Catherine replied, “Because I took an interest in the general, whom I liked very much. I begged him to follow your orders. The two other letters contain only congratulations on the birth of his son and New Year’s greetings.”
“Bestuzhev says there were many others,” Elizabeth said.
“If Bestuzhev says this, he lies,” Catherine responded.
“Well, then,” the empress said, “since he is lying about you, I will have him put to torture.” Catherine replied that, as sovereign, she could do what she liked, but that she, Catherine, had never written more than those three letters to Apraksin.
Elizabeth walked up and down the room, sometimes silent, sometimes addressing herself to Catherine, sometimes to her nephew or Count Shuvalov. “The grand duke showed much bitterness towards me, seeking to anger the empress against me,” Catherine wrote in her
Peter left first, then Catherine, followed by Shuvalov. Just as the count reached the door, the empress called him back. Catherine returned to her rooms and had started to undress when there was a knock on her door. It was Alexander Shuvalov. “He told me that the empress had spoken to him for some time, and had instructed him to tell me not to worry too much, and that she would have another conversation with me, alone and soon.” She curtsied to Count Shuvalov and asked him to thank Her Imperial Majesty, and to hurry the moment of the second conversation. He told her not to speak of this to anyone, especially the grand duke.
Catherine was certain now that she would not be sent away. While waiting for the promised second interview, she kept mostly to her room. From time to time, she reminded Count Shuvalov that she was anxious to have her fate decided. On April 21, 1758, her twenty-ninth birthday, she was having dinner alone in her room when the empress sent word that she was drinking to Catherine’s health. Catherine sent back her gratitude. When Peter learned of the empress’s message, he sent a similar greeting. Poniatowski reported that the French ambassador, the Marquis de l’Hopital, had spoken admiringly of her determination, and said that her resolution not to leave her apartment could only turn to her advantage. Catherine, taking l’Hopital’s remark as the treacherous praise of an enemy, decided to do the opposite. One Sunday, when no one was expecting it, she dressed and left her apartment. When she entered the anterooms where the ladies- and gentlemen-in-waiting of the young court were assembled, she saw their astonishment at seeing her. When Peter arrived, he was equally surprised. He came up and spoke to her briefly.
On May 23, 1758, almost six weeks after the meeting with Elizabeth, Alexander Shuvalov told Catherine that she should ask the empress, through him, for permission to see her children that afternoon. Afterward, Shuvalov said, she would have her second, long-promised private audience with the monarch. Catherine did as she was told and formally asked permission to see her two children. Shuvalov said that she could visit them at three o’clock. Catherine was punctual and remained with her children until Shuvalov arrived to tell her that the empress was ready. Catherine found Elizabeth alone; this time there were no screens. Catherine expressed her gratitude, and Elizabeth said, “I expect you to answer truthfully all the questions I shall ask you.” Catherine promised that Elizabeth would hear nothing but the exact truth and that there was nothing she wanted more than to open her heart without reservation. Elizabeth asked if there really had been no more than three letters written to Apraksin. Catherine swore that there were only three. “Then,” Catherine wrote, “she asked for details about the grand duke’s mode of life.”
At this climactic moment, Catherine’s memoirs suddenly and inexplicably conclude. Her life continued for another thirty-eight years, and the rest of her story is told by her letters, political writings, official documents, and by other people—friends, enemies, and a multitude of observers, But no part of this story is more remarkable than Stanislaus Poniatowski’s description of the episodes involving Catherine and himself that followed in the summer of 1758.
40
A Menage a Quatre
STANISLAUS PONIATOWSKI did not leave Russia and Catherine. He resisted departure by feigning illness, sometimes spending the entire day in bed. In the summer of 1758, when the young court moved to Oranienbaum, Poniatowski was with Elizabeth’s court at Peterhof, a few miles away. At night, disguised in his blond wig, he visited Catherine at Oranienbaum, where she received him in her separate, private pavilion.
Peter, absorbed with Elizabeth Vorontsova, never interfered in Poniatowski’s affair with his wife. An intervention was always a possibility, but when this happened, it was by chance. In July 1758, as Poniatowski told the story in his memoirs, the Shuvalovs and the French ambassador were pressing the empress to send him home, and the Polish government was insisting that he return. He knew that soon he would have to comply.
The knowledge that I would have to leave made my frequent nocturnal visits to Oranienbaum even more frequent. The good luck that always accompanied me during these visits made me lose all sense of danger. On July 6, I took a small closed carriage whose driver did not know me. That night—although there is no real night in northern Russia during the period of the White Nights—we unfortunately met the grand duke and his entourage, all of them half-drunk, on a road in the woods near Oranienbaum. My driver was halted and asked who was in the carriage. He replied, “a tailor” and we were allowed to proceed. But Elizabeth Vorontsova, who was with him, began making sarcastic remarks about “the tailor” which put the grand duke in a bad humor. The result was that as I was leaving, after spending a few hours with the grand duchess, I was assaulted by three men holding drawn sabers. They seized me by the collar like a thief and dragged me to the grand duke who, recognizing me, simply ordered my escorts to follow him and bring me along. They led me down a path to the sea and I thought my last hour had come. But we turned into a pavilion where the grand duke asked me bluntly whether I had slept with his wife. I said, “No.”
“Tell me the truth,” Peter said to Poniatowski, “because, if you do, then everything will be arranged. If not, you will go through some bad moments.”
“I cannot say that I have done something I have not done,” Poniatowski lied.
Peter went into another room to consult with Brockdorff. Returning, he said, “Since you refuse to talk, you will stay here until further orders.” He left and stationed a guard at the door. After two hours, Alexander Shuvalov appeared. Shuvalov, his face twitching, asked for an explanation. Instead of responding directly, Poniatowski took another approach: “I am sure you will understand, Count, that it is important to the honor of your court, as well as of myself, that all this should end as quickly as possible, and that you should get me out of here promptly.”
Realizing that a scandal of unknown dimensions was looming, Shuvalov agreed and said he would arrange it. He came back an hour later and told Poniatowski that a carriage was ready to take him back to Peterhof. The carriage was so shabby that, at six in the morning, and at a short distance from Peterhof, Poniatowski got out and walked to the palace, wrapped in his cloak, with the brim of his hat pulled down over his eyes and ears; he thought this would arouse less suspicion than if he arrived in the disreputable vehicle in which he had just traveled.
