Terrible Tsarinas

countenance when the Grand Duke Peter threw himself at her

feet, swearing that he had had nothing to do with these political

shenanigans and that Bestuzhev and Catherine alone were guilty

of fraud and treason. Disgusted by the baseness of her nephew,

Elizabeth sent him to his apartments, without a word. For her,

Peter no longer counted. Or existed.

Her attitude was quite the opposite when it came to the

“indescribable” conduct of her daughter-in-law. To clear herself,

Catherine sent her a long letter, written in Russian; she confided

that she was distraught, protested that she was innocent, and be-

seeched her to allow her to leave for Germany, to go back to her

mother and to pray at her father’s graveside (he having recently

passed away). The idea of voluntary exile for the grand duchess

appeared so absurd and so inappropriate in the current circum-

stances that Elizabeth did not even reply. She chose to punish

Catherine by depriving her of her best chambermaid, Miss

Vladislavov. This new blow completely demolished the young

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Her Majesty and Their Imperial Highnesses

woman. Consumed by sorrow and fear, she took to bed and re-

fused any food, claiming to be sick in heart and body; on the verge

of inanition, she adamantly refused to be examined by a doctor.

She begged the obliging Alexander Shuvalov to call a priest to

hear her confession. Father Dubiansky, personal chaplain of the

tsarina, was alerted. Having received the grand duchess’s confes-

sion and contrition, he promised to plead her cause with Her Maj-

esty. In a visit to his Majestic penitent, the priest painted such a

picture of her daughter-in-law’s pain (a daughter-in-law, after all,

who could only be reproached for a maladroit devotion to the

cause of the monarchy), that Elizabeth promised to reflect on the

case of this strange parishioner. Catherine did not yet dare to ex-

pect a return to grace. However, Father Dubiansky must have

been persuasive in his intervention for, on April 13, 1759, Alexan-

der Shuvalov went to see Catherine in the room where she lay,

wasting away in anguish, and announced to her that Her Majesty

would receive her “this very day, at ten o’clock in the evening.”

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Footnotes

1. This was the beginning of the Seven Years War.

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XI

ANOTHER CATHERINE!

This meeting, as the empress and the grand duchess knew

full well, would define their relationship forever. They each pre-

pared carefully, marshaling all their arguments, objections, an-

swers and excuses. Elizabeth was imbued with discretionary

power, but she was mindful of the fact that her daughter-in-law

was just thirty years old, her skin still smooth and her teeth still

intact, giving her the advantage of youth and grace. It infuriated

the tsarina to find herself over the age of fifty, fat, and able to at-

tract men only by her title and her authority. Suddenly, the com-

petition between two political characters became a competition

between women. Catherine had the benefit of age; Elizabeth had

the hierarchical advantage.

In order to mark clearly her superiority over the upstart, the

tsarina decided to keep her waiting in the antechamber long

enough to fray her nerves and weaken her ability to charm. The

audience was set for 10:00 in the evening, on April 13; Elizabeth

gave orders to introduce Her Highness into the salon only at 1:30

in the morning. Wishing to have witnesses to the lesson that she

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proposed to inflict on her daughter-in-law, she asked Alexander

Shuvalov, her lover Ivan Shuvalov and even the Grand Duke Peter,

the culprit’s husband, to hide behind large folding screens. She

did not invite Alexis Razumovsky to this strange family event —

he was still Her Majesty’s designated confidant, Her “sentimental

memory,” but his star had faded recently and he had to yield place,

in “significant ways,” to younger, more vigorous newcomers.

Thus, “the Catherine-and-Peter issue” was outside his sphere of

involvement.

This interview was critical, in Elizabeth’s view, and she ar-

ranged every detail with the meticulous care of a seasoned impre-

sario. Just a few small candles shone in the half-light, accentuat-

ing the nerve-wracking character of the meeting. The empress

deposited the exhibits in a gold dish: letters from the grand duch-

ess, confiscated from Apraxin and Bestuzhev. Thus, from the first

moment, the schemer would be thrown off balance.1

However, nothing went as the empress had planned. As

soon as she stepped across the threshold, Catherine fell to her

knees, wringing her hands and wailing in her sorrow. Between

sobs, she claimed that no one in the court cared for her, nobody

understood her, and her husband could do nothing but invent

ways of humiliating her in public. She begged Her Majesty to al-

low her to leave for her home country. The tsarina reminded her

that it is a mother’s duty to remain at the sides of her children, no

matter what — to which Catherine retorted, still weeping and