than six hours, but this did not hinder Catherine’s progress. When darkness fell in the afternoon—as early as three o’clock on the first days of the journey—the road was illuminated by bonfires and blazing torches.
Travel did not alter Catherine’s daily schedule. She rose at six as she did in St. Petersburg, drank coffee, and then worked alone or with her secretary or ministers for two hours. At eight, she summoned her close friends to breakfast, and at nine, she entered her carriage to resume the journey. At two, she halted for midday dinner, then resumed an hour later. At seven, long after the fall of darkness, she stopped for the night. Usually, Catherine was not tired and would go back to work or join her companions for conversation, cards, or games until ten.
Speeding over the snow, Catherine shuffled the passengers in her sledge in order to shift topics and diversify her amusement. Frequently, Segur and Fitzherbert were exchanged for Naryshkin and Shuvalov. Segur, sophisticated and intelligent, a born storyteller, was her favorite. She laughed at most of what he said, but, at one point, he discovered the limits of her tolerance:
One day when I was sitting opposite her in her carriage, she indicated to me the desire to hear some snippets of light verse which I had composed. The gentle familiarity which she permitted to the people who were traveling with her, the presence of her young favorite, her gaiety, her correspondence with … Voltaire and Diderot, had made me think that she could not be shocked by the liberty of a love story and so I recited one to her which was admittedly a little risque, but nevertheless decent enough to have been well received by ladies in Paris.
To my great surprise, I suddenly saw my laughing traveling companion reassume the face of a majestic sovereign, interrupt me with a completely unrelated question, and so change the subject of conversation. Several minutes later, to make her aware that I had learned my lesson, I begged her to listen to another piece of verse of a very different nature, to which she paid the kindest attention.
In Smolensk, the journey was delayed for four days by massive snowdrifts and by a feverish sore throat that had stricken Mamonov. But a letter from Potemkin, still in the Crimea, urged Catherine on: “Here, the greenery in the meadows is starting to break through,” he said. “I think the flowers are coming soon.”
On January 29 the cavalcade reached Kiev, standing on the high, west bank of the Dnieper River. The empress, whose only previous visit had been forty-three years earlier when she was a fifteen-year-old grand duchess accompanying Empress Elizabeth, was welcomed with saluting cannon and pealing bells. Each ambassador was assigned his own palace or mansion, handsomely furnished, staffed with servants and stocked with excellent wines. At night, there were games, music, and dancing. Catherine often played whist with Segur and Mamonov.
Potemkin arrived from the Crimea. At first, he remained in seclusion, away from all the excitement he had created, declaring that he intended to observe Lent in the company of monks rather than courtiers and diplomats. He chose the Pecherskaya Lavra, the famous Monastery of the Caves, hollowed out of the cliff rising from the river. Here, in a labyrinth of caves and low, narrow tunnels, seventy-three mummified saints lay in open niches, close enough for passersby to reach out and touch. Catherine, knowing Potemkin’s moods, warned, “Avoid the prince when you see him looking like an angry wolf.” The cause of the prince’s behavior was worry; in overseeing this journey he had accepted an enormous responsibility, and the most difficult parts lay ahead.
Along with Potemkin, another new traveler joined the party at Kiev. This was Prince Charles de Ligne, a fifty- year-old Belgian-born aristocrat, now an Austrian field marshal in the service of Emperor Joseph II. Arriving from Vienna, Ligne was a welcome addition. A European cosmopolitan, at ease corresponding with Voltaire or Marie Antoinette, he was witty, wise, sophisticated, cynical, and sentimental, and, at the same time, diplomatic and discreet. A friend of sovereigns and princes, affectionate with equals, popular with inferiors, he put everyone at ease. He was delighted to be invited by Catherine, whom he later described as “the greatest genius of her age.” Of all Catherine’s guests on the journey, Ligne remained most consistently in favor, not only with Catherine but with everyone else. Catherine herself described him as “the pleasantest company and the easiest person to live with that I have ever met.” When his master, friend, and confidant Joseph II joined the party, Ligne was asked to share the imperial carriage and overhear the conversation between the two monarchs. Ligne joined in when asked to do so; the other occupant, Alexander Mamonov, too bored to listen, slept.
Catherine and her guests remained in Kiev for six weeks. Thereafter, the journey was to be resumed in large galleys built for the voyage down the river. On April 22, cannon signaled that the ice on the river had cracked. At noon, the empress and her guests boarded seven opulently decorated and furnished Roman-style galleys, all painted in red and gold, with the Russian imperial double eagle emblazoned on their sides. Catherine’s galley, named
On the day of embarkation, with the galleys still tethered to the shore, Catherine invited fifty guests to dine on board the special dining galley. At three in the afternoon, the fleet cast off and headed downstream with the seven large galleys followed by eighty smaller vessels carrying three thousand people who serviced this unusual flotilla. At six, a smaller number of guests were rowed back to the empress’s private galley for supper; this became the habitual pattern during the days to come.
Under a blue sky, with the river sparkling in sunlight, painted oars dipped rhythmically into the river and this “Cleopatra’s fleet,” as Ligne christened it, moved down the Dnieper. Travel along the great river waterways was normal in Russia, but no one had ever seen anything like this, and crowds of people stood on the banks, watching and waving as the galleys swept by. The fleet passed meadows carpeted with spring wildflowers, herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and villages with churches and houses gleaming with new paint. As the large galleys passed by, a swarm of little boats darted among the larger vessels, carrying visitors from one to another, transporting wine and food as well as musicians who played at meals and evening concerts. By day, Catherine would lie on the deck of her galley under her silken awning. For her guests and those passengers who were not on the empress’s working staff, the mornings were free and passengers visited one another, talked business, gossiped, and played cards. At midday, the empress’s galley fired a gun to announce dinner; sometimes it would be for only ten guests who were rowed to her galley; sometimes for fifty, summoned to the special dining galley. Often, the fleet stopped and anchored so that the passengers could picnic or simply walk along the riverbanks.
Six days brought the fleet to Kaniev, a point on the Dnieper where the east bank was Russian and the west bank Polish. Here Catherine was to meet Stanislaus Ponitowski, whom she had created king of Poland. The two had not seen each other since 1759, twenty-eight years earlier. Even now, at fifty-six, Stanislaus remained handsome, sensitive, cultured—and also well-meaning and weak. But Catherine was uneasy. At fifty-nine, she was aware of how the years had affected her own appearance, and she was not looking forward to subjecting herself to the gaze of a former lover.
When the fleet anchored off Kaniev, the king was rowed out to Catherine’s galley. The morning had seen gusts of wind and rain, and the king’s clothing was sodden when he came aboard. Catherine received him with state honors, and Stanislaus responded with his old sophistication. As king, he was forbidden by the Polish constitution to leave Polish soil; accordingly, he had assumed a temporary incognito. Bowing to those who received him on deck,
