The romance of an empress

Front matter

Qass_L

Book V . v :

CATHARINE II, EMPRESS OF RUSSIA

Book I From Stettin To Moscow Chapter I

CHILDHOOD I

Fifty years ago there was consternation in a little German town : a railway was to be brought through it, removing, after the manner of railways, old landmarks, cutting through old dwellings, levelling old promenades, where generation after generation had taken the air. Among the objects thus menaced by impious engineers, to the utter despair of the people in the neighbourhood, one tree, a venerable lime-tree, seemed to be held in special reverence. In spite of all, the railway was brought through. The lime-tree was not, however, cut down ; it was taken up by the roots and transplanted elsewhere. As a special distinction it was set up opposite the new railway station, where it showed its insensibility to the honour by withering away. Then it was made into two tables : one of them was presented to Queen Elizabeth of Prussia, the other to Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress of Russia. The inhabitants of Stettin gave to this tree the name of Kaiserlinde, imperial lime-tree, and, according to their account, it had been planted by a German princess, then known as Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst (or, more familiarly, Figchen), who had been wont to play with the townspeople's children in the market-place, and who had since become, they knew not how, Empress of Russia, under the name of Catherine the Great.

Catherine had indeed passed a part of her childhood in the old Pomeranian city. Was she born there? It is not often that the old dispute over the birthplace of Homer comes to be renewed over the birthplaces of the great personages of modern history. This uncertainty in the case of Catherine is one of the special peculiarities of her career. No register of any parish in Stettin has kept a trace of her name. In the similar case of the Princess of Wiirtemberg, wife of Paul I., the explanation is easy : the child was no doubt baptized by a clergyman of the Protestant church, not attached to a parish. But a note has been discovered^ — apparently authentic- — indicating Dornburg as the place where Catherine was born and baptized ; and grave historians have founded on this datum the strangest suppositions. Dornburg was the family seat of the family of Anhalt-Zerbst zu Dornburg— that is to say, of Catherine's family. Had not her mother stayed there about 1729, and had she not frequent occasions of seeing a young prince, barely sixteen years of age, who was enduring, not far from there, a tedious existence with a disagreeable father? This young prince, afterwards known as Frederick the Great, has been designated by a German historian, Sugenheim, as the 'father incognito' of Catherine.

A letter of Prince Christian-August of Anhalt- Zerbst, the official father of the future Empress, seems to take away all appearance of truth from this hazardous conjecture. It is dated from Stettin, May 2, 1729, and states that on that very day, at half-past two in the morning, a daughter had been born to him in that town. This daughter can be no other than Catherine. Christian-August ought at least to have known where his children were born, even if he were a little uncertain as to how they came into the world. And further, there is no proof whatever that Dornburg had received within its walls the mother of Catherine, not long before the birth of the latter : indeed, the contrary seems well established. It is far enough from Dornburg and from Stettin, it is at Paris that the . Princess of Zerbst appears to have passed a part at least of the year 1728. Frederick, as is well known, never went there, though indeed he nearly lost his head in trying to go. But the imagination of German historians is inexhaustible. In default of Frederick, there was at Paris in 1728, in the Russian embassy, a young man, the bastard of an illustrious family, who certainly must have associated with the Princess of Zerbst. Behold us on the trail of another romance, another anonymous paternity ! The young man was called Betzky, and became afterwards a personage of importance. He died in St. Petersburg at an advanced age, and it was reported that Catherine, who showered kindly and gracious attentions upon the old man, was accustomed, when she visited him, to bend over his arm-chair and kiss his hand. This was enough for the German translator of the memoirs of Masson, whose conviction we should find it hard to share. At this rate we might indulge in similar suppositions in regard to every illustrious birth in the history of the eighteenth century.

Catherine, then, who was later to be called Catherine the Great, was born, according to all appearances, at Stettin, and her parents, by law as by nature, so far as we know, were called Prince Christian- August of Zerbst-Dornburg, and Princess Jeanne-Elizabeth of Holstein, his legitimate wife. A time was to come, as we shall see, when the least actions of this child, so obscurely brought into the world, were to be traced day by day, and almost hour by hour. It was her revenge upon destiny.

But what, in 1729, would be signified by the birth of a little Princess of Zerbst ? The princely house so named, one of those with which the Germany of the period was swarming, formed one of the eight branches of the house of Anhalt. Up to the time when an unexpected chance brought unexampled fame, none of these branches had attained any particular distinction, and within a short time the final extinction of the whole line had cut short this dawn of notoriety. Without history up to 1729, the house of Anhalt-Zerbst had ceased to exist in 1793.

The parents of Catherine did not live at Dornburg. Her father had something else to do : he had, in fact, to make his way in the world. Born in 1690, he had entered the Prussian army, and had seen active service in Holland, in Italy, and in Pomerania, fighting against the French and against the Swiss. At thirty-one he had won his epaulettes as Major-General. At thirty-seven he married the Princess Jeanne-Elizabeth of Holstein-Gottorp, younger sister of that Prince Karl-August who had already all but sat on the throne of Russia by the side of Elizabeth. Appointed commandant of the Anhalt-Zerbst regiment of infantry, Christian-August had to betake himself to his regiment, and to the garrison life, at Stettin.

As husband and father, Christian-August was a model. He adored his children, but when Catherine came into the world he had been expecting a son, and his dissatisfaction saddened the early years of Catherine's childhood. When this period of her life came to be inquired into — and a time came when it was zealously inquired into — the memory of those who had witnessed it was already fading. She herself was by no means willing to revive the recollection, and she replied to questionings on the subject with a reserve which was, for her, unusual. ' I see nothing interesting in it,' she wrote to Grimm, the most intrepid of questioners. Nor were her own recollections very exact. ' I was born/ she said, 1 in Greifenheim House, on the Marien Kirchenhof.' There is not, and there never was, a house of that name at Stettin. The commandant of the 8th regiment of infantry lived at 791 Dom Strasse, the house of the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Stettin, von Ascherleben. The quarter in which this street was situated was called Greifenhagen. The house has changed owner and number; it belongs to-day to the Councillor of State Dewitz, and is No. i. On a piece of the whitewashed wall there is to be seen a black patch, the sole trace left by the sojourn of a great empress : a little smoke caused by a chafing-dish lighted the 2nd May 1729 before the cradle of Catherine. The cradle is gone : it is at Weimar.

Baptized under the names of Sophia Augusta Frederika, in honour of three of her aunts, Catherine was generally known as Figchen, or Fichchen, according to the orthography of her mother — apparently a diminutive of Sophia (Sophiechen). Not long after her birth her parents moved into the chateau of Stettin, where they occupied the left wing, close to the church. Figchen had for herself three rooms, of which the one in which she slept was next to the belltower. Thus was she enabled to prepare her ears for the task of hearing, in time to come, the deafening carillon of the orthodox temples, without too much disturbance — a providential arrangement, perhaps. It was there that she was brought up, very simply. Often did the streets of Stettin see her playing with the neighbours' children, none of whom, most assuredly, ever thought of calling her Your Highness. When the mothers of these children paid a visit to the chateau, Figchen went before them and respectfully kissed the hem of their robe. So it was ordained by her mother, who had wise notions on the subject — a rare occurrence with her.

Figchen had, nevertheless, a great many masters to look after her education, besides a governess, who, of course, was French. French teachers and governesses were at that time to be found in all the German houses of any importance ; one of the indirect consequences of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They taught the French language, the French manners, and the French gallantry. They taught what they knew, and most of them knew nothing else. Thus Figchen had Mile. Cardel. She had also a French chaplain, Peraud, and a writingmaster, also French, called Laurent. Some native masters completed this well-furnished collection of pedagogues. A certain Wagner taught Figchen her maternal language. For music she had another German, named Roellig. In later days it often pleased Catherine to call up the recollection of these first instructors of her youth, half tenderly, half with a sort of wicked childish wit. She gave a place apart to Mile. Cardel, ' who knew almost everything without having learnt anything, very much like her scholar ' ; who told her that she had * an awkward disposition ' ; and who was always telling her to keep back her chin. 1 She considered it excessively sharp,' Catherine tells us, ' and she said that by sticking it out I knocked against everybody I came across.' The good Mile. Cardel had probably little thought of the encounters to which her pupil was destined. But she did more than setting up her mind and getting her chin into line. She made her read Racine, Corneille, and Moliere. She contested her with the German Wagner, with his Teutonic pedantry, his Pomeranian dulness, the insipidity of his Prufungen, of which Catherine always kept a painful recollection. Certainly she comib CA THERINE IT. OF RUSSIA-

municated to her something of her own temperament, the Parisian temperament, we should say nowadays — quick, alert, ready-witted. And — must we admit it ? — she rendered her a still greater service, to all appearance, in saving her from her mother, and not only from the blows that she was wont to shower down for a yes or a no — out of ill-temper, never for any reason' — but especially from that quite other temperament that belonged, as we shall see later, to the wife of Christian-August : a temperament made up of intrigue, of deception, of low instincts and petty ambitions, in which was reflected the whole soul of many generations of Germanic princelings. After all, Mile. Cardel really deserved the furs that her pupil hastened to send her on arriving at St. Petersburg.

An important part of the education thus organised was made by Figchen's frequent journeys in the company of her parents. Residence at Stettin had no particular attractions for a young woman bent on pleasure and a young military commandant who had been through half Europe. Chances of change were thus welcome, and with a large family connection such chances were never wanting. There were Zerbst, Hamburg, Brunswick, Eutin, everywhere relations, everywhere hospitality, not very sumptuous as a rule, but cordial. It was at Eutin, in 1739, that the Princess Sophia saw for the first time the man whom she was to deprive of a throne after having received it from him. Peter Ulric of Holstein, son of a cousin-german of her mother, was then eleven years of age. She herself was ten. This first

1 1 meeting, which, at the time, passed unnoticed, did not give her a favourable impression — at least so she declared later, when she came to write her memoirs. The child seemed to her a weakling. She was told that he had a bad disposition, and, what appears incredible, that he had already a taste for drink. Another excursion left in her young imagination a much more profound trace. In 1742 or 1743, at Brunswick, at the house of the Dowager-Duchess who had brought up her mother, a canon of the church, expert in chiromancy, bethought himself to see in her hand no less than three crowns, though he could see none in the hand of the pretty Princess of Bevern, for whom they were seeking just then a high marriage. To find a crown along with a husband — that was the common dream of all these German princesses.

At Berlin Figchen saw Frederick, but without his paying her more attention than was natural, or her caring greatly what he thought of her. He was a great king on the threshold of a magnificent career ; she was but a little girl, destined, to all appearance, to be the ornament of some infinitesimal court lost in the depths of the empire.

All this was but the common life and education of all the German princesses of the time. Later on Catherine attempted, by a sort of coquetry, to bridge over the gaps and insufficiencies of this education. * What would you have ? ' she said ; ' I was brought up with the idea of marrying some little neighbouring prince, and I was taught as much as that demanded. Mile. Cardel and I had no thought of thisV The Baroness von

Printzen, maid of honour to the Princess of Zerbst, did not hesitate to declare that, on her part, with the closest opportunities of observing the studies and progress of the future empress, she had never seen in her any exceptional qualities or faculties. She expected her to turn out ' an ordinary woman.' Mile. Cardel was equally far from thinking, to all appearance, that in looking after the behaviour of her pupil she was (as the enthusiastic Diderot was one day to declare) the candlestick bearing the light of the age.'

III

There was something, nevertheless, in this mediocre existence that might already remind the Princess Sophia of her future destiny. She was but a little German Princess, brought up in a little German town, with a desolate sandy waste for horizon. But on this region lay the mighty shadow of a neighbouring power. This very province, not so long before, had seen a strange uniform in its towns, had felt the growing prestige of a power, newly come into Europe, and already terrifying and astonishing the nations, awakening infinite hopes and fears. At Stettin even, the details of the siege held against the armies of the great White Czar were fresh in all memories. In the family of Figchen, Russia, the great and mysterious Russia, her innumerable soldiers, her exhaustless riches, her absolute sovereigns, furnished a favourite theme for discussion, into which, perhaps, there came some vague longings, some obscure presentiments. Why not? With the marriages which had united

S3 a daughter of Peter I. to a Duke of Holstein, a grand-daughter of Ivan, the brother of Peter, to a Duke of Brunswick, a whole network of alliances, affinities, and reciprocal attractions had been established between the great monarchy of the North and the vast tribe of meagre German sovereignties bordering on the immense empire. And the family of Figchen was brought into particular association with all this. When, in 17.297 Figchen met her cousin Peter Ulric at Eutin, she knew that his mother had been a Russian Czarevna, a daughter of Peter the Great. She knew, too, the story of that other daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth, who had so nearly been her mother's sister-in-law.

And now, all unexpectedly, came the news of the accession to the crown of Russia of this very Princess, the sorrowing fiancee of Prince Karl- August of Holstein. On December 9, 1741, by one of those coups de thddtre which were so frequent in the history of the Northern court, Elizabeth had put an end to the reign of the little Ivan of Brunswick and to the regency of his mother. How the echo of this event must have sounded in the ears of Catherine and her family! Separated by the cruelty of fate from the husband of her choice, the new Empress, it was known, kept a tender feeling, not only for the person of the young Prince, but for all his family. She had but lately asked for the portraits of his surviving brothers : she was not likely to forget his sister. The predictions of the palmist canon must have come back to the mind of Figchen's mother. Certainly she did not fail to write at once to her cousin, and to send her congratulations. The reply was quite encouraging. Amiable, affectionate even, Elizabeth showed herself grateful for all these kind attentions, and demanded yet another portrait — that of her sister, the Princess of Holstein, mother of Prince Peter Ulric. Evidently she was making a collection of them. What was all the mystery about ?

The mystery was soon unveiled. In January 1742 Prince Peter Ulric, 'the little devil/ as the Czarina Anna Ivanovna was accustomed to call him, rendered uneasy by his too close relationship with the reigning house of Russia — the little cousin whom Figchen had one day met — disappeared suddenly from Kiel, where he usually lived, and reappeared a few weeks later at St. Petersburg. Elizabeth had sent for him in order to proclaim him solemnly as her heir.

Here, at all events, was an occurrence of no uncertain significance. It was the Holstein blood — Figchen's mother's — that triumphed in Russia to the exclusion of that of Brunswick. Holstein or Brunswick, the posterity of Peter the Great or that of his elder brother Ivan, both deceased without direct male heirs : the whole history of the house of Russia since 1725 had been implicated in this dilemma ; now Holstein had got the upper hand, and the fortune of the new Prince Imperial, as yet scarcely established, began to reflect itself upon his obscure German relations. It extended even to Stettin. In the month of July 1742 the father of Figchen was raised by Frederick to the grade of Field- Marshal — a politeness evidently intended for Elizabeth and her nephew. In September a Secretary of

IS the Russian Embassy at Berlin brought to the Princess of Zerbst the portrait of the Czarina in a frame of magnificent diamonds. At the end of the year Figchen accompanied her mother to Berlin, where the celebrated painter Pesne was intrusted with the painting of her portrait. Figchen knew that the portrait was to be sent to St. Petersburg, where, no doubt, Elizabeth would not be the only one to admire it.

A year passed without bringing anything decisive. At the end of 1743 the whole family was found at Zerbst : the extinction of the eldest branch had recently caused the succession of Christian- August's brother to the principality of that name. Christmas was gaily kept. There was this new good luck, there were doubtless some happy hopes for the future, dreams, perhaps,. more audacious still. The new year was beginning gaily, when an express courier, who had ridden post-haste from Berlin, brought startling news to the petulant Jeanne- Elizabeth and her graver spouse. This time the oracles gave open voice, and palmistry won a clear triumph. The courier brought a letter from Brummer, Master of the Household of the Grand Duke Peter, formerly Peter Ulric of Holstein, and this letter was addressed to the Princess Jeanne-Elizabeth, inviting her to come at once, with her daughter, to the Imperial Court of Russia.

I

B rummer was an old acquaintance of the Princess Jeanne-Elizabeth. He had been the tutor of the Grand Duke, and had doubtless accompanied his pupil to Eutin. His letter was long, and filled with minute directions. The Princess was to lose as little time as possible in preparing for the journey, and she was to reduce her suite to the bare necessary — a maid of honour, two maids, an officer, a cook, three or four lackeys. At Riga she would find a suitable escort, which would conduct her to the place of residence of the court It was expressly stipulated that her husband was not to accompany her. She was to keep absolute silence as to the purpose of her journey. If she were questioned, she was to answer that she was going to see the Empress in order to thank her for all the kindness she had shown her. She might, however, confide in Frederick II., who was in the secret. A bill of exchange on a Berlin banker, to cover the expenses of the journey, accompanied the letter. The sum was modest-- 10,000 roubles, — but it was important, B rummer explained, not to attract attention by sending a large sum. Once in Russia, the Princess should want for nothing.

It was evidently in the name of the Empress that Brummer sent this invitation, so much like an order, and these peremptory instructions. But he gave no further explanation as to the intentions of the Czarina. Another explained it for him. Two hours after the arrival of the first courier, a second followed, bearing a letter from the King of Prussia. Frederick dotted all the i's, and he did not fail to take to himself all the credit of Elizabeth's choice of the young Princess of Zerbst to be the companion of his nephew and successor. He had in truth had something to do with it, and in this manner.

Naturally, there had been no few matrimonial competitions in regard to 'the little devil,' now heir to so splendid a crown. Soon every notable person at court, the most intriguing court in Europe — from the ex-tutor of the Grand Duke, the German Brummer, to the physician-inordinary of Elizabeth, the Frenchman Lestocq, — had a candidate of his own, and a following for his candidate. Now it was a French Princess, now a Saxon Princess, daughter of the King of Poland, now a sister of the King of Prussia. Backed by Bestoujef, the all-powerful Chancellor of the empire, the Saxon project had at one moment the greatest chances of success. * The court of Saxony, rampant slave of Russia,' wrote Frederick later, 4 desired the success of Marianne, second daughter of the King of Poland, for the increase of its own credit. , . . The Russian ministers, whose venality would, I think, have put the Empress herself up to auction, sold a premature contract of marriage • they received large sums of money, and the King of Poland nothing but words.'

Sixteen years of age, pretty, well brought up, i8 CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA

the Princess of Saxony was not merely a suitable match ; the alliance would serve as basis of a vast combination, destined, so Bestoujef thought, to reunite Russia, Saxony, Austria, Holland, and England, three-quarters of Europe, against Prussia and France. The combination fell through, and Frederick did his best to aid its fall. He refused, however, to checkmate it by putting forward his sister, the Princess Ulrica, who would have suited Elizabeth. ' Nothing would be more barbarous,' he said, ' than to sacrifice the Princess/ For a time he left his envoy Mardefeldt to his own resources, which were small, and to those of his French colleague, La Chetardie, which, for the moment, were no better. Mardefeldt had been in disgrace for some time, and Elizabeth had been on the point of demanding his recall. As for La Chetardie, after having played so important a role at the accession of the new Czarina, he was foolish enough to let slip a position for which he had fought so hard. He had left his post, and, on his return, had not met with the same favour. His court did nothing on his behalf, and obliged him to be always asking for instructions. He would inquire 'if the king had still the same repugnance that he had shown at the accession of the Czarina to the marriage of the Grand Duke with one of the Princesses (avec une des Madames)'

But Frederick was on the watch. It was he who had had the idea of sending to St. Petersburg the portrait painted by Pesne at Berlin. A surviving brother of the mother of Figchen, Prince August of Holstein, had been commissioned to present it to the Czarina. Pesne was getting old, and the portrait, it appears, was not good. It had nevertheless the good fortune to please the Empress and her nephew. At the decisive moment, in November 1743, Mardefeldt received orders to put resolutely forward the Princess of Zerbst, or, if she would not do, one of the Princesses of Hesse- Darmstadt. In default of personal influence, the Prussian agent and his French colleague succeeded in winning over Brummer and Lestocq, and victory (so La Chetardie testifies) was the price of this alliance. 1 They have impressed upon the Czarina that a Princess of an important house would be less docile. . . . They have adroitly made use of some priest to insinuate to her Majesty that, seeing the small difference between the two religions, a Catholic Princess would be more dangerous/ Perhaps in the same order of ideas they dwelt on the agreeable insignificance of the Prince of Zerbst, 'a good fellow in his way, but of a quite unusual stupidity,' says La Chetardie. In short, at the beginning of December, Elizabeth charged Brummer to write the letter which, a few weeks later, revolutionised the peaceful court in which Catherine had grown up under the benevolent eye of Mile. Cardel.

The preparations of the Princess Jeanne- Elizabeth and her daughter were as brief as Brummer could have desired. Figchen did not even wait for a new outfit. ' Two or three dresses, a dozen chemises, the same amount of stockings and handkerchiefs ' — that was all that she took with her. Since they were to want for nothing, haste and away ! ■ She only lacks wings to go quicker/ wrote B rummer to Elizabeth. There is no evidence that the Princess took much trouble to give any sort of dclat to her daughter's first appearance in Russia. In following the correspondence which she carried on at the time with Frederick, one is surprised to see how small a place was taken in her plans by the future Grand Duchess. Was it really on account of Figchen's chances of marriage that she was taking the journey to Russia? It might well be doubted : she scarcely makes the slightest allusion to it. It is of herself that she thinks chiefly, the vast projects that swarm in her brain, and that she is in hopes of developing on a stage worthy of her ; the services that she professes to render to her royal protector, and for which she seems to claim , a decent recompense in advance. So we shall see her act at St. Petersburg and at Moscow.

Did Figchen know what was in the air, and for what reason, good or bad, she had been told to pack up her things ? The point is contested. She must have been aware that it was something more than a simple excursion like those she had made to Hamburg and to Eutin. The extent and the vigour of the debates between her father and mother before leaving, the unusual solemnity of the leave-taking with her uncle, the reigning Prince, Jean Louis, and the not less exceptional magnificence of the present — a beautiful blue stuff embroidered with silver wire — ■ with which he accompanied his last effusions : all that betokened something extraordinary.

The departure took place on the 10th or 12th of January 1744, and was without incident. There is still shown at the Rathhaus of Zerbst the cup in which the Princess Jeanne-Elizabeth drank the health of the notabilities of the town, gathered together with great ceremony to bid her farewell. This is probably only a legend. One incident, however, occurred at the moment of departure. After having tenderly embraced his daughter, Prince Christian-August put in her hands a large book which he bade her preserve with care, adding, mysteriously enough, that she might soon have occasion to consult it. At the same time he confided to his wife a manuscript in his handwriting, which she was to pass on to her daughter, after having absorbed and meditated upon its contents. The book was the treatise of Heineccius on the Greek religion. The manuscript fruit of Christian- August's recent watches and meditations was entitled Pro Memoria, and dealt chiefly with the question whether Figchen could not, 'by some arrangement or other,' become Grand Duchess without changing her religion. This was the great concern of Christian-August, and the conjugal controversy which had accompanied the preparations for departure, and which had awakened the attention of Figchen, had but this one object ; Christian August showing himself intractable on the subject, and Jeanne- Elizabeth much more disposed to admit the necessities imposed by the new destiny of her daughter. It was for this reason that Figchen's father had resolved to arm his daughter against the temptations that might fall in her way. The treatise of Heineccius was to serve this purpose. It was the heavy artillery of the fortress. In the Pro Memoria followed considerations and recommendations of another order, in which the German practical spirit had its share ; not without some reflection of the petty ways of a court like that of Zerbst or Stettin. The future Grand Duchess was advised to show the greatest respect and the most entire obedience towards those on whom her future would depend. She would place the good pleasure of the Prince her husband above that of all the world. She would avoid too intimate relations with no matter whom of her associates. She would speak to no one in asides in a public assembly. She would keep her pocket-money to herself, so as not to come under the dependence of a maitresse de cour. Finally, she would take care to meddle with none of the affairs of government. All this was expressed in a jargon which gives a curious specimen of the current language of the time, the German that Frederick professed to despise — not without reason. ' Nicht in Familiarite oder Badinage zu entriren, sondern allezeit einigen figard sich moglichst conserviren. In keine Regierungssachen zu entriren um den Senat nicht aigriren;' and so forth.