Count Valentine Platonovitch:I herewith enclose a copy of Kushilev’s letter to the governor of this town in which he says that the czarevitch has been pleased to order that more than half of the Alexandrovski square, as the plan sent by him to the governor indicates, should be given up to a certain merchant. The order itself is a mad one and of the greatest insolence. Tell Kushilev to come to you and tell him in my name that if he again dares to send such letters anywhere I will send him where the ravens will not have to seek for his bones; and tell the grand duke that in future he is not to send any orders by you at anyone’s request.September 17th, 1793.Catherine.Find out beforehand if this was certainly written by the grand duke.
Count Valentine Platonovitch:
I herewith enclose a copy of Kushilev’s letter to the governor of this town in which he says that the czarevitch has been pleased to order that more than half of the Alexandrovski square, as the plan sent by him to the governor indicates, should be given up to a certain merchant. The order itself is a mad one and of the greatest insolence. Tell Kushilev to come to you and tell him in my name that if he again dares to send such letters anywhere I will send him where the ravens will not have to seek for his bones; and tell the grand duke that in future he is not to send any orders by you at anyone’s request.
September 17th, 1793.
Catherine.
Find out beforehand if this was certainly written by the grand duke.
In the year 1794 the empress had recourse to decisive measures for the accomplishment of the projected change and notified to the council her intention of setting aside her son Paul as her successor giving as reasons his character and his incapacity. The entire council was ready to submit to this decision, but was stopped by Count V. P. Mussin-Pushkin, who said that the character and instincts of the heir might change when he became emperor; these remarks put a stop to Catherine’s intention of declaring her grandson Alexander as her successor, and for a time the matter rested there. But the opposition that Catherine met with in the council naturally did not stop her in the pursuit of the aim she had in view. As has already been observed, obstacles, in her opinion, are only created in order that they may be set aside by persons of merit; guided by such principles, the empress remained true to herself and to the matter that was so close to her heart and continued to seek for fresh ways of carrying through her intentions.kNevertheless all her efforts failed in the end, and, as we shall see, Catherine’s son succeeded her in due course.a
Plato Zubov, the twelfth and last of Catherine’s avowed favourites, succeeded in some degree to the position which Potemkin had held as a sort of vice-emperor. Zubov had superseded Momonov, who, soon wearying of the faded charms of a mistress of sixty, became enamoured of the young princess Sherbatov, and had the courage to avow it and ask permission to marry her. Catherine had pride and generosity enough to grant his request without any reproaches. She saw him married at court to the object of his affection, and sent him to Moscow loaded with presents. But it was currently reported that Momonov was so imprudent as to mention to his wife some particulars of his interviews with the empress, and that she divulged them with a levity which Catherine could not forgive. One night, when the husband and wife were gone to rest, the master of the police at Moscow entered their chamber; and, after showing them an order from her majesty, left them in the hands of six women, and retired to an adjoining room. Then the six women, or rather the six men dressed as women, seized the babbling lady, and having completely stripped her, flogged her with rods in the presence of Momonov, whom they forced to kneel down during the ceremony. When the chastisement was over, the police-master re-entered the room and said: “This is the way the empress punishes a first indiscretion. For the second, people are sent to Siberia.”
It was in the spring of 1789, when the empress was at Tsarskoi Selo, that Momonov was married and dismissed. Lieutenant Zubov commanded the detachment of horse-guards in attendance, and being the only young officer in sight he owed his preferment to that fortunate circumstance. Nicholas Soltikov, to whom he was distantly related, and who was at that time in high credit, took pains to promote his interest, hoping to find in him a protector against Potemkin, whom he heartily disliked. After some secret conferences in presence of the Mentor, Zubov was approved, and sent for more ample information to Mademoiselle Protasov and the empress’ physician. The account they gave must have been favourable, for he was named aide-de-camp to the empress, received a present of a hundred thousand roubles (£10,000) to furnish him with linen, and was installed in the apartment of the favourites with all the customary advantages.
The next day this young man was seen familiarly offering his arm to hissovereign, equipped in his new uniform, with a large hat and feather on his head, attended by his patron and the great men of the empire, who walked behind him with their hats off, though the day before he had danced attendance in their ante-chambers. His own were now filled with aged generals and ministers of long service, all of whom bent the knee before him. He was a genius discerned by the piercing eye of Catherine; the treasures of the empire were lavished on him, and the conduct of the empress was sanctioned by the meanness and the shameful assiduities of her courtiers.
The new favourite was not quite five-and-twenty years old, the empress was upwards of sixty. Yet even at this advanced period of her life she revived the orgies and lupercalia which she had formerly celebrated with the brothers Orlov. Valerian, a younger brother of Zubov, and Peter Soltikov, their friend, were associated in office with the favourite. With these three young libertines did the aged Catherine spend her days, while her armies were slaughtering the Turks, fighting the Swedes, and ravaging Poland; while her people were groaning in wretchedness and famine, and devoured by extortioners and tyrants.
It was at this time she formed a more intimate society, composed of her favourites and most trusty ladies and courtiers. This society met two or three times a week, under the name of the Little Hermitage. The parties were frequently masqued, and the greatest privacy prevailed. They danced, played at forfeits, joked, romped and engaged in all sorts of frolics and gambols. Leov Narishkin acted the same part there as Roquelaure at the court of Louis XIV; and a fool by title, Matrona Danilovna, seconded him. This was an old gossip, whose wit consisted only in uttering the most absurd vulgarities; and as she was allowed the common right of fools, that of saying anything, she was loaded with presents by the lower order of courtiers. Such foreign ministers as enjoyed the favour of the empress were sometimes admitted to the Little Hermitage. Ségur, Cobenzl, Stedingk, and Nassau chiefly enjoyed this distinction; but Catherine afterwards formed another assembly, more confined and more mysterious, which was called the Little Society. The three favourites of whom we have just been speaking, Branicka, Protasov, and some confidential women and valets-de-chambre, were its only members. In this the Cybele of the north celebrated her most secret mysteries. The particulars of these amusements are not fit to be repeated.
[1793A.D.]
Catherine survived Potemkin but four years. The last ten years of her reign carried her power, her glory, and her political crimes to their highest pitch. When the great Frederick, dictator of the kings of Europe, died, she remained the eldest of the crowned heads of the continent; and if we except Joseph, all those heads together were unequal to her own. If Frederick was the dictator of these kings, Catherine became their tyrant. The immense empire which she had subjected to her sway; the inexhaustible resources she derived from a country and a people as yet in a state of infancy; the extreme luxury of her court, the barbarous pomp of her nobility, the wealth and princely grandeur of her favourites, the glorious exploits of her armies, and the gigantic views of her ambition threw Europe into a sort of fascination; and those monarchs who had been too proud to pay each other even the slightest deference felt no abasement in making a woman the arbiter of their interests, the ruling power of all their measures.
The annihilation of Poland, long meditated, was now resolved on. The empress could never forgive that nation either for the act of the diet in 1788, which abrogated the constitution dictated by violence in 1775, or the alliance of Prussia accepted in contempt of her own, or, above all, the constitution decreed at Warsaw on the 3rd of May, 1791. Big with these ideas of revenge, she gave orders to Bulgakov, her minister at Warsaw, to declare war against Poland.
The diet being assembled received this declaration with a majestic calmness, which was rapidly succeeded by the generous enthusiasm of a nation roused to self-defence. The king himself pretended to share the feelings that animated his people; and the Poles had the weakness to believe that, having abandoned his former servility to Russia and his customary indolence, he was becoming the defender of their freedom. An army was collected in haste, and the command of it given to the king’s nephew, Joseph Poniatowski, an inexperienced young man, all of whose efforts were obstructed or misdirected by his traitorous uncle.
The Poles could have opposed the designs of Catherine with an army of fifty thousand men; but they never yet could be brought to unite their forces; and their different corps were soon after pressed between an army of eighty thousand Russians, who fell back from Bessarabia upon the territory which extends along the Bug, another of ten thousand collected in the environs of Kiev, and a third of thirty thousand, which had penetrated into Lithuania.
We shall not here attempt to draw the picture of the various battles that drenched the plains of Poland with blood, and which, notwithstanding some advantages obtained by the Poles, consumed the greater part of their troops. It was then that the illustrious Kosciuszko, who as yet was nothing more than one of the lieutenants of young Joseph Poniatowski, displayed qualities that justly obtained him the confidence of the nation, the hatred of the Russians, and the esteem of Europe.
During all this time Catherine, not trusting alone to the power of her own arms, had been negotiating with unremitted assiduity. She proposed the definitive partition of Poland to Frederick William, who was undoubtedly no less desirous of it than herself. She secretly won over to her views the two brothers Kassakovski, the hetman Branicki, Rejevuski, and particularly Felix Potocki, who, while flattering himself perhaps with the hopes of mounting the throne of Poland, became only the slave of Russia. She even insisted that Stanislaus Augustus should make a public declaration that it was necessary to yield to the superiority of the Russian arms. He submitted to this indignity; but was not on that account treated by the empress with greater indulgence.
In 1793 the confederation of the partisans of Russia assembled at Grodno, where the Russian general proudly seated himself under the canopy of the throne he was about to overturn. The Russian minister Sievers, at the same time, published a manifesto (April 9th) in which he declared that his sovereign would incorporate with her dominions all the territory of Poland which her arms had conquered. The king of Prussia, in concert with Catherine, had already marched an army into Poland.
The Russians, dispersed about the provinces of that kingdom, committed depredations and ravages of which history furnishes but few examples. Warsaw became likewise the theatre of their excesses. The Russian general Igelström,who governed that city, connived at the disorders of his soldiers, and made the wretched inhabitants feel the whole weight of his arrogance and barbarity. The defenders of Poland had been obliged to disperse. Their property was confiscated; their families were reduced to servitude. Goaded by so many calamities, they once more took the resolution to free their country of the Russians. Some of them assembled, and sent an invitation to Kosciuszko to come and put himself at their head. That general had retired to Leipsic, with Hugh Kolonti, Zajonchek, and Ignatius Potocki, a man of great knowledge and sagacity, a sincere friend to his country, and in all respects the opposite of his cousin Felix. These four Poles joined eagerly in the resolution adopted by their honest countrymen: but they were sensible that, in order to succeed, they must begin by giving liberty to the peasants, who till then had been treated in Poland like beasts of burden.
Kosciuszko and Zajonchek repaired, with all expedition, to the frontiers of Poland. The latter proceeded to Warsaw, where he had conferences with the chiefs of the conspirators. A banker named Kapustas, a bold and artful man, made himself responsible for the inhabitants of the capital. He saw likewise several officers, who declared their detestation of the Russian yoke. All, in short, was ripe for an insurrection, when the Russian commanders, to whom Kosciuszko’s presence on the frontiers had given umbrage, forced him to postpone it for a time. To throw the Russians off their guard, Kosciuszko went into Italy, and Zajonchek to Dresden, whither Ignatius Potocki and Kolonti had retired, but all at once Zajonchek appeared again at Warsaw. The king himself impeached him to the Russian general Igelström, who had a conference with him, and ordered him to quit the Polish territory. No alternative now remained for him but to proceed immediately to action, or to abandon the enterprise altogether. Zajonchek resolved on the former.
[1794A.D.]
In 1794 Kosciuszko was recalled from Italy, and arrived at Cracow, where the Poles received him as their deliverer. In spite of the orders of the Russians, Colonel Madalinski pertinaciously refused to disband his regiment. Some other officers had joined him. Kosciuszko was proclaimed general of his little army, amounting to three thousand foot and twelve hundred horse; and the act of insurrection was almost immediately published on the 24th of March. Three hundred peasants, armed with scythes, ranged themselves under the standard of Kosciuszko. That general soon found himself faced by seven thousand Russians, who were put to flight after a vigourous resistance.
On hearing at Warsaw of the success of Kosciuszko, the Russian general Igelström caused all those to be arrested whom he suspected to have any concern in the insurrection; but these measures served only the more to irritate the conspirators. The insurrection broke out on the 18th of April. Two thousand Russians were put to the sword. Their general, being besieged in his house, requested permission to capitulate; and profiting by the delay that was granted him, he escaped to the Prussian camp, which lay at a little distance from Warsaw. Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, followed the example of Warsaw; but the triumph of the insurgents was there less terrible. Colonel Iazinski, who was at their head, conducted himself with so much skill, that he took all the Russians prisoners, without shedding a drop of blood. The inhabitants of the cantons of Chelm and of Lublin declared themselves also in a state of insurrection, and were imitated by three Polish regiments who were employed in the service of the Russians. Some of the principal partisans of Russia, the hetman Kassakovski, the bishop his brother, Zabiello, Ozarovski, and Ankvitch were sentenced to be hanged, the first at Vilna, and the others at Warsaw.
Kosciuszko exerted himself to the utmost to augment his army. He got recruits among the peasants; and to inspire them with more emulation he wore their dress, ate with them, and distributed encouragements among them; but those men too long degraded in Poland were not yet deserving of the liberty that was offered them. They distrusted the intentions of the nobles, who, on their side, for the most part lamented the loss of their absurd prerogatives. Stanislaus Augustus and his partisans augmented still further the ill-will of the nobles, by representing to them the intentions of Kosciuszko as disastrous to their order, and by caballing continually in favour of Russia.
[1795A.D.]
In the mean time, the empress, not satisfied with augmenting the number of her troops in Poland, had sent her best generals thither. After several battles, in one of which Frederick William, who had advanced to support the Russians, fought at the head of his troops against Kosciuszko, who was striving to prevent the junction of the Russian generals, Suvarov and Fersen, the Polish commander was attacked by the latter at Macziewice on the 4th of October. His talents, his valour, and his desperation were unable to prevent the Poles from yielding to numbers. Almost the whole of his army were cut to pieces or obliged to lay down their arms. He himself, covered with wounds, was taken prisoner, ejaculating, “Finis Poloniæ!”
All who were able to escape from the conquerors went and shut themselves up in Praga, the eastern suburb of Warsaw, where 26,000 Poles and 104 heavy cannon and mortars defended the bridges over the Vistula and the approach to the capital. Suvarov was soon before the gates with an effective force of but 22,000 men and 86 field pieces; but even with such odds against him he resolved to do as he had done at Ismail, and carry the Polish lines at the point of the bayonet. After cannonading the defences for two days he gave the order for the assault at daybreak on the 4th of November. The trenches were carried after a desperate fight of five hours; the Russians swept into the town, murdering all before them, old men, women, and children; the wooden houses were speedily on fire; the bridges were broken down, so that the helpless crowds who attempted to escape into the city were remorselessly driven into the Vistula. Besides 10,000 Polish soldiers, 12,000 citizens of every age and sex perished in this wanton butchery.
Warsaw itself capitulated on the 5th of November, and was delivered up to the Russians on the 6th. Poland was now annihilated. One division of its troops after another was disarmed, and all the generals and officers who could be seized were carried off. The king, however, who could be induced to do anything if his comforts were spared, was used as an instrument to give to power the impress of right. He was again set nominally at the head of the kingdom till the robbers had agreed upon the division of the spoil, and had no longer need of him. Suvarov held a splendid military court for a year in Warsaw, far eclipsing the king, till at length the city was given up to the Prussians.
The whole of the year 1795 was spent in negotiations with Prussia, and the last treaty for the partition of Poland was not signed till the 24th of October, 1795. In December, Suvarov travelled from Warsaw to St. Petersburg, where the empress appropriated the Taurian palace for his residence, and nominated a special household for his service. On the 1st of January, 1796, Warsaw was first given up to the Prussians, and negotiations were carried on till the 21st of October, 1796, respecting the boundaries of the palatinates of Warsaw and Cracow. By virtue of this partition, first finally arranged in October, 1796, Austria obtained the chief parts of the waiwodeship of Cracow, the palatinates of Sendomir and Lublin, together with a portion of thedistrict of Chelm and portions of the waiwodeships of Brzesc, Podalachia, and Massovia, which lie along the left bank of the Bug. All these districts contain about 834 German square miles. Prussia received those portions of Massovia and Podalachia which touch upon the right bank of that river, in Lithuania those parts of the palatinates of Troki and Samogitia which lie to the left of the Niemen, and, finally, a district in Little Poland which belonged to the waiwodeship of Cracow, making in all about one thousand German square miles. Russia received the whole of what had hitherto been Polish Lithuania as far as the Niemen, and to the frontiers of the waiwodeships of Brzesc and Novogrodek, and thence to the Bug, together with the greater part of Samogitia. In Little Poland she obtained that part of Chelm which lies on the right bank of the Bug and the remainder of Volhinia, in all about two thousand German square miles. During the negotiations for the partition, Russia caused Stanislaus Augustus to lay down the crown. The three partitioning powers ensured him a yearly income of 200,000 ducats, and promised to pay his debts.
Catherine had now conquered, either by her arms or by her intrigues, almost one-half of Poland, the Crimea, the Kuban, and a part of the frontiers of Turkey. But she had no need of armaments and battles for usurping another rich and well-peopled country. Courland and Semigallia, where still reigned Duke Peter, the feeble son of the famous Biren, had long been prepared for that annexation, which was now effected almost without an effort. The flattering reception given to the Courish nobles in St. Petersburg by the empress, distinctions, honours, posts, and pleasures, rendering their abode in the imperial residence far preferable to continuing in Mittau, and made them desirous of being under the sway of the sovereign of a vast empire, rather than live in obedience to a duke the obscurity of whose origin they could not forget, and whom they regarded as their inferior. To bring the people to the same way of thinking as the nobles, Catherine artfully embroiled them with their neighbours, and created for them reasons of alarm.
She began by instigating the inhabitants of Livonia to insist upon the fulfilment of an ancient convention, by which the Courlanders were obliged to bring all their merchandises to Riga: certainly a very strange and hard condition, by which a nation, that had on its coasts excellent harbours happily situated, should be obliged to go, at a great expense, to embark the products of its soil in a foreign city. The quarrel between the Livonians and the Courlanders was not yet terminated, when the empress sent engineers into Courland, to mark out a canal, to facilitate the transport of the merchandises of that country into Livonia. The Courlanders seeing this, and fearing lest they should be soon forced to make use of this canal, thought it better for them to be protected than oppressed by the empress, and to be her subjects rather than her neighbours.
Catherine, being informed of these dispositions, called the duke of Courland to her, under the pretence of conferring with him on matters of importance. No sooner was that prince at the foot of the throne of the autocratrix of the north, than the states of Courland held an assembly, wherein it was proposed to put the country under the supremacy of Russia. The principal members of the grand council faintly opposed this motion, observing, that before they proceeded to a resolution it would be expedient to wait the return of the duke. The oberburgraf Hoven rose up, and spoke a long timein favour of Russia. Some councillors expressed themselves of his opinion; others reproached him with treason. The dispute grew warm on both sides; challenges were reciprocally given and swords were about to be drawn, when the Russian general Pahlen appeared in the assembly. His presence restored tranquillity. No one presumed to raise his voice against Russia; and the proposal of the nobles was adopted.
The next day, March 18th, 1795, the act was drawn up, by which Courland, Semigallia, and the circle of Pilten made a formal surrender of themselves to the empress of Russia; and it was carried to St. Petersburg, where the duke of Courland learned, from the mouth of his own subjects, that they themselves had deprived him of his dominions. The empress immediately sent a governor thither. Some discontent, however, remained in Courland; discontent brought on proscription, and the possessions of the proscribed were given to the courtiers of Catherine. The favourite, Plato Zubov, and his brother Valerian obtained a great part of those rich and shameful spoils.j
Catherine II(1729-1796)
Catherine II
(1729-1796)
Before the breaking out of the French Revolution the governments of Louis XVI and Catherine II had entered into active negotiations for the formation of a quadruple alliance that should include Austria, Russia, and the two houses of Bourbon, and should have for its object the checking of England’s maritime pretensions and the encroachments of Prussia. After the taking of the Bastille Catherine realised that she could no longer count upon the support of France, since that country was exclusively occupied with its own interior transformation. She kept anxious watch, however, upon the course of events in Paris, and manifested the liveliest antipathy to the new principles, falling ill at the news of the king’s execution on the 21st of January. Led by fear into a violent reaction, the correspondent of Voltaire and Diderot set a close watch upon all Russians suspected of liberalism. She destroyed a tragedy of Kniaznin and exiled to Siberia Radichtchev, the author of a curious book entitledJourney from St. Petersburg to Moscow, in which were many sharp reflections on serfdom; Novikov was confined at Schlüsselburg, his printing houses were closed and all his enterprises ruined. She dismissed Genêt, the French ambassador, refused to recognise either the constitution of 1791 or the French Republic, issued an ukase announcing the rupture of diplomatic relations with France, refused to the tri-colour admissionto Russian parts, expelled all French subjects who refused to swear allegiance to the monarchical principle, extended a warm welcome to French refugees, and lost no time in acknowledging Louis XVIII.
In 1792 she published her famous note on the restoration of royal power and aristocratic privileges in France, asserting that only ten thousand men would be necessary to effect a counter-revolution. She encouraged Gustavus III, who was assassinated by his nobles at a masked ball (March 16th, 1792), to place himself at the head of a crusade against democracy. She further urged England to assist the count d’Artois in a descent he had planned upon the French coast, and stimulated the zeal of Austria and Prussia. Notwithstanding this, though she had repeatedly negotiated treaties for subsidies and promised troops, she took care never to become involved in a war with the west. “My position is taken,” she said, “my part assigned; I shall watch the movements of Turkey, Poland, and Sweden.”
The latter country became reconciled to France after the death of Gustavus III. The punishment of the Jacobins of Warsaw and Turkey was an easier and more lucrative piece of work. We should also take into account an admission that she made to her vice-chancellor Ostermann in 1791: “Am I wrong? I cannot avow all to the courts of Berlin and Vienna, but I wish to keep them engaged in these affairs so that I may have freedom to carry on my unfinished enterprises.” She excused herself for not taking part in the anti-revolutionary crusade by alleging the war with Turkey; then when in consequence of the revolution of the 3rd of May she was obliged to hasten the Peace of Jassy, she made the Polish war her excuse; and when this was ended she affected to excite Suvarov and his soldiers against the atheists of the west, but in reality thought only of gaining her own ends in the east. Muhammed, the new king of Persia, had recently invaded Georgia and burned Tiflis, the capital of Heraclius, a protégé of the empress. Catherine summoned to her court an exiled brother of Muhammed’s and charged Valerian Zubov with the conquest of Persia. [His armies were actually under way when the death of Catherine led to the abandonment of the enterprise.]
[1796A.D.]
Without being aware of it Catherine II really performed greater service to France than to the coalition. By her intervention in Poland and her projects against the east she had excited the jealousy and suspicion of Prussia and Austria. She took care to pit them against each other; made the second partition with Frederick William in spite of Austria, and effected the third with Francis II to the extreme dissatisfaction of Prussia. She contributed indirectly to weaken and dissolve the coalition, being herself prevented from joining it by the Polish insurrection that received so much encouragement from France. She died on the 17th of November, 1796, at the age of sixty-seven. Since Ivan the Terrible no monarch had extended the limits of the empire by such vast conquests. Catherine made the Niemen, the Dniester, and the Black Sea the boundaries of Russia.d
The personality of the empress was as though created for a throne. We do not meet in history with any other woman so fitted to rule. On all and each she produced a profound impression. No one has spoken more harshly and disadvantageously of the empress’ qualities than Masson, yet this pamphleteer-writer observes that during the space of ten years, having had occasion to see Catherine once or twice a week, he was always struck by herunusually attractive personality, by the dignity with which she held herself, and by the amiability of her behaviour to everyone.
In herMemoirsgCatherine herself has left a detailed narrative of the course of her development, of her aspirations after power, and of her unscrupulousness in the means she used to attain her aims. The empress’ frankness in this respect amounts almost to cynicism. In maturity she at last became an autocratic sovereign. After the terrible humiliations, the bitter trials she had endured in her youth, her delight when she found herself in the enjoyment of unbounded power was all the greater. The fact that the fundamental change in her surroundings, the rapid passage from entire dependency to entire potency, did not in any wise awaken in her any despotic inclinations testifies to the goodness inherent in her nature; when her son was subjected in his turn to a like change in outward circumstances his despotism knew no bounds.
We have seen that the unfavourable circumstances in which Catherine found herself until the year 1762 exercised a baneful influence upon her character; whereas the power and preponderance which she later acquired had an ennobling effect upon her nature. Until then she had been necessarily obliged often to have resource to mean and trifling measures to better her position and to revenge herself on her opponents; when she was able to exert full power, to enjoy the advantages of her position, the respect of her contemporaries, the adoration of the persons that surrounded her, she no longer needed to employ those means which are generally made use of by the weak in their struggle against the strong. At the time when a sharp watch was kept over her, when she was not trusted by either Elizabeth or Peter, she understood how to dissemble, to play the hypocrite, to feign humility and modesty, whilst in her soul she was filled with arrogance and contempt for mankind. Now that she had surrounded herself entirely with persons devoted to her she could act openly and nobly. The grand duchess in her isolation had been remarkable for her coldness, her mistrust of mankind, her suspiciousness; the empress on the contrary gave full scope to the development of feelings of benevolence, condescension, indulgence, and sincere attention to the interests of the persons that surrounded her. It was not without reason that Peter and Elizabeth had mistrusted Catherine and been suspicious of her character; it was not without reason, either, that in after times many people highly esteemed Catherine’s kindheartedness.
The history of the court under Peter I, under the empress Anna, and under Elizabeth is full of examples of tyranny, cruelty, and arbitrariness; all Catherine’s contemporaries were astonished at the mildness of her behaviour to those around her and rejoiced at the absence of stiff formalities and hard measures in her intercourse with her subordinates. In spite of her quick temper and impulsiveness, Catherine had complete control over herself, and in her intercourse with her fellow creatures she was governed by principles of humanity. “I like to praise and reward loudly, to blame quietly,” she once justly remarked in conversation with Ségur; she sought to avoid occasions of offending anyone, and was particularly careful in her intercourse with servants; “I will live to make myself not feared,” she once said, observing that the stove-heater, who had deserved reproof for some neglect, avoided meeting her. Often when Catherine had given an order she would make excuses for the trouble and labour it occasioned. Krapovitski gives instances of such solicitude on her part; more than once the empress, when impatient or irritated, having expressed herself somewhat sharply, afterwards acknowledged her hastiness and endeavoured to repair her fault.
It is said that Catherine, who awoke early and usually rose at six in the morning, so valued the tranquillity of her servants that without requiring assistance she dressed herself, lit the fire, and without disturbing anyone sat down to her books and papers. Various anecdotes are to be found in the narratives of contemporaries testifying to her indulgence to her servants and her want of sufficient severity in her intercourse with them. When she was in a passion she turned up her sleeves, walked about the room, drank a glass of water, and deferred judgment. Her capacity for removing any misunderstanding that might have arisen between herself and others was particularly remarkable. In her letters to various great lords we meet with frequent exhortations not to give way to despair but to take courage, to believe in their own capacities, and to hope for success. In moments of danger she knew how to raise the spirits of those around her, inspiring them with firmness and courage.
The distinguishing features of Catherine’s character were gaiety, humour, and an inclination for fun and amusements. She once remarked: “As to the gaiety of character of Frederick the Great, it must be observed that it proceeded from his superiority: was there ever a great man who was not distinguished by his gaiety and who did not possess in himself an inexhaustible store of it.” She took the greatest pleasure in going to masquerades and, while preserving the strictest incognito, talking to various people; she herself related in detail how she had once gone to a masquerade in male attire and had made a declaration of love to a young girl who never suspected that it was the empress talking to her. It must not be regarded as a matter of chance or an act of complaisance that such a multitude of anecdotes testifying to the magnanimity of Catherine have been preserved; many contemporaries who do not unconditionally praise her maintain however that she was capable of listening to unpleasing truths, of recognising her faults and deficiencies, and of restraining her anger. Such assertions are to be met with in Razumovski, Derjavin, Mussin-Pushkin, and Teplov.
Of course traits are not wanting which show her obstinacy, self-will, and arrogance. Derjavin cites several circumstances to prove that in her actions Catherine was often governed by personal considerations and desires rather than the real good of the state and strict justice. It is also not without reason that she is reproached with the fact that, while protesting against the use of tortures and corporal punishment, she allowed full scope to the cruelties of Sheshkovski who frequently with his own hand tortured accused persons in the most atrocious manner; we cannot however determine how far the empress was cognisant of his barbarous treatment. Referring to some instances of arbitrariness and infringement of the law, Prince Sherbatov remarks that the empress held herself above the law and that she thus herself set a pernicious example to the great noblemen and dignitaries who imitated her in this respect.
As to Catherine’s piety, Frederick II plainly accused her of hypocrisy and bigotry. We bear in mind that it was not easy for her to adopt the orthodox faith, but that when she had adopted it she used outward piety as a means of strengthening her position in Russia. By strictly observing the rules of the church, and conscientiously fulfilling her religious duties, she endeavoured to produce a certain impression on her subjects. At the same time she remained true to the principles of toleration preached in the literature of enlightenment. When Voltaire reproached her, saying that she humiliated herself by kissing the priest’s hand, she justified herself by replying that it was only an outward observance which would little by little become obsolete. There is no doubtthat Catherine’s piety did not spring from any deep feeling. In her letters to Grimm, sallies against Luther and the Lutherans are to be met with more than once; she despised Lutherans for their intolerance and several times praised the orthodox faith as the best in the world; she compared it to an oak tree with deep roots.
Side by side with such remarks we meet with bold sallies both from the lips and in the letters of the empress against excessive piety and fanaticism; such are certain caustic remarks referring to Maria Theresa and the queen of Portugal. In certainjeux d’espritwhich she allowed herself in connection with questions of the church and religion in her letters to Grimm, the same rationalism is to be observed as that which distinguished the votaries of French literature of the time. Catherine praised the works of Nicholas Sebaldus Nothanker, especially, because hypocrisy was condemned in them. Deep religious and philosophical questions she did not like; her chief characteristic was a certain worldliness. Her point of view was optimistic and her principal rule of earthly wisdom, gaiety. She did not like to meditate on sad events, to give way to grief, to dwell upon gloomy subjects; and this partly explains her esteem for Voltaire, whom she called the “god of gaiety.” This playfulness and vivacity, this freshness and gaiety she preserved to the end of her life.h
[54]The Swedes were not aware of the fortuitous advantage then offered them by a singular incident. Just before the Russian admiral received orders to weigh, the empress had given the command of a ship to the famous Paul Jones. As soon as the British officers in the Russian service heard of this appointment, they repaired in a body to the admiralty, and announced their determination to quit the squadron to which that pirate had been attached. By this act on their part seven or eight ships were left without officers, until the empress, smothering her resentment, withdrew Paul Jones from the squadron, under pretence of sending him to the Black Sea; but, fearing a repetition of so unpleasant a scene, she contrived to get rid of the daring adventurer altogether.
[54]The Swedes were not aware of the fortuitous advantage then offered them by a singular incident. Just before the Russian admiral received orders to weigh, the empress had given the command of a ship to the famous Paul Jones. As soon as the British officers in the Russian service heard of this appointment, they repaired in a body to the admiralty, and announced their determination to quit the squadron to which that pirate had been attached. By this act on their part seven or eight ships were left without officers, until the empress, smothering her resentment, withdrew Paul Jones from the squadron, under pretence of sending him to the Black Sea; but, fearing a repetition of so unpleasant a scene, she contrived to get rid of the daring adventurer altogether.