Elizabeth ordered a meeting of the war council for the evening of February 14, 1758. The chancellor was summoned. Bestuzhev sent word that he was ill. His excuse was rejected, and he was ordered to come immediately. He obeyed, and, upon arrival, he was arrested. His offices, titles, and orders were stripped from him, and he was sent back to his house a prisoner—without anyone troubling to tell him of what crimes he was accused. To make certain that the overthrow of the leading statesman of the empire would not be challenged, a company of the Imperial Guard was ordered out. As the guardsmen were marching along the Moika Canal, where Counts Alexander and Peter Shuvalov lived, the soldiers were cheerful, telling one another, “Thank God, we are going to arrest those cursed Shuvalovs!” When the men realized that it was not the Shuvalovs but Bestuzhev who was to be arrested, they grumbled, “It is not this man. It is the others who trample on the people.”
Catherine learned about the arrest the following morning in a note from Poniatowski. The note added that three other men—the Venetian jeweler Bernardi; her former Russian language teacher Adadurov; and Elagin, a former adjutant of Count Razumovsky’s who had become a friend of Poniatowski’s—had also been arrested. Reading this note, Catherine understood that she might be implicated. She was a friend and ally of Bestuzhev’s. Bernardi, the jeweler, was a man whose profession gave him entrée to all of the leading houses in St. Petersburg. Everyone trusted him, and Catherine had used him to send and receive messages from Bestuzhev and Poniatowski. Adadurov, her teacher, had remained devoted to her, and she had recommended him to Count Bestuzhev. Elagin, she said, was, “a loyal, honest man; once one gained his affection, one did not lose it. He had always shown marked zeal and devotion for me.”
Upon reading Poniatowski’s note, she was alarmed, but steeled herself not to display weakness. “With a dagger in my heart, so to speak,” she said, “I dressed and went to Mass where it seemed to me that most of the faces were as long as my own. No one said anything to me.” In the evening, she went to a ball. There, she marched up to Prince Nikita Trubetskoy, one of the commissioners appointed to assist Alexander Shuvalov in examining the arrested men.
“What do all these wonderful things mean?” she whispered to him. “Have you found more crimes than criminals or more criminals than crimes?”
“We have done what we were ordered to do,” Trubetskoy replied stolidly. “But as for crimes, we are still searching for them. Up to now, we have not found any.” His response encouraged Catherine, who also noted that the empress, having just ordered the arrest of her senior minister, failed to appear that night.
The next day, Gottlieb von Stambke, the Holstein administrator who was close to Bestuzhev, brought Catherine good news. He said that he had just received a clandestine note from Count Bestuzhev asking him to tell the grand duchess that she should not worry because he had had time to burn all his papers. These included, most significantly, the drafts of his proposal that the grand duchess share power with Peter after Elizabeth’s death. Further, the former chancellor had said that he would keep Stambke informed of what happened to him during his interrogation and would pass along the questions put to him. Catherine asked Stambke through what channel he had received Bestuzhev’s note. Stambke said that Bestuzhev’s horn player had passed it to him, and that, in future, all communications were to be placed in a pile of bricks near Bestuzhev’s house.
A few days later, Stambke came back to Catherine’s room, frightened and pale, to tell her that his correspondence and that of Count Bestuzhev with Count Poniatowski had been intercepted. The horn player had been arrested. Stambke himself expected to be dismissed, if not arrested, at any moment, and he had come to say goodbye. Catherine was certain that she had done nothing wrong, and she knew that, aside from Michael Vorontsov, Ivan Shuvalov, and the French ambassador, everyone in St. Petersburg was convinced that Count Bestuzhev was innocent of any crime.
Already, the commission charged with prosecuting the former chancellor was struggling. It became known that the day after Count Bestuzhev’s arrest, a manifesto had been drafted secretly in Ivan Shuvalov’s house, intended to inform the public why the empress had been obliged to arrest her old servant. Unable to find and state any specific offense, the accusers had decided that the crime was to be lèse-majesté: offending the empress by “attempting to sow discord between Her Imperial Majesty and Their Imperial Highnesses.” On February 27, 1758, the manifesto was published, announcing the arrest, the charges, the fact that Bestuzhev had been stripped of his offices and decorations and that he would be examined by a special commission. The flimsy document convinced no one in St. Petersburg, and the public found it ludicrous to threaten the former statesman with exile, confiscation of property, and other punishments, with no evidence of a crime, no trial, and no judgment.
The first step taken by the commissioners was equally absurd. They ordered all Russian ambassadors, envoys, and officials at foreign courts to send copies of all dispatches Count Bestuzhev had written to them during the twenty years he had administered Russia’s foreign affairs. It was alleged that the chancellor had written whatever he pleased, often in opposition to the wishes of the empress. But because Elizabeth never wrote or signed anything, it was impossible to prove that the chancellor had acted contrary to her orders. As for verbal orders, the empress could hardly have given any significant number of these to the chancellor, who sometimes waited for months without being admitted to see her. Nothing came of this. None of the personnel in embassies bothered to examine archives ranging back over many years in order to search for crimes committed by the man whose instructions these same subordinates had loyally obeyed. Who knew but that this might lead to finding themselves implicated? Besides, once these documents arrived in St. Petersburg, it would take years of research to locate and interpret whatever nuggets, favorable or unfavorable, they might contain. The order was ignored. The inquiry lumbered along for a year. No evidence was produced, but the former chancellor was exiled to one of his own estates where he remained until, three years later, Catherine became empress.
With Stambke’s departure for Holstein, Catherine’s handling of the affairs of Peter’s duchy ended. The empress told her nephew that she disapproved of his wife’s involvement in the ruling of his hereditary duchy. Peter, who had enthusiastically encouraged Catherine’s participation in that work, now declared that he agreed with his aunt. The empress then formally asked the king of Poland to recall Count Poniatowski.
When she heard of Stambke’s dismissal and that Poniatowski was to be sent home, Catherine reacted quickly. She ordered Vasily Shkurin, her valet, to gather all of her papers and account books and bring them to her. Once everything was in her room, she sent him away, and then threw everything—every document, and every paper and letter she had ever received—into the fire; this was how the manuscript of her “Portrait of a Fifteen-Year-Old Philosopher,” written in 1744 for Count Gyllenborg, disappeared. When these materials had been reduced to ashes, she called Shkurin back: “You are a witness to the fact that all my papers and accounts are burned. If you are ever asked where they are, you will be able to swear that you saw me burn them.” Shkurin was grateful that she had spared him involvement.
38
A Gamble
ON THE DAY before Lent, the last day of Carnival, 1758, Catherine decided that she had had enough of discretion and timidity. In the weeks that had followed her confinement, she had not appeared in public. Now, she decided to attend a Russian play scheduled for performance at the court theater. Catherine knew that Peter did not like the Russian theater and that even talk of it upset him. This time, Peter would have another, more personal reason for not wishing her to go: he would not want to be deprived of the company of Elizabeth Vorontsova. If Catherine went to the theater, her maids of honor, including Elizabeth Vorontsova, would be obliged to accompany her. Aware of this, Catherine sent word to Count Alexander Shuvalov to order a carriage. Shuvalov promptly appeared to tell her that the grand duke opposed her pl
an to go to the theater. Catherine replied that, as she was excluded from her husband’s society, it could not matter to him whether she was alone in her room or sitting in her box at the theater. Shuvalov bowed and departed.
Moments later, Peter burst into Catherine’s room “in a fearful passion, screaming, accusing me of taking pleasure in enraging him, and saying that I had chosen to go to the theater because I knew he did not like this kind of play.” He shouted that he would forbid her having a carriage. She told him that if he did this, she would walk. Peter stamped out. As the hour of the performance approached, she sent to ask Count Shuvalov whether her carriage was ready. He came and repeated that the grand duke had forbidden any carriage being provided. Catherine replied that she would go on foot and that if her ladies and gentlemen were forbidden to accompany her, she would go alone. Furthermore, she said, she would write and complain to the empress.
“What will you say to her?” Shuvalov asked.
“I will tell her,” Catherine said, “that in order to arrange for my husband a rendezvous with my maids of honor, you have encouraged him to prevent me from going to the theater where I might have the pleasure of seeing Her Imperial Majesty. Moreover, I will beg her to send me home because I am weary of and disgusted by the role I am made to play here, alone and neglected in my room, hated by the grand duke and disliked by the empress. I do not want to be a burden to anyone any longer or to bring misfortune to whomever approaches me, especially my poor servants, many of whom have already been exiled because I have been good to them. I am going to write to Her Majesty this moment. And I will see whether you can avoid taking this letter to her.” It was a masterpiece of manipulative rhetoric.
Shuvalov left the room and Catherine began writing her letter. She began by thanking Elizabeth for all the kindnesses shown her since her arrival in Russia. She said that, unfortunately, events had proved that she had not deserved these favors because she had called down on herself not only the grand duke’s hatred but the displeasure of Her Imperial Majesty. Considering these failures, she begged the empress to put a quick end to her misery by sending her home to her family in whatever manner she judged appropriate. As for her children, she said that she never saw them, although they lived in the same building only a few yards away; therefore, it made little difference to her whether she was in the same place or hundreds of miles distant. She knew that the empress gave them better care than anything she could provide. She begged Elizabeth to continue this care, and, confident that the empress would do so, she said she would spend the rest of her life praying for the empress, the grand duke, her children, and all those who had done her both good and evil. Now, however, sorrow had so damaged her that she must concentrate on preserving her own life. For this reason, she begged Elizabeth for permission to go, first to take the waters somewhere so that she could recover her health, and then to go home to her family in Germany.
The letter written, Catherine summoned Count Shuvalov. He arrived and announced that her carriage was ready. She handed him her letter, and told him that he could tell the maids of honor who did not wish to accompany her to the theater that they were excused. Leaving her, Shuvalov told Peter that the grand duchess had said that he should decide which women should go with his wife and which should stay with him. As Catherine passed through the antechamber, she found Peter seated with Elizabeth Vorontsova, playing cards. Seeing his wife, Peter rose—something he had never done before—and Countess Vorontsova rose with him. Catherine responded with a curtsy and went to her carriage. That evening, the empress did not appear at the theater, but when Catherine returned home, Count Shuvalov told her that Elizabeth had agreed to grant her another interview.
Catherine’s behavior and her letter to the empress were a gamble. She did not want to leave Russia. She had invested sixteen years, more than half her life, all of her young womanhood, in her ambition to become “a queen.” She knew that her tactics were risky, but she believed they would succeed. She was convinced that if the Shuvalovs had any idea of actually sending her home, or of intimidating her by threatening banishment, her plea that she be allowed to leave was the best method of undermining their plan. Catherine knew that, for Elizabeth, the succession was all-important, and that with the young, deposed tsar Ivan VI still alive, the empress would not wish to see this issue reignited. Catherine also realized that the primary complaint against her was that her marriage had not been a success. She also knew that the empress fully shared her views of Peter. When talking or writing about her nephew privately, Elizabeth either burst into tears at the misfortune of having such an heir or showered him with contempt. After Elizabeth’s death, Catherine discovered among her papers two such comments in the empress’s hand; one addressed to Ivan Shuvalov, the other to Alexis Razumovsky. To the first, she had written, “Today, my damned nephew has greatly irritated me,” and to the other, “My nephew is a fool; the devil take him.”
In constructing her account of this tense, intricate situation, Catherine, as a much older woman, suspended her narrative of events to look at herself, her life, and her character. Whatever happened, she wrote, “I felt myself possessed of sufficient courage either to rise or fall without being carried away by undue pride on the one hand, or being humbled and dispirited on the other.” Her intentions, she told herself, had always been honest. Although she had understood from the beginning that to love a husband who was not lovable and who made no effort to become so was a difficult and probably impossible task, she believed that she had made a sincere effort to devote herself to him and his interests. Her advice had always been the best she could give. If, when she first came to Russia, Peter had been affectionate, she would have opened her heart to him. Now she saw that, among his whole entourage, she was the woman to whom he paid the least attention. She rejected this state of affairs:
My natural pride made the idea of being miserable intolerable to me. I used to say to myself that happiness and misery depend on ourselves. If you feel unhappy, rise above it and act so that your happiness may be independent of all outside events. I had been born with this disposition, and a face that was, at the very least, interesting, and which pleased at first sight without art or pretense. My disposition was naturally so conciliatory that no one ever spent a quarter of an hour with me without feeling perfectly at ease and talking to me as though they had known me for a long time. I easily won the confidence of those who had anything to do with me because everyone felt that I displayed honesty and goodwill. If I may be allowed to be frank, I would say about myself that I was a true gentleman with a mind more male than female, but, together with this, I was anything but masculine and, combined with the mind and character of a man, I possessed the attractions of a loveable woman. May I be pardoned for offering this candid expression of my feelings instead of trying to cover them a veil of false modesty.
This evaluation of her qualities—self-laudatory and self-justifying—led to a general commentary on the conflict between emotion and morality in the lives of human beings. It is a passionate statement—a personal confession, almost—and it brings to Catherine a sympathy and understanding that she is sometimes not given:
I have just said that I was attractive; consequently, half the road of temptation was already traveled, and it is only human in such situations that one should not stop half way. For to tempt and to be tempted are closely allied and, in spite of all the finest maxims of morality, whenever emotion has anything to do with the matter, one is already much further involved than one realizes. And I have still not learned how to prevent emotion being excited. Flight, perhaps, is the only remedy. But there are cases and circumstances, in which flight is impossible. For how can one escape, fly, or turn one’s back, in the middle of a court? Such an act itself would give rise to gossip. And if you do not run away, nothing is more difficult, in my opinion, than to escape from something that essentially attracts you. All statements made to the contrary will appear only a prudishness quite out of harmony with the natural instincts of the human h
eart. Besides, one cannot hold one’s heart in one’s hand, tightening or relaxing one’s grasp at will.
The day after going to the theater, Catherine began a long wait for the empress’s reply to her letter. She was still waiting several weeks later when Count Shuvalov announced one morning that the empress had just dismissed Madame Vladislavova. After a burst of tears, Catherine gathered herself and replied that, of course, Her Majesty had the right to appoint or dismiss whomever she pleased, but that she was grieved to find, more and more, that all who came near her were doomed to become victims of Her Majesty’s disfavor. In order that there be fewer victims, she asked Shuvalov to appeal to the empress to put a quick end to this situation in which she only made other people miserable. She begged to be sent back to her family immediately.
That evening, after a day of refusing to eat, Catherine was alone in her room when one of her younger maids of honor came in. In tears, the young woman said, “We all are afraid that you will sink under these afflictions. Let me to go to my uncle—he is your confessor as well as the empress’s. I will speak to him and tell him everything you wish, and I promise that he will speak to the empress in a way that will please you.” Trusting her, Catherine described what she had written to the empress. The young woman saw her uncle, Father Theodore Dubyansky, and returned to tell Catherine that the priest advised the grand duchess to announce during the middle of the night that she was seriously ill and wanted to confess, and to ask that he, her father confessor, be sent to her. This way, he would be able to tell the empress what he had heard from Catherine’s own lips. Catherine approved this plan, and between two and three in the morning, she rang her bell. A maid entered and Catherine said that she was dangerously ill and wished to make her confession. Instead of her confessor, Count Alexander Shuvalov hurried into the room. Catherine repeated her request for the priest. Shuvalov sent for doctors. When they arrived, she told them that she needed spiritual, not medical, assistance. One of the doctors felt her pulse and reported that it was weak. Catherine whispered that it was her soul that was in danger; that her body no longer needed doctors.