Part 10

More and more he occupied himself with his favorite toys, soldiers made of lead, wood, starch, or wax. Whole regiments were set up on tables and operated by means of ingenious mechanical devices, in making which the youth, who had never been able to learn anything from his tutors, showed a high degree of skill. Entering his room one day, the Grand Duchess found a dead rat on a gallows and was informed that a military execution had just taken place following a court-martial of the culprit. On another occasion when the Grand Duke was expecting a visit from a lady to whom he was paying court, he called his wife to survey the bower which he had prepared for her. “He showed me,” says Catherine, “how, in order to please the lady, he had fitted it out with muskets, military caps, shoulder-belts, so that it looked like a corner in an arsenal.”

The year which followed the birth of Catherine’s child and the retreat of the Grand Duke from her bed saw a marked increase in the preoccupation of the latter with his military toys. By the time her second child was born, which was three years later, his preoccupation had grown abnormal and he was capable of the following extraordinary display. He had been called by the midwife, says Catherine in her description of that night, and after some delay put in an appearance. “He entered my chamber in his Holstein uniform, booted and spurred, with a scarf around his body and a great dagger at his side; that is, in complete regalia. Astonished at this pomp I asked him the reason for this elaborate costume. Whereupon he replied that only in time of need could one know one’s true friends; in this costume he was prepared to do his duty. And the duty of a Holstein officer was to be true to his oath and defend the Ducal House against all enemies. Because I was not well he had come to my aid.”

Catherine decided that her consort was drunk and sent him back to bed. Although she was an accurate observer of the Grand Duke’s behaviour, she had no real comprehension of the nature of his affliction. His old tutor, Stehlin, who had once made such heroic efforts to teach him, was apparently the only person in the young man’s environment who perceived the morbid element in his behaviour. Stehlin called it his “marotte militaire,” that is to say, a kind of “folie militaire,” something which surpasses the limits of normal youthful folly. The Empress was merely angered at every eccentricity and hurled punishments and penalties upon the offender’s head. “That damned nephew of mine has angered me unspeakably,” she would say. “He is a monster; may the devil fly away with him.”

The crux of the Grand Duke’s military obsession was his devotion to Frederick of Prussia, the greatest military general of his age. It was clearly not the thing for the heir to the throne of Russia to bestow his heart thus unreservedly on a foreign potentate and especially on one with whom Russia was actually at war. Peter’s strange devotion is reasonably explained in Poniatovsky’s memoirs: “One must assume that his nurse and his earliest teachers in his fatherland had been Prussian and devoted to the King of Prussia. For from childhood on he nourished such a strong and at the same time such a comical feeling of veneration and love for this Prince that the King of Prussia once said about this passion (for it was really a passion): “I am his Dulcinea. He has never seen me and has fallen in love with me like Don Quixote.”

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The military madness of the Grand Duke found a congenial ally in the person of the mysterious man from Holstein, Herr Brockdorf, whom Catherine so cordially detested and nicknamed “the pelican.” The red-haired Holsteiner, who wore a “miserable, discontented look because the corners of his mouth hung down to his chin,” hated the Grand Duchess cordially in return. He repaid her compliment about the pelican by announcing that he had come to Russia to “tread upon the serpent,” meaning thereby no other than Catherine herself.

Brockdorf was apparently a nondescript visitor of no real political importance, but his influence over Peter at this crucial period has given him a place in history. Exactly what this oddly assorted pair had in common is hard to say. Perhaps it was the protestant complex which united them. We know that Peter’s only reading was the Lutheran prayer-book, which he imported from Germany by the hundred, and we suspect that Herr Brockdorf’s references to “the snake” in Catherine was his metaphorical way of saying that she had gained the reputation of being an immoral woman. At any rate the contest between Catherine and Brockdorf was intense and their feud a bitter one. They competed for influence over the Grand Duke who wavered back and forth between them as guides and advisers in the management of the affairs of his beloved Holstein.

It was shortly after the entrance of Brockdorf on the scene that the first real quarrel took place between Catherine Alexeievna and Peter Feodorovna. The encounter assumed a significant form. “His Imperial Highness came to my room one evening after dinner,” says Catherine, “and declared to me that I really was becoming too unbearably proud, but he would soon bring me to reason. I asked him wherein this pride consisted and he replied that I carried myself too upright. Thereupon I asked him whether I should bend my back to please him, like the slaves of the Sultan! At this he grew angry and repeated he would soon bring me to reason. I asked him how he would do this. Thereupon he placed himself with his back against the wall, half-way drew his dagger and showed it to me. I asked him what that meant, whether he would fight me. Then I also must have one. He thrust his half-drawn dagger again into its sheath and said my malice had grown to be something quite amazing....”

It was through the kind offices of Brockdorf that a regiment of Holstein soldiers appeared at Oranienbaum in the early summer of 1775. The Grand Duke’s military play had suddenly become a dangerous reality. Soldiers of lead and wax no longer satisfied him. He was obliged to have flesh-and-blood toys, strong burly fellows who had to be housed and fed and who quarreled with the Russian guard already stationed at Oranienbaum. “These accursed Germans are all sold to the King of Prussia,” said the Russians. “They are traitors brought to Russia.”

The Grand Duchess realized the danger of this new development. She decided to eliminate herself from the situation as completely as possible and devoted her summer to reclaiming waste land and planning a large English garden. The Empress’s advisers, the Shuvalovs, also realized that the presence of the Holstein soldiers at Oranienbaum was undesirable and yet they found it curiously impossible to make Peter see the point or to persuade him to remove this very disturbing element. Like parents trying to get a child to exchange a dangerous toy for a safe one, the Shuvalovs decided to present the Grand Duke with real Russian soldiers for his games. In the spring of 1756, they sent a detachment of one hundred cadets to Oranienbaum for Peter to command. But the Grand Duke was not so easily duped. The Russian cadets might remain but the number of his beloved Holsteiners continued to increase. The accommodations of the little village were strained, giving rise to more friction and more rumors....

While the Grand Duke delighted in playing with his Holstein soldiers, he found the administration of the government, for which he had been responsible since the age of nineteen, tedious and burdensome. He relied much on the Grand Duchess whom he called Madame la Ressource. While Brockdorf contested her influence in Holstein affairs, she nevertheless retained first place in the long run. It was a great relief to Peter to hand the seal over to her along with all important and difficult documents and to forget the government of Holstein while he paraded his fascinating soldiers. In time it came about that the diplomats who had anything to say about Holstein consulted Catherine directly and accepted her decision. Things went on in this wise for a series of years until the Empress, suddenly discovering that Holstein was being ruled by the Grand Duchess, issued a ukase that the Grand Duke should take care of these political matters himself. It was a ukase, however, which commanded the impossible.

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In the autumn of 1755 an Englishman came to Petersburg. He was a man just past middle age, a Whig, and an aristocrat. He had been for nine years in the diplomatic service and was known for his caustic wit and elegant manners. His satirical poetry was much admired. These talents, however, were not always an asset. Six years previously he had been sent to Berlin as Ambassador at the court of Frederick the Great. But Frederick had not liked the biting tongue of the man and had asked for his removal. The Englishman was sent back to his old post at Dresden where August the Strong was apparently oblivious to his satire. Not being a satirist himself, as was Frederick the Great, perhaps he could more comfortably endure the presence of a rival. Transferred to the Court of Petersburg, the sophisticated Englishman found himself in a still less intellectual atmosphere than that of the Saxon court. Catherine says that the art of conversation was unknown among the Russian courtiers of that time. The arrival of a polished diplomat who dealt in brilliant talk and repartee could not fail to make a great impression on the Grand Duchess although most of his barbs were lost on the card-playing court which surrounded Elisabeth. The name of the interesting Englishman was Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.

As Ambassador to the Saxon Court, Williams had spent much time in Poland, over which August of Saxony ruled as elective king. In Warsaw, the Chevalier had made friends with the Czartorisky clan and the Poniatovsky family. A strong-minded daughter of the Czartoriskys had married Count Stanislas Poniatovsky and her son was likewise Count Stanislas. The young man was adored by his mother and patronized by her brothers, the powerful Czartoriskys. His career was the subject of earnest family conclaves. When Sir Charles Hanbury Williams offered to take him to Russia as Secretary it was decided that Stanislas should go. The Ambassador was almost twenty-five years older than his Polish secretary and called him his son. In Petersburg they lived together in the house of Count Skavronsky on the bank of the Neva.

The Grand Duchess met them both for the first time on St. Peter’s day at Oranienbaum. She sat beside Chevalier Williams at supper and conversed with him while she admired the graceful dancing of his secretary. It was the beginning of a political and personal alliance which rapidly developed among the three. Poniatovsky became her lover, while the Chevalier, ever attentive from the background and regularly corresponding with her, was in some curious vicarious fashion also in love with the fascinating and aggressive Catherine. Sitting at supper one evening with Poniatovsky vis-à-vis, the Grand Duchess threw out this remark, ostensibly addressed to the French Ambassador, “There was never a woman bolder than I; I have an unbridled temerity.” There was much recklessness in her at this time.

The English Ambassador had come to Russia with a special mission from George II, who was anxious lest Frederick the Great should turn covetous eyes on Hanover as he had on Silesia. Williams was empowered to offer an annual subsidy of five hundred thousand livres to Russia in return for which Russia was to stand ready to aid Hanover against any possible depredations on the part of the Prussian King. Such a treaty between England and Russia, Williams actually got signed in September 1755. But no sooner was this done than the wily Frederick put through the Treaty of Westminster in which he and the German-English George mutually guaranteed their possessions against both France and Russia. This created a complicated situation for the English diplomat. The Russian Empress loathed Frederick the Great and wanted no allies in common with him. Russia therefore disregarded the treaty begun in the Fall of 1755 and refused to accept the five hundred thousand livres which England had sent. Williams spent his time in Petersburg trying in vain to induce the Russian government to take his money. He also found himself in the curious position of having to represent the interests of Frederick the Great after he had started to work against them. Opposed to him was the whole French party headed by the powerful Ivan Shuvalov, favorite of the Empress. The Chevalier was left to cultivate the Grand Ducal court and this he did with whole-hearted enthusiasm. He advised Catherine about the government of Holstein which was at that time in her hands and succeeded in buying the Grand Chancellor Bestushev with a pension of twelve thousand rubles a year from the English Government.

Unfortunately for his schemes, Bestushev was no longer a power at court. Ivan Shuvalov had gathered the reins into his own hands as the health of the Empress declined. But Williams regarded Bestushev as a fine capture. He wrote an enthusiastic account of his success to Catherine and concluded his letter thus: “These are the scenes written in haste which will make delightful anecdotes for a future century. You alone have my secret; my heart, my life, my soul are yours. I regard you as a creature wholly superior to myself. I adore you and my adoration goes so far I am persuaded that I can have no merit apart from you.... Here is my castle in Spain which I have been building for some time and with which I often amuse myself. When you come to your place on the throne, I shall not be here. I shall come here at once.... I should wish to come with the character of ambassador in my pocket but I should not wish to produce it, because that would oblige me to maintain a rank and etiquette which would disturb me. And I flatter myself that I should live much with you as a faithful servant and humble friend. I should have the entrée to and profit by your hours of leisure, because I always love Catherine better than the Empress....”

Both Poniatovsky and Williams have left extensive records of their experiences in Russia. This is how Catherine looked at the age of twenty-six in the eyes of her Polish lover. “At this time she had attained that degree of beauty which represents for every woman to whom beauty is given at all the climax of its development. Her hair was black, her skin a dazzling white and vivid red; she had large blue, round, very expressive eyes, very long black lashes, a Greek nose, a mouth which seemed to ask for kisses. Her arms and shoulders were surpassingly beautiful; she had a tall graceful figure and her walk was very agile though full of nobility, the sound of her voice was pleasant, and her laugh as joyous as her temperament.” The Grand Duchess found in Count Poniatovsky the romantic lover for whom she had all her life been longing.

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During the summer of 1756, Count Poniatovsky departed for Warsaw to make a brief visit. He failed to return at the expected time and the Grand Duchess bestirred herself to have him recalled to Russia as Polish Ambassador. She enlisted Williams and Bestushev to this end and showered favors upon them until the two elderly diplomats began to be jealous of each other. She had done her work almost too well. At last, however, she succeeded in her purpose and the Grand Chancellor was able to secure the young Pole’s return. He imposed as a condition, however, that Poniatovsky should no longer live with Williams on such intimate terms as formerly. The way was now clear for Poniatovsky’s return, but still he lingered in Poland. What was the obstacle? A letter which he sent to Catherine explains the cause of his delay.

“And this is how it is. By dint of questioning me with all the tenderness and adroitness possible, my mother understands clearly what it is that makes me so ardently wish to return to you.... I pressed her more strongly to consent formally to my return; she said to me with tears in her eyes that she foresaw with grief that this affair was going to cause her to lose my affection on which she depended for all the happiness of her life; that it was hard to refuse some things but in the end she was determined not to consent. Upon which I was beside myself; I threw myself at her feet and begged her to change her sentiments. She said, melting into tears, ‘This is just what I expected.’ Nevertheless she went away, pressing my hand, and left me in the most horrible dilemma I have ever experienced in my life.... Oh, Poutres [his nickname for Catherine] ... share with Bonn [Williams] this story about my mother and beg him to write my father and ask him to send me back over there because I am necessary to him. For among other things she disputes with me that I am necessary to him....”

With the assistance and encouragement of one of his Czartorisky uncles, the young Count finally escaped from his mother and arrived in Petersburg in time for the Russian Christmas of 1756. He remained in Russia as the lover of Catherine for another year and a half, and left the country finally in July, 1758. Catherine’s daughter, the Grand Duchess Anna, born in December, 1757, was Poniatovsky’s child. The infant was taken from the mother by the Empress just as the first one had been and put into the nursery with her three-year-old half-brother. She did not long survive under the Empress’s régime and seems to have been soon forgotten by her mother and her father. The life and death of the little Grand Duchess Anna, wafted so carelessly in and out of her mother’s career, was the slightest of slight episodes. Catherine was absorbed in political intrigue. Her alliance with Chevalier Williams and Grand Chancellor Bestushev had developed her talents in this direction, and she allowed herself to go far and to take great risks. She saw the death of the Empress approaching and the accession of Grand Duke Peter to the throne. What would then be her position and that of her son by Saltikov?

A midnight encounter which took place between Poniatovsky and the Grand Duke at Oranienbaum caused the Pole to leave Russia and showed Catherine how desperately uncertain her footing had become. The Count was accustomed to come and go in disguise. Wearing a blond peruke he would say, “Musician of the Grand Duke” and would pass unquestioned. But one mid-summer night his ruse failed to save him from embarrassing developments. Poniatovsky tells the story thus: “On this night I met unluckily in the woods at Oranienbaum the Grand Duke and his whole retinue, all of them half drunk. They asked my _izvostchik_ whom he was driving. My page replied, ‘A tailor.’ We were allowed to pass. But Elisabeth Vorontsov, lady-in-waiting of the Grand Duchess and mistress of the Grand Duke, who was present, made a few joking remarks about the alleged tailor which put the Grand Duke into a bad humor. As I was leaving the pavilion where I had spent several hours with the Grand Duchess and which she occupied under the pretense of taking a water-cure, I was suddenly stopped, after taking a few steps, by three mounted men, who, sabres in hand, seized me by the collar and dragged me before the Grand Duke.”

According to Catherine’s story, Brockdorf the pelican played a prominent part in this scene. The Holsteiner advised the Grand Duke to kill the prisoner. But Peter had no such intention; he only exposed and ventilated the scandal. Poniatovsky was allowed to go free after the episode had become known to the entire court. With broad patronizing jokes, the Grand Duke invited the Pole to Oranienbaum and facilitated his meetings with the Grand Duchess. The Shuvalov tried to reassure the Count, but neither Catherine nor her lover were reassured. “I could not but remark,” says Poniatovsky, “that all was not clear and that it was time for me to go away.” Catherine says that she perceived through this episode that her lot was finally separated from that of the Grand Duke; that she must either perish with him and through him or save herself and her children and the state from shipwreck. After Poniatovsky’s departure for Poland, the Grand Duchess went into strict retirement. Soon after he left, Sir Charles Hanbury Williams left Russia also. The Chevalier was strangely reluctant to go away. He should have gone early in the summer, but he could not decide on his itinerary. At first he planned to journey through Poland but changed his mind and decided to go through Sweden. He got as far as Finland and then came back again saying that his horses had fallen ill. Again he hesitated and it was not until the end of October that he finally took leave of Catherine at Oranienbaum. She was extremely depressed by his leaving and wept the whole day when he came to say farewell. The separation seems to have added the last straw to the Chevalier’s unstable mental condition. After a stormy passage from Kronstadt, he arrived in Hamburg already a sick man, and almost immediately he was declared insane by the physicians and taken to England. A year later he ended his life by suicide and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Two months after his death, Catherine wrote to the Russian envoy in Warsaw the following confidential message: “Count Poniatovsky is out of humor with me, but he is wrong if he believes that obstacles or other incidents can detach me from him. I put my profession of faith into your hands, and I desire only the moment of our reunion; I wish he would place himself above all vulgar trifles. There is so much complexity in my present rôle that I have need of that enthusiasm which he pretends I sometimes inspire. Adversity shall not conquer me and if it is necessary to triumph, courage will not be lacking. I esteem and love Poniatovsky above all the rest of the human race. He must be sure of that, and if I have good fortune events will prove it. In the name of God, do not remind your hearer [Poniatovsky] of the scene with the late Williams who, while haranguing me began to sob; you will picture me inspiring you with courage and the surface will be smiling....”

These cryptic messages indicate that the relationship between Catherine and Williams was more emotional than the political situation required. The complexity of her rôle in January, 1761, the last year of Empress Elisabeth’s life, took all of her attention. During this winter especially she strove to ingratiate herself with the Russian public, possibly because she realized that her recent intimacy with foreigners tended to recall the fact that she herself was not a Russian. Her assurances of affection for Poniatovsky were still sincere at this time for his successor did not arrive in Petersburg until the following March. It was not wholly accidental that her new lover was a Russian.

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