Catherine the Great

“That is true,” Evreinov replied, “and the grand duke can do as he wishes, but it is not the same with you. What you call loyalty and affection because this young man is faithful to you, your entourage believes is love.”

When he spoke this word, “which I had not even imagined,” Catherine says, she was struck “as if by a thunderbolt.” Evreinov told her that, in order to avoid further gossip, he had already advised Chernyshev to plead illness and take a leave of absence from court. And, indeed, Andrei Chernyshev had already departed. Peter, who had been told nothing of this, was concerned about his friend’s “illness” and spoke of it worriedly to Catherine.

Eventually, when Andrei Chernyshev reappeared at court a month later, he caused a moment of danger for Catherine. During one of Peter’s concerts in which he himself played the violin, Catherine, who hated music in general and her husband’s efforts in particular, retreated to her room just off the Great Hall of the Summer Palace. The ceiling of this hall was being repaired, and the space was filled with scaffolding and workmen. Opening the door of her apartment into the hall, she was surprised to see Andrei Chernyshev standing not far away. She beckoned to him. Apprehensively, he came to her door. She said something meaningless. He replied, “I cannot speak to you like this. There is too much noise in the hall. Let me come into your room.”

“No,” Catherine said, “that is something I cannot do.” Nevertheless, she continued talking to him for five minutes through the half-opened door. Then, a premonition made her turn her head and she saw, standing and watching from inside her own room, Peter’s chamberlain, Count Devier.

“The grand duke is asking for you, Madame,” Devier said. Catherine closed the door on Chernyshev and walked with Devier back to the concert. The following day, the two remaining Chernyshevs vanished from court. Catherine and Peter were told that they had been posted to distant regiments; subsequently they learned that, in fact, they had been placed under house arrest.

The Chernyshev affair had two immediate consequences for the young couple. The lesser was that the empress commanded Father Todorsky to question husband and wife separately about their relationship with the young men. Todorsky asked Catherine whether she had ever kissed one of the Chernyshevs.

“No, my father,” she replied.

“Then why has the empress been informed to the contrary?” he asked. “The empress has been told that you gave a kiss to Andrei Chernyshev.”

“That is slander, my father. It is not true,” said Catherine. Her sincerity apparently convinced Todorsky, who muttered to himself, “What wicked people!” He reported this conversation to the empress, and Catherine heard no more about it.

But the Andrei Chernyshev affair, although lacking in substance, had lodged in the empress’s mind, and it played a part in what happened next, something more significant and long-lasting. On the afternoon the Chernyshevs disappeared, a new chief governess, senior to Madame Krause, appeared. The arrival of this woman to rule over Catherine and her daily life marked the beginning of seven years of harassment, oppression, and misery.

16

A Watchdog

ELIZABETH STILL NEEDED an heir, and she was perplexed, resentful, and angry that no child was on the way. By May 1746, eight months had passed since the marriage, and there were no signs of a pregnancy. Elizabeth suspected disrespect, unwillingness, even faithlessness. She blamed Catherine.

For the chancellor, Bestuzhev, the problem was different. At issue was not only the matter of an unsuccessful marriage that had produced no child but also Russia’s diplomatic future. This was Bestuzhev’s sphere, and to keep and use the power he needed, he encouraged Elizabeth’s suspicion and whipped up her resentments. Personally, he, too, was concerned about the young couple: he was alarmed by Peter’s opinions and behavior, and he mistrusted Johanna’s daughter, whom he suspected of conspiring secretly with Frederick of Prussia. Because Peter openly admired Frederick, Bestuzhev could scarcely help fearing the accession of such a sovereign to the Russian throne. As for Catherine, the chancellor had always opposed the German grand duke’s marriage to a German princess. Accordingly, the young couple and the young court must not be permitted to become an alternative power center, an independent political body made up of faithful friends and loyal partisans; this happened often enough in kingdoms with independent-thinking heirs to thrones. To prevent it, Bestuzhev employed two tactics: first, the isolation of the young couple from the outside world, and, second, the placement of a powerful, vigilant watchdog inside the young court to watch every move and overhear every word.