The Memoirs of Catherine the Great (24 page)

Count Lynar, the envoy of the Danish King, had been sent to Russia to negotiate the exchange of Holstein, which belonged to the Grand Duke, for the County of Oldenburg. He was a man who united, so it was said, a great deal of knowledge with equal ability. His outward appearance was that of the most complete fop. He was big and well built, had reddish-blond hair and a woman’s white complexion. It was said that he took such great care of his skin that he slept only after covering his face and his hands with cream and wore gloves and a night mask. He boasted that he had eighteen children and claimed that he had always prepared his children’s wet nurses by putting them in the family way.
⁷⁷
Very white himself, Count Lynar wore the White Order of Denmark and had clothes in only extremely light colors, such as sky blue, apricot, lilac, flesh tones, etc., although at that time one rarely saw such light shades on men. At their home, Grand Chancellor Count Bestuzhev and his wife treated Count Lynar like the child of the house, and he was much feted there, but this did not shield his dim-wittedness from ridicule. He had yet another strike against him, which was that there were still fresh memories of his brother, who had been more than well received by Princess Anna, whose regency had been despised.
⁷⁸
As soon as this man arrived, he could not wait to brag about his negotiations over the exchange of Holstein for the County of Oldenburg. Grand Chancellor Count Bestuzhev had Monsieur Pechlin, the Grand Duke’s minister for his Duchy of Holstein, come to his home and told him what Count Lynar had come for.

Monsieur Pechlin made a report about this to the Grand Duke, who passionately loved his land of Holstein. Ever since he had been in Moscow, it had been represented to His Imperial Highness as insolvent. He had asked the Empress for money; she had given him a little. This money had never arrived in Holstein and instead had paid His Imperial Highness’s immense debts in Russia. Monsieur Pechlin represented the financial affairs of Holstein as desperate. This was easy for Monsieur Pechlin to do because the Grand Duke left the administration to him and gave it only little attention or none at all, to the extent that once an impatient Pechlin told him in a sober voice, “My lord, it is up to a sovereign to involve himself or not with the governing of his country. If he does not get involved, then the country governs itself, but it governs itself badly.” This Pechlin was a very short, very fat man, who wore an immense wig, but he lacked neither knowledge nor ability. This thickset, squat figure was inhabited by a sharp, nimble intelligence; he was accused only of being indelicate in his choice of means. Grand Chancellor Count Bestuzhev trusted him a great deal, and Pechlin was one of his most intimate confidants.

Monsieur Pechlin made clear to the Grand Duke that to listen was not to negotiate, that negotiation was far from agreement, and that he would always have the power to break off the discussions when he judged it appropriate. Eventually one thing led to another and the Grand Duke was persuaded to authorize Monsieur Pechlin to hear the minister of Denmark’s proposals, and in this way the negotiations were opened. Deep down these discussions pained the Grand Duke; he spoke to me about it. I had been raised with the house of Holstein’s ancient hatred of Denmark and had been told repeatedly that Count Bestuzhev had only harmful designs against the Grand Duke and me. I listened to talk of these negotiations only with a great deal of impatience and anxiety, and I tried to thwart the negotiations as much as I could by influencing the Grand Duke. At any rate, no one said a word about all this to me except for him, and he was advised to keep it very secret, especially, they added, around ladies. I think that this remark was directed at me more than anyone else, but they were deceived, because His Imperial Highness could not wait to tell me about them. The further the negotiations advanced, the more they tried to present them to the Grand Duke in a favorable and pleasant light. I often saw him enchanted with what he would acquire, and then he would have bitter changes of heart and regrets about what he was going to abandon. When he was seen to be drifting, the conferences were slowed down, and they were restarted only after some new enticement had been invented to make things appear in a favorable light.

At the beginning of spring, we were made to move into the summer garden and to live in the little house built by Peter I, where the apartments are on the same level as the garden.
⁷⁹
The stone quay and the Fontanka bridge did not yet exist.
⁸⁰
In this house, I had one of the most bitter sorrows that I had during the whole reign of Empress Elizabeth. One morning I was told that the Empress had removed my old chamber valet, Timofei Evreinov, from my service. The pretext for this dismissal was a quarrel that he had had in a wardrobe with a man who was serving us coffee, during which the Grand Duke had unexpectedly appeared and had heard some of the insults that the men had said to each other. Evreinov’s antagonist had gone to complain to Monsieur Choglokov and had told him that without consideration for the Grand Duke’s presence, Evreinov had uttered all manner of abuse to him. Monsieur Choglokov immediately made a report of this to the Empress, who ordered that both men be dismissed from the court, and Evreinov was banished to Kazan, where he was later made chief of police. The truth of the matter was that Evreinov and the other man were both very devoted to us, especially the former, and this was only a long-sought pretext to take him from me. He was in charge of all my belongings. The Empress ordered that a man named Shkurin, whom Evreinov had taken as an assistant, take his place. At the time I did not trust this man.

After staying in Peter I’s house for a while, we were moved to the wooden Summer Palace, where new apartments had been prepared for us that on one side looked out on the Fontanka, which was then nothing but a muddy swamp, and on the other onto an ugly, narrow little courtyard. On Pentecost, the Empress told me to invite the wife of the Saxon envoy, Madame d’Arnim, to accompany me on horseback to Catherinenhof. This woman had claimed that she loved horseback riding and boasted that she did it well, and the Empress wanted to see if this was so. I therefore sent an invitation to Madame d’Arnim to come with me. She was a tall woman, very well built, between twenty-five and twenty-six years old, and a bit thin, and her face was anything but pretty, as it was quite long and rather scarred by smallpox, but since she dressed well, from a distance she had a kind of glamour and appeared to have rather fair skin. Madame d’Arnim arrived at my residence around five o’clock in the afternoon dressed as a man from head to foot, with a coat of red cloth trimmed with gold braid and a green
gros de
tours
jacket also trimmed in gold. She did not know where to put her hat and her hands, and she seemed rather gauche to us. As I knew that the Empress did not like me to go riding astride like a man, I had had an English lady’s saddle prepared for me, and I wore an English riding habit of very rich azure and silver cloth with crystal buttons, which almost perfectly resembled diamonds, and my black helmet was bordered with a row of diamonds. I went down to mount my horse. At this moment the Empress came to our apartments to watch us depart. Since I was very agile then and very accustomed to this exercise, as soon as I was near my horse I jumped on it. I let my skirt, which was open, fall to either side of the horse. I was told that the Empress, seeing me mount with such agility and deftness, exclaimed in astonishment that it was impossible to mount more skillfully. She asked what saddle I was using and, upon learning that I was on a woman’s saddle, said, “One would swear that she is on a man’s saddle.” When it was Madame d’Arnim’s turn, her skill did not overwhelm Her Imperial Majesty. This woman had had her horse brought from her house. It was an ugly black nag, very big and very heavy, which our servants claimed was one of the wheelhorses for her carriage. She needed a ladder to mount it. All this was done with all kinds of fuss, and finally with the aid of several people she was placed on her nag, which broke into a rough trot that bounced the woman a great deal since she was neither firm in her saddle nor in her stirrups, and held on to the saddle with her hand. Seeing her mounted, I set off, and those who could followed me. I caught up to the Grand Duke, who had started before me, and Madame d’Arnim and her nag stayed behind. I was told that the Empress laughed heartily and was little impressed with Madame d’Arnim’s manner of riding. I believe that at some distance from the court Madame Choglokova, who followed in a carriage, collected the lady, who had lost first her hat, then her stirrups. Finally she was brought to Catherinenhof, but the adventure was not yet over.

It had rained that day until three in the afternoon, and the stairway landing at Catherinenhof was covered in pools of water. After I had dismounted from my horse and been in the salon for some time, where there were many people, I decided to walk across the exposed landing to go to another room, where my ladies were. Madame d’Arnim wanted to follow me, and because I was walking quickly, she could follow me only by running and ended up in the puddle of water, where she slipped and fell her entire length, which made the numerous spectators on the landing laugh. She got up a bit confused, blaming her fall on new boots that she wore that day. We returned from the jaunt in a carriage, and on the way she spoke to us of the quality of her nag, while we bit our lips so as not to burst out laughing. Thus for several days she gave the court and city something to laugh about. My ladies claimed that she had fallen because she had tried to imitate me without being as agile as I was. Madame Choglokova, who was not a jovial person, laughed until she cried when the story was retold and long thereafter.

From the Summer Palace we went to Peterhof, where that year we resided at Monplaisir.
⁸¹
We would regularly spend part of the afternoon at Madame Choglokova’s residence, and since people often went there, we were kept sufficiently amused. From there we went to Oranienbaum, where we would hunt every day that God granted, sometimes spending thirteen hours a day on horseback. That summer was rather rainy, however. I remember that one day when I was returning to the house completely wet, I met my tailor as I got off my horse, and he said to me, “Seeing you in this state, I am no longer surprised that I can barely keep you in riding habits and that I am continually asked for new ones.” I wore only silk camlet habits, which the rain would crack while the sun would ruin the colors, and consequently I always needed new ones. It was during this time that I invented my own saddles, on which I could sit as I wanted. They had English pommels, and one could pass one’s leg over them to sit like a man. Moreover, the pommel unscrewed, and a stirrup could be lowered and raised at will according to what I judged appropriate. If the grooms were asked how I rode, they said, On a woman’s saddle, in accordance with the Empress’s wishes. They did not lie. I slipped my leg over only when I was sure not to be seen, and since I did not boast about my invention and the grooms were happy to do me the favor, I did not have any trouble. The Grand Duke cared very little about how I rode. As for the grooms, they found less risk in me riding astride, especially as I continually ran with the hunt, than on English saddles, which they detested, always fearing some accident for which they might later be blamed. To tell the truth, I cared not at all for hunting, but I passionately loved horseback riding. The more violent this exercise, the better I liked it, so that if a horse broke loose, I chased after it and brought it back. Also during this time, I always had a book in my pocket; if I had a moment to myself, I used it to read.

I noticed that during these hunts, Monsieur Choglokov softened his demeanor greatly and above all toward me. This made me fear that he had decided to court me, which was in no way acceptable to me. He was blond and foppish, very fat, and equally thick in mind and body. He was hated like a toad by everyone and was not at all pleasant either. His wife’s jealousy, nastiness, and malevolence were also to be avoided, especially by me, who had no other support in the world but myself and whatever merit I had. I therefore ducked and dodged very skillfully, as it seemed to me, all of Monsieur Choglokov’s pursuits, without him ever being able to complain about my politeness, however. All this was perfectly clear to his wife, who was grateful to me for it and afterward formed a strong friendship with me, in part because of this, as I will recount later.

There were at our court two chamberlains Saltykov, sons of the general adjutant Vasily Fedorovich Saltykov, whose wife, Maria Alekseevna, née Princess Golitsyn, mother of these two youths, was highly considered by the Empress because of the notable services that she had rendered during her accession to the throne, having shown her a rare fidelity and devotion. The younger of these sons, Sergei, had shortly before married one of the Empress’s maids of honor, Matrena Pavlovna Balk. His older brother was named Peter. He was a fool in every sense of the word, and he had the most stupid physiognomy that I have seen in my life: big vacant eyes, a pug nose, and a mouth that hung open, with which he was a supreme tattler and as such quite welcome at the Choglokovs’ home, where he was otherwise considered a man of no importance. I suspect that it was Madame Vladislavova who, on account of her long-standing acquaintance with this imbecile’s mother, suggested to the Choglokovs the idea of marrying him to the Princess of Courland. And so it happened that he got himself ready to court her, proposed marriage, and obtained her consent, while his parents requested the Empress’s. The Grand Duke learned of all this only when the matter was already completely arranged. Upon our return to the city, he was very upset by it and treated the Princess of Courland coldly.
⁸²
I do not know what excuse she gave him, but it happened that although he greatly disapproved of her marriage, she did not fail to keep a place in his affections and for a very long time maintained some influence with him. For my part, I was delighted with this marriage and had a superb wedding gown embroidered for the bride. At that time, weddings at the court, after receiving the Empress’s consent, happened only after several years of waiting because Her Imperial Majesty fixed the date herself, very often forgetting it for quite a while, and when she was reminded, she postponed it from one day to another. So it happened in this case. In autumn we returned to the city, and I had the satisfaction of seeing the Princess of Courland and Monsieur Peter Saltykov thank Her Imperial Majesty for the consent that she had deigned to give to their union. In any event, the Saltykov family was one of the oldest and most noble of this empire. It was related to the Imperial house itself by the mother of Empress Anna, who was a Saltykov, but from another branch of the family, whereas Monsieur Biron, made Duke of Courland by the favor of Empress Anna, had only been the son of a small farmer for a gentleman of Courland.
⁸³
This farmer was named Biren, but the favor that the son enjoyed in Russia led the Biron family in France to recognize him as their own, persuaded as they were by Cardinal de Fleury, who, wanting to win over the Russian court, cultivated the views and vanity of Biren, Duke of Courland.