Catherine the Great

WHILE SOPHIA AND HER MOTHER waited, Peter suddenly appeared. “I could wait no longer,” he declared in German with an exaggerated smile. His enthusiasm seemed genuine, however, and both Sophia and her mother were pleased. As he stood before them, nervously fidgeting, Sophia looked carefully at the future husband whom she had seen only once before, as a boy of ten. Now, at fifteen, he was still unusually short and thin, and his features—pale face, wide mouth, sharply receding chin—had not changed greatly since she had seen him five years before. The warmth of his greeting might be explained by the fact that she was a cousin near his own age, someone with whom he could speak German and who had shared, and therefore understood, the background from which he had come. He may have believed that this little cousin would become his ally in resisting the demands that Russia was making on him. Walking back and forth, talking incessantly, he stopped only when Dr. Lestocq arrived to say that the empress was ready to receive them. Peter offered his arm to Johanna, a lady-in-waiting gave hers to Sophia, and they passed through a succession of candlelit halls, filled with people bowing and curtsying. At last, they reached the portal of the imperial apartments, and the double doors were flung open. Before them stood Elizabeth, empress of Russia.

Sophia and her mother were dazzled. Elizabeth was tall, with a full, rounded figure. She had large, brilliant blue eyes, a broad forehead, a full mouth, red lips, white teeth, and a clear, rosy complexion. Her hair, naturally blond, now was dyed a luxuriant black. She was dressed in an immense, hoop-skirted gown of silver trimmed with gold lace, and her hair, neck, and ample bosom were covered with diamonds. The effect of this woman, standing before her in a blaze of silver, gold embroidery, and jewels, was overwhelming. And Sophia still managed to notice and would always remember a particular crowning touch: a black feather standing upright from her hair on one side of her head, then curving to cover part of her face.

Johanna, remembering Brümmer’s advice, kissed Elizabeth’s hand and stammered her thanks for the favors showered on her and her daughter. Elizabeth embraced her and said, “All that I have done for you so far is nothing compared to what I shall do for your family in the future. My own blood is not dearer to me than yours.” When Elizabeth turned to Sophia, the fourteen-year-old bowed from the waist and curtsied. Elizabeth, smiling, noticed the girl’s freshness, intelligence, and discreet, submissive manner. Sophia meanwhile had made her own judgment, and, thirty years later, she wrote, “It was quite impossible on seeing her for the first time not to be astonished by her beauty and the majesty of her bearing.” Here, in this woman covered with jewels and radiating power, she saw the embodiment of what she hoped someday to become.

The next day was Peter’s sixteenth birthday. The empress, appearing in a brown dress embroidered with silver, “her head, neck, and bosom covered with jewels,” presented both mother and daughter with the Order of St. Catherine. Alexis Razumovsky, costumed as Master of the Hunt, bore the ribbons and insignia of the order on a golden plate. As he approached, Sophia passed another judgment: Razumovsky, the official lover, the “Emperor of the Night,” was, in Sophia’s words, “one of the most handsome men I have seen in my life.” Again, Elizabeth was in an excellent humor. Smiling broadly, she beckoned Sophia and Johanna and hung the ribbon of the order around their necks.

The empress’s display of warmth to Johanna and Sophia came from something deeper than her satisfaction that a promising political marriage seemed in the offing. Elizabeth had not had children. Two years before, she had reached out to her sister’s child, Peter, brought him to Russia, and made him her heir. But Peter had not responded to the kind of maternal love she had tried to give. Now she had chosen for him a bride who was the niece of the man she had loved. Alone on her throne, the empress of Russia was hoping to create around herself a family.

Johanna perceived the empress’s welcome as a part of her own political triumph. She found herself at the center of a glittering court, favored by a monarch whose generosity was legendary. Mother and daughter were given their own household, with chamberlains, ladies- and gentlemen-in-waiting, and a staff of lesser servants. “We are living like queens,” Johanna wrote to her husband. “Everything is bedecked, inlaid with gold, wonderful. We drive out in marvelous style.”