In fact, while the Empress condemned her former chancellor, she also wished that he could get away with nothing more than a serious fright and the loss of some privileges. Was this excess of forgiveness due to her age and fatigue, or to the memories of a life of struggle and vice? She decided that this man, who had worked at her side for so long, merited a half-hearted punishment rather than a crushing conviction. Once more, she would be lauded as “the Lenient.” Her moderate action against Bestuzhev was all the more meritorious since the other members of the “Anglo-Prussian plot” appeared to have no excuse at all. She maintained a stony countenance when the Grand Duke Peter threw himself at her feet, swearing that he had had nothing to do with these political shenanigans and that Bestuzhev and Catherine alone were guilty of fraud and treason. Disgusted by the baseness of her nephew, Elizabeth sent him to his apartments, without a word. For her, Peter no longer counted. Or existed.
Her attitude was quite the opposite when it came to the “indescribable” conduct of her daughter-in-law. To clear herself, Catherine sent her a long letter, written in Russian; she confided that she was distraught, protested that she was innocent, and beseeched her to allow her to leave for Germany, to go back to her mother and to pray at her father’s graveside (he having recently passed away). The idea of voluntary exile for the grand duchess appeared so absurd and so inappropriate in the current circumstances that Elizabeth did not even reply. She chose to punish Catherine by depriving her of her best chambermaid, Miss Vladislavov. This new blow completely demolished the young
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Her Majesty and Their Imperial Highnesses woman. Consumed by sorrow and fear, she took to bed and refused any food, claiming to be sick in heart and body; on the verge of inanition, she adamantly refused to be examined by a doctor.
She begged the obliging Alexander Shuvalov to call a priest to hear her confession. Father Dubiansky, personal chaplain of the tsarina, was alerted. Having received the grand duchess’s confession and contrition, he promised to plead her cause with Her Majesty. In a visit to his Majestic penitent, the priest painted such a picture of her daughter-in-law’s pain (a daughter-in-law, after all, who could only be reproached for a maladroit devotion to the cause of the monarchy), that Elizabeth promised to reflect on the case of this strange parishioner. Catherine did not yet dare to expect a return to grace. However, Father Dubiansky must have been persuasive in his intervention for, on April 13, 1759, Alexander Shuvalov went to see Catherine in the room where she lay, wasting away in anguish, and announced to her that Her Majesty would receive her “this very day, at ten o’clock in the evening.”
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Terrible Tsarinas Footnotes 1. This was the beginning of the Seven Years War.
XI
This meeting, as the empress and the grand duchess knew full well, would define their relationship forever. They each prepared carefully, marshaling all their arguments, objections, answers and excuses. Elizabeth was imbued with discretionary power, but she was mindful of the fact that her daughter-in-law was just thirty years old, her skin still smooth and her teeth still intact, giving her the advantage of youth and grace. It infuriated the tsarina to find herself over the age of fifty, fat, and able to attract men only by her title and her authority. Suddenly, the competition between two political characters became a competition between women. Catherine had the benefit of age; Elizabeth had the hierarchical advantage.
In order to mark clearly her superiority over the upstart, the tsarina decided to keep her waiting in the antechamber long enough to fray her nerves and weaken her ability to charm. The audience was set for 10:00 in the evening, on April 13; Elizabeth gave orders to introduce Her Highness into the salon only at 1:30 in the morning. Wishing to have witnesses to the lesson that she
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Terrible Tsarinas proposed to inflict on her daughter-in-law, she asked Alexander Shuvalov, her lover Ivan Shuvalov and even the Grand Duke Peter, the culprit’s husband, to hide behind large folding screens. She did not invite Alexis Razumovsky to this strange family event - he was still Her Majesty’s designated confidant, Her “sentimental memory,” but his star had faded recently and he had to yield place, in “significant ways,” to younger, more vigorous newcomers.
Thus, “the Catherine-and-Peter issue” was outside his sphere of involvement.
This interview was critical, in Elizabeth’s view, and she arranged every detail with the meticulous care of a seasoned impresario. Just a few small candles shone in the half-light, accentuating the nerve-wracking character of the meeting. The empress deposited the exhibits in a gold dish: letters from the grand duchess, confiscated from Apraxin and Bestuzhev. Thus, from the first moment, the schemer would be thrown off balance.1 However, nothing went as the empress had planned. As soon as she stepped across the threshold, Catherine fell to her knees, wringing her hands and wailing in her sorrow. Between sobs, she claimed that no one in the court cared for her, nobody understood her, and her husband could do nothing but invent ways of humiliating her in public. She begged Her Majesty to allow her to leave for her home country. The tsarina reminded her that it is a mother’s duty to remain at the sides of her children, no matter what - to which Catherine retorted, still weeping and sighing: “My children are in your hands and could not receive better care than that!” Touched at a sensitive point by this recognition of her talents as a teacher and protectress, Elizabeth helped Catherine to her feet and gently reproached her for having forgotten all the marks of interest and even affection that she had once lavished upon her. “God is my witness, how I wept when you on your deathbed,” she said. “If I had not loved you, I would not have
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Another Catherine! kept you here… But you are extremely proud! You think that nobody has a better mind than you!” At these words, flouting the instructions he had been given, Peter stepped forward and interjected, “She is terribly spiteful and incredibly stubborn!”
“You must be speaking about yourself!” retorted Catherine.
“I have no problem telling you in front of Her Majesty that I really am malicious with you, who advise me to do things that are wrong, and that I certainly have become stubborn since I see that by being agreeable I only earn your spite!”
