59 
THE OUTSTANDING FIGURE of Catherine’s reign, other than Catherine herself, was Gregory Potemkin. For seventeen years, from 1774 to 1791, he was the most powerful man in Russia. No one else during her life was closer to Catherine; he was her lover, her adviser, her military commander in chief, the governor and viceroy of half of her empire, the creator of her new cities, seaports, palaces, armies, and fleets. He was also, perhaps, her husband.
Gregory Potemkin’s family had served Russian sovereigns for generations. His seventeenth-century ancestor Peter Potemkin had been sent by Tsar Alexis, the father of Peter the Great, on diplomatic missions to Spain and France. Determined to uphold the rank and dignity of his master, he demanded in Madrid that the king of Spain take off his hat whenever the tsar’s name was mentioned. In Paris, he refused to speak to the Sun King, Louis XIV, because an error had been made in the tsar’s titles. Later, in Copenhagen, he was received by the king of Denmark, who was ill and confined to bed. The envoy demanded that another bed be brought and placed next to the king so that he could negotiate from a position of absolute equality. This Potemkin, Gregory’s grandfather, died in 1700 at the age of eighty-three, demanding and eccentric to the end.
Gregory Potemkin’s father, Alexander Potemkin, was not dissimilar. As a young man in 1709, he fought in the Battle of Poltava against Charles XII of Sweden. Retired as a colonel to a small estate near Smolensk, Alexander Potemkin, while traveling, met an attractive, indigent young widow, Daria Skouratova. He was fifty and she was twenty, but he married her on the spot, forgetting to tell her that he already had a wife. Daria was pregnant before she discovered that she was married to a bigamist. She reacted by going to Potemkin’s first wife and asking for guidance. The older woman, whose life with her husband was unhappy, resolved the situation by entering a convent, in effect divorcing the colonel. Daria got along with her new husband no better than had her predecessor, but she eventually produced six children, five daughters and a son, Gregory.
The boy was born on September 13, 1739, and began life surrounded and coddled by a loving mother and five sisters. The family was unable to afford a tutor, and Gregory began his education with the village deacon. The pupil loved music, and the deacon had an exceptional voice; he enforced discipline on his precocious, obstreperous student by threatening to sing him no more songs. At five, Gregory was sent to live with his godfather, a senior civil servant in Moscow. With an ear for languages as well as music, he learned Greek, Latin, French, and German. As an adolescent, he was drawn to theology, but also to the army; whichever career he chose, he said, he wished to command. “If I become a general,” he declared to his friends, “I will have soldiers under my orders. If I become a bishop, it will be monks.” When he entered the recently founded University of Moscow, he won a gold medal for studies in theology. Then, losing interest, he refused to attend lectures and was expelled. He entered the army as a private in the Horse Guards, became a corporal, and, by 1759, a captain. In 1762, he joined the five Orlov brothers and Nikita Panin in the coup that put Catherine on the throne. It was during this tumult that he supplied the missing sword knot that Catherine borrowed for the march on Peterhof. Subsequently, when Catherine was distributing rewards for assistance in the coup, Captain Potemkin was given an army promotion and ten thousand rubles.
At twenty-two, Potemkin was tall and slim, with thick auburn hair. He was intelligent, educated, and spirited. His appearance at court and his introduction to Catherine were sponsored by the Orlovs, who admired the young soldier as an engaging conversationalist and a talented mimic who successfully impersonated the voices of people around him. One evening, Catherine asked him to mimic her. Without hesitation, he spoke to her in her own voice, perfectly imitating her idiom and German accent. Catherine, always seeking wit and humor, could not stop laughing. The impertinence was risky, but Potemkin had guessed that the empress would be amused and would forgive and probably not forget him. He had judged her correctly. Thereafter, he was often invited to her intimate evenings, which included no more than twenty people and from which all ceremony and formality were banned. She decreed that her guests must be good-humored and not speak badly of anyone. Lying and boasting were forbidden, and all unpleasant thoughts were to be deposited with hats and swords at the door. In this uninhibited atmosphere, Gregory—quick-witted, artistic, musical, and able to make the empress laugh—was always welcome.
Others at court noticed that a strong mutual admiration was developing, and there was gossip. It was said that Potemkin, encountering the empress in a palace corridor, had fallen on his knees, kissed her hand, and not been reprimanded. The Orlovs did not like these stories. Gregory was the established favorite and the father of her child, Bobrinsky; he and his brothers had been endowed with enormous power and wealth. It seemed to them that Potemkin had begun to trespass. By some accounts, Potemkin was called to Gregory Orlov’s room, where, to teach him a lesson, the two brothers, Gregory and Alexis, fell on him and beat him. Later, it was rumored that it was in this struggle that Potemkin lost the sight in his left eye (a more believable explanation is that he was permanently blinded because of faulty treatment of an infection by an incompetent doctor). Whatever the cause, this disfigurement so upset Potemkin that he withdrew from court. When the empress asked about him and was told that he was suffering from a physical disfigurement, she sent word that this was a poor reason and that he should return. He obeyed.
Catherine began making use of Potemkin’s administrative talents in 1763, when, aware of his interest in religion, she appointed him assistant to the Procurator of the Holy Synod, who oversaw church administration and finances. She simultaneously advanced his military career, and, by 1767, he was a senior commander in the Horse Guards Regiment. The following year, he became a court chamberlain. When the Legislative Commission met, he was assigned to be trustee of the Tartars and other ethnic minorities in the Russian empire. Thereafter, Potemkin always had a special interest in Catherine’s non-Russian subjects; in later years, holding supreme power in the south, his entourage always included tribal leaders of all faiths. His early love of ecclesiastical controversy continued. He rarely missed an opportunity to discuss points of religious belief with leaders of all faiths. When the First Turkish War began, in 1769, he immediately volunteered for the front. With Catherine’s permission, he joined the army of General Rumyantsev, in which he served first as Rumyantsev’s aide-de-camp and then as an outstanding leader of cavalry. In recognition of his services, he was promoted to the rank of major general and chosen in November 1769 to carry Rumyantsev’s campaign reports to the empress. In St. Petersburg, Potemkin was received as a prominent commander and invited to dine with the empress.
When he returned to the army in the south, it was with Catherine’s permission to write to her privately. She was surprised that he was slow to use this privilege. On December 4, 1773, she prompted him:
Sir Lieutenant General and Chevalier: I suppose you have your eyes so thoroughly trained on Silestra [a Turkish fortress on the Danube under siege by the Russian army] that you haven’t time to read letters.… Nonetheless I am certain that everything you undertake can be ascribed to nothing but your ardent zeal toward me personally and toward the dear fatherland which you love to serve. But since I very much desire to preserve fervent, brave, clever, and skillful individuals, so I ask you not endanger yourself.… Upon reading this letter you may well ask: why was it written? To which I can offer the following reply: so that you had confirmation of my opinion of you, for I am always most benevolent toward you. Catherine.
Potemkin could hardly fail to see an invitation in this language. In January 1774, once the army was in winter quarters, he took leave and hurried to St. Petersburg.
He arrived to find the government and Catherine struggling with multiple crises. The war with Turkey was entering its sixth year, the Pugachev rebellion was spreading, and Catherine’s intimate relationship with Alexander Vasilchikov was in its final stage. Potemkin, believing he had been summoned for personal reasons, was dismayed to find Vasilchikov still firmly embedded. He asked for a private audience with Catherine, and on February 4 he went to Tsarskoe Selo. She told him that she wanted him to remain close. He returned to court, where he seemed happy; he continued to make Catherine laugh, and he was generally recognized as the heir presumptive to the office of favorite. One day, supposedly, he was walking up the palace staircase when he met Gregory Orlov descending. “Any news at court?” Potemkin asked. “Nothing in particular,” Orlov answered. “Except that you are going up and I am coming down.” Vasilchikov managed for a few more weeks to cling to his perch because Catherine worried about the impression a change would make in St. Petersburg and abroad; she was also afraid of alienating Panin by dismissing his nominee. Most important, she wanted to be certain that her new choice was the right one.
Frustrated by Catherine’s procrastination, Potemkin decided to force the issue. He came to court only rarely, and when he did, he had nothing to say. Then he disappeared entirely. Catherine was told that Potemkin was suffering from an unhappy love affair because a certain woman did not reciprocate his love; that his despair was so deep that he was thinking of entering a monastery. Catherine complained, “I do not understand what has reduced him to such despair.… I thought my friendliness must have made him realize that his fervor was not displeasing to me.” When these words were reported to Potemkin, he knew that Vasilchikov was about to depart.
Employing his flair for the dramatic, Potemkin decided to increase the pressure on Catherine. At the end of January, he entered the Monastery Alexander Nevsky on the outskirts of St. Petersburg. There, affecting melancholy, he began growing a beard and observing the daily routine of a monk. Panin understood Potemkin’s game. The counselor requested an audience and told the empress that while the merits of General Potemkin were universally recognized, he had been sufficiently rewarded, and that nothing more need be given this gentleman. In case further advancement were contemplated, Panin observed, he wanted her to understand that “the state and yourself, Madam, will soon be made to feel the ambition, the pride, and the eccentricities of this man. I fear that your choice will cause you much unpleasantness.” Catherine replied that the raising of these issues was premature. Given Potemkin’s abilities, he could be useful as a soldier and as a diplomat. He was brave, clever, and educated; such men were not so numerous in Russia that she could allow this one to hide in a monastery. Therefore, she would do everything in her power to prevent General Potemkin from taking holy orders.
Catherine did not want to risk Potemkin making his withdrawal permanent. According to one story, she dispatched her friend and lady-in-waiting Countess Prascovia Bruce to the monastery to see Potemkin and tell him that, if he would return to court, he could rely on the empress’s favor. Potemkin did not smooth the emissary’s path. On her arrival at the monastery, he asked her to wait, saying that he was about to engage in prayer and could not be interrupted. Wearing monastic robes, he walked in procession with the monks, participated in the service, and prostrated himself, murmuring prayers, before an icon of St. Catherine. Eventually, he rose, made the sign of the cross, and came to speak to Catherine’s envoy. Countess Bruce’s message had a convincing ring; moreover, Potemkin was impressed by the court rank of the messenger. Persuaded, he shed his monastic cassock, shaved off his beard, put on his uniform, and returned to St. Petersburg in a court carriage.
He became Catherine’s lover—and immediately became intensely jealous. Apart from lying next to her hapless husband, Peter, Catherine had slept with four men before Potemkin—Saltykov, Poniatowski, Orlov, and Vasilchikov. The existence of these predecessors, and mental images of her as the sexual partner of other men, tormented Potemkin. He accused the empress of having had fifteen previous lovers. In an attempt to calm him, Catherine secluded herself in her apartment on February 21, writing a letter entitled “A Sincere Confession,” which gave an account of her previous romantic experiences. It is unique in the annals of written royal confessions; an all-powerful queen attempting to win forgiveness from a demanding new lover for previous actions in her life.
In spelling out the details of her past life, she began with the circumstances of her marriage, and then described the painful disappointments of the love affairs that followed. Her earnest, apologetic, almost pleading tone laid bare how desperately she wanted Potemkin. She began by explaining how Empress Elizabeth’s anxiety concerning her failure to produce an heir to the throne had led to her first love affair. She admitted that, under pressure from the empress and Maria Choglokova, she had chosen Sergei Saltykov, “chiefly because of his obvious inclination.” Then Saltykov was sent away, “for he had conducted himself indiscreetly:”
After a year spent in great sorrow, the present Polish king [Stanislaus Poniatowski] arrived. We took no notice of him, but good people … forced me to notice that he existed, that his eyes were of unparalleled beauty, and that he directed them (though so nearsighted he doesn’t see past his nose) more often in one direction than in another. This one was both loving and loved from 1755 till 1761, [which included] a three year absence. Then the efforts of Prince Gregory Orlov[,] whom again good people forced me to notice, changed my state of mind. This one would have remained for life had he himself not grown bored. I learned of … [his new infidelity] on the very day of his departure to … [the peace talks with the Turks] and as a result I decided that I could no longer trust him. This thought cruelly tormented me and forced me out of desperation to make some sort of choice [Vasilchikov], one which grieved me then and still does now more than I can say.…
Then came a certain knight [Potemkin]. Through his merits and kindness, this hero was so charming that people … were already saying that he should take up residence here. But what they didn’t know was that we’d already called him here.…
Now, Sir Knight, after this confession, may I hope to receive absolution for my sins? You’ll be pleased to see that it wasn’t fifteen, but a third as many: the first [Saltykov] chosen out of necessity, and the fourth [Vasilchikov] out of desperation, cannot in my mind be attributed to any frivolity. As to the other three [Poniatowski, Orlov, and Potemkin himself], if you look closely, God knows they weren’t the result of debauchery, for which I haven’t the least inclination, and had fate given me in my youth a husband whom I could have loved, I would have remained true to him forever. The trouble is that my heart is loath to be without love even for a single hour.… If you want to keep me forever, then show as much friendship as love, and more than anything else, love me and tell me the truth.
Along with Catherine’s interpretation of her own romantic history, this letter displays the impact of Potemkin’s personality on her. Potemkin understood this. Assured that he eclipsed everyone who had gone before, he wrote to Catherine, demanding what he now saw as his due:
I remain unmotivated by envy toward those who, while younger than I, have nevertheless received more signs of imperial favor than I, but am solely offended by the possibility that in Your Imperial Majesty’s thoughts, I am considered less worthy than others. Being tormented by this … I have been so audacious as to beg that should my service be worthy of your favor … my doubt [would] be resolved by rewarding me with the title of adjutant general to Your Imperial Majesty. This will offend no one, and I shall take it as the zenith of my happiness.
The rank of adjutant general was the official status of Catherine’s favorites, but that his advancement would offend no one was nonsense. In addition to Vasilchikov, who admittedly no longer counted, it would offend the Orlovs, Panin, most of the court, and Catherine’s son, Grand Duke Paul, the heir to the throne. Ignoring all this, Catherine replied the following day in a letter that mingled official wording with private tongue-in-cheek irony:
Sir Lieutenant General: Your letter was handed to me this morning. I found your request so moderate with regard to your services rendered to me and fatherland, that I ordered an edict prepared rewarding you with the title of Adjutant General. I admit that I am also very pleased that your trust in me is such that you addressed your request in writing directly to me, and did not go through any intermediaries. Rest assured I remain toward you benevolent. Catherine.
Catherine then wrote to General Alexander Bibikov, who was then commander of the troops opposing Pugachev, to tell him that she had appointed Potemkin her personal adjutant, “and, as he thinks that you, being fond of him, will rejoice at this news I am letting you know. It seems to me that considering his devotion and services to me, I have not done much for him, but his joy is hard to describe. And I, looking at him, feel glad that I see near me at least one person who is entirely happy.” She also made Potemkin lieutenant colonel of the Preobrazhensky Guards, the most famous regiment of the Imperial Guard, in which she herself, as sovereign, was colonel. A few days later, the British minister, Sir Robert Gunning, informed London of these developments:
Mr. Vasilchikov, the favorite, whose understanding was too limited to admit of his having any influence in affairs, or sharing his mistress’s confidence, is now succeeded by a man who bids fair to possessing them both, in the most supreme form. When I acquaint Your Lordship that the empress’s choice is equally disapproved by both the Grand Duke’s party [including Panin] and the Orlovs … you will not wonder that it has occasioned a very general surprise.
As the news swept through the court, Countess Rumyantseva wrote to her husband, the general, who, a few months before, had been Potemkin’s superior in the Turkish war, “The thing to do now, my sweet, is to address yourself to Potemkin.”
Panin, despite his warning to Catherine about Potemkin, was pleased by the change because it promised to diminish the influence of the Orlovs. No concern was shown for the hapless Vasilchikov, who, still living in the palace, became simply an inconvenience. Catherine was enraptured by her new favorite; this extended to taking pride in his reputed success with other women. “I’m not surprised that the entire city has ascribed to you a countless number of women as your lovers,” she wrote to him. “No one on earth is better at busying himself with them, I suppose, than you.” She wanted him now, however, exclusively for herself. Less than a week after writing her “Sincere Confession,” she waited at night for Potemkin to come to her. The following day, she wrote to him:
I don’t understand what kept you. And you didn’t even come. Please, don’t be afraid. We are quite too shrewd. No sooner had I lain down than I rose again, got dressed, and went to the doors of the library to wait for you, where I stood in a drafty wind for two hours. And not till midnight … did I return out of grief to lie down in bed where, thanks to you, I spent … [a] sleepless night.… I want to see you and must see you, no matter what!
Potemkin remained jealous of everyone, flaring up when she paid attention to anyone else. One night at the theater, when she made friendly remarks to Gregory Orlov, he got up and stormed out of the imperial box. Catherine cautioned him to moderate his attitude toward this former lover:
I only ask you not to do one thing: don’t damage, and don’t even try to damage, my opinion of Prince Orlov, for I should consider that to be ingratitude on your part. There’s no one whom he [Orlov] praised more to me and whom … he loved more both in former times and now till your arrival, than you. And if he has his faults, then it is unfit for either you or me to judge them and to make them known to others. He loves you, and they [the Orlov brothers] are my friends, and I shan’t part with them. Now there’s a lesson for you. If you’re wise, you’ll heed it. It wouldn’t be wise to contradict it since it’s the absolute truth.
In April, Potemkin moved into the apartment immediately beneath the private apartment of the empress; their rooms were now connected by the private, green-carpeted spiral staircase. Because they kept different hours—Catherine normally rose to begin work at six and retired at night by ten; Potemkin often talked and played cards until dawn and rose at noon—they did not regularly sleep together in the same bed. Instead, at night one climbed, or the other descended, the spiral staircase in order to spend time together.
When they became lovers, Catherine was forty-four, ten years older than Potemkin. She was inclining toward plumpness, but her mental acuity and vitality remained exceptional. And Potemkin could see that his passion for this woman was powerfully reciprocated, which only added to her attractiveness. He might have settled into the luxurious life of an imperial favorite and collected the rewards that came with that position. But Potemkin had no interest in simply becoming the purveyor of private pleasures to the empress. He wanted a life of action and responsibility, and he meant to achieve it with the support of the woman who personified Russia.
Catherine was eager to accept him on this basis. She thought him the handsomest man she had ever met; she scarcely noticed the damaged eye. At thirty-four, he had gained weight and his body was no longer slim. Biting his nails had become an obsession. None of this mattered. To Grimm, she wrote: “I have parted from a certain excellent but very boring citizen [Vasilchikov] who was immediately replaced—I do not myself quite know how—by one of the greatest, most bizarre, and most entertaining eccentrics of the iron age.”
From the beginning there were quarrels. Hardly a day passed without a scene, and almost always it was Potemkin who began the quarrel and Catherine who took the first step toward reconciliation. He questioned the permanence of her feeling for him and worried her and himself with questions and reproaches. Because most of his letters and notes are lost, there is only a slender record of what he wrote to her, but her letters to him give an idea of what he had said to her. In any case, she had to soothe and flatter him like a spoiled child:
No, Grishenka, it’s quite impossible that my feelings for you will change. Be fair with yourself: how could I love someone after you? I think there’s no one like you and I don’t give a damn about everyone else. I hate change.
There is no reason to be angry. But no, it’s time to stop giving you assurances. You must be most, most, most certain by now that I love you.… I want you to love me. I want to appear desirable to you.… If you want, I shall paraphrase this page for you in three words and cross out all the rest. Here it is: I love you.
Oh, my darling, you should be ashamed. What need do you have of saying that he who takes your place hasn’t long to live? Does using fear to compel someone’s heart look like the right thing to do? This most loathsome method is utterly contrary to your way of thinking in which no evil dwells.
Not only jealousy, but also Potemkin’s sensitivity to the possible impermanence of his new position provided a subject for argument. He refused to be treated as merely the empress’s favorite. There is a letter from him, annotated in the margins by Catherine and returned to him, which exhibits one of their arguments and its reconciliation:
IN POTEMKIN’S HAND:
Allow me, my precious dear, to say these final words that I think will end our quarrel. Do not be surprised that I am uneasy about our love. Beyond the innumerable gifts you have bestowed on me, you have placed me in your heart. I want to be there alone, preferred to all former ones, since no one has so loved you as I. And since I am the work of your hands. So I desire that you should secure my place, that you should find joy in doing me good, that you should devise everything for my comfort and find therein repose from the great labors that occupy your lofty station. Amen.
IN CATHERINE’S HAND:
I permit you.
The sooner the better.
Be calm.
One hand washes the other.
Firmly and solidly.
You are and will be.
I see it and believe it.
I am happy with all my soul.
My foremost pleasure. It will come by itself. Let your thoughts be calm. Your feelings are tender and will find the best way.
End of quarrel. Amen.
Thus began the period in Catherine’s life when she had a lover and partner who gave her almost everything she wanted. Their intimacy permitted Potemkin to walk into her bedroom in the morning with only a dressing gown over his naked body, although the room was crowded with visitors and court officials. He scarcely noticed because his thoughts were on the fascinating conversation interrupted a few hours before when Catherine, declaring that she must have some sleep, had left his apartment below and returned to her room.
Because they worked in different parts of the palace during the day, they wrote notes to each other; continuations of their conversations. These were protestations of love mingled with affairs of state, court gossip, reproachful chiding, and discussions of mutual health. Catherine’s names for him were “My golden pheasant,” “Dearest Pigeon,” “Kitten,” “Little dog,” “Papa,” “Twin Soul,” “Little parrot,” “Grisha,” and “Grishenka.” Also: “Cossack,” “Muscovite,” “Lion in the Jungle,” “Tiger,” “Giaour (Infidel),” “My good sir,” “Prince,” “Your Excellency,” “Your Serene Highness,” “General,” and “My sweet beauty to whom no king can compare.” Potemkin’s forms of address to her were more formal, emphasizing the difference in station: “Matushka,” “Madame,” or “Your Gracious Imperial Majesty.” Catherine worried because he carried her little notes in his pocket and often pulled them out to reread. She feared that one would drop out and be picked up by the wrong person.
For a person with an orderly German mind who exercised strict self-control, the emotional intensity Catherine experienced with Potemkin was both liberating and distracting. She had to choose between drawn-out, draining sexual pleasure and her duties as a ruler. She tried to have both, and both ran concurrently in her mind. She was not free to be with him whenever she wanted; she compensated by secretly surrounding herself with thoughts of him; she did this while reading papers or listening to officials delivering reports, hour after hour. Because she was not free to spend these honeymoon days alone with him, Catherine poured her love onto these little scribbled slips of paper.
Potemkin, too, was immersed in passion, but he was uneasy about something else. He realized that he owed his new preeminence exclusively to the empress, and that just as she had summoned and then dismissed Vasilchikov, so, too, she could, at any moment, replace him. There was, of course, a climactic step that would change his status. His plan was extravagant, impracticable—perhaps only a daydream: he wanted to legalize their union by marriage. He spoke to her about it soon after he became the official favorite, and it was a measure of his power over her that she considered it. For Catherine, it would not have been easy; she was wary of surrendering power. This time, because of her love for Potemkin, she may have agreed.
If there was a marriage, this is a widely believed version of how it happened:
No one was to know. But to be a proper Orthodox ceremony, it had to include a chuch, a priest, and witnesses. These arrangements were made. On June 8, 1774, after a dinner in honor of the Izmailovsky Guards, Catherine, wearing the uniform of the regiment, and accompanied only by a favorite maid, set out in a boat from the Fontanka Canal, crossed the Neva River to the Vyborg side, and entered an unmarked carriage, which took her to the St. Sampsonovsky Church. There, Potemkin, wearing his general’s uniform, was waiting. Only five people were present: Catherine, Potemkin, her maid, her chamberlain, and Potemkin’s nephew Alexander Samoilov. The marriage was performed.
Is this story true? No documents have ever been seen, but there are other forms of evidence. In 1782, Sir Robert Keith, the British ambassador to Austria, walking with Emperor Joseph II, asked about the rumors. “Does it appear, sir, that Prince Potemkin’s weight and influence is diminished?” “Not at all,” the emperor replied, “but they have never been what the world imagined. The empress of Russia does not wish to part with him, and for a thousand reasons, and as [with] many connections of every sort, she could not easily get rid of him even if she wished to.” Why, if Potemkin were merely a favorite, could Catherine not get rid of him? She had gotten rid of Orlov, who, with his brothers, had put her on the throne, and who was also the father of her son, Bobrinsky. A marriage, however, had created a different situation. Perhaps this was what the emperor was saying.
Ambassadors, as well as emperors, like to pose as having inside knowledge. Philippe de Ségur, the French ambassador in St. Petersburg, told Versailles in 1788 that Potemkin had “certain sacred and inalienable rights which secure the continuance of his privilege.… A lucky chance enabled me to discover it, and when I have thoroughly researched it, I shall on the first occasion inform the king.” No such occasion presented itself. The French Revolution broke out a year later, Ségur returned home, and five years later the king, Louis XVI, was guillotined.
The strongest written evidence appears in the language of Catherine’s daily messages to Potemkin beginning in the late spring of 1774. She addresses him as “dear husband” and “my master and tender spouse” and signs herself “your devoted wife.” She never called any other lover, before or after Potemkin, “husband,” or referred to herself as his “wife.” In June and July 1774, immediately after the marriage—if one occurred—she wrote, “I kiss you and embrace you with all my body and soul, dear husband.” A few days later: “Dearest darling, dear spouse, pray come and cuddle with me. Your caresses are so sweet and pleasing.”
The history of Russia offers the strongest evidence of all. After their physical passion had dimmed, Catherine and Gregory Potemkin continued a special relationship that was often incomprehensible to everyone around them. Marriage would provide an explanation. If they were secretly married and still deeply cared for each other but had agreed on a modus vivendi, it could account for the unique authority wielded by Potemkin in Catherine’s Russia for the rest of his life. During this time—over fifteen years—he received and returned Catherine’s devoted loyalty and affection. This was true even when both were sleeping with other people.