was ready for marriage. Suitable prospects were hastily sought.
Of course, Anna Ivanovna turned her attention first toward what she liked to think of as her homeland, Germany. That land of discipline and virtue was the only place to find husbands and wives worthy of reigning over barbarian Muscovy. Charged with discovering a rara avis amidst the flocks of crowing roosters, Karl Gustav Loewenwolde went out to see what he could see. Upon his return, he recommended either Margrave Charles of Prussia or Prince Anthony Ulrich of Bevern, of the house of Brunswick, brother-in-law of the crown prince in Prussia. Personally, he was inclined in favor of the second candidate, whereas Ostermann, with his special interest in foreign relations, was inclined toward the first. The advantages and disadvantages of the two champions were debated before Anna Ivanovna, without consulting the interested party who would, however, have her word to say, for she was already over the age of 20.
To tell the truth, the empress had only one goal in all this
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The Extravagant Anna political-marital machination: to have her niece bring a child into the world as soon as possible, in order to make it heir to the crown, which would cut short any maneuvers by external parties.
But who would be more likely to impregnate sweet Anna Leopoldovna faster, Charles of Prussia or Prince Anthony Ulrich?
Hesitating, they had Anthony Ulrich brought in to be presented to Her Majesty. One glance was enough for the Empress to evaluate the applicant: a decent young man, polished, weak. Certainly not appropriate for her niece - nor for the country, for that matter. But the omniscient Buhren was anxious to build him up. And time was of the essence, for the girl was not sitting idle, herself.
She had recently fallen in love with Count Charles Maurice of Lynar, Saxon minister at St. Petersburg. Fortunately, the king of Saxony had recalled the diplomat and posted him to another station. Heartbroken, Anna Leopoldovna immediately threw herself into another passion. This time, it was a woman: Baroness Julie Mengden. They quickly became inseparable. How far did they take their intimacy? They were the chief butt of gossip at the court and in the embassies; “a lover’s passion for a new mistress is nothing, compared to this,” noted the English minister Edward Finch.6 On the other hand, the Prussian minister Axel of Mardefeld was more skeptical; he wrote to his king, in French: “Nobody can understand the source of the Grand Duchess’s [Anna Leopoldovna] supernatural attraction to Juliette [Julie Mengden]; so I am not surprised that the public accuses this girl of following the tastes of the famous Sapho… a black calumny,… for the late empress, on similar charges, made this young lady undergo a rigorous examination,… and the commission’s report was favorable in that they found that she is a girl in every part, without any appearance of maleness [sic].”7 Given the danger that this deviant love represented, Anna Ivanovna decided that it was time to take action. A bad marriage
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Terrible Tsarinas would be better than a prolonged delay. As for the virgin’s tender feelings, Her Majesty laughed them off. This little person, whose grace and innocence had charmed her at first, had become annoying over the years; she had become demanding, and had a disappointingly obstinate temperament. Certainly, she had adopted Anna not to make her happy, as she had claimed hundreds of times, but to put more distance between the throne and Tsarevna Elizabeth Petrovna, whom she hated. Anna Leopoldovna’s only value in her eyes was as a smokescreen, a last resort, or a convenient womb to be used. So let her settle for someone like Anthony Ulrich for husband! Even that was too good for an airhead like her!
Despite the fiancee’s tears, the wedding took place on July 14, 1739. The majestic ball that followed the bridal blessing bedazzled even the most bilious diplomats. The bride wore a gown of silver thread, heavily embroidered. A diamond crown shone with the light of a thousand flames in her thick dark hair, with luscious braids. However, she was not the star of the ball. In her fairytale toilette, she looked out of place in this company. Among all the joyful faces, hers was marked by melancholy and resignation. And she was eclipsed by the beauty, the smile and the poise of the Tsarevna Elizabeth Petrovna who, according to protocol, had to be invited to temporarily come out of retirement at Ismailovo. Dressed in a gown of rose and silver, very much decollete, and scintillating with her mother’s jewels (the late Empress Catherine I), it seemed as though it was she, and not the bride, who was enjoying the most wonderful day of her life. Even Anthony Ulrich, the brand new husband so little appreciated by Anna Leopoldovna, had eyes only for the tsarevna, the unwanted guest, whose defeat this ceremony was supposed to confirm.
Obliged to observe her rival’s triumph, hour after hour, the tsarina’s hatred only grew. This creature that she thought she had
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The Extravagant Anna cut down was still rearing its head.
As for Anna Leopoldovna, she suffered like a martyr, knowing she was only a puppet with her aunt pulling the strings.
What distressed her most of all was the prospect of what awaited her in bed, after the candelabra were extinguished and the dancers had dispersed. An expiatory victim, she understood very well that while all these people were pretending to be happy over her good fortune, nobody was in fact concerned about her feelings, nor even her pleasure. She was not there to be happy, but to be inseminated.
When the so-dreaded moment arrived, the highest ladies and the wives of the leading foreign diplomats accompanied Anna Leopoldovna, in procession, to the bridal suite to participate in the traditional “bedding of the bride.” This was not exactly the same ceremony as that which Anna Ivanovna had imposed on her two buffoons, condemned to freeze all night in the “house of ice”; and yet, the effect was the same for the young woman, forcibly married. She was shaken to the bone, not by cold but by fear, at the thought of the sad destiny that awaited her with a man that she did not love. When the ladies in her retinue finally withdrew, she gave in to deep panic and, giving the slip to her chambermaids, she fled to the gardens of the Summer Palace. And there, in tears, she spent the first night of her married life.
Hearing of this scandalous marital truancy, the tsarina and Buhren called in the poor girl and, preaching, reasoning, begging and threatening, demanded that she carry through at the first opportunity. Sequestered in the next room, a few young ladies of honor observed the scene through a crack in the door. At the height of the discussion, they saw the tsarina, flushed with anger, slap her recalcitrant niece full in the face.
The lesson bore fruit: one year later, on August 23, 1740, Anna gave birth to a son. He was immediately baptized as Ivan
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Terrible Tsarinas Antonovich (son of Anthony). The tsarina, who for several months had been suffering from a vague ailment that the doctors were hesitant to put a name to, was suddenly reinvigorated by “the great news.” Transported with joy, she required that all Russia rejoice in this providential birth. As always, accustomed to obey and make believe, her subjects celebrated riotously.
But among them, several prudent thinkers asked themselves by what right a brat of thoroughly German origin (since he was Brunswick-Bevern by his father, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin by his mother), and whose only connection to the Romanov dynasty was through his great-aunt Catherine I, wife of Peter the Great (herself of
