Catherine the Great

Frederick II was anxious to see the little princess from Zerbst in order to judge for himself how she might be received in St. Petersburg. On arriving in Berlin, however, Johanna, either because she feared that Sophia might fail to measure up to the king’s expectations or because she simply could not imagine that Frederick’s interest would be more in her daughter than in herself, rushed immediately to present herself at court—alone. When Frederick asked about Sophia, Johanna said that her daughter was ill. The next day she offered the same excuse; pressed, she said that her daughter could not be presented at court because she had brought no court dress. Losing patience, Frederick ordered that a gown belonging to one of his sisters be provided and that Sophia come immediately.

When at last Sophia appeared before him, Frederick saw a girl neither plain nor beautiful, wearing a gown that did not fit, adorned with no jewelry, her hair unpowdered. Sophia’s shyness turned to surprise when she learned that she—but neither her mother nor her father—was to sit at the king’s table. Surprise turned into astonishment when she found herself actually sitting next to the monarch himself. Frederick made an effort to put the nervous girl at ease. He spoke to her, she wrote later, about “opera, plays, poetry, dancing and I don’t know what, but anyway a thousand things that one usually does not talk about to entertain a girl of fourteen.” Gradually gaining confidence, Sophia managed to answer intelligently and, she proudly said later, “the entire company stared in amazement to see the king engaged in conversation with a child.” Frederick was pleased with her; when he asked her to pass a dish of jam to another guest, he smiled and said to this person, “Accept this gift from the hand of the Loves and Graces.” For Sophia, the evening was a triumph. And Frederick was not indulging his young dinner partner; to Empress Elizabeth he wrote, “The little princess of Zerbst combines the gaiety and spontaneity natural to her age with intelligence and wit surprising in one so young.” Sophia was then only a political pawn, but one day, he knew, she might play a greater role. She was fourteen and he was thirty-two, and this was the first and only meeting of these two remarkable monarchs. Both would eventually be accorded the title “the Great.” And between them, for decades, they would dominate the history of central and eastern Europe.

Despite the public attention Frederick paid to Sophia, the king’s private business was with her mother. It was Frederick’s plan that in St. Petersburg Johanna should become an unofficial Prussian diplomatic agent. Thus, quite apart from the long-term advantage of marrying Sophia to the heir to the Russian throne, Johanna, being close to the Russian empress, would be able to exercise an influence on Prussia’s behalf. He explained to her about Bestuzhev and his policies. He emphasized that as a sworn enemy of Prussia, the vice-chancellor would do everything in his power to prevent Sophia’s marriage. If for no other reason than this, the king insisted, it was in Johanna’s interest to do everything she could to undermine Bestuzhev’s position.

It was not difficult for Frederick to fire Johanna’s enthusiasm. The secret mission entrusted to her delighted her. She was no longer traveling to Russia as a secondary personage, her daughter’s chaperone, but as the central figure of a great diplomatic enterprise: the toppling of an imperial chancellor. Carried away, Johanna lost her bearings. She forgot her oft-proclaimed gratitude and devotion to Elizabeth; forgot the advice of her earnest, provincial husband that she take no part in politics; and forgot that the real purpose of her journey was to escort her daughter to Russia.

On Friday, January 16, Sophia left Berlin with her mother and father in a little procession of four coaches. In accordance with Brümmer’s instructions, the small group going to Russia was limited in number: the two princesses, one officer, a lady-in-waiting, two maids, a valet, and a cook. As arranged, Johanna was traveling under the assumed name Countess Reinbeck. Fifty miles east of Berlin, at Schwest on the Oder River, Prince Christian Augustus said goodbye to his daughter. Both wept on parting; they were not aware that they would never see each other again. Sophia’s feelings about her father, although formally expressed, shine through a letter she wrote two weeks later from Königsberg. She makes a promise that she knows will please him: that she will try to fulfill his wish that she remain a Lutheran.