Terrible Tsarinas: Five Russian Women in Power (20 page)

On June 28, 1744, Sophia was finally received into the bosom of the Orthodox Church. She gave her baptism vows in Russian, without stumbling, and changed her first name to become Catherine Alexeyevna. She was not shocked at being required to give up her own religion - she had long understood that that was part of the price to be paid if one wished to marry a Russian of quality.

The following day, June 29, she presented herself at the imperial chapel for the engagement ceremony. The empress slowly stepped forward, under a silver canopy held aloft by eight generals. Behind her the Grand Duke Peter advanced, smiling idiotically all around, with the new Grand Duchess Catherine by his side, pale and deeply moved, her eyes lowered. The service, celebrated by Father Ambroise, was four hours long. Despite her recent illness, Catherine never faltered. Elizabeth was pleased with her future daughter-in-law. During the ball that brought the festivities to a close, Elizabeth noticed once more the contrast between the girl’s elegance and simplicity and the brazenness of the mother, who talked nonstop and was always putting herself forward.

Shortly thereafter, the entire court removed to Kiev, in great array. The young couple and Johanna came behind. Once again there were receptions, balls, parades and processions and, at the end of the day, for the tsarina (accustomed as she was to the social whirl), the strange feeling of having wasted considerable time.

During this three-month voyage, Elizabeth had pretended to be unaware that the world outside was on the move. England, it was said, was preparing to attack the Netherlands, while France was spoiling for a fight with Germany, and the Austrians were on the verge of confronting the French army. Versailles and Vienna were cunningly competing to secure Russia’s assistance, and Alexis Bestuzhev was straddling the fence the best he could, while awaiting precise instructions from Her Majesty. The empress, alarmed no doubt by her chancellor’s reports, decided to head back to Moscow. The court immediately picked up and moved, in a long, slow caravan, back to the north. Arriving at the old city of coronations, Elizabeth certainly expected to enjoy a few days of rest; she claimed to have been tired by all the celebrations in Kiev.

But as soon as she took in the stimulating Moscow air, her appetite was piqued for further entertainment and surprises. At her initiative, the balls, suppers, operas and masquerades started up once again, and at such a pace that even the youngest socialites started to bow out.

As the wedding date approached, Elizabeth decided to move back to St. Petersburg to oversee the preparations. The engaged couple and Johanna followed her, a few days behind. But, stepping down from the carriage at the stage house in Khotilovo, the Grand Duke Peter began to shiver. Pink blotches had broken out on his face. There could be no doubt: it was small pox - and few people survived that dread disease. An urgent message was sent to the empress. Elizabeth was terrified, hearing of this threat to her adoptive son’s life. Who could forget that, less than fifteen years earlier, the young tsar Peter II had succumbed to that very peril on the eve of his wedding? And by a strange coincidence, the bride-to-be, back in 1730, a Dolgoruky, was also called Catherine. Was that name an evil omen for the Romanov dynasty?

Elizabeth refused to believe it, just as she refused to believe that the illness would be fatal. She gave orders to prepare the horses and took off for Khotilovo, to be near her heir and to ensure that he was receiving proper care. Meanwhile Catherine, thrown into a panic, had left Khotilovo for the capital. Along the way, she came upon Elizabeth’s sleigh. United by their anguish, the empress (who feared the worst for her succession), and the bride-to-be (who feared the worst for her own future) fell into each other’s arms. By now, Elizabeth had no more doubt that the Good Lord had guided her to place her confidence in this diminutive 15-yearold princess. Catherine was indeed the right wife for that simpleton, Peter, and the right daughter-in-law to enable her to enjoy life and end her days in peace. They set out again for Khotilovo, together. Arriving in the village, they went to see the Grand Duke, who was racked with fever, perspiring and shivering on a miserable cot. Was this pitiful scene the end of the dynasty of Peter the Great? And was this the end of Catherine’s aspirations? The empress was anxious to avoid infecting the girl before the wedding, so Catherine, at her request, set out again for St. Petersburg with her mother, leaving Her Majesty at the Grand Duke’s bedside.

For weeks, in a primitive and poorly heated hovel, Elizabeth watched over the stupid and ungrateful heir who had played such a nasty trick, trying to back out of the game just when they were both on the point of winning. And little by little, Peter’s fever diminished and he began to achieve some relative lucidity.

By the end of January 1745, Peter had recovered from the fever and the empress escorted him back to St. Petersburg. He had changed so much during his illness that Elizabeth was afraid the bride-to-be would be shocked - her fiancé, never handsome, was now revolting. The small pox had disfigured him terribly. With his shaved head, swollen face, bloodshot eyes and cracked lips, he was a caricature of the young man he had been just a few months before. Catherine was sure to be horrified. Elizabeth put a big wig on Peter’s head in an attempt to improve his disastrous appearance, but topped with a cascade of false curls, he looked even worse. There wasn’t much to do but allow destiny take its course.

As soon as the travelers had arrived and settled into the Winter Palace, young Catherine rushed to visit her miraculously recuperated fiancé. Elizabeth, heart in throat, presided over their reunion. At the sight of Grand Duke Peter, Catherine froze. Her mouth half-opened, her eyes wide, she stammered out some pleasantry to congratulate her fiancé on his recovery, dropped a quick curtsey and fled as if she had just met a ghost.

February 10 was the Grand Duke’s birthday. The empress, dismayed by his appearance, even advised him against showing himself in public. However, she still harbored the hope that, over time, his physical flaws would begin to fade. What concerned her more, for the time being, was the little interest he showed in his betrothed. According to people in Catherine’s entourage, Peter had boasted to her of having had mistresses. But was he even capable of satisfying a woman? Was he “normal,” in that regard?

And would the delightful Catherine be charming enough, inventive enough to awaken the desire of such an odd husband? Would she give children to the country that was already impatient for them? What could remedy the sexual deficiency of a man who found the sight of a well-trained regiment more exciting than that of a young woman lying languidly in the shadows of the bedroom?

The doctors, taking secret council, decided that the Grand Duke might find the ladies more attractive if he drank less. Moreover, in their opinion, his inhibition was only temporary and he would soon go through a “better phase.” Lestocq concurred. But the empress was surprised that neither Catherine nor Peter was in any hurry. After lengthy discussions, she set the date of the ceremony, irrevocably. The most superb weddings of the century would take place on August 21, 1745.

Footnotes

1. Catherine II:
Mémoires
.

2. A pejorative name signifying “Razumovsky’s mother”.

3. K. Waliszewski,
Op. Cit.

4. Reported by K. Waliszewski:
La Derrière des Romanov, Elisabeth Ire
.

5. Cf. Daria Olivier,
Op. Cit.

When it came to organizing these important festivities, Elizabeth left nothing to chance. The morning of the ceremony, she sat in Catherine’s dressing room and examined her, naked, from head to toe. She directed the maids-in-waiting in the selection of underclothes, discussed with the hairdresser the best way of arranging her hair, and chose, unilaterally, the silver brocaded gown with a full skirt, short sleeves, and a train embroidered with roses. Then, emptying her jewel case, she supplemented the ornamentation with necklaces, bracelets, rings, brooches and elaborate earrings, all of which so weighed down the bride that she was reduced to posing like a hieratic figure, barely able to move. The grand duke, too, was encased in silver fabric and decked out in imperial jewels; but while the bride may have appeared like a celestial vision, he, looking like a monkey disguised as a prince, was liable to provoke a good laugh. The buffoons that had surrounded Her Majesty Anna Ivanovna were never so funny (when they tried to be) as he was when trying to look serious.

The procession traversed St. Petersburg amid a multitude of spectators who prostrated themselves as the carriages went by, making the sign of the cross and calling out their blessings and good wishes for the young couple and the tsarina. Never did so many candles glow in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan.

Throughout the liturgy, Elizabeth was on the lookout for one of her nephew’s little stunts, having come to expect some disruption from him during the most serious occasions. But the service went off without a hitch, including the exchange of rings. After risking ankylosis by standing upright throughout the service, the assembly then flexed its legs at the ball that, of course, capped the day’s festivities.

However, no matter how much she enjoyed dancing, Elizabeth kept her mind on the essential matter - which was not the Church blessing, and far less the minuets and the polonaises, but the coupling which, in theory, should soon take place. By 9:00 in the evening, she decided that it was time for the young couple to withdraw. As a conscientious duenna, she led them to the bridal apartment. The matrons and maids of honor, all a-twitter, gave them escort. The grand duke discreetly disappeared to don his night clothes. The grand duchess’s maidservants took advantage of the husband’s absence to dress the young lady in a chemise that was tantalizingly transparent, and capped her hair with a light bonnet of lace; she was put to bed under the vigilant eye of the empress. When Her Majesty judged that “the little one” was “ready,” she exited - with theatrical slowness. She would have loved dearly to be able to see what happened next. Would her wretched nephew be able to summon up enough manhood to satisfy this poor young girl? Wouldn’t they need her helpful advice? Catherine looked frightened and had tears in her eyes - a virginal apprehension that must only excite the desire of a normally constituted man. But how would the eccentric grand duke behave? Might he not harbor an impotence that no woman could cure?

In the days that followed, she studied Catherine, vainly looking for signs of conjugal satisfaction. The bride appeared increasingly thoughtful and disillusioned. Questioning her chambermaids, Elizabeth learned that, every evening, after having joined his wife in bed, instead of cherishing her, the grand duke would amuse himself with the wooden figurines on his bedside table. And often, they said, he would abandon the grand duchess on the pretext of a headache to go have a drink and a laugh with some of his friends in a nearby room. Sometimes he even played with the servants, ordering them about as if they were soldiers on parade. These may all have been harmless infantile pleasures, but they must have been offensive, and worrisome, for a wife who was only waiting to be undressed.

Catherine may have been languishing untouched at the side of a husband who shirked his duties; but her mother was carrying on shamelessly. In just a few months in St. Petersburg, she managed to become the mistress of Count Ivan Betsky. She was thought to be pregnant by him, and people were saying that even if the grand duchess should be long in giving the empire an heir, her dear mother would soon be presenting her with a little brother or sister. Offended by the misconduct of this woman who, out of regard for Catherine, should have moderated her passions during her stay in Russia, Elizabeth firmly invited her to leave the country where she had exhibited only dishonor and stupidity. After a pathetic scene, with excuses and justifications on one side and icy contempt on the other, Johanna packed her bags and returned to Zerbst without saying good-bye to her daughter, who was sure to have reproached her.

Although having been dismayed by her mother’s extravagances all this time, Catherine felt so alone after Johanna’s departure that her melancholy transformed into a quiet despair. Witnessing this collapse, Elizabeth still struggled to believe that upon seeing how unhappy his wife had become, Peter would draw closer to Catherine and that her tears would succeed where ordinary coquetry had failed. But, from one day to the next, the lack of understanding between the spouses grew deeper. Upset by his inability to fulfill his marital duty, as Catherine invited him to do every night with a sweetly provocative smile, he took revenge by claiming - with all the cynicism of an army grunt - that he had other women, and that he even had a strong attachment elsewhere. He told her that he had something going on with some of her ladies-in-waiting, who supposedly held him in great affection. In his desire to humiliate Catherine, he went as far as scoffing at her subservience towards the Orthodox religion and for her respect for the empress, that hoyden who was openly flaunting her relations with the ex-
muzhik
Razumovsky. Her Majesty’s turpitude was, he said, the talk of the town.

Elizabeth would have been merely amused by the trouble in the Grand-Ducal household if her daughter-in-law had quit brooding for long enough to find a way to get pregnant. But, after nine months of cohabitation, the young woman was as flat in the belly as she had been on her wedding day. Could she still be a virgin? This prolonged sterility seemed like an attack on Elizabeth’s personal prestige. In a fit of anger, she called in her unproductive daughter-in-law, said that she alone was responsible for the non-consummation of the marriage, accused her of frigidity, clumsiness and (following suit from the chancellor, Alexis Bestuzhev) went as far as to claim that Catherine shared her mother’s political convictions and must be working secretly for the king of Prussia.

The grand duchess protested, in vain. Elizabeth announced that, from now on, the grand duke and she would have to shape up. Their lives, intimate as well as public, would now be subject to strict rules in the form of written “instructions” from Chancel.