Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

Grand Duchess Natalia and her still-born child lay in state at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. She wore white satin. The foetus, which turned out in the autopsy to be perfectly formed, lay gruesomely at her feet in the open coffin.²³ Serenissimus remained at Tsarskoe Selo with Catherine, Prince Henry and Paul, who was grieving not only for his wife but also for the broken illusion of his marriage. Corberon could not comprehend how both Zavadovsky and Potemkin were with the Empress: ‘the reign of the latter is at its end,’ he crowed, ‘his position as Minister of War already given to Count Alexei Orlov,’ but he worried that Potemkin seemed to be putting a very good face on matters.²⁴ Both Corberon and the British reckoned that Prince Henry was backing Potemkin against the Orlovs, contributing ‘much to the retarding of the removal of Prince Potemkin whom the ribbon [the Black Eagle] has bound to his interests’.

Natalia’s funeral was held on 26 April at the Nevsky Monastery. Potemkin, Zavadovsky and Prince Orlov escorted Catherine – but Paul was too distraught to attend. The diplomats scanned every mannerism of the leading players for political nuance, just as Kremlinologists would later dissect the etiquette and hierarchy at the funerals of Soviet General Secretaries. Then as now, Kremlinologists were frequently wrong. Here, Corberon noticed a telling sign of Potemkin’s falling credit – Ivan Chernyshev, President of the Navy College, gave ‘three big bows’ to Prince Orlov but only ‘a light one to Potemkin who bowed at him incessantly’.

Serenissimus could play the game with secret confidence. He was still in power on 14 June when Prince Henry of Prussia and Grand Duke Paul set off on their uxorious voyage to Berlin. The mission was successful. Paul returned with Sophia of Württemberg – soon, as Grand Duchess Maria Fyodorovna, to be his wife, and mother of two emperors.^*3

Meanwhile Prince Orlov and his brother, scenting blood, were said to be tormenting Potemkin with jokes about his imminent fall. Potemkin did not rise. He knew that, if things went according to plan, their jokes would soon not matter.²⁵ ‘Rumours reach us from Moscow’, Kirill Razumovsky wrote to one of Potemkin’s secretaries, ‘that your chief is beginning to ruin himself by drinking. I don’t believe it and reject it because I think his spirit is stronger than that.’²⁶ Corberon reported Potemkin sinking into ‘decadence’. It was true that Potemkin shamelessly pursued pleasure at times of personal strain – debauch was his way of letting off steam.²⁷ Catherine and Potemkin discussed the future in an exchange of insults and endearments. The doomsayers were right in that these were the days when the foundations of the rest of his career were laid.

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‘Even now,’ the Empress assured him, ‘Catherine is attached to you with her heart and soul.’ A few days later: ‘You cut me all yesterday without any reason…’. Catherine challenged the truth of his feelings for her: ‘Which of us is really sincerely and eternally attached to the other; which of us is indulgent and which of us knows how to forget all offences, insults and oppressions?’ Potemkin was happy one day and then exploded the next – out of jealousy, over-sensitivity or sheer bloody-mindedness. His jealousy, like everything else about him, was inconsistent but he was not the only one who experienced it. Catherine must have asked about another woman and Potemkin rubbed her nose in it. ‘That hurt me,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect, and even now I don’t know why, my curiosity is insulting to you.’²⁸

She demanded his good behaviour in public: ‘The opinion of the silly public depends on your attitude to this affair.’ It is often claimed that Potemkin was now faking his jealousy in order to make his deal while protecting Catherine’s pride as a woman. He suddenly demanded Zavadovsky’s removal. ‘You ask me to remove Zavadovsky,’ she wrote. ‘My glory suffers very much from this request…Don’t ask for injustices, close your ears to gossip, respect my words. Our peace will be restored.’²⁹ They were getting closer to an understanding, yet they must have decided to be apart like a couple who know they must not prolong the agony by constant proximity. Between 21 May and 3 June, Potemkin was not registered at Court.

On 20 May, Zavadovsky emerged as Catherine’s official favourite, according to Oakes, and received a present of 3,000 souls. On the anniversary of the accession, he was promoted to major-general, receiving another 20,000 roubles and 1,000 souls. But now Potemkin did not mind. The storm was over: Potemkin was letting her settle down to her relationship with Zavadovsky because husband and wife had finally settled each other’s fears and demands. ‘Matushka,’ he thanked her, ‘this is the real fruit of your kind treatment of me during the last few days. I see your inclination to treat me well…’.