Terrible Tsarinas: Five Russian Women in Power (6 page)

Arriving at his palace on Vasilievsky Island, he was stunned to see that all of Peter II’s furniture had been removed and transported to the Summer Palace (Peterhof) where the tsar, he was informed, intended to reside from now on. Outraged, the Most Serene Prince rushed to the headquarters of the Guard to demand an explanation from the officers charged with keeping watch over the tsar. All the sentinels had already been relieved and the station chief announced, with an air of contrition, that he was only following imperial orders. Apparently, there was another hand pulling the strings. What might have looked, at first, like the whim of a prince seemed, in fact, to signal a final breakdown. For Menshikov, this was the collapse of an edifice that he had been building for years and that he had believed to be as solid as the granite of the quays along the Neva.

What a catastrophe! Who was behind it? There could be no doubt. Alexis Dolgoruky and his son, the ravishing and underhanded Ivan, must have masterminded it all. How could Menshikov save whatever might still be salvageable? Should he beg for leniency from those who had cut him down, or turn to Peter and try to plead his cause directly? Even as he pondered these unpalatable options, he heard that the tsar, having joined his aunt Elizabeth at the Summer Palace, had convened the members of the Supreme Privy Council and that he was discussing with them what additional sanctions should be taken. The verdict came down before the defendant could even prepare his defense. Most probably egged on by Elizabeth, Natalya and the Dolgoruky clan, Peter ordered the Serene One arrested. When Major General Simon Saltykov came to inform him of his condemnation, Menshikov could only write a letter of protest and justification, which he doubted would ever be transmitted to the intended recipient.

The next day the charges began to mount, increasingly iniquitous, increasingly defamatory. Stripped of his titles and privileges, Menshikov was exiled to his own estate, for life - in other words, he was permanently grounded. With whatever possessions he could throw together on the spot, the condemned left St. Petersburg by slow caravan - and no one came out to see him off. He who had been everything, yesterday, was a nonentity today. His most enthusiastically obliged friends became his worst enemies. And the tsar’s hatred continued unabated. At every stage along the road, a missive from the palace announced a new disgrace for him. At Vyshny-Volochok came an order to disarm the deposed favorite’s servants; at Tver, it was announced that he had taken too many servants, horses and carriages - those in excess were to be returned to St. Petersburg; at Klin came the order to confiscate from Miss Maria Menshikov, ex-fiancée of the tsar, the ring by which he had pledged his troth; and finally, at the approaches to Moscow, came an order to by-pass the old city of kings and to continue without delay to Orenburg, in the remote province of Riazan.6 Reaching that city at the border between European Russia and Western Siberia, on November 3, Menshikov, his heart in his throat, got his first view of the place to which he had been relegated. The house, enclosed behind the crenellated walls of a fortress, looked perfectly suited to serve as a prison. Sentinels were assembled to guard every exit. An officer was charged with surveillance over the family’s comings and goings. All of Menshikov’s correspondence was inspected before being forwarded. Menshikov refused to admit defeat; he tried to redeem himself by sending messages of repentance to those who had condemned him.

However, at roughly the same time, the Supreme Privy Council received a report from Count Nicholas Golovin, Russia’s ambassador in Stockholm. This confidential document denounced some of the Serene Prince’s recent intrigues. Prior to his dismissal, he apparently had picked up some 5,000 ducats from the English for informing Sweden of the dangers posed by Russia’s support for the Duke of Holstein’s territorial claims. This treason by a Russian dignitary to the benefit of a foreign power opened the way with a new series of denouncements and heavy blows. Hundreds of letters, some signed, some anonymous, piled up on the table at the Supreme Privy Council. Emulating each other, ganging up on someone who was down, everyone reproached Menshikov for his suspicious sources of income and for the millions of gold coins discovered in his various houses. Johann Lefort even thought it useful to let his government know that the silver vessel seized on December 20 in a secret cache at Menshikov’s principal residence weighed 70 poods7 and that they hoped to find additional treasures during subsequent searches. The accumulated evidence of abuse of power, embezzlement, theft and treason merited that the Supreme Privy Council sanction him mercilessly. The initial punishment was considered to have been too soft; a legal commission was established to handle the matter.

The commission began by arresting the unmasked des pot’s three secretaries. Then Menshikov was given a twenty-point questionnaire, and ordered to respond “as soon as possible.”

However, whereas they had agreed on the need for eliminating Menshikov, the members of the Supreme Privy Council were bickering among themselves as to how to distribute the power after his downfall. Ostermann had initially taken charge of current affairs; but the Dolgorukys, on the strength of their family’s seniority, became increasingly impatient to supplant “the Westphalian.” Their direct rivals were the Golitsyns, whose family tree was, according to them, at least equally glorious. Each party was grasping for as much as it could get, without overly concerning themselves about Peter II nor Russia. Since the tsar’s only preoccupation was to have fun, there was no reason for the great servants of the State to tax themselves overmuch in defending the welfare and the prosperity of the country instead of looking to their own interests. The Dolgorukys counted on young Ivan, so attractive and seductive, to turn the tsar against his aunt Elizabeth and her sister Natalya, whose ambitions seemed suspicious.

For his part, Dmitri Golitsyn charged his son-in-law, the elegant and none too scrupulous Alexander Buturlin, with engaging His Majesty in varied enough pleasures to keep his mind off politics. But Elizabeth and Natalya suspected what the Dolgorukys and Golitsyns were up to. Together, they tried to open the young tsar’s eyes, alerting him to the dangers that lurked behind those pleasant smiles with the sharp teeth.

However, Peter had inherited his ancestors’ inability to tolerate any restraint, and he took every argument as an insult to his dignity. He rebuffed his sister and his aunt. Natalya did not insist; as for Elizabeth, she went over to the enemy. As a consequence of spending so much time with her nephew’s friends, she fell in love with the very same Alexander Buturlin that she had intended to combat. Giving in to the unrestrained license of her nephew, she readily joined him in every manifestation of frivolity. Hunting and lovemaking became, for her as well as for him, the two poles of their activity. And who better than Buturlin could satisfy their common taste for the unpredictable and the provocative? Of course, the Supreme Privy Council and, through it, all the court and all the embassies, were kept abreast of the tsar’s extravagances. They began to think it was high time to give him the crown and make him settle down. It was in this atmosphere of libertinage and infighting that the political leaders of Russia prepared the coronation ceremonies in Moscow.

On January 9, 1728, Peter set out at the head of a procession as grand as one can imagine for such an exodus, with all of St. Petersburg in his wake. Through the cold and the snow, the nobility and the high officials of the new capital slowly headed off for the pomp and celebrations at the old Kremlin. But in Tver, halfway to Moscow, the tsar was taken ill. It was feared that he might have measles; the doctors recommended at least two weeks’ bed rest. Only on February 4 did the young sovereign, finally recovered, make his solemn entry into a Moscow bedecked in flags and bunting, overflowing with cheers and thundering with cannon blasts and the ringing of bells. His first stop, according to protocol, was to pay a visit his grandmother, the empress Eudoxia. He felt no emotion toward this old woman, tired and driveling, and he was even irritated when she reproached him for his dissolute life and recommended he marry as soon as possible a wise and wellborn girl. Cutting short the interview, he curtly sent her back to her prayers and her good works. This reaction did not surprise the wife repudiated by Peter the Great. It was clear to her that the teenager had inherited his grandfather’s independence of mind, cynicism and cruelty. But his genius? She feared not!

It was the Dolgorukys who organized the ceremonies. The date of February 24, 1728 was selected for the coronation of the tsar, in the heart of the Kremlin, in the Cathedral of the Assumption. Tucked away in a latticework booth at the back of the church, the tsarina Eudoxia watched her grandson don the crown and take in one hand the scepter and in the other the sphere, complementary symbols of power. Blessed by a priest who seemed to have stepped right out of one of the icons, in his double-gilded and embroidered chasuble, lofted to the high heavens by the singing of the choir, wreathed in clouds of incense, the tsar waited for the end of the liturgy and, as he had been told to do, went up to his grandmother and kissed her hand. He promised her that he would see to it that she would be surrounded by all the chamberlains, pages and ladies-in-waiting that her high rank deserved, even if, as seemed desirable, she should choose to settle somewhere outside the capital to avoid the agitation of the court. Eudoxia got the message, and she removed to another residence.

Everyone in Peter’s retinue heaved a sigh of relief: no major incident had occurred to mar the festivities.

However, a few days after the coronation, the police at the Kremlin gates discovered some anonymous letters denouncing the Dolgorukys’ turpitude and inviting people of good heart to demand the rehabilitation of Menshikov. Public rumor attributed these letters to the Golitsyn family, whose animosity towards the Dolgorukys was well-known. But the Supreme Privy Council, not having any proof to give to the board of inquiry and following the lead of the Dolgorukys, decided that Menshikov alone must be behind this call to rebellion; they ordered that he and his family be exiled to Berezov, deep in Siberia. Just when the former court favorite thought he was done with the tsar’s justice, two officers presented themselves at his house of Orenburg, within the fortress, read him the sentence and, without giving him time to turn around, shoved him into a carriage. His terrified wife and children climbed in beside him. They were all preemptively dispossessed, and were left with only some farm animals and a bit of furniture, out of charity. The convoy straggled along the route, escorted by a detachment of soldiers - with weapons drawn, as if they were transferring a dangerous criminal.

Berezov, located more than a thousand versts (675 miles) from Tobolsk, is a godforsaken hole in the middle of a wasteland of tundra, forests and marshes. The winter is so s evere there that the cold, they say, kills birds in full flight and shatters the windowpanes of the houses. Such misery, after so much wealth and honor, was not enough to undermine Menshikov’s fortitude. His wife, Daria, died of exhaustion along the way. His daughters wept over their lost dreams of love and grandeur, forever gone, and he himself regretted having lived through so much woe.

However, an irrepressible instinct of self-preservation impelled him to keep his head during this adversity. Accustomed as he was to preening in palaces, he labored with his hands, as a simple workman, to put together an izba for hims elf and his family. The neighbors, informed of his “crimes” against the emperor, shunned him and even threatened him with violence. One day a hostile crowd gathered, shouting insults and throwing stones at him and his daughters in the street; he shouted back, “If you’re going to throw stones, only throw them at me! Spare the women!”8 Nevertheless, after a few months of these daily affronts, he did begin to deteriorate; finally, he gave up the fight. An attack of apoplexy carried off the colossus in November 1729. One month later, his elder daughter Maria, the tsar’s little fiancée, followed him to the grave.9

Indifferent to the fate of those whose demise he had precipitated, Peter II went his merry way, continuing his pleasure-filled and chaotic existence. Not having to account to him for any of their decisions, the Dolgorukys, Golitsyns and the clever Ostermann utilized the opportunity to impose their will at every occasion. However, they were still wary of Elizabeth’s influence over her nephew. She alone, they believed, might be able to neutralize the power that the darling Ivan Dolgoruky was gaining over His Majesty, which was so essential to their cause. The best means of disarming her, obviously, would be to marry her off at once. But to whom? Thoughts turned once again to Count Maurice of Saxony. But Elizabeth didn’t care a fig about him. Her charming cranium held no thoughts beyond the next romp. Sure of her power over men, she threw herself at one after another for casual idylls and liaisons. After seducing Alexander Buturlin, she went after Ivan Dolgoruky, the Tsar’s designated “sweetie.” Was she excited by the idea of charming a partner whose homosexual preferences were well-known? Her sister, Anna Petrovna, retired in Holstein, had just brought a son10 into the world, whereas Elizabeth, at the age of 19, was still unmarried; she was far more concerned, however, with weaving her nefarious intrigue with the darling Ivan. She was stimulated by the adventure, as if she were trying to prove the superiority of her sex in all forms of perversity in love. Probably she thought it less banal, and thus more interesting, to take a man from another man than to steal him from a woman.

During the festivities held in Kiel by Anna Petrovna and the Grand Duke Charles Frederick to celebrate the birth of their child, the tsar opened the ball with Elizabeth. After dancing with her gallantly, under the charmed gaze of the assembly, he withdrew to the next room, according to his custom, with his drinking buddies. Having knocked back a few glasses, he noted that Ivan, his usual companion at such events, was not at his side. Surprised, he walked back and saw him dancing, breathlessly, in the middle of the ballroom with Elizabeth. She looked so excited, face to face with this cavalier who was devouring her with his eyes, that Peter lost his temper and went back to get drunk. But which one was he really jealous over? Ivan or Elizabeth?