Before Catherine’s marriage to Peter, Andrei had fallen into a pattern of lighthearted flirtation with the bride- to-be. Far from opposing or feeling uncomfortable with this intimate but still innocent banter, Peter enjoyed and even encouraged it. For months, he talked to his wife of Chernyshev’s good looks and devotion. Several times a day, he would send Andrei to Catherine with trivial messages. Eventually, however, Andrei himself became uncomfortable with the situation. One day, he said to Peter, “Your Imperial Highness should bear in mind that the grand duchess is not Madame Chernyshev”—and, more bluntly—“She is not my fiancee, she’s yours.” Peter laughed and passed these remarks along to Catherine. To put an end to this uncomfortable joke after the couple was married, Andrei proposed to Peter that he redefine his relationship with Catherine by calling her Matushka (Little Mother) and that she call him
One day, Catherine’s valet, Timothy Evreinov, took her aside and warned her that the whole household was gossiping about her relationship with Andrei. Frankly, he said, he was frightened by the danger into which she was heading. Catherine asked what he meant. “You talk and think of nothing but Andrei Chernyshev,” he said.
“What harm is there in that?” Catherine asked. “He is my son. My husband is fonder of him than I am and he is a loyal friend to both of us.”
“That is true,” Evreinov replied, “and the grand duke can do as he wishes, but it is not the same with you. What you call loyalty and affection because this young man is faithful to you, your entourage believes is love.”
When he spoke this word, “which I had not even imagined,” Catherine says, she was struck “as if by a thunderbolt.” Evreinov told her that, in order to avoid further gossip, he had already advised Chernyshev to plead illness and take a leave of absence from court. And, indeed, Andrei Chernyshev had already departed. Peter, who had been told nothing of this, was concerned about his friend’s “illness” and spoke of it worriedly to Catherine.
Eventually, when Andrei Chernyshev reappeared at court a month later, he caused a moment of danger for Catherine. During one of Peter’s concerts in which he himself played the violin, Catherine, who hated music in general and her husband’s efforts in particular, retreated to her room just off the Great Hall of the Summer Palace. The ceiling of this hall was being repaired, and the space was filled with scaffolding and workmen. Opening the door of her apartment into the hall, she was surprised to see Andrei Chernyshev standing not far away. She beckoned to him. Apprehensively, he came to her door. She said something meaningless. He replied, “I cannot speak to you like this. There is too much noise in the hall. Let me come into your room.”
“No,” Catherine said, “that is something I cannot do.” Nevertheless, she continued talking to him for five minutes through the half-opened door. Then, a premonition made her turn her head and she saw, standing and watching from inside her own room, Peter’s chamberlain, Count Devier.
“The grand duke is asking for you, Madame,” Devier said. Catherine closed the door on Chernyshev and walked with Devier back to the concert. The following day, the two remaining Chernyshevs vanished from court. Catherine and Peter were told that they had been posted to distant regiments; subsequently they learned that, in fact, they had been placed under house arrest.
The Chernyshev affair had two immediate consequences for the young couple. The lesser was that the empress commanded Father Todorsky to question husband and wife separately about their relationship with the young men. Todorsky asked Catherine whether she had ever kissed one of the Chernyshevs.
“No, my father,” she replied.
“Then why has the empress been informed to the contrary?” he asked. “The empress has been told that you gave a kiss to Andrei Chernyshev.”
“That is slander, my father. It is not true,” said Catherine. Her sincerity apparently convinced Todorsky, who muttered to himself, “What wicked people!” He reported this conversation to the empress, and Catherine heard no more about it.
But the Andrei Chernyshev affair, although lacking in substance, had lodged in the empress’s mind, and it played a part in what happened next, something more significant and long-lasting. On the afternoon the Chernyshevs disappeared, a new chief governess, senior to Madame Krause, appeared. The arrival of this woman to rule over Catherine and her daily life marked the beginning of seven years of harassment, oppression, and misery.
16
A Watchdog
ELIZABETH STILL NEEDED an heir, and she was perplexed, resentful, and angry that no child was on the way. By May 1746, eight months had passed since the marriage, and there were no signs of a pregnancy. Elizabeth suspected disrespect, unwillingness, even faithlessness. She blamed Catherine.
For the chancellor, Bestuzhev, the problem was different. At issue was not only the matter of an unsuccessful marriage that had produced no child but also Russia’s diplomatic future. This was Bestuzhev’s sphere, and to keep and use the power he needed, he encouraged Elizabeth’s suspicion and whipped up her resentments. Personally, he, too, was concerned about the young couple: he was alarmed by Peter’s opinions and behavior, and he mistrusted Johanna’s daughter, whom he suspected of conspiring secretly with Frederick of Prussia. Because Peter openly admired Frederick, Bestuzhev could scarcely help fearing the accession of such a sovereign to the Russian throne. As for Catherine, the chancellor had always opposed the German grand duke’s marriage to a German princess. Accordingly, the young couple and the young court must not be permitted to become an alternative power center, an independent political body made up of faithful friends and loyal partisans; this happened often enough in kingdoms with independent-thinking heirs to thrones. To prevent it, Bestuzhev employed two tactics: first, the isolation of the young couple from the outside world, and, second, the placement of a powerful, vigilant watchdog inside the young court to watch every move and overhear every word.
As the empress’s first minister, he had, of course, to address her first concern: her need for an heir. Bestuzhev’s approach was to recommend that a strong woman loyal to him be appointed as senior governess to Catherine, to act as the young wife’s constant companion and chaperone. This woman’s duty be would to superintend the marital intimacies and ensure the fidelity of Catherine and Peter. She was to watch the grand duchess and prevent any familiarity with the cavaliers, pages, and servants of the court. Further, she was to see that her charge wrote no letters and had no private conversations with anyone. This prohibition neatly combined Elizabeth’s worries about infidelity with Bestuzhev’s insistence on political isolation; it was critically important to the chancellor that Catherine’s correspondence and her conversations with foreign diplomats be kept under strict surveillance. Thus, Bestuzhev imposed a new entourage on Catherine, charged to enforce a new set of rules dictated by the chancellor, supposedly aimed at consolidating the mutual affection of the married couple, but also intended to render them politically harmless.
Only the first half of this agenda was made explicit to Catherine. In a decree signed by Elizabeth, the young wife was reminded that:
Her Imperial Highness has been selected for the high honor of being the noble wife of our dear nephew, His Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke, heir to the empire.… [She] has been elevated to her present dignity of Imperial Highness with none other but the following aims and objects: that her Imperial Highness might by her sensible behavior, her wit and virtue, inspire a sincere love in His Imperial Highness and win his heart, and that by so doing
