Terrible Tsarinas: Five Russian Women in Power (3 page)

Hardly had she tasted the complementary joys of power and pleasure when she again turned her attention to her paramount concern: that of the family. Any mother, tsarina or not, considers it her mission to see her daughters established as soon as they reach the age of puberty. Catherine had given life to two pretty daughters, who were clever-minded enough to be as pleasing in their conversation as they were to look at. The elder, Anna Petrovna, had recently been promised to the duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Charles Frederick. Weak, nervous and ungainly, he had little but his title to attract the girl. But reason can overrule feelings when, beyond the union of the hearts, political alliances and territorial annexations are foreseen. The marriage having been delayed by Peter the Great’s death, Catherine planned to celebrate it on May 21, 1725. Subservient to the maternal will, Anna sadly resigned herself to what she must have seen as her only choice.

She was 17 years old. Charles Frederick was 25. The archbishop Feofan Prokopovich, who just a few weeks before had celebrated the funeral offices of Peter the Great in Old Slavonic, the language of the Church, now blessed the union of the daughter of the deceased with the son of Duke Frederick of Holstein and Hedwige of Sweden, herself daughter of King Charles XI. As the fiancé spoke neither Slavonic nor Russian, an interpreter translated the key passages into Latin for him.

The party was entertained by the acrobatics and contortions of a pair of dwarves, who spouted out of an enormous meat pie while dessert was being brought in. The attendees choked with laughter and burst into applause. The bride herself enjoyed it. She did not suspect the bitter disappointment that awaited her. Three day after the wedding ceremony, the Saxon diplomatic representative let his king know that Charles Frederick had stayed out all night three times in a row, leaving Anna fretting alone in her bed. “The mother is in despair at her daughter’s sacrifice,” he wrote in his report. A little later he would add that the scorned wife was comforting herself “by spending the night with one and another.”2 While regretting her elder daughter’s poor luck, Catherine refused to admit defeat and sought to interest her son-in-law in public affairs - since he appeared so little interested in private affairs. She guessed correctly: Charles Frederick was mad about politics. Invited to participate in the meetings of the Supreme Privy Council, he threw himself into the debates with so much passion that Catherine was alarmed, finding that he sometimes meddled in matters that were not his concern.

Dissatisfied with this first son-in-law, she thought to correct her mistake by arranging a marriage that all of Europe would envy for her second daughter, Elizabeth, who had been Peter the Great’s preferred. Europe was known to her mostly through the remarks of her late husband and, recently, through her diplomats’ reports. But, while Peter the Great had found the Germanic rigor, discipline and efficiency attractive, Catherine found the charms and the spirit of France increasingly appealing. She heard wonderful tales from all who visited Paris - they claimed that the pomp and ceremonies of the court at Versailles were incomparable in their refinement. Some went as far as to say that the elegance and intelligence that the French people prided themselves on added luster to the enlightened authority of its government and the power of its army.

The French ambassador, Jacques de Campredon, often spoke to Catherine of the benefits that a rapprochement would represent between two countries that had every reason to support each other. According to him, such an agreement would relieve the empress of the underhanded interventions of England, which never missed an opportunity to interfere in Russia’s disputes with Turkey, Denmark, Sweden and Poland. For the four years that this distinguished diplomat played his role in St. Petersburg, he never stopped his sly preaching in favor of a Franco-Russian alliance. From his first days at the court, he had alerted his minister, Cardinal Dubois, that the tsar’s younger daughter, little Elizabeth Petrovna (“very pleasant and goodlooking”) would be an excellent wife for a prince of the house of France. But, at the time, the Regent favored the English and feared irritating them by expressing any interest in a Russian grand duchess. The tenacious Campredon now returned to his original thought. Couldn’t the negotiations that had been broken off with the tsar be taken up again, after his death, with the tsarina?

Campredon sought to persuade his government that they could and, to prepare the ground, he redoubled his attentions towards Catherine. The empress was flattered, in her maternal pride, by the admiration the diplomat expressed for her daughter. Wasn’t this, she thought, a premonitory sign of the warm sentiments that all the French would one day feel for Russia? With emotion, she remembered Peter the Great’s fondness for little Elizabeth, so young then, so blonde, so slender, so playful. The gamine was only seven years old when Peter asked the French painter Caravaque, a familiar figure at the palace in St. Petersburg, to paint her in the nude so that he could look at her at any hour, whenever he wished. He certainly would have been very proud to have his child, so beautiful and so virtuous, selected for marriage by a great prince of France. A few months after her husband’s funeral, Catherine showed herself receptive to Campredon’s suggestions. Matrimonial discussions were thus picked up again at the point where they had been dropped upon the death of the tsar.

In April 1725, the rumor spread that the
infanta
Maria Anna (the 7-year-old daughter of King Philip V of Spain), who was supposed to have been engaged to the 15-year-old Louis XV, was about to be sent back to her country because the French regent, the Duke of Bourbon,3 considered her too young for the role. Inspired, Catherine called for Campredon; he could only confirm the news.

Catherine then waxed sympathetic over the fate of the unfortunate
infanta
, but declared that the regent’s decision did not surprise her, for one cannot play with impunity with the sacred candor of childhood. Then, wary of Naryshkin, the grand master of the court who was present during this meeting, she went on in Swedish. Praising Elizabeth’s physical and moral qualities, she stressed the importance that the grand duchess would have on the international chessboard in the case of a family accord with France. She did not dare to state her thoughts outright, opting merely to assert, with a prophetic gleam in her eyes: “We would prefer friendship and an alliance with the King of France over all the other princes in the world.” Her dream: that her dear little Elizabeth, “that little royal morsel,” should become Queen of France. How many problems would be resolved smoothly, from one end of Europe to the other, if Louis XV agreed to become her son-in-law! If need be, she promised, the fiancée would adopt the Catholic religion. This offer struck Campredon very much like a declaration of love; he dissolved in thanks and asked to be given time to transmit the details of the proposal to his superiors. For his part, Menshikov went to the ambassador and swore to him that Elizabeth’s intelligence and grace were “worthy of the French genius,” that “she was born for France” and that she would dazzle Versailles from her first appearance at the court. Persuaded that the Regent would not be able to withstand these arguments, dictated by sincere friendship, he went even further and suggested supplementing the marriage of Louis XV and Elizabeth by marrying the Duke of Bourbon with Maria Leszczynska, the daughter of King Stanislaw of Poland, who was currently exiled in Wissembourg. Indeed, someday this deposed sovereign might find his way to the throne, if Russia did not find it too disadvantageous.

Secret memoranda went back and forth between the chancelleries for three months. To Catherine’s great surprise, no resolution seemed to be forthcoming from the French. Could they have misplayed their hand? Would they have to consider other concessions, other compromises in order to take the top prize? Catherine was lost in conjecture, in September 1725, when the news broke like a thunderclap in the misty skies over St. Petersburg: confounding all predictions, Louis XV would marry Maria Leszczynska, the empty-handed 22-year-old Pole, whom the Empress of Russia had thought of offering as a token to the Duke of Bourbon.

This announcement was a superb snub to the tsarina. Outraged, she ordered Menshikov to discover the reasons behind such a misalliance. He caught up with Campredon on his way to an appointment between seconds, preliminary to a meeting of the sword. Pressed with questions, the diplomat tried to hedge, fell into rambling explanations, spoke of reciprocal inclinations between the fiancés (which seemed somewhat implausible), and ended up implying that the House of France was not lacking in applicants with whom the pretty Elizabeth might be satisfied, in the absence of a king. Certain princes, he insinuated, would be better partners than the sovereign himself.

Clutching the last hope that was offered, Catherine, disappointed by Louis XV, decided to try for the Duke of Charolais. This time, she thought, no one could accuse them of aiming too high. Informed of this haggling, Elizabeth’s pride was hurt and she begged her mother to give up her ill-considered ambitions, which dis honored them both. However, Catherine claimed to know better than anyone else what would be good for her daughter. Although she believed she was finally betting on a winning horse, she suddenly ran into an even more humiliating refusal. “Monseigneur is pledged to another,” declared Campredon, with pained courtesy. The ambassador was truly distressed by the series of affronts that he was charged with inflicting upon the empress. The court of Russia was becoming unbearable to him. He was ready to leave his post. But his minister, the Count de Morville, enjoined him to remain in place, warding off, on the one hand, debates over Elizabeth’s marriage prospects and, on the other hand, any attempt to bring together St. Petersburg with Vienna.

This double responsibility worried the prudent Campredon. He no longer understood his country’s erratic political course. Learning that Catherine had invited the High Council to break off relations with France, which clearly wanted nothing to do with her, and to prepare an offensive and defensive alliance with Austria (which was disposed to help Russia, come what may), the diplomat - disappointed, cheated, and sick at heart - demanded his passports and on March 31, 1726, left the banks of the Neva, never more to return.

After his departure, Catherine felt like someone who has been misled in a youthful love affair. France, whom she adored so much, had rejected her and betrayed her for another. It was not her daughter who had been spurned, it was she, with her scepter, her crown, her army, the glorious history of her fatherland and her disproportionate hopes. Wounded to the quick, she sent a representative to Vienna with the charge to negotiate the alliance that she had so often refused. From now on, Europe would be divided into two camps: Russia, Austria and Spain on one side; France, England, Holland and Prussia on the other… Certainly, the lines might shift and influences might be felt across the borders, but, overall, in Catherine’s eyes, the map was now drawn for the years to come.

Amidst all this diplomatic intrigue, her advisers clashed, making proposals and counter-proposals, haggling, arguing and reconciling. Since joining the Supreme Privy Council, Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein had distinguished himself by the boldness of his demands. His need to regain possession of the territories that once belonged to his family had turned into an obsession. He viewed all the history of the globe through that of the tiny duchy that he claimed was still his prerogative. Aggravated by his continual claims, Catherine finally made an official request to the King of Denmark to return Schleswig to her son-in-law, the Grand Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. Encountering a categorical refusal on behalf of the Danish sovereign, Frederick IV, she called upon the friendship of Austria and obtained its support for the gadfly Charles Frederick’s claims to that parcel of land that, so recently, had been part of his heritage and that he so shamefully had been deprived of by the treaties of Stockholm and Frederiksborg. England then weighed in, making this imbroglio all the more delicate.

The more vexing these knotty foreign affairs issues became, the more the tsarina resorted to her favorite solace, drink. But, far from relieving her torment, the excesses at the table began to undermine her health. She stayed up partying until nine o’clock in the morning and collapsed, dead drunk, on her bed, in the arms of a partner whom she hardly recognized. The reverberations of this disorderly existence dismayed her entourage. The courtiers began to murmur among themselves, predicting the destruction of the monarchy.

As if the sempiternal gossip were not enough to poison the atmosphere at the palace, now people began talking again about that imp of a grandson of Peter the Great, whom they insisted had been wrongfully shunted aside. Issue of the unfortunate Alexis, who had paid with his life for having the audacity to oppose the policies of “The Reformer,” he was staggered to learn that his name had cropped up in the debates over the succession. The innocent’s adversaries maintained that he must share the paternal forfeiture and that he was permanently excluded from the prerogatives of the dynasty. But others claimed that his rights to the crown were inalienable and that he was very much in a position to mount the throne… under the tutelage of his close relations. His partisans were recruited primarily among the old stock nobility and the members of the provincial clergy.

Here and there, spontaneous uprisings were beginning to be seen in the countryside. Nothing serious, yet: timid gatherings in front of churches, secret meetings at the end of mass, the name of young Peter proclaimed by the crowds during festivals on his name day. Chancellor Ostermann, seeking to defuse the threat of a coup d’état, suggested marrying the tsarevich (who was not yet 12 years old) to his aunt Elizabeth, aged 17. No one bothered to consider whether that arrangement would suit the interested parties. Even Catherine, usually so sensitive to the inclinations of the heart, did not stop to ask herself what kind of future might await the couple that, at her initiative, would be formed by a scarcely pubescent boy and a young woman already going to seed. However, while the age difference hardly struck the unrepentant matchmakers as an insurmountable obstacle, they recognized that the Church was likely to oppose this consanguineous union. After long discussions, the idea was put aside. Moreover, Menshikov had a better suggestion. With self-serving audacity, he now suggested having tsarevich Peter marry not Elizabeth, but his own daughter, Maria Alexandrovna, who - according to him - combined beauty of the soul and that of the body. If he married her, Peter would be the happiest of men.