The crapulent emperor stood at the doorway of the death chamber while Vorontsov set up his government in neighbouring rooms.* Peter radiated magnanimity to Ivan Shuvalov. On the first night of the new reign, Shuvalov stood behind the gloating emperor’s chair, jesting and serving him, even though ‘his cheeks showed his despair’, according to Catherine, ‘for his skin was scratched with all five fingers’. Real power, however, resided with the tsar’s intimates, his adjutant-generals, the Ukrainian Andrei Gudovich and the Baltic baron Karl von Ungern-Sternberg. The most important friend was far away at Breslau in desperate straits: Frederick the Great.
Peter was determined to make peace at once with his hero and then go to war against Denmark on behalf of his own duchy of Holstein with the aim of winning back the duchy of Schleswig. Even his own chancellor Vorontsov could not believe that the emperor would actually execute such an anti-Russian programme. Peter meant every word.
‘We have the most excellent opinion of Your Highness,’ he wrote to Frederick, ‘and would be pleased to prove it in every way.’
‘Thank God,’ Frederick exclaimed, ‘on the brink of ruin. . . yet one woman dies and the nation revives . . . Such are the sports of fortune!’ He wrote gushingly to Peter: ‘I’m so glad Your Imperial Majesty received his throne which long belonged to him not so much by heredity but by virtue and to which he adds a new lustre.
‘You do of course jest when you praise my reign,’ replied Peter, ‘whereas I see you as one of the world’s greatest heroes.’
A truce was immediately agreed. The letters exchanged between them reveal an emperor infatuated with the king of Prussia, and Frederick for his part incredulously thankful for a miracle of providence.† The Russian army was ordered to withdraw, but Frederick, fearing that it was all too good to be true, sent his twenty-six-year-old adjutant, Count Wilhelm von der Goltz, to clinch the deal in Petersburg.
Empress Catherine, her pregnancy draped in voluminous black mourning clothes, prayed for three days almost constantly beside the swelling imperial cadaver, which lay in state in a virginal white dress. She followed punctiliously all the mourning rites. When Elizaveta’s head became too swollen for the crown to fit on it, Catherine helped the jeweller squeeze it on to the skull.
The contrast between empress and emperor was acute: Peter was soon to be thirty-four but he behaved like a teenager, and a wayward teenager with supreme power has always been a frightening thing. He saw Catherine most mornings and, when the new Winter Palace was ready, they inspected the new apartments together. They were civil to each other, but no more. Peter detested Catherine so much he refused to utter her name: Catherine was just ‘She’.
On 25 January 1762, the body of Elizaveta, now in her signature gold brocade, was processed through the streets on an eight-horse carriage, followed by Peter and Catherine. Clearly soused, Peter mocked the ceremonial procession by stopping, letting the cortège continue and then running to catch up, causing chaos behind him as his courtiers hung on to his train or ended up standing on it.
In the first weeks of his reign, he rose at 7 a.m., gave orders while dressing, received ministers at eight, then inspected the Senate, then at eleven held the parade. His first measures were liberal and popular. On 17 January, Peter and his entourage had crossed the ice-covered Neva to the collegia to sign a decree cancelling Peter the Great’s obligatory noble service, a measure that had been discussed for some time and anyway reflected the reality that over the last forty years the nobles had found ways to evade what they regarded as Petrine servitude unfitting for European grandees. Peter reduced the salt tax and sensibly refused to present the nobility with a gold statue for their service. ‘Gold can be better used,’ he said. But it was the army that really mattered: Peter loathed the overmighty Guards, whom he described as ‘janissaries’. Plausible rumours spread that he would disband them, and they naturally loathed him back. In private, the Orlovs nicknamed him ‘the ugly freak’.
Peter ordered women to use the French curtsey (normal at the Prussian court) instead of the Russian bow – then mocked their first attempts. He stuck out his tongue at priests in church. Smoking a Holsteiner pipe, quaffing with ‘the sons of German shoemakers’, he was always ‘tossing off several bottles of beer’ at Gudovich’s house, where he and his cohorts acted ‘just like children, hopping on one leg while their friends pushed them over. You may judge what it is like to see all our government leaders in decorations, stars and orders jumping around,’ playing hopscotch.
The emperor prided himself on his simple retainers, boasting to Dashkova that ‘It’s better to deal with crude people who are honest like your sister [Vorontsova] than you clever ones who suck the juice out of an orange and throw away the peel.’ He did not hide his intention of marrying Vorontsova. ‘Be a little more understanding to us,’ Peter threatened Dashkova. ‘The time will come when you’ll lament that you treated your sister disdainfully. You should learn your sister’s thoughts and seek her favour.’ He meant that he would divorce Catherine. Vorontsova would be empress.
‘Deep sorrow is etched in the Empress Catherine’s face,’ reported Breteuil. ‘She’ll have no importance, and is treated with contempt, but she is held in general affection and neglects nothing in cultivating the love of all.’ As for Peter, he ‘doubled his attention on Countess Vorontsova . . . He has strange tastes. In appearance it’s hard to find anyone uglier. She looks like a scullery-maid.’ Observing these three players, ‘It’s hard to imagine Catherine won’t take extreme measures.’ Meanwhile, Frederick of Prussia seemed to be running Petersburg.17
On 21 February, his envoy, Goltz, accompanied by a ruffian named Captain Steuben, arrived in Petersburg, met Peter and assumed command of Russian foreign policy. State Secretary Volkov, drafting the Prussian treaty and threats of war to Denmark, tried to delay both. He got his draft agreed by Peter until denounced by Captain Steuben and temporarily arrested. Goltz himself wrote the treaty. On 29 April, Peter signed it. He warned Denmark that if Schleswig was not returned, it faced ‘extreme calamity’ and planned to command the war in person.
Peter agreed to recognize all Frederick’s conquests, and in return the Prussian agreed to any gains from Denmark. The love-in was as hot as ever: ‘Make use of Stettin and all else I possess as if it was your own,’ Frederick told Peter. ‘Tell me how many Prussian troops you need. Though I’m old and broken, I myself would march against your enemies.’
Goltz was the real minister, while Chancellor Vorontsov was ignored.* The emperor lacked the essential quality of the Russian autocrat: implacable vigilance. When Goltz warned against conspiring courtiers, he naively replied that ‘he knew of their disloyalty. He feels he’s given them so much work they have no leisure to think of conspiracy and are harmless.’ To offend the Church was unwise, to mock old courtiers and women imprudent, to insult Catherine foolish and to outrage the Guards simply insane – to do all of these was suicidal. Frederick advised him to get crowned fast ‘as I don’t trust the Russians . . . Any other nation would thank heaven for having a sovereign with such outstanding and admirable qualities’ – and it was a bad idea to leave Petersburg. ‘Recall what happened during Peter the Great’s absence. What if there is a plot to enthrone Ivan VI?’
‘Since the war’s about to begin, I see no time for a coronation in the splendour the Russians expect,’ boasted the emperor on 15 May. ‘If Russians wished me harm, they’d have done something long ago as I walk the streets without protection.’
In a popular but unwise measure, Peter abolished the Secret Chancellery: ‘The hated phrase “tsar’s word and deed” hereby signifies nothing. I forbid it.’ It was only in June that he instituted the Secret Expedition under the aegis of the Senate, ordering Alexander Shuvalov to hand secret police work to Volkov, who was of dubious loyalty, and to Grand Master of the Horse Lev Naryshkin, who was a witty raconteur unsuited for secret policing. Yet he did order Ivan VI to be killed ‘if anyone unexpectedly tries to seize the prisoner’. Ungern-Sternberg wa
s placed in charge of the ex-tsar, who was brought into town to be inspected by the emperor.
‘Who are you?’ Peter asked him.
‘The emperor.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The Virgin and angels told me.’
Peter gave him a dressing-gown, whereupon he danced ‘like a savage’. ‘Prince Ivan is strongly guarded,’ Peter reassured Frederick. As for the Russians, ‘I can assure you that when you know how to handle them, you can rely on them.’18
Showing remarkable nerve, Catherine kept her advanced pregnancy secret. On 11 April, she gave birth to a son, Alexei, surnamed Bobrinsky, who was hidden in the house of her valet. As she recovered, she discussed action separately with Orlov and his brothers, and with Kyril Razumovsky (who knew that Peter planned to replace him as hetman with Gudovich) and Dashkova. Panin, little Paul’s oberhofmeister, suave, plump and worldly (he had probably had a short affair with Elizaveta), was also a reformer who favoured a more Westernized noble oligarchy. While he would serve Catherine, he was never devoted to her: he knew that Peter’s real heir was Paul – but he too backed the coup.
Like Elizaveta before her, Catherine hesitated. The costs of failure were terrifyingly high. Then Peter went too far.
On 9 June, one of the ‘white nights’, the tsar held a dinner for 400 guests to celebrate peace with Prussia – and the coming war with Denmark. It was the first gala at Rastrelli’s new baroque Winter Palace: the evening started with a fireworks display.* Peter III, sitting with his Germans, toasted the imperial family, Frederick the Great and peace, but Catherine, down the table, did not stand. The tsar sent Gudovich to ask why not. Catherine replied that she was one of the three members of the family. Peter sent Gudovich back to say that his two uncles were also members – and then he cursed her aloud. ‘Durok!’ he shouted. ‘Fool!’ Catherine burst into tears, but then, gathering herself, turned to her sympathetic neighbour, Prince Fyodor Bariatinsky, and managed to engage him in normal conversation.
That night, Peter ordered his adjutant Bariatinsky to arrest her. Bariatinsky, devoted to Catherine, friends with Orlov, informed the tsar’s uncle Prince Georg of Holstein, who prevailed on Peter to cancel the order. Bariatinsky next warned Orlov and Catherine. After a holiday at Oranienbaum, the emperor planned to go to war with the Guards. The conspirators decided to arrest him as he left.19
On 12 June, Peter travelled to the suburban palace Oranienbaum, leaving Catherine in the city. Her conspiracy took shape. On the 17th she left for Peterhof, staying in Peter the Great’s villa, Mon Plaisir – but in the city the conspiracy was now spreading almost too fast. A twenty-two-year-old sergeant in the Horse Guards, Grigory Potemkin, heard about the plot and, presenting himself to one of Orlov’s allies, demanded to join. ‘I have no fear,’ Peter III told Frederick, but his new Secret Expedition heard rumours that Orlov was conspiring, so he assigned one of his adjutants to watch him closely. But it was his brother Scarface who organized the coup.
Meanwhile a minor conspirator was arrested who implicated Captain Passek, friend of the Orlovs. On 27 June, Passek was arrested. Under torture he would reveal the conspiracy. Alexei Orlov prepared to start the revolution while another brother, Fyodor, called on Dashkova, perhaps to check on her. It was the first she had heard of the coup, but when Orlov hesitated over whether to upset Catherine by awakening her that night, Dashkova told him, ‘You’ve lost time already. As for your fears of alarming the empress, better she be conveyed to Petersburg in a fainting fit than share the scaffold with us!’ Fyodor Orlov disclosed the plans to Kyril Razumovsky, who promised to raise his Izmailovsky Guards and as president of the Academy of Sciences to print the manifestos. That evening, Scarface jumped into a carriage, to be joined by Bariatinsky – and, on the running-board, by Sergeant Potemkin – and galloped for Peterhof.20
At 6 a.m. on 28 June, the carriage halted outside Mon Plaisir and Scarface ran inside and burst into Catherine’s bedroom, waking up his brother’s mistress.
‘All’s ready,’ said Scarface. ‘You must get up. Passek’s been arrested.’ Catherine needed to hear no more but dressed swiftly in black and mounted the carriage. The postilions whipped up the horses, Potemkin rode on the shafts to guard the empress, who was covered with a blanket, and they rushed towards Petersburg. Suddenly Catherine reached for her head – she was still wearing her nightcap – and, throwing it off, she laughed. Scarface rendezvoused with a carriage coming the other way, bearing, always important in a coup, a French hairdresser named Michel who arranged Catherine’s hair on the way to the revolution. Nearer the city, Catherine and Scarface switched to a carriage bearing Grigory Orlov, and together they arrived at the barracks of the Izmailovsky Guards, where they found just ‘twelve soldiers and a drummer’. From such small beginnings, empires are taken. Razumovsky rallied the Izmailovskys and soon ‘soldiers rushed to kiss my hands, feet, the hem of the dress’, recalled Catherine. Hetman Razumovsky kissed hands on bended knee. The other regiments followed, young Potemkin leading out his Horse Guards.
The empress alighted at the Winter Palace where senators and generals were assembling to issue the manifesto hailing ‘Catherine II’. Panin arrived with her son, Grand Duke Paul, in nightshirt and cap. The doors were opened; soldiers, priests, women milled in the corridors to gawp or take the oath. When Catherine appeared at a balcony, she was cheered.
Peter still controlled the armies, in Germany and Livonia, massed for the Danish war, and the navy out at Kronstadt. Legates were sent to secure their support, but now Catherine had to seize Peter himself. Perhaps recalling how male costume had become Elizaveta, Catherine demanded a uniform. Outside the soldiers were shedding their hated new Prussian uniforms and donning their old tunics. Catherine sported the red-chased green coat of the Preobrazhensky Guards. She ordered the Guards to mass in Palace Square for the march to Peterhof.
*
Oblivious to all this, Peter III, accompanied by Chancellor Vorontsov, Goltz, his mistress and the seventy-nine-year-old Marshal Münnich, back in favour, inspected a parade of Holsteiners. Then he left Oranienbaum and arrived at Peterhof to celebrate the Feast of St Peter and Paul with Catherine. But Mon Plaisir was deserted. Peter panicked and, rushing in, he saw Catherine’s gala dress abandoned on the bed, a ghostly omen – for she had changed her clothes in every sense. ‘Didn’t I tell you she was capable of anything?’ he cried. He started to weep and drink and dither.
The only courtier not to lose his head was that veteran of coups Münnich who, invoking Peter’s grandfather, gave the correct advice: ‘Take command of the Russian army in Pomerania then lead them to Russia and, I guarantee Your Majesty, Petersburg will be at your feet in six weeks!’ But this Peter was no Peter the Great. The tsar sent emissaries to negotiate with Catherine. First he despatched Vorontsov, who had ridden on the board of Elizaveta’s sleigh in her coup, but when he reached Petersburg, he simply threw himself on his knees before Catherine and then resigned. Peter’s dwindling entourage trundled back to Oranienbaum, where Münnich persuaded him to seize Kronstadt.
On this silvery night, Peter embarked on a schooner, but he was totally drunk and had to be helped on board by his mistress and the old marshal. Three hours later, outside Kronstadt, Münnich announced the emperor, but the sailors called back: ‘There’s no longer an emperor. Vivat Catherine II!’ Peter fainted. He had predicted this to Catherine, saying, ‘I’ll die in Russia.’ He just wanted to abdicate and retire to Holstein. He decided to negotiate.
Catherine, dressed raffishly in her Guards uniform, holding a naked sabre, emerged into Palace Square, mounted her grey thoroughbred Brilliant and reviewed the 12,000 Guards waiting for her. Not all of them were sober. The streets were filled with tipsy soldiers who had raided the taverns and all around were their discarded uniforms like the morning after a fancy-dress party. Catherine, now thirty-three, her hair auburn, her eyes blue, eyelashes black, small and full-figured, rode through the ranks, but she realized that her sabre was missing the dragonn
e, the sword-knot, and in an age when such things matter, that sharp young Horse Guards sergeant, who had ridden on her carriage earlier, galloped up and offered her his. Potemkin had brought himself to her attention in a daring way, and she noticed his giant stature, splendid head of auburn hair and long sensitive face with a cleft chin, looks that, with his intellect, had won him the nickname ‘Alcibiades’.
When he tried to ride back into the ranks, his horse, trained to ride in squadron, refused to leave her side: ‘This made her laugh . . . she talked to him,’ and ‘by this happy chance’, Potemkin later recalled, he would later become her partner in power and the love of her life – ‘all thanks to a fresh horse’.
Catherine and the Guards marched through the blue incandescence of the undarkening night, sleeping for a few hours on the way, while the two Orlov brothers, Grigory and Alexei, galloped ahead to Oranienbaum where they arrested Peter III, forcing him to sign his abdication, which Grigory brought back to his empress. Peter was guided into his carriage accompanied by his mistress and Gudovich, while the Guards shouted ‘Vivat Catherine II!’ At Peterhof, he was visited by Catherine’s adviser, Panin. He begged not to be separated from Vorontsova. When this was refused, he asked just to take his fiddle, his black servant Narcissus and his dog Mopsy. Panin agreed. Catherine planned to imprison this husk of an emperor in Shlisselburg near ex-tsar Ivan VI, but that evening Scarface escorted Peter to the nearby estate of Ropsha. Catherine returned to Petersburg.21 She never saw Peter again.*
When Princess Dashkova entered Catherine’s study, she was ‘astonished’ to find Grigory Orlov ‘stretched out at full length on a sofa’ going through state papers. ‘I asked what he was about. “The empress has ordered that I open them,” he replied.’
Catherine rewarded her friends but did not punish her enemies. The Petersburg garrison got a bonus of half a year’s salary. Razumovsky and Panin received 5,000 roubles annually, Grigory and Alexei Orlov got 800 souls and 24,000 roubles each, with the lover himself getting a further 50,000. Potemkin could choose between 600 souls and 18,000 roubles: Catherine insisted he be promoted and threw in another 10,000 roubles. But Catherine was kind if patronizing to her husband’s mistress, Elizabeth Vorontsova, sending her to the country ‘or she’ll traipse into the Palace’.