back, it was whispered that Her Majesty’s premature senility was the price to be paid for her excesses
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Terrible Tsarinas in food, drink and lovemaking. Johann Lefort, Saxony’s top diplomat in St. Petersburg, wrote to his government on March 8, 1727, in picturesque and suggestive French: “The Tsarina apparently is suffering a severe attack of swelling of the legs, all the way up to the groin, which cannot bode well; this [ailment] is considered to be of bacchic origins.”4 Despite of the doctor’s warnings, Catherine’s son-in-law baited her with questions regarding her intentions. But she was unable to answer him, nor even to understand him. On April 27, 1729, she complained of a painful pressure in the chest. Her eyes were wild, and she became delirious. Having taken a cold look at her, Charles Frederick called in Tolstoy: “If she passes away without having dictated her will, we are lost! Can’t we persuade her to designate her daughter, immediately?”
“If we have not already done so, it is too late now!”5 the other answered.
The empress’s friends and family members watched for 48 hours, waiting for her to draw her last breath. Her daughters and Peter Sapieha were at the bedside. She would hardly regain consciousness when the blackouts returned, longer each time and more profound. Menshikov was kept current, hour by hour, on the state of the tsarina. He convoked the Supreme Privy Council and set about drafting a testamentary proclamation that the Empress would only have to sign, a mere little bit of scribble, before dying. Under the authority of the Serene Prince, the members of this restricted assembly agreed on a text stipulating that, according to the expres s will of Her Majesty, the tsarevich Peter Alexeyevich, still a minor and promised in marriage to Miss Maria Menshikov, would, at the proper time, succeed the Empress Catherine I and would be assisted, until he came of age, by the Supreme Privy Council instituted by her. If he should die without posterity, the document specified, the crown would redound to
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Catherine’s Reign: A Flash of Flamboyance his aunt Anna Petrovna and to her heirs; then to his other aunt, Elizabeth Petrovna, and to any heirs she might have. The two aunts would be members of the aforementioned Supreme Privy Council until the day their imperial nephew reached the age of 17.
The formula conceived by Menshikov would give him the upper hand, through his daughter, the future tsarina, in managing the country’s destiny.
This indirect confiscation of power galled Tolstoy and his usual collaborators, including Buturlin and the Portuguese adventurer Devier. They tried to respond, but Menshikov foiled their maneuver and counteracted by accusing them of the crime of lesemajesty. His paid spies gave him a positive report: the majority of Tolstoy’s buddies were engaged in the plot. Under torture, the Portuguese Devier admitted to everything he was asked (the torturer must have handled the knout with considerable dexterity).
He and his accomplices had publicly scorned the grief of Her Majesty’ daughters and had participated in clandestine meetings with the intention of upsetting the monarchical order. In the name of the failing Empress, Menshikov had Tolstoy arrested; he was shut up in the Solovetsky Monastery, on an island in the White Sea;
Devier was dispatched to Siberia; as for the others, they were simply sent back to their lands and told to stay there. Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein was not officially charged but, out of prudence and pride, he and his wife Anna, so wrongfully swindled, removed to their estate at Yekaterinhof.
The young couple had hardly left the capital when they were recalled: the tsarina had taken a turn for the worse. Decency and tradition required that her daughters attend her. Both came at a run to witness her final moments. After long suffering, she died on May 6, 1727, between 9:00 and 10:00 in the evening. At Menshikov’s orders, two regiments of the Guard immediately encircled the Winter Palace to prevent any hostile demonstration. But
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Terrible Tsarinas nobody thought of protesting. Nor of crying, for that matter.
Catherine’s reign, which had lasted only two years and two months, left the majority of her subjects indifferent or perplexed.
Should one regret or be pleased at her demise?
On May 8, 1727, Grand Duke Peter Alexeyevich was proclaimed emperor. The Secretary of the imperial cabinet, Makarov, announced the event to the courtiers and the dignitaries assembled at the palace. The terms of the proclamation, concocted with diabolic skill under Menshikov’s leadership, linked the concept of choosing the sovereign (instituted by Peter the Great) with that of heredity, in conformity with the Muscovite tradition.
“According to the will of Her Majesty, the late Empress,” Makarov read in a solemn voice, “a new emperor has been chosen, in the person of an heir6 to the throne: His Highness the Grand Duke Peter Alexeyevich.” Listening to this proclamation, Menshikov exulted internally. His success was a miracle. Not only was his daughter virtually empress of Russia, but the Supreme Privy Council, which would exercise the role of regent until the majority of Peter II (who was as yet just 12 years old), was still entirely in his hands, as Serene Prince. That left him a good five years to bring the country to heel. He had no adversaries anymore; only subjects.
Apparently, it was no longer necessary to be a Romanov in order to rule.
Ready to make any necessary compromise with the new power, Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein promised to keep quiet provided that, the moment Peter II reached the fateful age of 17, Anna and Elizabeth would receive two million rubles to be divided, as compensation. Moreover, Menshikov, who was having a good day, assured him that he would make every effort to support Charles Frederick’s claims, as he was still stuck on the idea of retrieving his hereditary lands and would even like - why not? - to exercise his rights to the crown of Sweden. It was clear, now,
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Catherine’s Reign: A Flash of Flamboyance to the Duke of Holstein, that his presence in St. Petersburg was only a step on the road toward the conquest of Stockholm - as though, in his eyes, the throne of the late King Charles XII was more prestigious than that of the one who had defeated him, the late Peter the Great.
This raging ambition was no surprise to Menshikov. Wasn’t it due to a similar eagerness that he himself had arrived at a position that had been beyond his dreams back when he was only one of the tsar’s companions in battles, banquets and beds? Where would he stop, in his rise to honors and fortune? At the moment when his future son-in-law was being proclaimed sovereign autocrat of all the Russias, under the name of Peter II, he began to think that his own reign might perhaps be just beginning.
Terrible Tsarinas
Footnotes
1.
