Catherine the Great

Soon afterward, Catherine and Madame Choglokova clashed over a matter in which Shkurin played a critical role. From Paris, Princess Johanna, Catherine’s mother, had sent her daughter two pieces of beautiful cloth. Catherine was admiring these fabrics in her dressing room in the presence of Shkurin when she let slip that they were so beautiful that she was tempted to present them as a gift to the empress. She waited for an opportunity to speak to the monarch; she wanted the fabric to be a personal present and she wanted to hand it to Elizabeth herself. She specifically forbade Shkurin to repeat to anyone what she had said in his hearing. He immediately ran to Madame Choglokova to report what he had heard. A few days later, the governess came to Catherine and said that the empress thanked her for the fabrics; that Elizabeth was keeping one and sending the other back to the grand duchess to keep. Catherine was dumbfounded. “How is this, Madame Choglokova?” she asked. Madame Choglokova replied that she had been told that Catherine meant the fabrics to go to the empress and so she had brought them to her. Catherine, stammering so badly that she could hardly speak, managed to tell Madame Choglokova that she had looked forward to presenting the empress with these fabrics herself. She reminded Madame Choglokova that the governess could not possibly have known her intentions because she had not spoken of them to her, and said that if Madame Choglokova was aware of what she planned, it was only from the mouth of a treacherous servant. Madame Choglokova replied that Catherine knew that she was not permitted to speak directly to the empress and that she also knew that her servants had orders to report to her, Madame Choglokova, everything Catherine said in their presence. Consequently, her servant had only done his duty, and she hers by bringing the fabrics to the empress. In short, Madame Choglokova declared, everything had been done according to the rules. Catherine was unable to reply; her fury left her speechless.

When Madame Choglokova departed, Catherine rushed to the little antechamber where Shkurin spent his mornings. Finding him there, she slapped him with all her strength and told him that he was an ungrateful traitor for having dared to report to Madame Choglokova what she had forbidden him to speak about. She reminded him that she had showered him with gifts; still he had betrayed her. Shkurin fell to his knees, begging forgiveness. Catherine was touched by his remorse and told him that his future conduct would determine her treatment of him. In the days that followed, Catherine complained loudly to everyone about Madame Choglokova’s behavior, intending that the matter reach the empress’s ears. Apparently it did and, eventually, when Elizabeth saw the grand duchess, the empress thanked her for her present.

*Curiously, a similar “little imperfection” afflicted the sixteen-year-old French dauphin, the future King Louis XVI, at the time of his marriage in 1770 to the fifteen-year-old Austrian archduchess Marie Antoinette. This continued to be the case for the next seven years. Finally, in 1777, Louis was circumcised and a son was conceived.

27

Saltykov

IN SEPTEMBER 1751, the empress assigned three young noblemen as gentlemen-in-waiting to Grand Duke Peter. One, Lev Naryshkin, came from the family that had produced Natalya Naryshkina, the mother of Peter the Great. Lev himself was an amiable, quick-witted wag whom everybody liked and no one took seriously; Catherine described him as someone who made her laugh more than anyone else in her life.

He was a born clown and if not of noble birth, he could have made a fortune as a comic actor. He was witty and had heard all the gossip. He had a wide superficial knowledge of almost everything and was able to talk continuously in technical terms on any given art or science for a quarter of an hour. At the end, neither he nor anyone could make any sense of the stream of words flowing from his mouth and everyone simply burst out laughing.

The other two were the Saltykov brothers, sons of one of the oldest and noblest families in Russia. Their father was an aide-de-camp to the empress; their mother was cherished by the empress for her devotion during Elizabeth’s seizure of the throne in 1740. Peter, the older of the brothers, was a lout whom Catherine describes as “a fool in every sense of the word. He had the stupidest face I have ever seen: a pair of big, staring eyes, a flat nose, and a gaping mouth, always half open. He was a notorious gossip and, as such, on excellent terms with the Choglokovs.”