Terrible Tsarinas

sighing: “My children are in your hands and could not receive bet-

ter care than that!” Touched at a sensitive point by this recogni-

tion of her talents as a teacher and protectress, Elizabeth helped

Catherine to her feet and gently reproached her for having forgot-

ten all the marks of interest and even affection that she had once

lavished upon her. “God is my witness, how I wept when you on

your deathbed,” she said. “If I had not loved you, I would not have

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Another Catherine!

kept you here. . . . But you are extremely proud! You think that

nobody has a better mind than you!” At these words, flouting the

instructions he had been given, Peter stepped forward and inter-

jected,

“She is terribly spiteful and incredibly stubborn!”

“You must be speaking about yourself!” retorted Catherine.

“I have no problem telling you in front of Her Majesty that I really

am malicious with you, who advise me to do things that are

wrong, and that I certainly have become stubborn since I see that

by being agreeable I only earn your spite!”

Before the discussion degenerated into an everyday domestic

conflict, Elizabeth sought to regain control. Confronted by this

teary woman, she had almost forgotten that the alleged victim of

society was a faithless wife and a conspirator. Now, she went on

the attack. Pointing to the letters in the gold dish, she said,

“How dared you to send orders to Field Marshal Apraxin?

“I simply asked him to follow your orders,” murmured Cath-

erine.

“Bestuzhev says that there were many more!”

“If Bestuzhev says that, he lies!”

‘Well, if he is lying, then I will have him put to torture!” ex-

claimed Elizabeth, giving her daughter-in-law a fatal glance.

But Catherine did not stumble; indeed, the first passé d’armes

had boosted her confidence. And it was Elizabeth who suddenly

felt ill at ease in this interrogation. To calm herself, she began to

pace up and down the length of the room. Peter took advantage of

the hiatus to launch out in an enumeration of his wife’s misdeeds.

Exasperated by the invectives from her little runt of a nephew, the

tsarina was tempted to side with her daughter-in-law, whom she

had just condemned a few minutes before. Her initial jealousy of

the young and attractive creature gave way to a kind of female

complicity, over the barrier of the generations. In a moment, she

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Terrible Tsarinas

cut Peter short and told him to keep silent. Then, approaching

Catherine, she whispered in her ear:

“I still had many things to say to you, but I do not want to

make things worse [with your husband] than they already are!”

“And I cannot tell you,” answered Catherine, “what an ur-

gent desire I have to open to you my heart and my soul!”2

This time, it was the Empress whose eyes were filled with

tears. She dismissed Catherine and the grand duke, and sat qui-

etly a long time in front of Alexander Shuvalov, who in his turn

came out from behind the folding screen. After a moment, she

sent him to the grand duchess with a top secret commission: to

urge her not to suffer any longer, pointlessly, for Her Majesty

hoped to receive her soon for “a genuinely private conversation.”

This private conversation did, indeed, take place, in the

greatest secrecy, and allowed the two women finally to explain

themselves honestly. Did the empress demand, on that occasion,

that Catherine provide full details on her liaisons with Sergei

Saltykov and Stanislaw Poniatowski, on the exact parentage of

Paul and Anna, on the unofficial household of Peter and the dread-

ful young Vorontsov, on Bestuzhev’s treason, Apraxin’s incompe-

tence? In any event, Catherine found answers that alleviated

Elizabeth’s anger, for the very next day she authorized her daugh-

ter-in-law to come to see her children in the imperial wing of the

palace. During these wisely spaced visits, Catherine was able to

observe how well-raised and well-educated were the cherubim,

far from their parents.

With the help of these compromises, the grand duchess gave

up her desperate plan to leave St. Petersburg to return to her fam-

ily in Zerbst. Bestuzhev’s trial ended inconclusively, because of

the lack of material evidence and the death of the principal wit-

ness, the Field Marshal Apraxin. Since, in spite of everything,

some punishment must be given after so many abominable crimes

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Another Catherine!

had been announced, Alexis Bestuzhev was exiled — not to Sibe-

ria, but to his own lands, where he would not want for anything.

The principal winner at the end of this legal struggle was

Mikhail Vorontsov, who was offered the title of chancellor, re-

placing the disgraced Bestuzhev. Behind his back, the duke of

Choiseul, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in France, savored

his personal success. He knew that Vorontsov’s Francophile ten-

dencies would lead him quite naturally to win over Catherine, and

probably even Elizabeth, to side with Louis XV.

With regard to Catherine, he was not mistaken: anything