Catherine the Great

In the Palace of Facets, Catherine accepted the congratulations of the nobility and the foreign ambassadors. She distributed gifts and honors; Gregory Orlov and his four brothers were created counts; Dashkova became a lady-in-waiting. That night, Moscow glowed with fireworks and special illuminations. At midnight, Catherine—thinking no one would see her—walked alone to the head of the Red Staircase to gaze out over the Kremlin and the city. The crowd, still standing below in Cathedral Square, recognized her and began to cheer. This reaction continued. Three days later, she wrote to the Russian ambassador in Warsaw, “I cannot go out, nor even put my face to the window, without the acclamations beginning all over again.”

The eight and a half months Catherine spent in Moscow after her coronation appeared on the surface to be a prolonged carnival, with the court and the nobility competing in the splendor of their balls and masquerades. It was not an easy time for Catherine, however. Some of her problems were familiar: Princess Dashkova complained that Gregory Orlov, who had been placed in charge of banquet arrangements, had decreed that precedence in all ceremonies be based on military rank. As the wife of a mere colonel, Dashkova was relegated to a subordinate seat among people she considered inferiors. Catherine attempted to remedy this situation by promoting Prince Dashkov to the rank of general, but Dashkova continued to grumble.

Paul was stricken again by fever. It was his third serious illness of the year, and the doctors knew neither the cause nor how to treat it. In early October, her son’s illness became acute, and, as the news spread, Catherine remained beside his bed. She was concerned not only for Paul but for the effect his illness might have on her own future. She never forgot his superior right to the throne; she knew that Panin and others had preferred that she become regent rather than empress; she had seen the warm reception Paul had received from the Moscow crowds as he rode through the streets at her side. If now, only three months after the sudden death of her husband, her son were also to die, she knew that she would be blamed. Her fears were relieved on October 13, when Paul rose from his bed, and she was able to leave Moscow to make the pilgrimage to the Troitsa (Troitskaya-Sergeeva) Monastery expected of every newly crowned Russian sovereign. In the great white-walled fortress, famous throughout Russia as a place of unique holiness, she received a monarch’s blessing.

While Catherine was still in Moscow, another cloud passed over the coronation celebrations. Early in October, the empress learned that there had been loose talk among officers of the the Izmailovsky Guards about restoring the imprisoned Ivan VI to the throne. Alarmed, she ordered Kyril Razumovsky, colonel of the regiment, to investigate, specifying that torture not be used. Fifteen officers were arrested and questioned. The investigtion soon focused on three, who, it turned out, had participated in the coup against Peter III: Ivan and Semyon Gureyev and Peter Khrushchev. Drinking during the coronation celebrations, they had been heard complaining that they had not been rewarded as generously as the Orlovs; for this reason, they said, a real tsar, Ivan VI, should be restored to the throne. The officers also questioned why Grand Duke Paul had been set aside in favor of his foreign mother. Razumovsky, familiar with the behavior of drunken officers, recommended that the guilty men simply be demoted and transferred to other regiments in distant garrisons. Catherine, however, was indignant that this talk had come in the middle of her coronation triumph. She wondered how many others might be grumbling about the Orlovs and talking about the imprisoned “lawful emperor.” She believed the recommended penalties were too light; the investigators attempted to please her by condemning Ivan Gureyev and Khrushchev to death. This judgment went to the Senate for confirmation, but before the matter could go further, Catherine intervened. This time she moderated the sentences, sparing the lives of the condemned men, who were dismissed from the army and exiled. By taking this course, Catherine hoped to make clear that she would not forgive but would measure punishments in proportion to crimes. In this case, she decided, drunken men, venting mostly personal grievances, did not deserve decapitation. Soon enough, jealousy of the Orlovs, and an attempted restoration of Ivan VI, would threaten her with something more challenging than inebriated talk.

46

The Government and the Church