The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People (62 page)

MEDICAL REPORT:
Pauline Bonaparte’s case was an unusual one—that of a woman suffering from excessive sexual intercourse. The problem first appeared during her mating with Forbin, whose organ was so often inside Pauline that she suffered acute vaginal distress. Her unhealthy state, said one biographer, “was based on nothing but undue friction, mostly brought on by M. de Forbin, who was endowed with a usable gigantism and very hard to get rid of.” When Pauline’s vaginal distress worsened, her doctor called in France’s leading gynecologist, Dr. Jean-Noël Hallé, to have a look at her. Hallé did so twice and then wrote the following memorandum to Pauline’s physician.

Her general appearance indicates … exhaustion. The womb was still sensitive, but somewhat less so; and the ligaments still exhibited signs of the painful inflammation for which we prescribed baths last Thursday. The present condition of the uterus is caused by a constant and habitual excitation of that organ; if this does not cease, an exceedingly dangerous situation may result. That is the source of her trouble, and I hinted at its causes when speaking to the Princess last Thursday. I blamed the internal douches, and spoke in a general way of pos-312 /
Intimate Sex Lives
sible causes of an irritation of the womb…. The douche and its tube cannot always be held responsible. One is bound to assume a continuous cause for such exhaustion in the case of a young and beautiful woman living apart from her husband. If there is anyone who shares the fault for these indulgences, this person would not accuse himself. We would be blamed for seeing nothing and permitting everything. I’ve no wish to pass for a fool nor be accused of base and stupid complacency. But quite apart from that, there is the necessity of saving this unfortunate young woman.

The doctors acted. Forbin was sent away. And Pauline rested—but not for long. Soon the inflammation reappeared, as it would continue to do for the rest of her life.

—I.W.

No Horsing Around

CATHERINE II OF RUSSIA (Apr. 21, 1729–Nov. 6, 1796))

HER FAME:
Catherine the Great, a

German princess with a French education, ruled the vast Russian empire as an

autocrat for 34 years.

HER PERSON:
Married at 16 to her 17-year-old cousin Peter, who was the

nephew and heir of Russia’s reigning

Empress Elizabeth, Catherine was under

notice to produce children. (Elizabeth was

herself childless.) Unfortunately, Peter was

crazy, impotent, and sterile. Catherine

contemplated suicide, then sought escape

in voracious reading and long strenuous

hours on horseback. At last, after nearly

Catherine at 15

10 years of marriage, she gave birth to a

son—probably by her first lover, Sergei Saltykov, a young Russian nobleman.

Since Peter was growing crazier and more unpopular each day, Catherine’s own chances of succession looked hopeless too; moreover, Peter was threatening to divorce her. She decided that she could and would plan a coup d’état. In June, 1762, Peter had been emperor just six months and was absent planning an insane war against Denmark. Catherine donned a lieutenant’s uniform, rode into St.

Petersburg (then the Russian capital) at the head of a detachment of imperial guards, and had herself proclaimed empress. Peter, shattered by the news, was quickly arrested and murdered. Catherine’s chief accomplices had been her lover

Count Grigori Orlov and his two brothers, all officers in the Horse Guards. In the course of her long reign she broke the power of the clergy, put down a major rebellion, reorganized the civil service, forced the Ukrainian peasants into serfdom, and added more than 200,000 sq. mi. to Russian territory—at the expense of the 95%

of the population which worked the land.

SEX LIFE:
Catherine before marriage was innocently sensual; at night she masturbated with a pillow between her legs. To her bridegroom, however, bed was where one played with toys. At 23 she was still a virgin.

One stormy night on an island in the Baltic Sea her lady-in-waiting, very likely on the empress’ instructions, left Catherine alone with Saltykov, a hardened young seducer. He had promised her rapture, and she was not disappointed. Neither was Empress Elizabeth. The affair with Saltykov unleashed Catherine’s sexuality. After two miscarriages, Catherine again became pregnant and this time was ordered to take life easy. No sooner had her son Paul been born than the empress snatched him away. Catherine lay unattended in a drafty room while Russia celebrated. Her second child, also officially Peter’s, was a girl, who died soon after the actual father, a young Polish nobleman employed by the British ambassador, was sent home in disgrace. Peter was overheard muttering, “I don’t know how it is that my wife becomes pregnant.”

Catherine’s three remaining children, all boys, were fathered by Grigori Orlov. They were born in secret, Catherine’s hoop skirts having successfully concealed each pregnancy. The first birth occurred while Peter was still alive. In order to lure him away from the palace as she went into labor, Catherine had a faithful servant set fire to his own house, which was nearby. (Peter never could resist a good fire.) The other two children, brought up for a while in the homes of servants, were not introduced into the court nursery until they were at an age where nobody could be certain whose they were. These maneuvers were necessary because Catherine, not wanting to end the Romanov dynasty, had refused to marry Grigori. He retaliated by making the ladies of the court his harem.

Nevertheless, Catherine stayed faithful to him for 14 years and turned him out only when he seduced his 13-year-old cousin.

Catherine was now 43. Her thick brown hair, expressive blue eyes, and small, sensual mouth had lost none of their appeal, while her figure was more voluptuous than in her youth. One of her protégés and original supporters, a cavalry officer named Grigori Potëmkin, had already declared his loyalty to her and then retired to a monastery (he had once studied to be a priest). Potëmkin was canny enough not to return to secular life until Catherine promised to appoint him her “personal adjutant general” (i.e., official favorite); first, the current favorite had to be dismissed. For two years thereafter the empress and her 35-year-old lover enjoyed a tumultuous affair, filled with quarrels and reconciliations. When the sexual passion died, Potëmkin, willing to give up Catherine but not his influence at court, convinced her that her favorites could be replaced as easily as any other servants. To make sure that they were, he added, he would select them himself.

Amazingly, the new system worked quite well until Catherine was 60. A potential favorite was first examined by Catherine’s personal physician for signs of venereal disease. If pronounced healthy, he was then given a different kind of “physical”; his virility was tested by a lady-in-waiting appointed for that purpose. The next stage, if he reached it, was installation in the favorite’s special apartment, located directly below Catherine’s and connected to it by a private staircase. There he would find a large monetary gift.

Repeat performances with the empress brought additional rewards and honors, while his main job remained that of being her adjutant general and

“emperor of the night.” On dismissal he might receive anything from additional money to an estate complete with 4,000 peasants. In this way Catherine ran through 13 men and a great deal of public money in 16 years.

Growing old at last, the 60-year-old empress succumbed to the wiles of 22-year-old Platon Zubov, an officer of the Horse Guards, whom Potëmkin disapproved of because he was too ambitious. Zubov was her main sexual interest until her death at 67. Contrary to the age-old rumor that she died while attempting intercourse with a horse, Catherine expired two days after suffering a massive stroke.

SEX PARTNERS:
Peter’s impotence seems to have been due to an operable malformation of the penis. One story is that Saltykov and his friends, having got Peter drunk, persuaded him to undergo corrective surgery and so become accountable for Catherine’s pregnancies. But we do not know whether Peter ever had sex with her, though he did begin having mistresses. Polish Count Stanislas Poniatowski, Catherine’s second lover, was caught leaving her country retreat in disguise. When Peter accused him of having intercourse with Catherine, he indignantly denied it, whereupon Peter dragged her out of bed.

Later he forced the lovers to join him and his mistress at supper. In 1764

Catherine had Poniatowski made king of Poland, as Stanislas II, but when he proved unable to control the Polish nationalists, she wiped the country off the map by annexing part of it and giving the rest to Prussia and Austria. He seems to have loved her deeply.

Grigori Orlov, a baby-faced colossus, flourished on physical danger but went to pieces as a courtier. He became a political liability to Catherine after mishandling some important peace negotiations with the Turks; his sexual exploits, however, had already become more than Catherine could stand. He died mad, haunted by Peter’s ghost though it was his brother Alexei who had planned the murder. Of Alexei Vasilchikov, Grigori’s amiable replacement, Catherine wrote to Potëmkin: “If that fool had stayed with me another year and you had not come … it is quite likely that I should have grown used to him.”

Potëmkin was a potbellied, hypocritical, one-eyed boor who wolfed huge midnight snacks in the palace sauna after frolicking there with Catherine in the steam. Perhaps he and Catherine were secretly married; she certainly called him

“husband” in her letters. (She also called him such names as “my marble beauty” and “golden rooster” and “wolfbird.”)

There is little to be said about Potëmkin’s handpicked successors, except that they were all handsome guard officers in their 20s and none lasted. The gentle Alexander Lanskoy, Catherine’s favorite of favorites, died of diphtheria after undermining his health with aphrodisiacs. Ivan Rimski-Korsakov— grandfather of the composer—disgraced himself by returning to the “virility tester,” Countess Bruce, for additional “tests.” The countess subsequently was replaced by an older woman. Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov was allowed to resign in order to marry a very pregnant court lady; Catherine sulked for three days, then gave them a generous wedding present. Most of the royal favorites enjoyed successful careers in later life.

HER THOUGHTS:
Catherine wrote in her memoirs: “I was attractive. That was the halfway house to temptation, and in such cases human nature does the rest. To tempt and be tempted are much the same thing.” Her favorite toast was

“God, grant us our desires, and grant them quickly.”

—J.M.B.E.

Old Rowley Himself

CHARLES II (May 29, 1630–Feb. 6, 1685)

HIS FAME:
Charles II, King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was the

“Merry Monarch” who returned after

Cromwell’s Puritan rule to create the

cultured, witty, and often decadent

“Restoration” court.

HIS PERSON:
Charles’ first adviser

and tutor, the Earl of Newcastle, told

the teenage prince that he would learn

more from men than from books. The

lessons that the boy learned during the

tumultuous, dangerous years of his

teens and twenties were lessons of

intrigue, political maneuvering, and all

the other skills needed to survive as an exiled, uncrowned king. In 1646, during England’s bloody civil war, Prince Charles took his father’s advice and fled, first to the Scilly Islands and then to Jersey and France. While in exile in 1649, he learned that his father had been beheaded by Oliver Cromwell’s forces.

His years of waiting and plotting were rewarded when, in 1660, he returned to take advantage of the struggle between Cromwell’s successors.

Britain welcomed him back. He was crowned and married to Catherine of Braganza, the daughter of the king of Portugal. The queen was never able to bear children, but Charles steadfastly refused to divorce her.