Petrovna, and to any heirs she might have. The two aunts would be members of the aforementioned Supreme Privy Council until the day their imperial nephew reached the age of 17. The formula conceived by Menshikov would give him the upper hand, through his daughter, the future tsarina, in managing the country’s destiny.

This indirect confiscation of power galled Tolstoy and his usual collaborators, including Buturlin and the Portuguese adventurer Devier. They tried to respond, but Menshikov foiled their maneuver and counteracted by accusing them of the crime of lèse-majesté. His paid spies gave him a positive report: the majority of Tolstoy’s buddies were engaged in the plot. Under torture, the Portuguese Devier admitted to everything he was asked (the torturer must have handled the knout with considerable dexterity).

He and his accomplices had publicly scorned the grief of Her Majesty’ daughters and had participated in clandestine meetings with the intention of upsetting the monarchical order. In the name of the failing Empress, Menshikov had Tolstoy arrested; he was shut up in the Solovetsky Monastery, on an island in the White Sea; Devier was dispatched to Siberia; as for the others, they were simply sent back to their lands and told to stay there. Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein was not officially charged but, out of prudence and pride, he and his wife Anna, so wrongfully swindled, removed to their estate at Yekaterinhof.

The young couple had hardly left the capital when they were recalled: the tsarina had taken a turn for the worse. Decency and tradition required that her daughters attend her. Both came at a run to witness her final moments. After long suffering, she died on May 6, 1727, between 9:00 and 10:00 in the evening. At Menshikov’s orders, two regiments of the Guard immediately encircled the Winter Palace to prevent any hostile demonstration. But nobody thought of protesting. Nor of crying, for that matter.

Catherine’s reign, which had lasted only two years and two months, left the majority of her subjects indifferent or perplexed. Should one regret or be pleased at her demise?

On May 8, 1727, Grand Duke Peter Alexeyevich was proclaimed emperor. The Secretary of the imperial cabinet, Makarov, announced the event to the courtiers and the dignitaries assembled at the palace. The terms of the proclamation, concocted with diabolic skill under Menshikov’s leadership, linked the concept of choosing the sovereign (instituted by Peter the Great) with that of heredity, in conformity with the Muscovite tradition. “According to the will of Her Majesty, the late Empress,” Makarov read in a solemn voice, “a new emperor has been
chosen
, in the person of an
heir
6 to the throne: His Highness the Grand Duke Peter Alexeyevich.” Listening to this proclamation, Menshikov exulted internally. His success was a miracle. Not only was his daughter virtually empress of Russia, but the Supreme Privy Council, which would exercise the role of regent until the majority of Peter II (who was as yet just 12 years old), was still entirely in his hands, as Serene Prince. That left him a good five years to bring the country to heel. He had no adversaries anymore; only subjects. Apparently, it was no longer necessary to be a Romanov in order to rule.

Ready to make any necessary compromise with the new power, Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein promised to keep quiet provided that, the moment Peter II reached the fateful age of 17, Anna and Elizabeth would receive two million rubles to be divided, as compensation. Moreover, Menshikov, who was having a good day, assured him that he would make every effort to support Charles Frederick’s claims, as he was still stuck on the idea of retrieving his hereditary lands and would even like - why not? - to exercise his rights to the crown of Sweden. It was clear, now, to the Duke of Holstein, that his presence in St. Petersburg was only a step on the road toward the conquest of Stockholm - as though, in his eyes, the throne of the late King Charles XII was more prestigious than that of the one who had defeated him, the late Peter the Great.

This raging ambition was no surprise to Menshikov. Wasn’t it due to a similar eagerness that he himself had arrived at a position that had been beyond his dreams back when he was only one of the tsar’s companions in battles, banquets and beds? Where would he stop, in his rise to honors and fortune? At the moment when his future son-in-law was being proclaimed sovereign autocrat of all the Russias, under the name of Peter II, he began to think that his own reign might perhaps be just beginning.

Footnotes

1. Cited in Waliszewski:
L’Héritage de Pierre le Grand
[The Heritage of Peter the Great].

2. Hermann:
Geschichte des Russichen Staats
, quoted by Waliszewski,
Op. Cit.

3. The duke of Bourbon succeeded Duke Philippe of Orleans as Regent, after the latter’s death in 1723.

4. Reported by Hermann,
Op. Cit.
, and quoted by Waliszewski
Op. Cit.

5. Remarks quoted by Daria Olivier:
Elizabeth I, Impératrice de Russie
.

6. Author’s emphasis.

Among all those who could have laid claim to the throne, the one who was least well-prepared for this frightening honor was the one who had just been given it. None of the candidates to succeed Catherine I had had a childhood so bereft of affection and guidance as the new tsar, Peter II. He never knew his mother, Charlotte of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, who died bringing him into the world, and he was only three years old when his father, the Tsarevich Alexis, succumbed under torture. Doubly orphaned, he was raised by governesses who were nothing but vulgar maidservants in the palace and by German and Hungarian tutors of little knowledge and little heart. He soon turned inward and exhibited, as soon as he reached the age of reason, a proud, aggressive and cynical nature. Always inclined to find fault and to rebel, the only person for whom he felt any tenderness was his sister Natalya, who was fourteen months older than he; he appreciated her vivacious temperament.

Out of atavism, no doubt, and in spite of his youth, he liked to get drunk and enjoyed the basest of jokes; he was astonished that the young lady enjoyed reading, serious conversations and studying foreign languages. She spoke German and French as fluently as Russian. What was she doing with all that twaddle? Wasn’t it the role of a woman, by the age of 15 or 16, to enjoy herself, entertain others and seduce every worthy man who passes by? Peter teased her about her excessive application and she tried to discipline him by cajoling him with a softness to which he was not accustomed. What a pity that she was not prettier! But maybe it was better that way? What lessons might he not have given in to if, in addition to her sparkling spirit, she had had a desirable physique? Just as she was, she helped him to bear with his situation as a false sovereign whom everyone honored and whom nobody obeyed. Since his advent, Menshikov had relegated him to the rank of imperial figurehead. True, to mark his supremacy, he had arranged that at state dinners Menshikov should be seated to his left, whereas Natalya was to his right; and certainly, it was he who, installed upon a throne between his two aunts, Anna and Elizabeth, chaired the meetings of the Supreme Privy Council; true, he was soon to marry Menshikov’s daughter, and Menshikov, once he became his father-in-law, would no doubt hand over the reins of power. But at present the young Peter was aware that he was only the shadow of an emperor, a caricature of Peter the Great, a masquerade-Majesty subjected to the will of the producer of the brilliant Russian spectacle. No matter what he was doing, Peter had to give in to the wishes of Menshikov, who had foreseen all and arranged all in his own way.

This omnipotent character had a palace located in the heart of St. Petersburg, situated in a superb park on Vasilievsky Island. While he waited for a bridge to be constructed for his personal use, Menshikov crossed the Neva in a rowing galley, the interior of which was hung with green velvet. Disembarking on the opposite bank, he would ride in a carriage with a gilded cab, emblazoned on the doors and the pediment with a princely crown. This masterpiece of craftsmanship and comfort, this heavenly chariot, was drawn by six horses harnessed in purple velvet, embroidered in gold and silver. Many heralds preceded Menshikov’s every move about town. Two pages on horseback followed, two gentlemen of the court bounced along at the carriage doors, and six dragoons closed the parade and chased away the curious.1 Nobody else in the capital surrounded his activities with such magnificence.

Peter suffered in silence from this ostentation that was putting the true tsar more in the shade with every passing day, so that even the people apparently no longer thought of him. To cap it all off, Menshikov waited until the emperor had taken his oath before the Guard to announce that, from now on, as a security measure, His Majesty would reside not at the Winter Palace but in his own palace, on Vasilievsky Island. Everyone was stunned to see the tsar thus placed “under the bell,” but no one spoke up to protest. The principal opponents, Tolstoy, Devier and Golovkin, already had been exiled by the new master of Russia.