Catherine the Great & Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair

First he was jealous of Vassilchikov. Now Catherine gave him the satisfaction of negotiating the terms of departure – or pay-off for ‘Iced Soup’. ‘I am handing over the question of deciding to someone far cleverer than me…I ask you to be moderate.’ Her letter gives us a fascinating glimpse into her generosity: ‘I will not give him more than two villages,’ she informed Potemkin. ‘I have given him money four times but I don’t remember how much. I think it was 60,000…’. Potemkin along with his ex-host Yelagin arranged a most generous deal for Vassilchikov, though it was positively meagre compared to what was given to his successors. Vassilchikov, who had already left the Winter Palace to stay with his brother, now received a fully decorated mansion, 50,000 roubles for setting up house, 5,000 roubles a year pension, villages, tableware, linen and a twenty-place silver service, no doubt including bowls for frozen soup. Poor ‘kept’ Vassilchikov humiliatingly had to ‘bow low’ and thank Potemkin – but he had reason to be grateful.⁴⁸ This was an early example of Potemkin’s lack of personal or political vindictiveness. However, he remained tortured by the inherent humiliation of his own position: Catherine could dispense with him as she had dispensed with Iced Soup.

‘No Grishenka,’ she replied in French after a row, ‘it is impossible for me to change as far as you are concerned. You must be fair to yourself: can one love anybody after having known you? I think there is not a man in the world that could equal you. All the more so since my heart is constant by nature and I will say even more: generally, I do not like change.’ She was sensitive about her reputation for ‘wantonness’:

When you know me better you will respect me for I assure you I am respectable. I am very truthful, I love truth, I hate changes, I suffered horribly in the last two years, I burned my fingers, I will not return to that…I am very happy. If you go on letting yourself be upset by this sort of gossip, do you know what I shall do? Lock myself up in my room and see no one but you. When necessary I could do something that extreme and I love you beyond myself.⁴⁹

Her patience was saintly but not inexhaustible: ‘If your silly bad temper has left you, kindly let me know for it seems to persist. Since I’ve given you no reason for such tenacious anger, it seems to me that it has gone on far too long. Unfortunately, it is only I who find it too long, for you are a cruel Tartar!’⁵⁰

Their relationship thrived on his wild mood swings, but they were very exhausting. Somehow his appalling behaviour seemed to keep him Catherine’s respect and love, even though his moods were openly manipulative. Catherine was excited by his passions and complimented by his jealousy, but, lacking restraint, he sometimes went too far. He threatened to kill any rivals for her heart. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ she ticked him off. ‘Why did you say that anyone who takes your place would die? It is impossible to compel the heart by threats…I must admit there is some tenderness in your misgivings…I’ve burned my fingers with the fool [Vassilchikov]. I feared…the habit of him would make me unhappy and shorten my life…Now you can read my heart and soul. I am opening them to you sincerely and if you don’t feel it and see it, then you’re unworthy of the great passion you have aroused in me.’⁵¹

Potemkin demanded to know everything. He claimed there had been fifteen lovers before him. This was a rare example of an empress being accused of low morals to her face. But Catherine hoped to settle his jealousies with what she called ‘A sincere confession’. This is a most extraordinary document for any age. The modern feminine tone belongs in our confessional twenty-first century, the worldly and practical morals in the eighteenth. The sentiments of romance and honesty are timeless. For an empress to explain her sex life like this is without parallel. She discussed her four lovers before him – Saltykov, Poniatowski, Orlov and Vassilchikov. She regretted Saltykov and Vassilchikov. Potemkin appeared as the giant hero, the ‘bogatr’ that he so resembled: ‘Now, Sir Hero, after this confession, may I hope that I will receive forgiveness for my sins? As you will be pleased to see, there is no question of fifteen but only a third of that figure of which the first [Saltykov] occurred unwillingly and the fourth [Vassilchikov] out of despair, which cannot be counted as indulgence; as to the other three, God is my witness, they were not due to debauchery for which I have no inclination. If in my youth I had been given a husband whom I could love, I would have remained eternally faithful to him.’