finances. She simultaneously advanced his military career, and, by 1767, he was a senior commander in the Horse Guards Regiment. The following year, he became a court chamberlain. When the Legislative Commission met, he was assigned to be trustee of the Tartars and other ethnic minorities in the Russian empire. Thereafter, Potemkin always had a special interest in Catherine’s non-Russian subjects; in later years, holding supreme power in the south, his entourage always included tribal leaders of all faiths. His early love of ecclesiastical controversy continued. He rarely missed an opportunity to discuss points of religious belief with leaders of all faiths. When the First Turkish War began, in 1769, he immediately volunteered for the front. With Catherine’s permission, he joined the army of General Rumyantsev, in which he served first as Rumyantsev’s aide-de-camp and then as an outstanding leader of cavalry. In recognition of his services, he was promoted to the rank of major general and chosen in November 1769 to carry Rumyantsev’s campaign reports to the empress. In St. Petersburg, Potemkin was received as a prominent commander and invited to dine with the empress.
When he returned to the army in the south, it was with Catherine’s permission to write to her privately. She was surprised that he was slow to use this privilege. On December 4, 1773, she prompted him:
Sir Lieutenant General and Chevalier: I suppose you have your eyes so thoroughly trained on Silestra [a Turkish fortress on the Danube under siege by the Russian army] that you haven’t time to read letters.… Nonetheless I am certain that everything you undertake can be ascribed to nothing but your ardent zeal toward me personally and toward the dear fatherland which you love to serve. But since I very much desire to preserve fervent, brave, clever, and skillful individuals, so I ask you not endanger yourself.… Upon reading this letter you may well ask: why was it written? To which I can offer the following reply: so that you had confirmation of my opinion of you, for I am always most benevolent toward you. Catherine.
Potemkin could hardly fail to see an invitation in this language. In January 1774, once the army was in winter quarters, he took leave and hurried to St. Petersburg.
He arrived to find the government and Catherine struggling with multiple crises. The war with Turkey was entering its sixth year, the Pugachev rebellion was spreading, and Catherine’s intimate relationship with Alexander Vasilchikov was in its final stage. Potemkin, believing he had been summoned for personal reasons, was dismayed to find Vasilchikov still firmly embedded. He asked for a private audience with Catherine, and on February 4 he went to Tsarskoe Selo. She told him that she wanted him to remain close. He returned to court, where he seemed happy; he continued to make Catherine laugh, and he was generally recognized as the heir presumptive to the office of favorite. One day, supposedly, he was walking up the palace staircase when he met Gregory Orlov descending. “Any news at court?” Potemkin asked. “Nothing in particular,” Orlov answered. “Except that you are going up and I am coming down.” Vasilchikov managed for a few more weeks to cling to his perch because Catherine worried about the impression a change would make in St. Petersburg and abroad; she was also afraid of alienating Panin by dismissing his nominee. Most important, she wanted to be certain that her new choice was the right one.
Frustrated by Catherine’s procrastination, Potemkin decided to force the issue. He came to court only rarely, and when he did, he had nothing to say. Then he disappeared entirely. Catherine was told that Potemkin was suffering from an unhappy love affair because a certain woman did not reciprocate his love; that his despair was so deep that he was thinking of entering a monastery. Catherine complained, “I do not understand what has reduced him to such despair.… I thought my friendliness must have made him realize that his fervor was not displeasing to me.” When these words were reported to Potemkin, he knew that Vasilchikov was about to depart.
Employing his flair for the dramatic, Potemkin decided to increase the pressure on Catherine. At the end of January, he entered the Monastery Alexander Nevsky on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. There, affecting melancholy, he began growing a beard and observing the daily routine of a monk. Panin understood Potemkin’s game. The counselor requested an audience and told the empress that while the merits of General Potemkin were universally recognized, he had been sufficiently rewarded, and that nothing more need be given this gentleman. In case further advancement were contemplated, Panin observed, he wanted her to understand that “the state and yourself, Madam, will soon be made to feel the ambition, the pride, and the eccentricities of this man. I fear that your choice will cause you much unpleasantness.” Catherine replied that the raising of these issues was premature. Given Potemkin’s abilities, he could be useful as a soldier and as a diplomat. He was brave, clever, and educated; such men were not so numerous in Russia that she could allow this one to hide in a monastery. Therefore, she would do everything in her power to prevent General Potemkin from taking holy orders.
Catherine did not want to risk Potemkin making his withdrawal permanent. According to one story, she dispatched her friend and lady-in-waiting Countess Prascovia Bruce to the monastery to see Potemkin and tell him that, if he would return to court, he could rely on the empress’s favor. Potemkin did not smooth the emissary’s path. On her arrival at the monastery, he asked her to wait, saying that he was about to engage in prayer and could not be interrupted. Wearing monastic robes, he walked in procession with the monks, participated in the service, and prostrated himself, murmuring prayers, before an icon of St. Catherine. Eventually, he rose, made the sign of the cross, and came to speak to Catherine’s envoy. Countess Bruce’s message had a convincing ring; moreover, Potemkin was impressed by the court rank of the messenger. Persuaded, he shed his monastic cassock, shaved off his beard, put on his uniform, and returned to St. Petersburg in a court carriage.
He became Catherine’s lover—and immediately became intensely jealous. Apart from lying next to her hapless husband, Peter, Catherine had slept with four men before Potemkin—Saltykov, Poniatowski, Orlov, and Vasilchikov. The existence of these predecessors, and mental images of her as the sexual partner of other men, tormented Potemkin. He accused the empress of having had fifteen previous lovers. In an attempt to calm him, Catherine secluded herself in her apartment on February 21, writing a letter entitled “A Sincere Confession,” which gave an account of her previous romantic experiences. It is unique in the annals of written royal confessions; an all-powerful queen attempting to win forgiveness from a demanding new lover for previous actions in her life.
In spelling out the details of her past life, she began with the circumstances of her marriage, and then described the painful disappointments of the love affairs that followed. Her earnest, apologetic, almost pleading tone laid bare how desperately she wanted Potemkin. She began by explaining how Empress Elizabeth’s anxiety concerning her failure to produce an heir to the throne had led to her first love affair. She admitted that, under pressure from the empress and Maria Choglokova, she had chosen Sergei Saltykov, “chiefly because of his obvious inclination.” Then Saltykov was sent away, “for he had conducted himself indiscreetly:”
After a year spent in great sorrow, the present Polish king [Stanislaus Poniatowski] arrived. We took no notice of him, but good people … forced me to notice that he existed, that his eyes were of unparalleled beauty, and that he directed them (though so nearsighted he doesn’t see past his nose) more often in one direction than in another. This one was both loving and loved from 1755 till 1761, [which included] a three year absence. Then the efforts of Prince Gregory Orlov[,] whom again good people forced me to notice, changed my state of mind. This one would have remained for life had he himself not grown bored. I learned of … [his new infidelity] on the very day of his departure to … [the peace talks with the Turks] and as a result I decided that I could no longer trust him. This thought cruelly tormented me and forced me out of desperation to make some sort of choice [Vasilchikov], one which grieved me then and still does now more than I can say.…
Then came a certain knight [Potemkin]. Through his merits and kindness, this hero was so charming that people … were already saying that he should take up residence here. But what they didn’t know was that we’d already called him here.…
Now, Sir Knight, after this confession, may I hope to receive absolution for my sins? You’ll be pleased to see that it wasn’t fifteen, but a third as many: the first [Saltykov] chosen out of necessity, and the fourth [Vasilchikov] out of desperation, cannot in my mind be attributed to any frivolity. As to the other three [Poniatowski, Orlov, and Potemkin himself], if you look closely, God knows they weren’t the result of debauchery, for which I haven’t the
