Part 13

What actually happened at Ropsha was quite different. Peter’s tragedy came swiftly. Shut up in a bedroom and not allowed to leave it even for exercise, his existence was unutterably miserable. After the first night he complained of the bed and asked to have his own bed brought from Oranienbaum. Curiously enough, this whim was promptly gratified by Alexei Orlov who had the great four-poster and all its trappings brought to Ropsha and set up before nightfall. An English traveller who saw this bed several years afterwards describes it for us. “It had a white satin coverlet, and was on a large four-post bedstead, with curtains of pink and silver brocade, and ornamented at the top with a plume of red and white feather.” But even his own bed brought little comfort to the victim. He remained in twilight and solitude, for he was not permitted to open the green curtains which hung at the windows. In desperation, he asked for companions, and again his request was granted. His negro Narcissus, his dog, and his violin were brought, at the Empress’s command, from Oranienbaum. He begged for Elisabeth Vorontsov’s presence but this was refused him. Presently he fell ill with diarrhœa, a disease to which he was always subject in a crisis. His personal physician was brought to Ropsha.

The leniency of the Empress bears out her statement of her intentions. Comforted by Narcissus, his dog, and his violin, Peter might live on at Ropsha indefinitely. But it was a dull life for the guards. Orlov, Bariatinsky, Passeck and the others were accustomed to all the excitement of life in Petersburg. Playing cards all day and all night at Ropsha was monotonous entertainment by comparison. Six days of it gave them a picture of future weeks, future months, stretching possibly into years. The revolution, with all its hectic anticipations, was over, and this was where it had landed them. It was all very well for the Empress and the others, enjoying life in Petersburg, to be magnanimous toward the prisoner, to take measures to mitigate his suffering and prolong his endurance. In the eyes of men like Orlov and Bariatinsky, Peter was not a man anyway. He was no better than a worm that lay in their path and asked to be stepped on. They played cards and drank heavily. Saturday came and at mid-day Peter was invited to come out of his room and dine with the guards....

In the meantime the Empress, established in the Winter Palace, received daily messages from the ex-Czar and Alexei Orlov about the progress of things at Ropsha. Three chief petitions from the prisoner and three letters from his jailer project for us the scenes of the tragedy which developed so swiftly and inevitably from the circumstances.

“Madame,” wrote Peter, “I beg Your Majesty to rest assured concerning me, and to have the goodness to order that the guards be removed from the second room, in order that I may move about in there; because, as you know, I always walk about in the room and I shall otherwise get swollen legs. Then I beg you further to command the officers not to remain in the same room when I have necessities; that is unendurable for me. Finally I beseech Your Majesty not to treat me like a great evil-doer. I am not conscious that I have ever wronged you. While I commend myself to your magnanimous thoughts, I beg that you will at least send me with the persons named to Germany. God will certainly reward you. I am, Your very devoted servant, Peter. P.S. Your Majesty can rest assured of me that I shall think and do nothing against your person or your reign.”

The second note is shorter. “Your Majesty: If you do not wish to destroy utterly a human being who is already unhappy enough, have pity on me and send me my only consolation, that is Elisabeth Romanovna [Vorontsov]. In this you will be doing one of the most merciful deeds of your reign. Also if Your Majesty would but visit me for one instant my highest wishes would be fulfilled. Your very devoted servant, Peter.”

The two preceding messages were written in French but the third and last one was written in Russian, the language which Peter hated and Catherine loved. The drowning man caught even at this straw. “Your Majesty: I beg you, since I have fulfilled your will in everything, to allow me to go abroad with those for whom I have already petitioned Your Majesty. And I hope that your magnanimity will not leave me without nourishment. Faithful servant, Peter.”

The letters of Alexei Orlov, brought by the same messenger, picture what was happening meanwhile in the guards’ quarters at Ropsha.

On Tuesday he wrote: “Little Mother, Gracious Empress: Health we all wish you for countless years. We and the whole command are well as this letter leaves us, but our monster has grown very sick and has had an unexpected attack of colic. And I am afraid that in the end he might die tonight and fear still more again that he might live. The first fear I have because he chatters pure nonsense, and that does not amuse us; and the second fear, because he is really dangerous for us all because he often speaks as if he had his former position.

“According to your orders, I have paid the soldiers for half a year, also the under-officers with the exception of Potiomkin, because he serves without salary. Many of the soldiers have spoken with tears of your Graciousness, they had not deserved so much of you, to be rewarded in so short a time. I send you herewith a list of the entire command at present here; but a thousand rubles were lacking, Little Mother, and I have added them in ducats. There was much laughter here among the guardsmen on account of the ducats, when they received them from me. Many asked questions because they had never yet seen any and gave them back to me because they thought them worth nothing.... Until death, your devoted slave, Alexei Orlov.”

On Saturday morning, Orlov wrote, “Our Little Mother, Gracious Empress; I know not what I should do for I tremble before the anger of Your Majesty, that you do not believe something awful about us, and that we are not the cause of the death of your rascal and also of Russia and our law. But now the lackey Maslov sent to serve him has fallen ill and he himself is so sick that I do not believe he will live until evening, and he is already quite unconscious; which the whole command knows and begs God that we become rid of him as soon as possible; and this Maslov and the officer dispatched can inform Your Majesty in what condition he now is, if you are pleased to doubt me. This written by Your Faithful Servant....”

On Saturday evening, a messenger from Ropsha galloped up to the Winter Palace with the last letter from Alexei. “Little Mother, Merciful Empress. How shall I explain or describe what has happened? You will not believe your devoted slave but before God I will speak the truth. Little Mother! I am ready for death but I myself do not know how the misfortune happened. We are lost if you have not mercy upon us. Little Mother, he lives no longer in this world. But no one had thought that, and how should we have had the thought to lift hand against the Czar? But Empress, the misfortune has happened. It came to a quarrel at table between him and Prince Feodor: we could not separate them, and already he was no more. We cannot ourselves remember what we have done, but we are all to the last man guilty and deserve death. Have mercy upon me, if only for my brother’s sake! I have made my confession and there is nothing to investigate. Pardon me or quickly make an end of me. I hate the light of day: we have angered you and our souls are hurled to destruction.”

On Sunday morning the Empress informed the public by an official statement that Peter III had died of a hemorrhoidal attack and would be buried in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. There is no record that she ever tried to give anyone at any time a confidential explanation of Peter’s death. The letters of Alexei Orlov were put away and never came to light until after her death. Her silence remained unbroken. Formerly this woman had worried excessively about what Europe might say about the birth of her first child and her relations with Saltikov. Now Europe had nothing less than murder to talk about, and talk ran high. But Catherine seemed impervious to any curiosity concerning this foreign gossip. As an old woman, however, she one day suddenly asked Diderot, “What do they say in Paris of the death of my husband?” When Diderot was too embarrassed to answer, she turned the conversation by a jest at his expense.

7

During his brief reign, Peter III had reversed the foreign policies of his late aunt. The Austrian and French interests had gone into eclipse, while the Prussian interest had blazed up again. Frederick’s envoy lived at the elbow of the Czar whispering good advice to a mental invalid who was unable to profit by it. No sooner was Peter III out of the way than the Austrian and French envoys came out of their retirement and began to plead their cause with Catherine II. They took for granted that Frederick the Great had had his day and that his enemies, Austria and France, would now have theirs. Had not the Empress issued a manifesto in which Prussia was referred to as Russia’s “bitterest enemy”? Had not Field Marshal Saltikov advanced upon Prussian soil, opening all of a sudden an offensive campaign? For a moment Frederick the Great trembled in his well-worn boots while the hopes of France and Austria ran high.

But the Empress was not occupied with the interests of Prussia, or Austria, or France. She preferred the interests of Russia, which happened to be her own. She recalled the hasty General Saltikov from Prussian territory so adroitly that he scarcely knew he had been recalled. She assured Austria and France of her good will and friendship and left them thinking that their temporary estrangement from Russia during Peter’s reign had been wiped out. Catherine II wished to have peace with Europe. She had called Frederick the Great the deadly enemy of Russia on the day of her accession; but a few days afterwards she confirmed the peace with Prussia which Peter III had made and which her manifesto had denounced. The Empress made no attempt to justify this inconsistency. She was a woman of action and explanations have a way of taking too much time. From her accession until her death she was one of the busiest monarchs in Europe.

She recalled Bestushev and presented him with a great house furnished with comforts. The old man was nearly seventy now and of no great service to her. But she owed him much and he was a magnificent monument because he had once known Peter the Great. She recalled Biron, also aged with exile, and made him the Grand Duke of Courland. He was useful to her there because he kept the House of Saxony from getting a foothold in Courland. Poniatovsky, who had long awaited this day in Poland, now wrote asking to be summoned to Russia, but she did not recall him. She discouraged him from writing to her at all, saying, “I must walk straight ahead; I must not be suspected.” She had long ago planned with Poniatovsky and Williams that the Count was one day to be made the King of Poland. She now urged the Count to stop at home in Poland and abide the course of events.

One of Catherine’s first acts as Empress was to give orders for her coronation. The ceremony which Peter had postponed until he had at last died uncrowned was foremost in her thoughts. Four days after her accession, she ordered the fire-works for her coronation; and seven days afterwards, the day on which the death of the unfortunate Peter became known, she announced the date. It was to take place in September. She gave Prince Trubetsky fifty thousand rubles and sent him to Moscow to get everything in readiness. He carried with him the specifications for a great spectacle, and, with the assistance of a corps of official merry-makers, managed to complete all preparations within the time arranged for. Promptly on the first day of September, the Empress left Petersburg with an enormous train. There was evidently to be no postponement of the date originally set for the ceremony, no repetition of the succession of postponements which had delayed the marriage of the Grand Duke and the Grand Duchess under the late Empress. The new Empress had none of the dilatoriness of Elisabeth; she had respect for time. In this regard, she remained always only half a Russian.

Between Petersburg and Moscow, a slight cloud threatening delay rose above the horizon. It appeared in the direction of the train of Count Panin and his pupil, the Grand Duke Paul. The Empress received a message from Panin that his pupil had fallen ill of a fever and might not be able to enter Moscow on the expected day. Would the Empress travel more slowly? The Empress halted and waited with impatience. She was rewarded by a second message saying that the Grand Duke had another and a worse attack. The Empress no longer wavered; she sent her ultimatum to Panin. It directed that Panin and his train should travel forward when the boy’s health permitted; in any case, the Empress would enter Moscow on the following Friday. On the receipt of this message, Paul’s health suddenly became better and he was able, under the escort of Panin, to enter Moscow in the company of his mother.

Catherine’s coronation took place in the Kremlin on Sunday, September 23, 1762. In the early morning the regiments marched through the towering gates and stationed themselves in front of the four great cathedrals whose pinnacles rise like glittering golden tulips above the city. At ten o’clock the Empress appeared on the Red Staircase leading to the Uspensky Cathedral. Six chamberlains carried her train and Count Sheremetiev bore the end of it. Six months previously he had carried the train of the erratic Peter at the funeral of the Empress. This time his offices were accepted by his sovereign with supreme decorum. The procession advanced slowly, while the great crowds who had gathered without the military cordon and occupied the roofs of the houses gazed in awestruck silence at the ermine-and-silver clad figure of the Empress, their Little Mother. Only the myriad bells of Moscow spoke and the cannons thundered their salute.

From cathedral to cathedral, the stately procession advanced. As Catherine placed the crown upon her own head, the cannons fired a salute on the Red Square. Surrounded by Prelates and Archimandrites, she nevertheless chose to give the Holy Communion to herself. As she had on the night of June 28 unhesitatingly placed herself at the head of the army as Colonel, she now placed herself with just as much assurance at the head of the Church of Russia. Now as then, no one questioned her right to do so.

While the Empress distributed honors in the Granovitaya Palata, the sacred chamber into which women had been first admitted by Peter the Great, the whole city of Moscow was turned into one vast festival. The merry-making was prolonged for weeks. The fountains ran wine, bread and roast meat were given for the asking, and silver rubles were thrown to the people. No single tradition of grandeur or graciousness was overlooked by the new Russian monarch. An allegorical pageant called the Procession of the Triumphant Minerva brought the coronation festivities to a close, but by this time winter was so far advanced that the performers shivered in the flying snow.

The triumphant Minerva was a happy allegory for Catherine. Not so happy perhaps was the inspiration of the Archimandrite of Troitsky who welcomed her at the gates of the Cloister with an oration comparing her to Judith. Afterwards a group of students, wearing gold-embroidered garments and green wreaths on their flowing locks, sang a cantata composed in her honor. The unmusical Empress could not distinguish one note from another but she bore herself graciously throughout. A few years later, grown more accustomed to power and partly satiated, she was less tolerant. She would sometimes send a page to the orchestra in the theater and arbitrarily stop the music.

9

Captain Gregory Orlov became Count Orlov on the day of Catherine’s coronation. She also named him General-Adjutant and gave him her portrait set with diamonds which he wore on his breast. Gregory Orlov sat many times for portraits which may still be seen in Petersburg showing him to be as handsome as report has made him out. He was indolent and unaspiring, content to be the escort of her Majesty and to eschew all influence in public affairs. In the spring of 1763, after Catherine had been Empress for about a year, a rumor of her marriage to Gregory Orlov was whispered about. Whence arose this rumor? Had the slothful Gregory suddenly become ambitious? It was more likely that the idea came from Alexei, the head of the Orlov clan.

Count Gregory occupied an equivocal position. He was a parvenu and the favorite of the Empress. Among the nobles, the Orlovs were not popular. Among the forty officers who had supported Catherine’s conspiracy, were many who regarded them with a jealous eye. They had been showered with honors and riches, though the Empress had done much also for a number of her supporters. The intimacy between the Empress and Gregory Orlov aroused distrust. If the favorite were promoted to the position of a consort, the Orlovs would certainly become powerful. Their fellow-conspirators were not pleased to be so far outstripped.

There is a legend that about this time the Empress sent Chancellor Vorontsov to sound out Count Alexei Razumovsky on his alleged marriage to Empress Elisabeth. According to the story, the ancient Count, fast falling to decay in his chimney corner, behaved very strangely when questioned. He produced an old yellow satin-covered document which he kissed dramatically and then threw into the open fire. Tradition says this was his certificate of marriage which he sacrificed to prevent its being used as a precedent by Gregory Orlov in his suit with the Empress. He destroyed by this act his last chance to go down to posterity as an honest husband. But he also destroyed whatever hopes of a precedent the Orlovs may have had. The story was first told by a descendant of the Razumovsky family and may well be doubted.

Whatever may have happened in Razumovsky’s house, the gossip did not stop. The Empress, attended by Gregory Orlov, left Moscow for Rostov to spend the month of May in a cloister. No sooner had she left the city than old Bestushev produced a petition, suggesting a second marriage for the Empress on the grounds that the Grand Duke Paul had such delicate health. When this paper reached Panin, he asked the Empress outright whether it was issued with her permission or not. The Empress said not, but Panin did not believe her. The town talk increased, and little groups began to put their heads together behind closed doors. Presently a certain groom of the Bed Chamber, Chitrovo, who had been one of the guards of the late Czar at Ropsha, was arrested and held for a secret investigation. The young man’s grandfather was enraged. He met old Bestushev on the street and scolded him. “Mercy on us, your Highness. What power these Orlovs have, that gentlemen can so completely disappear!”

Chitrovo was accused of having made threats against the life of Alexei Orlov. The Empress, watching everything from her hiding-place in the cloister, saw that matters were growing serious. Messengers galloped back and forth between Rostov and Moscow, while Catherine directed the hearing of Chitrovo to the last detail. The least word from his lips was set down on paper for her. In the end she sent him off to his own country estate. It was a light sentence, for she did not want to increase the talk.

She gave peremptory orders that the investigation was to be kept secret. But it was no longer possible. All Moscow was talking of the affair, and the Empress knew that Moscow was talking. She decided to issue a manifesto which she called the “Manifesto of Silence” and which she ordered to be read aloud in the streets of Moscow. The President of the Senate summoned the crowds together by the beating of drums and then read aloud to them these commands of the Empress:

“It is Our Will and Wish, that each and all of Our faithful subjects shall attend alone to their office and occupation, and shall refrain from spreading unseemly and bold rumors. But against Our expectations and to Our great distress and dissatisfaction, we hear that there are people with wicked thoughts and manners who think not at all of the common good and peace; but, attacked by singular ideas about things which do not concern them and of which they can have no real knowledge, nevertheless they busy themselves with putting these ideas into other weak heads.... Although such harmful judgments really deserve punishment, for they damage Our own and the general peace, we shall not in this case proceed with full strictness; but, with Our inborn humanity, maternally admonish all those who have been affected by these restless thoughts to refrain from unnecessary conversation.... If however Our motherly admonition has no effect upon their wicked hearts and does not lead them back upon the way of the good, then let every one of these bad people know that we shall proceed with the full strength of the law....”

With the Manifesto of Silence, the talk stopped. But the project of marriage with Gregory Orlov also came to an end. When Catherine returned to Moscow the subject had been forgotten. It was the only attempt of her reign to acquire a legal consort and to win back the good name she had lost. Henceforth she was to remain the widow of Peter III and the mistress of many lovers. In her life-time she made two valiant attempts to become a respectable married woman but both of them failed for wholly different reasons. The first time was when she married the ineffectual Peter. The second time was when she tried to marry Gregory Orlov and was stopped by public opinion in Russia.

IX

CATHERINE THE GREAT

In 1762, Petersburg was still a wooden city. The court itself had only just removed from the drafty wooden palace on the Nevsky to the great stone palace on the Neva. The houses were simple or multiple structures of squared logs of the type still seen in Russian villages. Cellars and basements were unknown. To the substantial German mind of the Empress, the superficial grandeur of her capital was an object of secret derision. “Greifenheim’s house,” in which she had been born, had been better built. She wrote a verse about the house that Jack built without any stairway because the stairway had been forgotten.

The composition illustrates what the Empress often said of herself, and very truly, that she was no poet. But it very well expresses what she thought of Russian building in her time. She called her doggerel a _Chanson_.

“Jean bâtit une maison, Qui n’a ni rime ni raison: L’hiver on y jèle tout roide, L’été ne la rend point froide; Il y oublia l’escalier, Puis le bâtit en espalier.”