Catherine the Great

This was only the first planned change. Catherine heard that the empress planned to appoint Countess Rumyantseva to replace Maria Choglokova. Knowing that this woman disliked Sergei Saltykov, Catherine went to Alexander Shuvalov, the new watchdog, and told him that she did not want Countess Rumyantseva near her. In the past, she said, the countess had harmed her mother by criticizing Johanna to the empress; now she feared she would do the same to her. Shuvalov, not wishing to be responsible for any potential harm to the child Catherine was carrying, said that he would do what he could. He went to the empress and returned to say that Countess Rumyantseva would not become the new governess. Instead, the post was to be given to his own wife, Countess Shuvalova.

Neither Shuvalov was popular with the young court. Catherine described them as “ignorant, ignoble people.” Although the Shuvalovs were wealthy, their taste ran to the miserly; the countess was thin, short, and stiff; Catherine called her “a pillar of salt.” Catherine also stood back from the countess because of a discovery she had made after the palace fire of November 1753 in Moscow. Some of Countess Shuvalova’s belongings, saved from the fire, had been mistakenly delivered to the grand duchess. Examining them, Catherine discovered that “Countess Shuvalova’s petticoats were lined with leather because she was incontinent. As a result, the odor of urine permeated all her under-clothing. I sent them back to her as quickly as possible.”

In May, when the court left Moscow to return to St. Petersburg, to protect her pregnancy, Catherine traveled slowly. Her carriage was drawn at a walk, moving each day only from one relay station to the next and taking a total of twenty-nine days on the road. In the carriage were Countess Shuvalova, Madame Vladislavova, and a midwife, assigned to be always nearby. Catherine arrived in St. Petersburg suffering from “a depression I could no longer control. At every minute, and on every occasion, I was ready to cry. A thousand preoccupations filled my mind. The worst was that I could not get it out of my head that everything pointed to the removal of Sergei Saltykov.” She went to Peterhof and took long walks, “but my troubles followed me relentlessly.” In August, she returned to St. Petersburg, where she was dismayed to learn that the two rooms in the Summer Palace being prepared for her labor and delivery were actually inside the empress’s own suite. When Count Shuvalova took her to see the rooms, she realized that because they were so close to Elizabeth’s, Saltykov would be unable to visit her. She would be “isolated, with no company.”

Her installation in this apartment was planned for a Wednesday. At two o’clock that morning she was awakened by labor pains. The midwife confirmed that Catherine was going into labor. She was placed on a traditional labor bed: a hard mattress on the floor. The grand duke was awakened; Count Alexander Shuvalov was notified, and he informed the empress. Elizabeth swept in and settled down to wait. A difficult labor lasted until noon the following day. On September 20, 1754, Catherine gave birth to a son.

Elizabeth, who had waited so long, was exultant. As soon as the infant had been bathed and swaddled, she called in her confessor, who gave the baby a name, Paul, which had been the name of the first child born to her mother, Catherine I, and her father, Peter the Great. Then the empress departed, commanding the midwife to pick up the new baby and follow. Peter also walked out of the room, and Catherine was left on the floor, with only Madame Vladislavova as company. She was bathed in sweat, and she begged Madame Vladislavova to change her linen and put her back in her own bed, which was two steps away but “to which I had not the strength to crawl.” Madame Vladislavova declared that, without the midwife’s permission, she did not dare. Catherine asked for water to drink and received the same response. Madame Vladislavova sent several times for the midwife to come and authorize these requests, but the woman did not come. Three hours later, Countess Shuvalova arrived. When she saw Catherine still lying in the labor bed, she said that this neglect could kill a new mother. She left immediately to find the midwife; the woman arrived half an hour later, explaining that the empress had been so preoccupied with the child that she would not allow her leave to attend to Catherine. Finally, Catherine was placed in her own bed.

She did not see the baby for almost a week. She could get news of him only furtively because to ask about him would have been interpreted as doubting the empress’s ability to care for him. The infant had been installed in Elizabeth’s bedroom, and whenever he cried, the monarch rushed to him herself. What Catherine heard—and later saw for herself—was that