Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

Catherine wrote passionately to her ‘King of Epirus: ‘my impatience to see the one who for me is the best of God’s creatures is so great: I longed for him more than 24 hours and have gone to meet him.’ Or as Harris put it drily: ‘Korsakov enjoys all the affection and favour which attend novelty.’ Korsakov was certainly enjoying his role, perhaps too much: Potemkin suggested that he should be made gentleman of the bedchamber, but Korsakov wanted to jump straight to chamberlain. When the mignon got his way, Catherine gave Pavel Potemkin the honour as well, to compensate Serenissimus. Soon Korsakov was a major-general; the King of Poland sent him the Golden Eagle, which he always wore. Catherine’s hunger for Korsakov sings through the letters. She sounded pathetically grateful, writing: ‘Thank you for loving me.’²⁵

There were already ominous signs which the Empress alone could not, or would not, see. Even in her letters, Korsakov never seemed to be with her and she never seemed to know where he was. Here is a glimpse of her suffocating neediness and his avoidance of her companionship: ‘I’m unable to forget you for a moment. When will I see you?’ Soon she sounded almost feverish: ‘If he doesn’t come back soon, I’ll run away from here and go looking for him in every place in town.’ It was this emotional appetite that ruled Catherine and made her surprisingly vulnerable – the Achilles’ heel of this otherwise indestructible political machine.²⁶

It was not long before Catherine, hooked on the shallow youngster, was upset again. In early August 1778, just a few months after Korsakov’s appointment, Harris reported to London that the new favourite was already in decline and that Potemkin, Grigory Orlov and Nikita Panin were each struggling to sponsor the replacement. Within a couple of weeks, he even knew ‘the secret in Count Panin’s office by name Strackhov…first noticed at a ball at Peterhof on 28 June’. If the connection lasted, Harris told his Secretary of State for the North, the Earl of Suffolk, ‘it must end in the fall of Potemkin’. By the end of the year, Harris decided that Korsakov was safe again but ‘entirely subservient to the orders of Prince Potemkin and Countess Bruce’.

The mention of Countess Bruce was ominous. By the end of January, the candidates for favourite were multiplying: there was still Strackhov, whose ‘friends were in great hope’, but then there was also Levashev, a major in the Semenovsky Guards, who might have become favourite ‘if a young man by name Svickhosky, patronised by Madame Bruce…had not stabbed himself through disappointment. The wound is not mortal.’ These rumours of Catherine’s affairs were often based on a whisper of gossip which had little foundation, but the diplomatic scandal-mongering signified intense political struggles at Court, even if it was not necessarily what was happening in the imperial bedchamber. Nonetheless Harris was better informed than most because of his friendship with Potemkin. By this time, even a new diplomat in town like Harris knew that Countess Bruce had returned to her ‘violent passion for Korsakov’.

The whole of Petersburg, except sadly the Empress herself, must have been aware that Countess Bruce had only restrained herself from Korsakov for a short time. Since both lived in the Palace only a few yards from the Empress’s bedroom, they conducted their liaison right under Catherine’s nose. Small wonder that the Empress was always looking for the favourite. Countess Bruce, the same age as Catherine and formerly a courtier of discretion and experience, must have lost her head to the beauties of the ‘King of Epirus’.²⁷ Serenissimus and Countess Bruce fell out at this time, possibly over Korsakov. Potemkin, who would have known about the affair almost as soon as it started, wanted to remove Bruce. He must have tried to hint about it delicately to the Empress earlier in September. They rowed. The diplomats thought it was because he was jealous of Panin’s candidate Strackhov.²⁸

The Prince, who did not wish to hurt the Empress nor again lose credit for trying to help, decided to fix the matter. When the Empress was looking around the Palace for the elusive Korsakov, someone loyal to Potemkin would direct her towards a certain room. This person was probably Potemkin’s favourite niece, Alexandra Engelhardt, who was a maid-of-honour. Harris would have heard this story from Alexandra herself since she was the secret recipient of English money.²⁹ Catherine surprised her lover and Countess Bruce in a compromising position, if not in flagrante delicto. There ended the short reign of ‘silly’ Korsakov.

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