Memoirs of the Empress Catherine II. Empress of Russia Catherine II
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still more certain was it that that servant would be turned away.
Her relations with the Grand Duke were monstrous, degrading. He made her the confidante of his amorous intrigues. Drunk from the age of ten, he came one night in liquor to entertain his wife with a description of the graces and charms of the daughter of Biren; and as Catherine pretended to be asleep, he gave her a punch with his fist to awaken her. This booby kept a kennel of dogs, which infested the air, at the side of his wife’s bed-chamber, and hung rats in his own, to punish them according to the rules of martial law.
Nor is this all. After having wounded and outraged nearly every feeling of this young creature’s nature, they began to deprave her systematically. The Empress regards as a breach of order her having no children. Madame Tchoglokoff speaks to her on the subject, insinuating that, for the good of the state, she ought to sacrifice her scruples, and concludes by proposing to her a choice between Soltikoff and Narichkine. The young lady affects simplicity and takes both—nay, Poniatowsky into the bargain, and thus was commenced a career of licentiousness in which she never halted during the space of forty years.
What renders the present publication of serious consequence to the imperial house of Russia is, that it proves not only that this house does not belong to the family of Romanoff, but that it does not even belong to that of Holstein Gottorp. The avowal of Catherine on this point is very explicit—the father of the Emperor Paul is Sergius Soltikoff.
The Imperial Dictatorship of Russia endeavours in vain to represent itself as traditional and secular.
One word before I close.
In perusing these Memoirs, the reader is astonished to find one thing constantly lost sight of, even to the extent of not appearing anywhere—it is Russia and the People. And here is the characteristic trait of the epoch.
The Winter Palace, with its military and administrative machinery, was a world of its own. Like a ship floating on the surface of the ocean, it had no real connection with the inhabitants of the deep, beyond that of eating them. It was the State for the State. Organized on the German model, it imposed itself on the nation as a conqueror. In that monstrous barrack, in that enormous chancery, there reigned the cold rigidity of a camp. One set gave or transmitted orders, the rest obeyed in silence. There was but one single spot within that dreary pile in which human passions reappeared, agitated and stormy, and that spot was the domestic hearth; not that of the nation—but of the state. Behind that triple line of sentinels, in those heavily ornamented saloons, there fermented a feverish life, with its intrigues and its conflicts, its dramas and its tragedies. It was there that the destinies of Russia were woven, in the gloom of the alcove, in the midst of orgies, beyond the reach of informers and of the police.
What interest, then, could the young German Princess take in that magnum ignotum, that people unexpressed, poor, semi-barbarous, which concealed itself in its villages, behind the snow, behind bad roads, and only appeared in the streets of St. Petersburg like a foreign outcast, with its persecuted beard, and prohibited dress—tolerated only through contempt.
It was only long afterwards that Catherine heard the Russian people seriously spoken of, when the Cossack Pougatcheff, at the head of an army of insurgent peasants, menaced Moscow.
When Pougatcheff was vanquished, the Winter Palace again forgot the people. And there is no telling when it would have been again remembered had it not itself put its masters in mind of its existence, by rising in mass in 1812, rejecting, on the one hand, the release from serfdom offered to it at the point of foreign bayonets, and, on the other, marching to death to save a country which gave it nothing but slavery, degradation, misery—and the oblivion of the Winter Palace.
This was the second memento of the Russian people. Let us hope that at the third it will be remembered a little longer.
A. HERZEN.
London, November 15th, 1858.
MEMOIRS
OF THE
EMPRESS CATHERINE II.
WRITTEN BY HERSELF.
PART I.
FROM 1729, THE YEAR OF HER BIRTH, TO 1751.
FORTUNE is not so blind as people think. Her movements are often the result of precise and well-planned measures, which escape the perception of common minds; still oftener are they the result of personal qualities, character, and conduct.
To render this more evident, I will propose the following syllogism:
Qualities and character shall form the major
Conduct, the minor;
Good or evil fortune, the conclusion.
Here are two striking illustrations:
Peter III.
Catherine II.
Peter III, his Father and Mother.
The mother of Peter III was a daughter of Peter I. Two months after the birth of her son she died of consumption, in the little town of Kiel, in Holstein, a victim to grief at finding herself established in such a place and married so badly. Charles Frederic, Duke of Holstein, nephew of Charles XII, King of Sweden, was the father of Peter III. He was a weak prince, ugly, little, sickly, and poor (see the Journal of Berkholz, in Busching’s Magazine). He died in 1739, leaving his son, not quite eleven years old, under the guardianship of his cousin, Adolphus Frederic, Bishop of Lubeck and Duke of Holstein, since elected King of Sweden, in consequence of the peace of Abo, and the recommendation of the Empress Elizabeth. The education of Peter III was placed under the superintendence of the Grand Marshal of his Court, Brummer, a Swede by birth, under whom were the Great Chamberlain Berkholz, author of the journal just alluded to, and four chamberlains, two of whom, Adlerfeldt, author of a history of Charles XII, and Wachmeister, were Swedes, and the other two, Wolff and Madfeldt, natives of Holstein. The Prince was educated for the throne of Sweden, in a court too large for the country which contained it; and this court was divided into several factions mutually hating each other, each seeking to obtain an ascendancy over the mind of the Prince, instead of endeavouring to form his character, and all bent upon inspiring him with an aversion for those opposed to them. The young Prince cordially hated Brummer; nor did he like any of his attendants, because they kept him under restraint.
Even from the ago of ten, Peter III showed a fondness for drink. He had to submit to numerous presentations, and was never out of sight night or day. The persons he most liked during his childhood and the first years of his residence in Russia were two old valets de chambre—Cramer, a Livonian, and Roumberg, a Swede. The latter was the favourite; he was a somewhat rough and vulgar person, who had been a dragoon under Charles XII. Brummer, and consequently Berkholz, who only saw with the eyes of Brummer, was attached to the Prince Guardian and Administrator; all the rest were dissatisfied with this Prince, and still more so with his adherents.
When the Empress Elizabeth ascended the throne of Russia, she sent the Chamberlain Korf into Holstein to demand her nephew. In consequence, the Prince Administrator immediately sent him off, accompanied by the Grand Marshal Brummer, the Chamberlain Berkholz, and the Chamberlain Decken, nephew of the former. The Empress received the Prince with great joy, and soon after his arrival set out for Moscow to be crowned. She had determined to declare him her heir; but, first of all, it was indispensable that he should be received into the Greek church. The enemies of the Grand Marshal Brummer, and particularly the Great Chamberlain Count Bestoujeff and the Count M. Panin, who was for a long time Russian minister in Sweden, pretended to have in their possession convincing proofs that Brummer, from the moment he found the Empress determined to declare her nephew heir presumptive to her throne, took as much pains to corrupt the mind