The Memoirs of Catherine the Great (14 page)

1744

Catherine’s arrival in Russia; Bestuzhev-Riumin and court
factions; her illness; her mother’s politics at court; her profession of
the Orthodox faith and betrothal to Peter; trip to Kiev; Catherine’s
debts; Peter has measles, then smallpox

That year, Catherine II arrived with her mother in Moscow on February 9. At that time, the Russian court was divided into two large factions or parties. The leader of the first group, who had begun to recover from his weakened position, was Vice Chancellor Bestuzhev-Riumin. He was infinitely more feared than loved, exceedingly scheming, suspicious, willful, and daring, rather tyrannical in his principles, an implacable enemy, but a friend to his friends, whom he abandoned only when they turned their backs on him, and otherwise hard to get along with and often overly exacting. He was in charge of the department of foreign affairs. Having battled with the Empress’s entourage, he had lost ground before the journey to Moscow, but had begun to recover. He supported the courts of Vienna, Saxony, and England. The arrival of Catherine II and her mother gave him no pleasure. It was the secret work of the faction opposed to him. The enemies of Count Bestuzhev were numerous, but he made them all tremble. He had the advantage over them in his position and his character, which gave him immense influence in the politics of the antechamber.

The party opposed to Bestuzhev supported France, its ally Sweden, and the King of Prussia. The Marquis de La Chétardie was its soul and the Holstein court its ringleaders; they had won over Lestocq, one of the principal actors of the revolution that had placed the late Empress Elizabeth on the throne of Russia. Lestocq was greatly trusted by Elizabeth. He had been her personal surgeon since the death of Empress Catherine I, to whom he had also been devoted, and had rendered essential services to both mother and daughter. He lacked neither intelligence, shrewdness, nor capacity for intrigue, but he was malicious and had a black and evil heart. All these foreigners aided one another and promoted Count Mikhail Vorontsov, who had also taken part in the coup d’état and had accompanied Elizabeth the night she took the throne. She had made him marry the niece of Empress Catherine I, Countess Anna Karlovna Skavronskaia, who had been brought up in Empress Elizabeth’s household and was very devoted to the Empress. This faction also included Count Alexander Rumiantsev, father of the Marshal who had signed the Treaty of Åbo with Sweden, about which Bestuzhev had been little consulted. The faction also counted upon the Procurator General Prince Trubetskoi, upon the whole Trubetskoi family and, consequently, upon the Prince of Hessen-Hamburg, who had married a princess of this family. The Prince of Hessen-Hamburg, who at the time was highly regarded, was nothing by himself, and his influence came from the large family of his wife, whose father and mother were still alive; the latter was highly respected.
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The rest of the Empress’s entourage then consisted of the Shuvalov family, who opposed in all matters the Grand Master of the Hunt Razumovsky and a bishop, who for the moment was the leading favorite. Count Bestuzhev knew how to exploit the Shuvalovs, but his principal supporter was Baron Cherkasov, Secretary of the Cabinet to the Empress, who had already served in Peter I’s cabinet.
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He was a rough and headstrong man who wanted order and justice, and to run everything by the rules. The rest of the court chose one faction or the other according to their interests or daily opinions.

The Grand Duke appeared to rejoice at the arrival of my mother and myself. I was in my fifteenth year. During the first ten days he paid me much attention. Even then and in that short time, I saw and understood that he did not care much for the nation that he was destined to rule, and that he clung to Lutheranism, did not like his entourage, and was very childish. I remained silent and listened, and this gained me his trust. I remember him telling me that among other things, what pleased him most about me was that I was his second cousin,
¹⁵
and that because I was related to him, he could speak to me with an open heart. Then he told me that he was in love with one of the Empress’s maids of honor, who had been dismissed from court because of the misfortune of her mother, one Madame Lopukhina, who had been exiled to Siberia, that he would have liked to marry her, but that he was resigned to marry me because his aunt desired it.
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I listened with a blush to these family confidences, thanking him for his ready trust, but deep in my heart I was astonished by his imprudence and lack of judgment in many matters.

The tenth day after my arrival in Moscow, a Saturday, the Empress went to the Trinity Monastery of St. Sergei.
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The Grand Duke stayed with us in Moscow. I had already been assigned three tutors: Simeon Theodorsky to instruct me in the Greek Orthodox faith, Basil Adadurov for the Russian language, and Landé, the ballet master, for dancing. To make more rapid progress in Russian, I rose from my bed at night and, while everyone slept, memorized the lessons that Adadurov gave me. Because my room was warm and I had no experience of the climate, I neglected to put on my shoes and studied in my bedclothes. On the thirteenth day after my arrival, I came down with pleurisy, which was nearly fatal. It began with chills the Tuesday after the Empress’s departure for Trinity Monastery. I had just gotten dressed to go to dinner with my mother at the Grand Duke’s, when I obtained with difficulty her permission to go to bed. When she returned from dinner, she found me almost unconscious with a high fever and an excruciating pain in my side. She thought I was coming down with smallpox, sent for doctors, and wanted them to treat me accordingly. They recommended that I be bled; she was completely against this, saying that it was from being bled that her brother had died of smallpox in Russia and that she did not want the same thing to happen to me.
^‡
The doctors and the attendants of the Grand Duke, who had not had smallpox, made a detailed report of the state of affairs to the Empress, and while my mother and the doctors were arguing, I lay unconscious in my bed, with a burning fever and a pain in my side that made me suffer horribly and moan, for which my mother scolded me, wanting me to endure my suffering patiently.

Finally, at seven on Saturday evening, which was the fifth day of my illness, the Empress returned from Trinity Monastery and, coming to my room as soon as she stepped from her coach, she found me unconscious. Following her were Count Lestocq and a surgeon and, after hearing the doctors’ opinion, she herself sat at the head of my bed and had me bled. Just as the blood began to flow, I came to, opened my eyes, and found myself in the arms of the Empress, who had lifted me up. I hung between life and death for twenty-seven days, during which I was bled sixteen times and sometimes four times a day. My mother was almost no longer allowed in my room. She remained opposed to these frequent bleedings and said aloud that they would kill me; nevertheless she began to believe that I would not come down with smallpox. The Empress had placed Countess Rumiantseva and several other women with me, and it seemed that my mother’s judgment was distrusted. Finally the abscess that I had on my right side burst under the care of the Portuguese doctor Sanchez; I vomited it up and thereafter recovered.
¹⁸

I perceived immediately that my mother’s conduct during my illness had done her a disservice in the opinion of all. When she saw me gravely ill, she wanted a Lutheran pastor brought to me. I was told that I was awakened and this was proposed to me, and that I replied: “What is the use, send instead for Simeon Theodorsky; I will be happy to talk with him.” He was brought to me and he spoke to me in the presence of the attendants in a way that pleased everyone. This act gained me great favor in the opinion of the Empress and of the entire court. Another small affair further undermined my mother. Around Easter, one morning my mother decided to send a chambermaid to tell me to give her a blue-and-silver cloth that my father’s brother had given me when I left for Russia, because I liked the cloth very much. I sent word to her that she was free to take it, that it was true that I liked it very much because my uncle had given it to me knowing that it pleased me. My entourage, seeing that I gave the cloth against my will and that I had been between life and death for so long and only recently had begun to improve, said to one another that it was quite imprudent of my mother to cause a dying child the least displeasure, and that far from wanting to acquire this cloth, she would have done better not to mention it. This incident was recounted to the Empress, who immediately sent me several superb pieces of rich cloth, including a blue-and-silver one. But the incident hurt my mother in her esteem. My mother was accused of having neither tenderness nor concern for me.

During my illness, I grew accustomed to keeping my eyes closed and was thought to be asleep by Countess Rumiantseva and my ladies-in-waiting, who talked among themselves of personal concerns, and in this way I learned many things. When I began to feel better, the Grand Duke would come to spend the evening in the apartment I shared with my mother. He and everyone else had seemed to take the greatest interest in my health. The Empress had shed many a tear over it. Finally, on April 21, 1744, my birthday and the beginning of my fifteenth year, I was well enough to appear in public for the first time since that grave illness. I do not think that people had a very positive impression of me. I had become thin as a skeleton. I had grown, but my face and features had become elongated. My hair was falling out and I was deathly pale. I found myself frighteningly ugly and I could not recognize my physiognomy. That day, the Empress sent me a jar of rouge and ordered me to put some on.

With the advent of spring and fair weather, the Grand Duke’s daily visits to us ceased. He preferred to go for walks and to hunt outside Moscow. At times, however, he came to have lunch or dinner with us, and then he would continue his infantile confessions to me, while his entourage talked with my mother, to whose apartment many people came and where there were many many discussions. These could only be displeasing to those who were not included, among them Count Bestuzhev, all of whose enemies met at our home, and among others the Marquis de La Chétardie, who had not yet revealed himself as an official envoy from the French court, but who had his diplomatic credentials with him. In May the Empress again went to Trinity Monastery, where the Grand Duke, my mother, and I followed her.

Some time ago the Empress had begun to treat my mother with great coldness; at Trinity Monastery the cause for this became clear. One afternoon, when the Grand Duke had come to our apartment, the Empress entered unannounced and told my mother to follow her into the other apartment. Count Lestocq went too; the Grand Duke and I remained seated by a window and waited. This conversation lasted for quite a while, and as we saw Count Lestocq leave, he approached the Grand Duke and me, who were laughing, and said: “This great happiness is going to end immediately,” and then turning to me, he said: “You have only to pack your bags. You will leave immediately and return to your home.” The Grand Duke wanted to know why. He responded, “This you will know later,” and then went to deliver the message, still unknown to me, with which he was charged. He left the Grand Duke and me to ruminate on what he had just told us; the Grand Duke’s comments were in words, mine in thought. He said, “Even if your mother is at fault, you are not.” I replied, “My duty is to follow my mother and to do what she commands.” I saw clearly that he would have left me without regret; as for me, seeing his feelings, I was more or less indifferent to him, but not to the crown of Russia. Finally the door to the bedroom opened and the Empress appeared with a very flushed face and an irritated look, and my mother followed her with eyes red and wet from crying. As we hastened to get down from the rather high window where we had perched ourselves, the Empress smiled, kissed us both, and left.

After she had left, we learned more or less what was the matter. The Marquis de La Chétardie, who in the past or more precisely on his first trip or mission to Russia had been strongly in the Empress’s favor and confidence, found on this second trip or mission all his ambitions thwarted. His speech was more restrained than his letters, which were full of the most bitter gall. Opened and decoded, his letters revealed details of his conversations with my mother and many other people about current affairs; those details concerning the Empress were rather imprudent. Count Bestuzhev had not failed to place them in the Empress’s hands, and as the Marquis de La Chétardie had not presented any credentials, the order was given to expel him from the empire.
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The Order of St. Andrei and the portrait of the Empress were taken from him, and he was left with the other gifts of jewelry that this Princess had given him. I do not know if my mother succeeded in excusing herself in the Empress’s mind, but it happened that we did not leave; but my mother continued to be treated very coldly and with great reserve. I do not know what had been said between her and de La Chétardie, but I know that one day he spoke to me and praised me for being coiffed
à la Moyse.
I told him that to please the Empress I would wear whatever hairstyle pleased her; when he heard my response, he turned and went off in the other direction, and spoke to me no more.

Having returned to Moscow with the Grand Duke, my mother and I were more isolated. Fewer people came to our apartment and I was being prepared to make my profession of faith. June 28 had been fixed as the day of this ceremony, and the following day, the feast of St. Peter, for my betrothal to the Grand Duke. I remember that during this time Marshal Brümmer spoke to me on several occasions to complain about his pupil, and he wanted to use me to correct or improve his Grand Duke, but I told him that this was impossible and that by doing this I would become as odious to him as his entourage already was. Meanwhile, my mother formed an intimate attachment with the Prince and Princess of Hessen and even more so with the Princess’s brother, Chamberlain Betskoi. This liaison displeased Countess Rumiantseva, Marshal Brümmer, and everyone else, and while she was in her room with them, the Grand Duke and I would make a racket in the antechamber, which was now completely ours; neither of us lacked childish vivacity.