represented in person the brilliant world for which the writings of Madame de Sevigne and Voltaire had stimulated her taste. He spoke in the language of the Enlightenment, could talk playfully on abstract questions, be dreamily romantic one day and childishly frivolous the next. Catherine was intrigued. Two qualities, however, Stanislaus lacked. There was little originality and no real gravitas in this young Pole, deficiencies that Catherine came to recognize and accept. In fact, no one recognized these limitations better than Stanislaus himself. In his memoirs he confessed:
An excellent education enables me to conceal my mental defects, so that many people expect more from me than I am able to give. I have sufficient wit to take part in any conversation, but not enough to converse long and in detail on any one subject. I have a natural penchant for the arts. My indolence, however, prevents me from going as far as I should like to go, either in the arts or sciences. I work either overmuch or not at all. I can judge very well of affairs. I can see at once the faults of a plan or the faults of those who propose it, but I am much in need of good counsel in order to carry out any plans of my own.
For a man of his sophistication, he was, in many respects, extraordinarily innocent. He had promised his mother not to drink wine or spirits, not to gamble, and not to marry before the age of thirty. Further, by his own account, Stanislaus had another singularity, odd enough in a young man just come from social triumph in Paris and other European capitals:
A severe education had kept me out of all vulgar debauchery. An ambition of winning and holding a place in high life had stood by me in my travels and a concourse of singular circumstances in the liaisons that I had barely entered upon, had seemed expressly to reserve me for her who has disposed of all my destiny.
In a word, he came to Catherine a virgin.
Poniatowski had other qualities appealing to a proud woman who had been rejected and discarded. His devotion showed her that she could inspire more than simple lust. He expressed admiration not merely for her title and beauty but also for Catherine’s mind and temperament, which both he and she recognized as superior to his own. He was affectionate, attentive, discreet, and faithful. He taught Catherine to know contentment and security as well as passion in love. He became a part of her process of healing.
At the beginning of this love affair, Catherine had three allies. One was Hanbury-Williams; the others were Bestuzhev and Lev Naryshkin. The chancellor made clear that he was willing to befriend Poniatowski on Catherine’s behalf. Naryshkin quickly stepped into the same role of friend, sponsor, and guide for the new favorite that he had performed during Catherine’s affair with Saltykov. When Lev was in bed with fever, he sent Catherine several elegantly written letters. The subjects were trivial—pleas for fruit and preserves—but they were written with a style that quickly told Catherine that Lev himself was not the author. Later, Lev admitted that the letters were written by his new friend Count Poniatowski. Catherine realized that, for all his travels and apparent sophistication, Stanislaus was still a shy, sentimental young man. But he was Polish and romantic, and here was a young woman isolated and trapped in a miserable marriage. It was enough to capture him.
This is how Catherine appeared in his eyes :
She was twenty-five, that perfect moment when a woman who has any claim to beauty is at her loveliest. She had black hair, a complexion of dazzling whiteness, large, round, blue, expressive eyes, long, dark eyelashes, a Grecian nose, a mouth that seemed to ask for kisses, perfect shoulders, arms, and hands, a tall, slim figure, and a bearing which was graceful, supple, and yet of the most dignified nobility, a soft and agreeable voice, and a laugh as merry as her temperament. One moment she would be reveling in the wildest and most childish of games; a little later she would be seated at her desk, coping with the most complicated affairs of finance and politics.
Several months were to pass before the unpracticed lover gathered sufficient courage to act. Even then, but for the persistence of his new friend Lev, the reluctant suitor might have been content to worship from a distance. Eventually, however, Lev deliberately placed Stanislaus in a situation from which the Pole could not retreat without risking embarrassment to the grand duchess. Unaware of what had been arranged, he was led to the door to her private apartment. The door was ajar. Catherine was waiting inside. Years later, Poniatowski remembered, “I cannot deny myself the pleasure of recalling the clothes I found her in that day: a little gown of white satin with a light trimming of lace, threaded with a pink ribbon for its only ornament.” From that moment, Poniatowski later wrote, “my whole life was devoted to her.”
Catherine’s new lover proved to be free of the smiling self-confidence that had led her to capitulate to Saltykov. In this matter, Catherine was dealing with a boy—charming, well traveled, and well spoken, but still a boy. She knew what needed to be done, and, once his hesitation was overcome, she guided the handsome, virginal Pole into manhood.
33
A Dead Rat, an Absent Lover, and a Risky Proposal
REMARKABLE DIPLOMATIC CHANGES were occurring in Europe, but within the small, closed world of Catherine and Peter’s marriage, the arrangements and antagonisms that had marked their lives for ten years continued. Catherine had found a new, supportive lover in Stanislaus Poniatowski; Peter ricocheted among Catherine’s maids of honor, making first one and then another the object of his attention. The married couple had extravagantly different tastes and enthusiasms: Peter’s were soldiers, dogs, and drink; Catherine’s were reading, conversation, dancing, and riding.
In the winter of 1755, most of Peter’s Holstein soldiers had been sent home, and Catherine and Peter returned from Oranienbaum to St. Petersburg to resume their separate lives. With the city deep in snow and the Neva River locked under a sheet of ice, Peter’s military obsession moved indoors. His soldiers now were toys, made of wood, lead, papier-mache, and wax. He lined up these figures on so many narrow tables that he could scarcely squeeze between them. Strips of brass with strings attached were nailed to the tables, and when the strings were pulled, the brass strips vibrated and made a noise that, Peter informed Catherine, resembled the rolling fire of musketry. In this room, Peter presided over a daily changing of the guard ceremony in which a fresh detachment of toy soldiers, assigned to mount guard, replaced those who were relieved of duty and removed from the tables. Peter always appeared at this ceremony in full Holstein dress uniform, with top boots, spurs, high collar, and scarf. The servants participating in this exercise were also required to wear Holstein uniforms.
One day when Catherine entered this room, she saw a large dead rat hanging from a model gallows. Appalled, she asked why it was there. Peter explained that the rat had been convicted of a crime that, according to the laws of war, merited the ultimate punishment; therefore, it had been executed by hanging. The rat’s crime was to have climbed over the ramparts of a cardboard fortress standing on a table and eaten two papier-mache sentries standing watch. One of Peter’s dogs had caught the rat; the culprit had been court-martialed and immediately hanged. Now, Peter declared, it would remain exposed to public gaze for three days as an example. Catherine listened and burst out laughing. Then she apologized and pleaded ignorance of military law. Nevertheless, he was stung by her facetious attitude and began to sulk. Her last word on the matter was that it could be argued on behalf of the rat that it had been hanged without having been heard in its own defense.
During this winter of 1755–56, Catherine become attached to Anna Naryshkina, Lev Naryshkin’s sister-in-law, the wife of his elder brother. Lev was a part of this friendship. “There was no end to his nonsense,” Catherine noted. He acquired the habit of running back and forth between Peter’s rooms and Catherine’s. In order to enter her room, he would meow like a cat at her door. One evening in December, between six and seven, she heard him meowing. He came in, told her that his sister-in-law was ill, and declared, “You ought to go and see her.”
“When?” Catherine asked.
