At first, Madame Choglokova, who still loved her husband, heatedly denied his involvement in any affair and declared the story a slander. As she was speaking, Maria Kosheleva was being questioned. The young woman admitted everything. Informed of this, Madame Choglokova returned to her husband, choking with rage. Choglokov fell on his knees, imploring forgiveness. Madame Choglokova went back to the empress, fell on her own knees, and said that she had forgiven her husband and wished to stay with him because of her children. She pleaded with the empress not to dismiss her husband from court, as this would dishonor her as well as him; her sorrow was so pitiable that Elizabeth’s anger subsided. Madame Choglokova was permitted to bring in her husband and, kneeling together before the empress, they begged her to pardon the husband for the sake of the wife and children. Thereafter, although they had appeased the empress, the warmth of their feeling for each other never returned; his deception and her public humiliation left her with an unconquerable repugnance for him and they remained united only by a common interest in survival.
These scenes took place over a span of five or six days, with the young court learning almost hour by hour what was occurring. Everyone, of course, hoped to see the watchdogs dismissed, but, in the end, only the pregnant young Maria Kosheleva was sent away. Both Choglokovs remained, their powers undiminished, although, Catherine commented, “there was no more talk of an exemplary marriage.”
The rest of that summer was peaceful. After leaving Peterhof, Catherine and Peter moved to the Oranienbaum estate, nearby on the gulf coast. The Choglokovs, still recovering from their marital disgrace, did not attempt to impose the usual rigid restrictions on movement and conversation. Catherine was able to do what she liked:
I had the greatest freedom imaginable. I rose before dawn at three in the morning and dressed myself alone from head to foot in a man’s clothing. An old huntsman was already waiting for me with guns. We crossed the garden on foot, rifles on our shoulders, and walked to a fishing skiff close to the shore. He, I, a pointer dog, and the fisherman who guided us, got in a skiff and I went to shoot ducks in the reeds that grew along both sides of the Oranienbaum canal which stretches over a mile out into the gulf. We often went out beyond the canal and consequently were sometimes caught in rough weather in the open sea. The grand duke would join us an hour or two later because he always had to have his breakfast before coming. At ten o’clock, I came home and dressed for dinner; after dinner we rested and in the afternoon the grand duke had a concert or we went horseback riding.
That summer, riding became Catherine’s “dominant passion.” She was forbidden to ride astride, since Elizabeth believed this produced barrenness in women, but Catherine designed her own saddle on which she could sit as she pleased. This was an English sidesaddle with a movable pommel that made it possible for the grand duchess to set off under the eyes of Madame Choglokova seated demurely, and, once she was out of sight, switch the pommel, swing her leg over the horse’s back, and, trusting to the discretion of her groom, ride like a man. If the grooms were asked how the grand duchess rode, they could truthfully say, “On a woman’s saddle,” as the empress had commanded Catherine to ride. Because Catherine slipped her leg over only when she was sure she was not observed, and because she never boasted or even spoke about her invention, Elizabeth never knew. The grooms were happy to keep her secret; indeed, they found less risk in her riding astride than on an English sidesaddle, which they feared might lead to an accident for which they would be blamed. “To tell the truth,” Catherine said, “although I continually galloped with the hunt, the sport of hunting did not interest me, but I was passionately fond of riding. The more violent this exercise, the better I liked it, so that if a horse happened to break loose and gallop away, I was the one who chased it and brought it back.”
The empress, who as a young woman had been an expert rider, still loved the sport, although she had become too heavy to ride herself. On one occasion, she sent word to Catherine to invite the wife of the Saxon ambassador, Madame d’Arnim, to accompany her when she rode. This woman had boasted about her passion for riding and her excellence as a horsewoman; Elizabeth wanted to see how much of this was true. Catherine invited Madame d’Arnim to join her.
She was tall, between twenty-five and twenty-six, and she appeared to all of us rather awkward and clumsy; she did not seem to know what to do with her hat or her hands. I knew that the empress did not like me to ride astride like a man, so I used an English lady’s side-saddle. Just at the moment I was about to mount my horse, the empress arrived to watch us depart. As I was very nimble and accustomed to this exercise, I leaped easily into my saddle and let my skirt, which was split, fall to either side. The empress, seeing me mount with such agility, cried out in astonishment that it was impossible to mount more skillfully. She asked what kind of saddle I was using and, hearing that it was a woman’s saddle, she said, “One would swear that it is a man’s saddle.”
When it was Madame d’Arnim’s turn to mount, her skill was not conspicuous. She had brought her own horse, a large, heavy, ugly, black nag, which our servants claimed was one of her carriage horses. She needed a ladder to mount, this process being managed only with considerable fuss and the aid of several people. Once she was on top, her nag broke into a rough trot that bounced her considerably since she was neither firm in her seat nor in her stirrups and was forced to hold on to her saddle with her hand. I was told that the empress laughed heartily.
Once Madame d’Arnim had mounted, Catherine took the lead, overtaking Peter, who had started before, while their guest and her horse were left behind. Finally, Catherine said, “at some distance from the court, Madame Choglokova, following behind in a carriage, collected the lady who kept losing her hat and then her stirrups.”
The adventure was not over. It had rained that morning and the steps and porch of the stable house were covered with puddles of water. Dismounting, Catherine walked up the steps and across the exposed porch. Madame d’Arnim followed, but because Catherine was walking fast, she had to run. She lost her footing in a puddle, slipped, and fell flat. People burst out laughing. Madame d’Arnim rose to her feet in great embarrassment, blaming her fall on her new boots, worn that day for the first time, she said. The party returned from this excursion in a carriage and on the way Madame d’Arnim insisted on talking about the exceptional quality of her horse. “We bit our lips to keep from laughing,” Catherine said.
21
Dismissals at Court
DURING THE TURMOIL over the Kosheleva affair, Madame Krause, who despised both Choglokovs but especially the wife, had celebrated prematurely what she assumed was the impending fall of her rival. When the Choglokovs did not fall, retribution became inevitable. Madame Choglokova announced to Catherine that Madame Krause wished to retire and that the empress had found a replacement. Catherine had come to trust Madame Krause, and Peter was dependent on her for the toys she brought him at night. Nevertheless, Madame Krause departed, and the next day, Madame Praskovia Vladislavova, a tall woman of fifty, arrived to take her place. Catherine consulted Timothy Evreinov, who told her that the newcomer was an intelligent, spirited, well-mannered woman but was also said to be crafty, and that Catherine should not place too much confidence in her until she saw how Vladislavova behaved.
Vladislavova got off to a good start, doing everything possible to please Catherine. She was sociable, loved to talk, told stories with intelligence, and knew innumerable anecdotes of the past, including the histories of all the great Russian families since Peter the Great. “She was a living archive, that woman,” Catherine wrote later. “From her, I learned more about what had happened in Russia over the past hundred years than anywhere else. When I was bored, I got her talking which she was always ready to do. I discovered that she often disapproved of the Choglokovs, both their words and deeds. On the other hand, because Madame Vladislavova often went to the empress’s apartments and nobody knew why, everyone remained wary.”
Along with Madame Krau
se, Armand Lestocq, a court figure familiar to Catherine, disappeared. He had been Elizabeth’s personal physician since her adolescence, one of her trusted friends, a man who had advised her in seizing the throne, and who, some believed, was one of her former lovers. Catherine had first met Count Lestocq on the night she arrived in Moscow as a fourteen-year-old girl, when he had welcomed her and her mother at the the Golovin Palace. In the late summer of 1748, Lestocq was still in the highest favor when he married one of the empress’s maids of honor; Elizabeth and the entire court attended the wedding. Two months later, the newly married couple’s fortunes plunged.
The background lay in the constant efforts of Frederick of Prussia to undermine Bestuzhev’s pro-Austria policy by attempting to bribe people in the Russian court and government. Catherine’s first awareness that something was wrong came one evening when the court was assembled to play cards in the empress’s apartment. Suspecting nothing, Catherine went up to speak to Lestocq. In a low voice, he said, “Do not come near me! I am under suspicion.” Thinking he was joking, she asked what he meant. He replied, “I am not joking. I repeat to you very seriously that you must keep away from me, because I am a man under suspicion.” Catherine, seeing that he was abnormally flushed, assumed that he was drunk and walked away. This happened on a Friday. On Sunday morning, Timothy Evreinov said to her, “Last night, Count Lestocq and his wife were arrested and taken to the fortress as state criminals!” Subsequently, she learned that Lestocq had been interrogated by Count Bestuzhev and others; that he had been accused of sending coded letters to the Prussian ambassador, of taking a ten-thousand-ruble bribe from the king of Prussia, and of poisoning a man who might have testified against him. Catherine was also told that he had tried to take his own life in the fortress by starving himself to death. After eleven days, he had been forced to eat. He had confessed nothing and no incriminating evidence was found. Even so, all of his property was confiscated and he was exiled to Siberia. Lestocq’s disgrace was a triumph for Bestuzhev and a warning to anyone in Russia who showed any sign of favoring Prussia. Catherine, herself under Bestuzhev’s suspicious eye because she was German, never believed that Lestocq was guilty. Later, she wrote, “The empress did not have the courage to render justice to an innocent man; she feared the revenge such a person might take, and that is why, in her reign, no one, innocent or guilty, left the fortress except to go into exile.”
Catherine’s greatest concern was Peter. Although the couple stood together in resisting the Choglokovs, and he came to her regularly when he needed help, Catherine found him difficult to live with. Sometimes, it was a small thing. When they played cards, Peter liked to win. If Catherine won, Peter raged, and sometimes sulked for days. When she lost, he demanded payment immediately. Often, she said, “I would deliberately lose to avoid his tantrums.”
There were times when Peter made such a fool of himself that Catherine was deeply embarrassed. On occasion, the empress permitted the gentlemen of her court to have dinner with Peter and Catherine in their apartment. The young couple enjoyed these gatherings until Peter began to spoil them by his reckless behavior. One day, when General Buturlin was dining, he made Peter laugh so hard that, throwing himself back in his chair, the heir to the throne burst out in Russian, “This son of a bitch will make me die of laughter.” Catherine blushed, knowing that this expression would offend Buturlin. The general was silent. Subsequently, Buturlin reported the words to Elizabeth, who ordered her courtiers not to return to the company of such ill-mannered people. Buturlin never forgot Peter’s words. In 1767, when Catherine was on the throne, he asked her, “Do you remember the time at Tsarskoe Selo when the grand duke publicly called me a ‘son of a bitch’?” “This,” Catherine wrote later, “is the effect that can be produced by a stupid, carelessly spoken word—it is never forgotten.”
Sometimes, Peter’s behavior could not be excused. During the summer of 1748, Peter collected a pack of dogs in the country and began to train them himself. That autumn, he brought six of these dogs into the Winter Palace and installed them behind a wooden partition that separated the bedroom he shared with Catherine from a vestibule in the rear of the apartment. As the partition consisted only of a few boards to fence in the dogs, the stench of the makeshift kennel suffused their bedroom, forcing them to sleep in a fog of putrid air. When Catherine complained, Peter said he had no choice; the kennels had to be kept a secret and this was the only possible place. “So, in order not to spoil his pleasure, I had to put up with it,” she said.
Thereafter, she continued, Peter “had only two occupations, both of which tortured my eardrums from morning to night. One was to scrape his violin; the other was his effort to train his hunting dogs.” Violently cracking a whip and yelling huntsmen’s cries, Peter made the dogs run from one end of his two rooms to the other. Any dog that tired and fell behind was rigorously whipped, making it howl still more. “From seven in the morning until late at night,” Catherine complained, “I had to listen to either the ear-shattering sounds he drew from his violin or the horrible barking and howling of the dogs whom he cudgeled and thrashed.”
Sometimes, Peter’s cruelty seemed purely sadistic:
One day, hearing a poor dog cry out piteously for a long time, I opened the door. I saw the grand duke holding a dog by its collar, suspended in the air, while a servant held the same dog up by its tail. It was a poor little English King Charles Spaniel and the grand duke was beating it with all his strength with the heavy handle of a whip. I tried to intercede for the poor animal, but this only made him redouble his blows. I returned to my room in tears. After the dog, I was the most miserable creature in the world.
22
Moscow and the Country
IN DECEMBER 1748, Empress Elizabeth and her court traveled to Moscow, where she would remain for a year. There, before Lent in 1749, the empress was stricken by a mysterious stomach illness. It quickly worsened. Madame Vladislavova, who had connections in Elizabeth’s immediate entourage, whispered this information to Catherine, begging her not to reveal that she had told her. Without naming her informant, Catherine told Peter about his aunt’s illness. He was simultaneously pleased and frightened; he hated his aunt, but if she were to die, his own future seemed terrifying to him. What made it worse was that neither he nor Catherine dared to ask for more information. They decided to say nothing to anyone until the Choglokovs spoke to them about the illness. But the Choglokovs said nothing.
One night, Bestuzhev and his assistant, General Stepan Apraksin, came to the palace and spent many hours talking in the Choglokovs’ apartment. This seemed to imply that the empress’s illness was grave. Catherine begged Peter to remain calm. She told him that, although they were forbidden to leave their apartment, if Elizabeth were to die, she would arrange for Peter to escape from their rooms; she pointed out that their ground-floor windows were low enough to enable them to jump down into the street. She also told him that Count Zakhar Chernyshev, on whom she knew she could rely, was with his regiment in the city. Peter was reassured, and several days later, the empress’s health began to improve.
During this stressful time, Choglokov and his wife remained silent. The young couple did not speak of it either; had they dared to ask whether the empress was better, the Choglokovs would immediately have demanded to know who had told them that she was ill—and those named would immediately have been dismissed.
While Elizabeth was still in bed recovering, one of her maids of honor married. At the wedding banquet, Catherine sat next to Elizabeth’s close friend Countess Shuvalova. The countess unhesitatingly told Catherine that the empress was still so weak that she had not been able to appear at the wedding ceremony, but that, sitting up in bed, she had performed her traditional function of crowning the bride. As Countess Shuvalova was the first to speak openly about the illness, Catherine told her of her worry about the empress’s condition. Countess Shuvalova said that Her Majesty would be pleased to learn of this sympathy. Two mornings later, Madame Choglokova sto
rmed into Catherine’s room and announced that the empress was angry with Peter and Catherine because of the lack of concern they had shown during her illness.
Catherine furiously told Madame Choglokova that the governess knew very well what the situation had been; that neither she nor her husband had spoken a word about the empress’s illness, and that, having been left in complete ignorance, she and her husband had been unable to show concern.
“How can you say you knew nothing about it?” Madame Choglokova asked. “Countess Shuvalova told the empress that you spoke to her at dinner about Her Majesty’s illness.”
Catherine retorted, “It is true that I spoke to her about it, because she told me that Her Majesty was still weak and could not appear in public. It was then that I asked her for details about the illness.”
Later, Catherine found the courage to tell Elizabeth that neither Choglokov nor his wife had informed her or her husband of the illness, which was why it had not been in their power to express concern. Elizabeth seemed to appreciate this and said, “I know that. We will not speak of it any further.” In retrospect, Catherine commented, “It seemed to me that the prestige and credibility of the Choglokovs had diminished.”
In the spring, the empress began visiting the countryside around Moscow with Catherine and Peter. At Perova, an estate belonging to Alexis Razumovsky, Catherine was seized by a violent headache. “It was the worst I have ever had in my life,” she said later. “The extreme pain gave me violent nausea. I vomited repeatedly, and every movement, even the sound of footsteps in my room, increased my pain. I remained in this state for twenty-four hours and then fell asleep. The following day, it was gone.”