1759

Poniatowski’s recall to Poland; Catherine’s private party; triple
wedding; arrest of Bestuzhev-Riumin endangers Catherine;
his plan for succession after Elizabeth’s death includes Catherine;
her secret communications with Bestuzhev-Riumin discovered;
she burns her papers; she fears her removal; her letter to Elizabeth;
her philosophical self-portrait; removal of Mme. Vladislavova;
she sends for her confessor to plead her cause with Elizabeth;
her two conversations with Elizabeth

On January 1, 1759, the court’s celebrations ended with a very grand fireworks display between the ball and dinner.¹⁴² As I was still confined, I did not appear at court. Before the fireworks, Count Peter Shuvalov decided to come to my room to show me the plan for the fireworks display. A short time before they were set off, Madame Vladislavova told him that I was sleeping, but that nevertheless she would go to see. It was not true that I was asleep, only that I was in my bed and had my usual very small circle, which was at the time, as before, Mesdames Naryshkina, Seniavina, Izmailova, and Count Poniatowski. Since his recall he had been claiming to be ill, but was coming to see me, and these women liked me well enough to prefer my company to the balls and parties. Madame Vladislavova did not know exactly who was with me, but she had much too good a nose not to suspect that there was someone. I had told her early in the evening that I was going to bed out of boredom, and thereafter she had come in no more. After the arrival of Count Peter Shuvalov, she came to knock on my door. I drew my curtain on the screen side and told her to come in. She entered and gave me Count Peter Shuvalov’s message. I told her to have him come in. She went to find him, and meanwhile my friends behind the screen nearly died laughing at the utter outrageousness of this scene, where I was going to receive the visit of Count Peter Shuvalov, who would be able to swear that he had found me alone in my bed when there was only a curtain that separated my merry little circle from this personage, so important at the time, the oracle of the court, who possessed the Empress’s trust to an eminent degree. Finally he entered and brought me his plan for the fireworks display; he was at the time the grand master of artillery. I began by making him my excuses for having made him wait, having only, I said, just woken up. I rubbed my eyes a little, saying that I was still quite sleepy. I lied so as not to contradict Madame Vladislavova, after which we had a conversation that was rather long, so much so that he seemed to me eager to leave so as not to make the Empress wait for the beginning of the display. Then I dismissed him and he left, and I again opened my curtain. My company was beginning to get hungry and thirsty from laughing. I said, “Very well, you will have something to drink and eat. It is fair that for your indulgence in keeping me company, you should not die either of hunger or of thirst in my home.” I again closed my curtain and I rang. Madame Vladislavova came, and I told her to bring me supper, that I was dying of hunger and there should be at least six good dishes. When the meal was ready, it was brought. I had everything put next to my bed and told the servants to leave. Then my famished friends behind the curtain came out to eat what they found. The gaiety added to their appetite. I admit that this soiree was one of the maddest and most joyful that I have had in my life. When dinner had been gobbled up, I had the leftovers taken away in the same way the food had been brought. I think my servants were rather amazed at my appetite. Toward the end of the court supper my group withdrew, also very pleased with the soiree. Count Poniatowski always wore a blond wig and a cloak to go out, and when the guards asked him “who goes there,” he said he was a musician of the Grand Duke. On that day this wig made us laugh a great deal. This time, after the six weeks’ confinement, my churching ceremony was held in the Empress’s little chapel, but except for Alexander Shuvalov, no one attended it.

Toward the end of carnival, all the celebrations in town ended and there were three weddings at the court: that of Count Alexander Strogonov with Countess Anna Vorontsova, daughter of the Vice Chancellor, was the first, and two days later that of Lev Naryshkin with Mademoiselle Zakrevskaia, which was on the same day as that of Count Buturlin with Countess Maria Vorontsova.¹⁴³ These three young ladies were the Empress’s maids of honor. On the occasion of these three weddings a bet was made at the court between the Hetman Count Kirill Razumovsky and the Minister from Denmark, Count d’Osten, about which of the three grooms would be cuckolded first, and it happened that those who had bet it would be Strogonov, whose new wife seemed the ugliest at the time, the most innocent and the most infantile, won the bet.

The day before the weddings of Lev Naryshkin and Count Buturlin was a day of unfortunate events. For a long while already it had been whispered that Grand Chancellor Bestuzhev’s position was shaky, that his enemies were gaining the upper hand. He had lost his friend General Apraksin. Count Razumovsky the elder had long supported him, but since the Shuvalovs’ favor had begun to grow, he hardly got involved in anything anymore except to ask, when the occasion presented itself, for some little favor for his friends or relatives. The Shuvalovs and Mikhail Vorontsov were also spurred on in their hatred for the Grand Chancellor by the ambassadors from Austria, Count Esterhazy; and France, the Marquis de l’Hôpital. The latter believed Count Bestuzhev more favorable toward Russia’s alliance with England than with France. The Austrian ambassador conspired against him because Bestuzhev wanted Russia to respect its treaty of alliance with the Court of Vienna and to give aid to Maria Theresa, but did not want Russia to act as the main warring party against the King of Prussia. Count Bestuzhev thought as a patriot and was not easy to manipulate, whereas Mikhail Vorontsov and Ivan Shuvalov were in the pocket of the two ambassadors to the point that fifteen days before Grand Chancellor Count Bestuzhev was disgraced, the Marquis de L’Hôpital, Ambassador from France, went to the home of Vice Chancellor Vorontsov with a dispatch in hand and said to him, “Monsieur Count, here is a dispatch from my court that I have just received, which says that if in fifteen days’ time the Grand Chancellor has not been replaced by you, I must address myself to him and deal only with him henceforth.” This inflamed the Vice Chancellor, and he went to Ivan Shuvalov’s home, and they made it seem to the Empress that her glory was suffering because of Count Bestuzhev’s great stature in Europe. She ordered that a meeting be held that very evening and that the Grand Chancellor be called to it. He sent word that he was ill. Whereupon, this illness was viewed as disobedience and he was told to come without delay. He came and was arrested in the middle of the meeting, all his functions, titles, and orders were stripped from him without a living soul being able to articulate for what crimes or misdeeds the first personage of the empire was being so despoiled, and he was sent back to his mansion as a prisoner.¹⁴⁴ As all this had been prepared in advance, a company of grenadiers from the guard had been ordered to come. While they had been marching along the Moika, where Counts Alexander and Peter Shuvalov had their houses, the soldiers had said, “Thank God we are finally going to arrest those cursed Shuvalovs, who do nothing but increase their monopolies.” But when the soldiers saw that it was about Count Bestuzhev, they showed their displeasure, saying, “It is not he but the others who trample the people.”

Although Count Bestuzhev was arrested in the very palace where we occupied a wing, not very far from our apartments, they were so careful to hide everything that was happening from us that we learned nothing about it that evening. On the following day, Sunday, when I awoke, I received a note from Lev Naryshkin that Count Poniatowski sent me through him, a channel that had already been suspect for quite a while. The note began with these words: “Man is never without resources. I am using this channel to warn you that yesterday evening Count Bestuzhev was arrested and stripped of his functions and titles, and with him your jeweler Bernardi, Elagin, and Adadurov.” I was bowled over by these lines, and after reading them I told myself that I must not delude myself into thinking that this affair did not concern me more directly than it seemed. Now, to understand this a commentary will be necessary. Bernardi was an Italian jewel merchant who did not lack intelligence and whose profession gave him entrée to all the best houses. I think that there was not a single one that did not owe him something and to which he did not render some small service or other. As he came and went everywhere continually, he was also sometimes charged with commissions between houses. A message in a note sent with Bernardi arrived more quickly and more surely than with servants.¹⁴⁵ Thus Bernardi’s arrest concerned the whole city because he had commissions from everyone including me. Elagin was the former adjutant of the Grand Master of the Hunt Count Razumovsky who had had the guardianship of Beketov. He had remained devoted to the house of Razumovsky and through them to Count Bestuzhev. He had become the friend of Count Poniatowski. He was a trustworthy man of integrity. When one gained his affection one did not easily lose it. He had always shown devotion to and an obvious liking for me. Adadurov had formerly been my Russian language teacher and had remained very devoted to me. I had recommended him to Count Bestuzhev, who had begun to trust him only two or three years earlier and who in the past had not liked him, because Adadurov had formerly been in the service of the procurator, Prince Nikita Iurevich Trubetskoi, Bestuzhev’s enemy. After reading this note and after the thoughts that I have just described, a flood of ideas, each more unpleasant and sadder than the last, arose in my mind. With a dagger in my heart, so to speak, I got dressed and went to mass, where it seemed to me that most of those whom I saw had faces as long as mine. No one said a word to me that day, and it was as if people were unaware of the event. I did not say a word either. The Grand Duke had never liked Count Bestuzhev. He seemed to me rather joyful that day, but discreetly kept his distance.

That evening we had to go to the wedding. I got dressed again and attended the blessing of the marriages of Count Buturlin and Lev Naryshkin, then went to supper and the ball. During this I went up to the marshal of the wedding, Prince Nikita Trubetskoi, and under the pretext of examining the ribbons on his marshal’s baton, I said to him in a low voice, “What are these fine things? Have you found more crimes than criminals or do you have more criminals than crimes?” At this he said to me, “We have done what we were ordered to do, but as for the crimes, we are still looking for them. So far what we have uncovered does not bode well.” When I finished speaking with him, I went to speak with Marshal Buturlin, who said to me, “Bestuzhev has been arrested, but at present we are looking for the reason why.” Thus spoke the two head commissioners, named with Count Alexander Shuvalov by the Empress to examine the arrested men. At this ball I saw Stambke from a distance and thought he appeared to be suffering and discouraged. The Empress did not appear at either of these two weddings, neither at the church nor at the banquet.

The following day Stambke came to see me and told me that he had just been given a note from Count Bestuzhev, who wrote Stambke to tell me to have no worries about what I knew, that he had had time to throw everything in the fire and that he would inform Stambke about his interrogations by the same channel when he underwent them. I asked Stambke what this channel was. He told me that a hunting-horn player of the Count had given him this note, and that it was agreed that in the future, they would place their communications to each other in a marked spot among some bricks not far from Count Bestuzhev’s house. I told Stambke to be very careful that this sensitive correspondence not be discovered, but though he seemed to me to be in great anguish himself, nevertheless he and Count Poniatowski continued to communicate. As soon as Stambke left, I called Madame Vladislavova and told her to go to the home of her son-in-law Pugovishnikov and give him the note I was writing. In this note there were only these words: “You have nothing to fear, there was time to burn everything.” This calmed him, for it seemed that since the Grand Chancellor’s arrest he had been more dead than alive.

Here is the reason for his fear, and what Count Bestuzhev had had time to burn. The Empress’s sickly state and frequent convulsions could not fail to turn all eyes toward the future. Because of both his position and intelligence, Count Bestuzhev was certainly not among the last to reflect on this situation. He knew of the antipathy against him that had long been cultivated in the Grand Duke. He was very aware of the feeble capacities of this Prince, born the heir to so many crowns. It is natural that this statesman, like any other, felt the desire to maintain his position. It had been several years since he had seen me throw off the bad impressions of him that had been instilled in me. Moreover, since then he had regarded me personally as perhaps the only individual in whom the public could place its hope when the Empress passed away. This and other similar reflections led him to form the plan whereby upon the Empress’s death, the Grand Duke would be declared the rightful Emperor and at the same time, I would be declared as sharing the government with him. All public offices were to be maintained, and Bestuzhev would be appointed lieutenant colonel of the four guard regiments and president of the three Colleges of the Empire, that of Foreign Affairs, the College of War, and the admiralty. His ambitions were therefore excessive. He had sent me the draft of this manifesto written in Pugovishnikov’s hand via Count Poniatowski, with whom I had agreed to reply to Bestuzhev orally that I thanked him for his good intentions toward me, but that I regarded the affair as difficult to execute. He had had his draft written and revised several times, had changed it, expanded it, and shortened it. He appeared very busy with it. To tell the truth, I regarded his plan as rambling nonsense and as bait that the old man threw me to gain more and more of my affection. But I did not take this particular bait, because I saw it as harmful to the empire, which would have been torn apart with each domestic dispute between me and my husband, who did not love me. However, as I did not yet see the need arising, I did not want to contradict an old man who was persistent and uncompromising when he had taken something into his head. And so he had had time to burn his plan and had informed me so as to calm those of us who knew about it.

Meanwhile, my chamber valet, Shkurin, came to tell me that the captain who was guarding Count Bestuzhev was a man who had always been his friend and who dined at his house every Sunday after leaving the court. I said to him that if matters were thus and he could count on this man, he should try to sound him out to see if he would be willing to have secret contacts with his prisoner. This had become all the more necessary since Count Bestuzhev had communicated to Stambke by his channel that they should inform Bernardi to tell the pure truth at his interrogation and let Bestuzhev know what Bernardi was asked. When I saw that Shkurin had voluntarily undertaken to find some way to reach Count Bestuzhev, I told him to try to establish communication with Bernardi also, to see if he could not win over the sergeant or some other soldier who was guarding Bernardi in his quarters. The same day, Shkurin told me toward evening that Bernardi was guarded by a sergeant of the guards named Kolyshkin, with whom he would have a meeting the following day. However, Shkurin had sent to the home of his friend the captain, who was at Count Bestuzhev’s residence, to ask if he could see him. The captain had told Shkurin that if he wanted to talk to him, he should come to his house. But one of the captain’s underlings, whom Shkurin also knew and who was his relative, had told him not to go, because if he went, the captain would have him arrested; the captain had already boasted privately of this, and would improve his standing at Shkurin’s expense. Shkurin therefore ended contact with his so-called friend, Monsieur the captain. On the other hand, Kolyshkin, whom I ordered to act in my name, told Bernardi all that we wanted him to, and since he only had to tell the truth, both were happy to go along with this.

A few days later, very early one morning, Stambke entered my room quite pale and haggard and told me that his correspondence and that of Count Poniatowski with Count Bestuzhev had just been discovered, that the little horn player had been arrested and that there was every indication that their latest letters had had the misfortune of falling into the hands of Count Bestuzhev’s guards. He himself expected to be dismissed, if not arrested, at any moment, and he had come to tell me this and take his leave of me. What he said hardly put me at ease. I consoled him as best I could and sent him away, not doubting that his visit would do nothing but increase, if this was possible, the totality of bad feeling against me, and that people were perhaps going to abandon me like someone who is wanted by the government. Nevertheless I was deeply convinced that as concerned the government, I had nothing to reproach myself. Aside from Mikhail Vorontsov, Ivan Shuvalov, the two ambassadors from Vienna and Versailles, and those whom they made believe what they wanted, the public in general, everyone in all Petersburg, great and small, was convinced that Count Bestuzhev was innocent, and that he was not responsible for any crime or offense.

It was known that the day after the evening of his arrest, a group had worked on a manifesto in Ivan Shuvalov’s chambers and that Master Volkov, Count Bestuzhev’s former head clerk and now first secretary of the commission, had had to write it. In 1755, Volkov had fled from his home and after wandering in the woods, had turned himself in. They wanted to publish this manifesto to inform the public of the reasons that had obliged the Empress to act as she had against Grand Chancellor Count Bestuzhev. Thus this secret conventicle, racking its brain to find offenses, conspired to say that the crime was lèse-majesté, because Bestuzhev had sought to sow discord between Her Imperial Majesty and Their Imperial Highnesses.¹⁴⁶ Without an indictment or judgment, on the day following his arrest they wanted to send him to one of his estates and strip him of the rest of his possessions. But there were those who thought that it was extreme to exile someone without evidence of a crime or a judgment, and that despite the expectation of finding crimes they nevertheless had to be sought, and that whether they were discovered or not, it was still necessary to have the prisoner, who had been stripped of his functions, titles, and orders for reasons unknown, undergo the judgment of the commissioners.¹⁴⁷ Now these commissioners, as I have already said, were Marshal Buturlin, Procurator General Prince Trubetskoi, General Count Alexander Shuvalov, and Master Volkov, the secretary. The first thing that the commissioners did was order, through the College of Foreign Affairs, the Russian ambassadors, envoys, and employees at foreign courts to send copies of the dispatches that Count Bestuzhev had written them since he had been in charge of foreign affairs. This was so as to find incriminating evidence in his dispatches. It was said that he wrote only what he wanted, and things contradictory to the orders and wishes of the Empress. But as Her Imperial Majesty neither wrote nor signed anything, it was difficult to act against her orders, and as for verbal orders, Her Imperial Majesty was hardly in the position to give any to the Grand Chancellor, who went entire years without having the opportunity to see her. Strictly speaking, verbal orders delivered by a third party could be misinterpreted, and were as vulnerable to bad delivery as they were to miscomprehension. But nothing came of all this except the order that I mentioned, because I think that none of the employees took the trouble to go through their twenty-year-old archive and copy it to look for crimes by the man whose instructions and directions these same employees had followed, since they might thereby find themselves implicated, with the best intentions in the world, in what might be found reprehensible in this correspondence. Moreover, the sending of such archives alone would cost the crown considerably, and once they arrived in Petersburg, there would have been enough to try the patience of a good number of people over several years in order to find and disentangle something that was perhaps not even there. Once sent, this order was never carried out. The affair itself grew tiresome and was brought to an end after a year by the manifesto they had begun to compose the day following the Grand Chancellor’s arrest.¹⁴⁸

The afternoon of the day that Stambke had come to see me, the Empress told the Grand Duke to send Stambke back to Holstein, because his secret contacts with Count Bestuzhev had been discovered and he deserved to be arrested. But out of consideration for His Imperial Highness and as his minister, he remained free on the condition that he be dismissed at once. Stambke was sent away immediately, and with his departure my handling of the affairs of Holstein ended.¹⁴⁹ The Grand Duke was made to understand that the Empress did not judge it right that I was involved in them, and His Imperial Highness was himself rather partial to this opinion. I do not remember very well whom he chose afterward to replace Stambke, but I think it was a certain Wolff. Then the Empress’s Minister formally asked the King of Poland for the recall of Count Poniatowski, one of whose notes to Count Bestuzhev had been found. In truth it was quite innocent, but nevertheless addressed to a so-called prisoner of the state. As soon as I learned of Stambke’s dismissal and Count Poniatowski’s recall, I did not foresee anything positive for me, and here is what I did. I called my chamber valet, Shkurin, and told him to gather all my account books and everything among my effects that might even resemble a document and bring it to me. He executed my order with zeal and precision. When everything was in my room, I dismissed him. When he had left, I threw all these books and papers into the fire, and when I saw them half consumed, I again called for Shkurin and said to him, “Witness that all my accounts and papers are burned, so that if you are ever asked where they are, you can swear to have seen them burned here by me.” He thanked me for the consideration that I showed him and told me that a quite extraordinary change had just occurred in the prisoners’ guard. Since the discovery of Stambke’s correspondence with Count Bestuzhev, he was being watched more closely, and to this end Sergeant Kolyshkin had been moved from Bernardi’s home and had been put in the room and near the person of the former Grand Chancellor. When Kolyshkin realized this, he requested that he be given some of the soldiers attached to him when he was guarding Bernardi. And so the most trustworthy and intelligent man that Shkurin and I had was placed in Count Bestuzhev’s room, moreover without having lost all his secret contacts with Bernardi. Meanwhile, the interrogation of Count Bestuzhev was under way. Kolyshkin introduced himself to Count Bestuzhev as a man entirely devoted to me, and in fact he rendered him a great many services. Like me, he was deeply convinced that the Grand Chancellor was innocent and the victim of a powerful cabal; the public was convinced too.

I saw that the Grand Duke had been frightened and that he had been made to suspect that I was not unaware of Stambke’s correspondence with the prisoner of the state. I saw that His Imperial Highness hardly dared talk to me and avoided coming into my room, where I was moreover completely alone, not seeing a living soul. I myself avoided having people come, for fear of exposing them to some misfortune or trouble. At court, fearing that I would be avoided, I refrained from approaching all those who I thought might be implicated. During the last days of carnival, there was going to be a Russian play at the court theater. Count Poniatowski begged me to come because the rumor was beginning to circulate that they were preparing to send me away to prevent me from appearing in public, and I know not what else. Each time I did not appear at the theater or at court, everyone was intrigued to know the reason for it, perhaps as much out of curiosity as out of the concern they had for me. I knew that Russian theater was one of the things His Imperial Highness liked least and that to speak of going to it was enough to greatly displease him. But this time the Grand Duke joined to his dislike of the national theater another motive and minor personal objective. He was not yet seeing Countess Elizabeth Vorontsova in his apartment, but since she stayed in the antechamber with the other maids of honor, His Imperial Highness had conversations with or courted her there. If I went to the theater, these maidens were obliged to follow me, which would upset His Imperial Highness, who would find no other recourse than to go drink in his apartment. Without regard for his situation, as I had decided that day and given my word to go to the theater, I told Count Alexander Shuvalov to order my carriages. Count Shuvalov came to see me and told me that my plan to go to the Russian play did not please the Grand Duke. I replied to him that as I did not count among His Imperial Highness’s company, I thought it would not matter to him whether I was alone in my room or in my loge at the theater. He left twitching his eye as he always did when he was bothered by something. Sometime later the Grand Duke came into my room. He was terribly angry, shrieking like a banshee, saying that I enjoyed upsetting him and that I had decided to go to the theater because I knew he did not like this kind of spectacle. I explained to him that he was wrong not to like it. He told me that he would forbid them to give me my carriage. I told him that I would go on foot, and that I could not guess what pleasure he took in making me die of boredom alone in my room, where I had my dog and my parrot as my only company. After we had both argued for a long while and spoken very loudly, he left angrier than ever, and I persisted in going to the theater. As the hour of the play neared, I sent to ask Count Shuvalov if the carriages were ready. He came to see me and told me that the Grand Duke had forbidden them to be given to me. At this I got good and angry, and I said that I was going on foot and that if the ladies and gentlemen were prohibited from following me, I would go all alone, and that moreover, I would complain in writing to the Empress about both the Grand Duke and him. He said to me, “And what will you say to her?” “I will tell her,” I said, “the manner in which I am treated and that you, in order to arrange a rendezvous with my maids of honor for the Grand Duke, encourage him to prevent me from going to the play, where I may have the happiness of seeing Her Imperial Majesty, and moreover, I will beg her to send me back to my mother’s home because I am sick and tired of the role that I am playing, alone and abandoned in my room, hated by the Grand Duke and not at all loved by the Empress. I desire only my rest, and I no longer want to be a burden to anyone, nor to bring misfortune to whomever approaches me and especially my poor servants, so many of whom have already been exiled because I wished them well or was good to them. You should know that I am going to write to Her Imperial Majesty straight away and then I will see whether or not you take my letter to her yourself.” The man was frightened by the determined tone I took.

He left and I began to write my letter to the Empress in Russian, making it as moving as I could. I began by thanking her for all the favors and kindness with which she had showered me since my arrival in Russia, saying that unfortunately, events proved that I had not merited them, because I had incurred the Grand Duke’s hatred and the very marked disfavor of Her Imperial Majesty. Seeing my misfortune and that I was withering with boredom in my room, where I was deprived of even the most innocent pastimes, I begged her to put an immediate end to my unhappiness by sending me away to my family in whatever manner she judged fitting. Since I did not see my children, although I lived with them in the same household, it made no difference to me whether I was in the same place they were or a few hundred leagues away. I knew that her care for them surpassed what my feeble abilities would permit me to give them. I dared to ask her to continue to care for them, and trusting in this, I would spend the rest of my life with my family, praying to God for her, the Grand Duke, my children, and all those who had done me good and ill. But because of sorrow, my health was reduced to such a state that I had to do what I could to at least save my life, and to this end I was beseeching her to allow me to take the waters and from there go to my family’s home. Having written this letter, I sent for Count Shuvalov, who upon entering told me that the carriages that I had asked for were ready. I told him, while giving him my letter for the Empress, that he could tell the ladies and gentlemen who did not want to follow me to the theater that I excused them. Count Shuvalov received my letter twitching his eye, but since it was addressed to the Empress, he was utterly obliged to take it. He also relayed my words to the maidens and gentlemen, and it was His Imperial Highness himself who decided who should go with me and who should stay with him. I passed through the antechamber, where I found His Imperial Highness ensconced with Countess Elizabeth Vorontsova, playing cards in a corner. He rose and she too when he saw me, something that he never did, moreover. I responded to this formality with a very deep curtsy and went my way. I went to the theater, where the Empress did not appear that day. I think that my letter prevented her. Upon returning from the theater, Count Shuvalov told me that Her Imperial Majesty informed me that she herself would have an interview with me. Apparently Count Shuvalov gave an account both of my letter and of the Empress’s response to the Grand Duke, for though from that day on he did not set foot in my room again, nevertheless he did everything he could to be present at the interview that the Empress was having with me, and it seemed that they could not refuse him. I waited calmly in my apartment. I was deeply convinced that if they had been thinking of sending me back or frightening me with the possibility, the step that I had just taken completely disrupted the Shuvalovs’ plan. In any case, this plan would meet the most resistance in the mind of the Empress herself, who was not at all inclined toward such blatant acts. Moreover, she still remembered the former disagreements in her family and would certainly not have wished to see them rekindled in her lifetime. There could only be a single mark against me, which was that her nephew did not seem to me to be the most lovable of men, just as I did not seem to him to be the most lovable of women. The Empress felt exactly as I did about her nephew, and she knew him so well that for many years already she had not been able to pass a quarter hour with him anywhere without feeling disgust, anger, or sorrow. In her room, when conversation turned to him, she spoke either through bitter tears about the misfortune of having such an heir or else while showing her contempt for him, and would often give him epithets that he deserved only too well. I have had proofs of this in hand, having found among her papers two notes written in the Empress’s hand to I know not whom. One appeared to be for Ivan Shuvalov and the other for Count Razumovsky, and in them she cursed her nephew and sent him to the devil. In one there was this expression:  and in another she said, ¹⁵⁰

In any case my decision was made, and I viewed my being sent home or not with a very philosophical eye. In whatever situation it should please Providence to place me, I would never find myself without those resources that intelligence and talent give to each according to his natural abilities, and I felt the courage to rise and fall without my heart and my soul feeling either pride or vanity or, in the opposite case, shame or humiliation. I knew that I was human, and therefore a limited being incapable of perfection. My intentions had always been honest and pure, as I had understood from the very beginning that to love a husband who was not amiable, nor took any pains to be so, was a difficult thing, if not impossible. At least I had given both to him and his interests the sincerest devotion that a friend and even a servant could give to his friend and master. My advice had always been the very best I could devise for his welfare. If he did not follow it, this was not my fault but that of his judgment, which was neither sound nor just. When I came to Russia, and during the first years of our union, had this Prince shown the least desire to make himself bearable, my heart would have been opened to him. When I saw that of all possible objects I was the one to whom he paid the least attention, precisely because I was his wife, it is not at all strange that I found this situation neither pleasant nor to my taste, and that it bothered and perhaps even pained me. This latter sentiment, that of pain, I suppressed infinitely more than all the others. My soul’s natural pride and mettle made the idea of being unhappy intolerable to me. I would say to myself, “Happiness and misery are in the heart and soul of everyone. If you feel misery, rise above it, and act so that your happiness does not depend on any event.” I had been born with this turn of mind and endowed with very great sensitivity, and an appearance that was at the least very interesting and pleasing at first sight, without art or affectation. My disposition was naturally so accommodating that no one was ever with me a quarter of an hour without falling comfortably into conversation, chatting with me as if they had known me for a long time. Naturally indulgent, I easily won the trust of those who dealt with me, because everyone felt that the strictest probity and goodwill were the impulses that I most readily obeyed. If I may dare to use such terms, I take the liberty to assert on my own behalf that I was an honest and loyal knight,¹⁵¹ whose mind was infinitely more male than female. But for all that, I was anything but mannish, and in me others found, joined to the mind and character of a man, the charms of a very attractive woman. May I be pardoned this description in recognition of the truth of this confession, which my self-esteem makes without covering itself with false modesty. Besides, this writing itself should prove what I say about my mind, my heart, and my character.

I have just said that I was attractive. As a result, I was already halfway along the road to temptation, and it is the essence of human nature that in such a situation the other half will not go untraveled. For to tempt and to be tempted are very close to each other, and despite the finest moral maxims engraved in the mind, when sensibility joins in, by its very presence, one is already infinitely further from these maxims than one thinks. Even now I still do not know how one can prevent sensibility from appearing. Perhaps flight alone can remedy this. But there are cases, situations, circumstances where flight is impossible, for how can one flee, avoid, or turn one’s back in the middle of a court? The very action would cause gossip, but if you do not flee, there is nothing as difficult in my opinion as escaping what profoundly pleases you. Everything that they will tell you to the contrary will only be prudishness, and not drawn from the human heart. No one holds his heart in his hand and restrains or releases it by closing or opening his hand at will.¹⁵²

I return to my narrative. The day after the play, I declared that I was unwell and did not go out anymore, waiting calmly for Her Imperial Majesty’s decision about my humble request. However, the first week of Lent I judged it fitting to attend services to show my devotion to the Greek Orthodox faith.¹⁵³ The second or third week of Lent brought me another bitter disappointment. One morning after I had risen, my servants informed me that Count Alexander Shuvalov had sent for Madame Vladislavova. This seemed somewhat strange to me. I waited anxiously for her return, but in vain. Around one in the afternoon, Count Alexander Shuvalov came to tell me that the Empress had seen fit to remove Madame Vladislavova from my service. I burst into tears and replied to him that Her Imperial Majesty was certainly free to remove from me or place with me whomever she pleased, but that I regretted seeing more and more that all those who came near me were as many victims doomed to the disfavor of Her Imperial Majesty. So that there would be fewer unfortunates, I begged and beseeched him to appeal to Her Imperial Majesty to put an end as soon as possible to the state to which I was reduced, in which I only made others miserable, by sending me home to my family. I assured him again that Madame Vladislavova would not be of any use in shedding light on anything, because neither she nor anyone else was in my confidence. Count Shuvalov wanted to speak, but seeing my sobs, he began to weep with me and told me that the Empress would speak to me personally on the subject. I begged him to hasten the moment, which he promised to do. Then I went to tell my attendants what had just happened and told them that if any duenna I happened to dislike took the place of Madame Vladislavova, she should be prepared to receive from me every imaginable mistreatment, including even blows. I begged them to repeat this to whomever they pleased, so as to repulse all those that they might want to place in my service from rushing to accept the position, for I was tired of suffering. Seeing that my mildness and patience had brought about nothing but to make everything around me go from bad to worse, I was consequently going to change my behavior thoroughly. My servants did not fail to repeat what I told them to.

That evening, after I had cried much and eaten very little, I was walking up and down in my room quite agitated in both body and mind, when I saw one of my ladies-in-waiting, named Katerina Ivanovna Sharogorodskaia, enter my bedroom, where I was alone as always. With tears and great affection, she said, “We all fear that you will succumb to the state in which we see you. Permit me to go today to my uncle, who is your own confessor as well as the Empress’s. I will talk to him and tell him everything you order me to, and I promise you that he will be able to speak to the Empress in a manner that you will be happy with.”¹⁵⁴ Seeing her goodwill, I recounted to her very clearly the state of things, what I had written to the Empress, and everything else. She went to her uncle, and after speaking to him and disposing him in my favor, she returned around eleven o’clock to tell me that the confessor, her uncle, advised me to declare during the night that I was ill and to ask to make my confession, and for this purpose have him sent for, so that he would be able to tell Her Imperial Majesty what he heard from my own mouth. I very much approved of this idea and promised to carry it out, and then dismissed her, thanking both her and her uncle for the devotion they were displaying. As planned, I rang between two and three o’clock in the morning; one of my ladies entered. I told her that I felt so ill that I wanted to make my confession. Instead of the confessor, Count Alexander Shuvalov came running into my room, and in a weak and broken voice I repeated to him my request to have my confessor summoned. He sent for the doctors. I told them that I needed spiritual aid, that I was suffocating. One felt my pulse and said it was weak. I said that my soul was in danger and my body no longer needed doctors. Finally the confessor arrived and we were left alone. I had him sit next to my bed and we had a conversation for at least an hour and a half. I described and recounted to him the past and present state of affairs, the Grand Duke’s conduct toward me, mine toward His Imperial Highness, the Shuvalovs’ hatred, and how they were bringing Her Imperial Majesty’s disfavor down on me, and finally the continual exile or dismissal of many of my servants, and always those who were most devoted to me, and then where matters stood at present, which had brought me to write the Empress the letter by which I requested my dismissal. I begged him to obtain a prompt response to my plea. I found he had the best intentions in the world for me and that he was less stupid than he was said to be. He told me that my letter was having, and would have, the desired effect, that I should persist in asking to be dismissed, and that I would certainly not be sent away, because they could not justify this dismissal in the eyes of the public, whose attention was on me. He agreed that I was being treated cruelly and that the Empress, having chosen me at a very tender age, was abandoning me to the mercy of my enemies. She would do much better to dismiss my rivals, above all Elizabeth Vorontsova, and to rein in her favorites, who had become leeches on the people through all the monopolies that the Shuvalovs were constantly establishing. Moreover, everyone was crying out at their injustice: witness the affair of Count Bestuzhev, of whose innocence the public was convinced. He ended this interview by telling me that he would go to the Empress’s apartment immediately, where he would await her awakening to speak to her and hasten the interview that she had promised me, which was going to be decisive, and that I would do well to remain in my bed. He would say that sorrow and pain could kill me if a swift remedy was not applied and I was not rescued, one way or another, from the state I was in, alone and abandoned by everyone. He kept his word, and described my state to the Empress with such vivid and immediate colors that Her Imperial Majesty summoned Count Alexander Shuvalov and ordered him to see if I was in a state to come and talk to her the following night. Count Shuvalov came to tell me this. I told him that for this purpose I would gather all my remaining strength.

Toward evening I was getting up when Alexander Shuvalov came to tell me that after midnight he would come to accompany me to the Empress’s apartment. Through his niece, the confessor also informed me that things were going rather well and that the Empress would speak to me the same evening.¹⁵⁵ I therefore got dressed toward ten o’clock in the evening and lay down fully dressed on a couch, where I fell asleep. At around half past one, Count Alexander Shuvalov came into my room and said that the Empress was asking for me. I got up and followed him; we crossed the antechambers, where there was no one. Arriving at the door of the gallery, I saw that the Grand Duke was crossing the opposite doorway and that just like me, he was going to see Her Imperial Majesty. I had not seen him since the day of the play. Even when I had said that my life was in danger, he had neither come nor sent to ask how I was doing. I learned afterward that on that same day he had promised Elizabeth Vorontsova that he would marry her if I happened to die, and that they both greatly rejoiced at my state. Finally, having reached Her Imperial Majesty’s apartment, where I found the Grand Duke, as soon as I saw the Empress I threw myself at her knees and begged her with tears to immediately send me back to my family. The Empress wanted to make me get up, but I stayed at her feet. She seemed to me to be more pained than angry, and said to me with tears in her eyes, “Why do you want me to send you back? Remember that you have children.” I said, “My children are in your hands and could not be better off. I hope that you will not abandon them.” Then she said, “But what shall I tell the public is the reason for sending you back?” I replied, “Your Imperial Majesty will tell them, if she sees fit, the reasons that I have incurred your disfavor and the hatred of the Grand Duke.” The Empress said, “And what will you live on at your family’s home?” I replied, “On that which I lived before you did me the honor of choosing me.” At this she said, “Your mother is in exile. She was obliged to withdraw from her home and went to Paris.”¹⁵⁶ At this I said, “I know this. She was believed to be too devoted to the interests of Russia, and the King of Prussia drove her away.” The Empress told me a second time to get up, which I did, and she walked away from me a little, in thought. The room we were in was long and had three windows, between which there were two tables with the Empress’s gold toiletries. There was no one in the apartment aside from her, the Grand Duke, Alexander Shuvalov, and me. Across from the windows there were large screens before which a sofa had been placed. From the first, I suspected that Ivan Shuvalov was certainly behind these screens, and perhaps also Count Peter, his cousin. I learned later that I had guessed correctly in part and that Ivan Shuvalov was there. I stood next to the dressing table closest to the door by which I had entered and noticed that in the basin there were some folded letters. The Empress came toward me again and said to me, “God is my witness how much I cried when you were deathly ill upon your arrival in Russia, and if I had not loved you, I would not have kept you here.” Now with this, in my opinion, she was excusing herself after what I had said about incurring her disfavor. I responded by thanking Her Imperial Majesty for all the favors and kindness that she had shown me, then and later, saying that their memory would never be effaced from my mind, and that I would always consider having incurred her disfavor as the greatest of misfortunes. Then she came even closer to me and said, “You are extremely proud. Remember that at the Summer Palace I approached you one day and asked you if your neck hurt, because I saw that you hardly bowed to me and that it was out of pride that you greeted me with only a nod.” I said to her, “My God, Madame, how can you believe that I wanted to affect pride toward you? I swear to you that it never even crossed my mind that this question you posed to me four years ago could have meant such a thing.” At this she said, “You imagine that no one is more intelligent than you.” I replied, “If I did believe this, nothing would more thoroughly disabuse me than my present state and this very conversation, because I see that out of stupidity I have not understood until now what you deigned to say to me four years ago.” While the Empress was speaking to me, the Grand Duke whispered with Count Alexander Shuvalov. She noticed this and approached them. They were both standing in the middle of the room. I did not hear too well what they said among themselves. They did not speak very loudly, and the room was large. At the end, I heard the Grand Duke say, raising his voice, “She is terribly wicked and very stubborn.” Then I saw that he was speaking of me, and addressing myself to the Grand Duke, I said to him, “If you are speaking of me, I am quite happy to tell you in the presence of Her Imperial Majesty that in truth I am spiteful toward those who advise you to commit injustices, and that I have become stubborn ever since I saw that my acts of kindness bring me nothing but your enmity.” He said to the Empress, “Your Imperial Majesty herself sees how wicked she is by what she says.” But my remarks made a different impression on the Empress, who had infinitely more intelligence than the Grand Duke. I saw clearly that as the conversation continued, although it had been recommended to her or she herself had resolved to be harsh with me, her mind was gradually softening in spite of herself and her resolutions. However, she turned toward him and said, “Oh, you do not know everything she has said to me against your advisers and Brockdorff regarding the man whom you had arrested.” To the Grand Duke, this must have seemed a formal act of treason on my part. He did not know a word of my conversation with the Empress at the Summer Palace, and now he saw his Brockdorff, who had become so dear and so precious to him, accused before the Empress and by me. This therefore put us more at odds than ever and perhaps made us irreconcilable and deprived me forever of the Grand Duke’s trust. I almost fell over hearing the Empress recount to the Grand Duke in my presence what I had told her for the well-being of her nephew, and seeing it turn into a lethal weapon against me. The Grand Duke, utterly astonished by this secret, said, “Ah, here is a nice little story that I did not know. It proves her wickedness.” I thought to myself, God knows whose wickedness it proves.

With a brusque transition the Empress went from Brockdorff to the uncovered connection between Stambke and Count Bestuzhev, and said to me, “I leave you to consider how having contact with a prisoner of the state could be excusable.” As my name did not appear in this affair and as there had been no mention made of me, I was silent, taking this as a remark that did not concern me. At this the Empress approached me and said, “You meddle in many things that do not concern you. I would not have dared to do as much during Empress Anna’s reign. How, for example, did you dare to send orders to Marshal Apraksin?” I said to her, “Me! The thought of sending him orders never entered my head.” “How,” she said, “can you deny having written to him? Your letters are there in this basin.” She pointed at them. “You are forbidden to write.” Then I said, “It is true that I transgressed this prohibition and I beg your pardon for it.

But since my letters are there, these three letters can prove to Your Imperial Majesty that I never sent him orders, but that in one I told him what was being said of his conduct.” Here she interrupted me, saying, “And why did you write him this?” I replied, “Quite simply because I took an interest in the Marshal, whom I liked a great deal. I asked him to follow your orders. The two other letters contain only congratulations on the birth of his son and best wishes for the new year.” At this she said, “Bestuzhev says that there were many others.” I replied, “If Bestuzhev says this, he is lying.” “Well then,” said she, “since he is lying about you I will have him put to torture.” She thought to frighten me with this. I replied to her that she was the sovereign mistress and could do what she judged fitting, but that I had certainly only written these three letters to Apraksin. She fell silent and appeared to gather her thoughts.

I am reporting the most striking details of this conversation that have remained in my memory, but it would be impossible for me to remember everything that was said during the at least one and a half hours that it lasted. The Empress walked about the room, alternately addressing herself to me, her nephew, and even more often Count Alexander Shuvalov, with whom the Grand Duke was in conversation most of the time while the Empress spoke to me. I have already said that I observed in Her Imperial Majesty less anger than worry. As for the Grand Duke, in all of his remarks during this interview he showed a great deal of venom, animosity, and even rage toward me. He sought to anger the Empress against me as much as he could. But as he went about this stupidly and showed more passion than justice, he missed his mark, and the Empress’s intelligence and perspicacity brought her to my side. She listened with particular attention and a kind of instinctive approbation to my firm and moderate responses to the immoderate remarks that Monsieur my husband made and in which one saw clear as day that he sought to clear out my position to have his mistress of the moment placed there, if he could. But this could not be to the Empress’s liking, nor would Messieurs Shuvalov scheme to make the Counts Vorontsov their masters. But this lay beyond the powers of judgment of His Imperial Highness, who always believed what he wished and who brushed aside all ideas contrary to the one that dominated him. And he carried on so much that the Empress approached me and said to me in a low voice, “I will have many more things to say to you, but I cannot speak because I do not want to put you two more at odds than you already are,” and with her eyes and head she showed me that it was because of those present. Seeing this sign of intimate goodwill that she gave me in such a critical situation, I was deeply touched, and I too said very quietly, “And I too cannot speak, as pressing as my desire is to open my heart and my soul to you.” I saw that what I had just said to her made a very vivid and favorable impression on her. Tears had come to her eyes, and to hide that she was moved, and to what extent, she dismissed us, saying that it was very late. In truth, it was almost three in the morning. The Grand Duke left first; I followed him. At the moment that Count Alexander Shuvalov wanted to pass through the door after me, the Empress called him, and he stayed in her room. The Grand Duke kept walking with long strides. I did not hurry this time to follow him. He went back into his rooms and I into mine. I began to undress to go to bed when I heard knocking at the door through which I had just entered. I asked who it was. Count Alexander Shuvalov said that it was he, asking me to open, which I did. He told me to dismiss my ladies; they left. Then he said to me that the Empress had summoned him, and after speaking to him some time, she had asked him to present her compliments to me, and to beg me not to be distressed, and that she would have a second conversation with me alone. I bowed deeply before Count Shuvalov and told him to present my very deepest respects to Her Imperial Majesty and to thank her for her kindness toward me, which had brought me back to life, and that I would wait for this second conversation with the keenest impatience and that I begged him to hasten the moment. He told me not to speak of it to a living soul and namely to the Grand Duke, whom the Empress regretted seeing so angry with me. I promised this. I thought, But if she is upset that he is angry, why therefore anger him even more by recounting to him the conversation at the Summer Palace about the people who made him behave stupidly? Nevertheless this unforeseen return of intimacy on the part of the Empress made me very happy.

The following day I told the confessor’s niece to thank her uncle for the exceptional service he had just rendered me in obtaining this conversation with the Empress. She returned from her uncle’s home and told me that the confessor knew the Empress had said that her nephew was an idiot, but that the Grand Duchess had much intelligence. This remark was repeated to me by more than one source, as was the fact that Her Imperial Majesty did nothing but boast of my abilities among her intimates, often adding, “She loves truth and justice. She is a woman with much intelligence, but my nephew is an idiot.” I shut myself up in my apartment as before, under the pretext of ill health. I remember that, at the time, I was reading the first five volumes of the Histoire des voyages with the map on the table, which amused and instructed me.¹⁵⁷ When I was tired of this reading, I leafed through the first volumes of the Encyclopédie.¹⁵⁸ I waited for the day when it would please the Empress to invite me for a second conversation. From time to time I repeated my request to Count Shuvalov, telling him I greatly wished for my fate to be decided at last.

As for the Grand Duke, I did not hear any more talk of him at all. I knew only that he was waiting for my dismissal with impatience and that he was planning for sure to marry Elizabeth Vorontsova in a second wedding. She came to his apartment and already played the hostess there. Apparently her uncle, Vice Chancellor Count Vorontsov, who was a hypocrite if ever there was one, learned of the plans that were perhaps his brother’s or more likely his nephews’, who were only children at the time, the eldest being barely twenty years old or thereabouts. Fearing that his newly restored favor with the Empress would suffer from this plan, he requested the task of dissuading me from requesting my dismissal. For here is what happened. One fine morning it was announced to me that Vice Chancellor Mikhail Vorontsov was asking to speak to me on behalf of the Empress. Utterly astonished by this extraordinary delegation, though not yet dressed, I had Monsieur the Vice Chancellor enter. He began by kissing my hand and squeezing it with great affection, after which he wiped his eyes, from which flowed a few tears. As at the time I had been somewhat warned against him, I did not put much faith in this prelude, which was supposed to signal his zeal, but I let him perform what I regarded as a kind of playacting. I asked him to sit down. He was a bit out of breath because of a kind of goiter from which he suffered. He sat down with me and told me that the Empress had asked him to speak with me and to dissuade me from insisting on being sent home. Her Imperial Majesty herself had ordered him to beg me on her behalf to give up this idea, to which she would never consent. In particular, he begged and beseeched me to give him my word not to talk about it anymore. This plan truly pained the Empress and all honorable people, among whose number he assured me that he counted. I replied to him that there was nothing that I would not do willingly to please Her Imperial Majesty and honorable people, but I believed my life and my health were in danger from the kind of life to which I was exposed. I only made people miserable, all those who drew near me were continually exiled and dismissed, the Grand Duke was poisoned against me to the point of hatred, and moreover he had never loved me. Her Imperial Majesty as well gave me almost continual signs of her disfavor, and seeing myself a burden to everyone and dying from boredom and sorrow myself, I had asked to be sent home so as to free everyone of this person who was such a burden and was wasting away from sorrow and boredom. He spoke to me of my children. I told him that I did not see them, and that since my churching ceremony I had not yet seen the youngest and could not see them without an express order from the Empress, two rooms from whom they resided, their apartment being part of hers. I did not doubt that she took excellent care of them, but being deprived of the satisfaction of seeing them, it did not matter to me whether I was a hundred steps or a hundred leagues from them. He told me that the Empress would have a second conversation with me, and he added that it was to be sincerely hoped that Her Imperial Majesty would be reconciled with me. I replied by asking him to hasten this second conversation and said that for my part, I would neglect nothing that could expedite his wish. He stayed in my room for more than an hour and spoke a long time and about many different things. I noticed that his improved favor had given him something attractive in his speech and his bearing that he did not have before, when I had considered him indistinguishable from everyone else. One day at the court, unhappy with the Empress, with political affairs, and with those who possessed Her Imperial Majesty’s favor and trust, seeing that the Empress spoke at length with the Ambassador of the Empress Queen of Hungary and Bohemia while he and I and everyone were standing around bored to death, he had said to me, “What do you want to bet that she is mouthing nothing but empty phrases?” Laughing, I replied, “My God, what are you saying?” He replied in Russian with this catchphrase:  “she is by her nature a speaker of empty phrases.” Finally he left, assuring me of his zeal, and he took leave of me by kissing my hand once again. For the time being I was sure not to be sent away, because I was being asked not even to speak of it. But I judged it fitting not to appear in public and to continue to stay in my room, as if I expected the decision about my fate only in the second conversation that I was supposed to have with the Empress.

I waited for this conversation a long time. I remember that April 21, my birthday, I did not go out. While having dinner, the Empress informed me through Alexander Shuvalov that she was drinking to my health. I thanked her for deigning to remember me on the day, I said, of my unfortunate birth, which I would curse if on the same day I had not received baptism.¹⁵⁹ When the Grand Duke learned that the Empress had sent this message to me that day, he decided to send me the same message. When they came to give me his compliments, I got up and with a very deep bow, I expressed my thanks. After the parties for my birthday and the Empress’s coronation day, which were four days apart, I again remained in my room without going out until Count Poniatowski sent me notice that the French Ambassador, Marquis de L’Hôpital, highly praised my firm conduct and said that this decision to not leave my apartment could only turn to my advantage. Taking this remark as devilish praise from an enemy, I then decided to do the opposite of what he praised, and one Sunday, when it was least expected, I dressed myself and left my private apartment. At the moment that I entered the apartment in which the ladies and gentlemen were, I saw their astonishment at seeing me. A few minutes after my appearance, the Grand Duke arrived. I saw his astonishment too, displayed on his physiognomy, and as I spoke to the group, he participated in the conversation and addressed a few remarks to me, to which I responded in a natural tone.

Meanwhile, on April 17, Prince Charles of Saxony came to Petersburg for the second time. The Grand Duke had received him the first time he had been to Russia in a sufficiently gentlemanly style. But this second time, His Imperial Highness believed himself justified in behaving without any manners toward him, and here is why. It was not a secret to the Russian army that at the battle of Zorndorf, Prince Charles of Saxony had been one of the first to flee. It was even said that he had continued this flight without stopping until Landsberg. Now, having heard this, His Imperial Highness decided that as the man was an avowed coward, he would not speak to him, nor did he want anything to do with him. There is every indication that the Princess of Courland, the daughter of Biron, of whom I have already often had occasion to speak, contributed more than a little to this, because at the time, people had begun to whisper that the plan was to make Prince Charles of Saxony a Duke of Courland, which greatly angered the Princess of Courland, whose father was still held at Yaroslavl.¹⁶⁰ She conveyed her animosity to the Grand Duke, over whom she had maintained some influence. At the time, this Princess was promised for the third time, to Baron Alexander Cherkasov, whom she in fact married the following winter.¹⁶¹

Finally, a few days before going to the country, Count Alexander Shuvalov came to say on behalf of the Empress that I should request through him to see my children that afternoon and that afterward, leaving their room, I would have this second, long-promised interview with the Empress.¹⁶² I did as I was told, and in the presence of many people I told Count Shuvalov to ask Her Imperial Majesty for permission to see my children. He left, and when he returned, he said that at three o’clock I could. I was very punctual. I stayed with my children until Count Alexander Shuvalov came to tell me that the Empress was available. I went to her room. I found her all alone, and this time there was no screen in the room. She and I could therefore speak freely. I began by thanking her for the audience that she was according me, telling her that the very gracious promise of it that she had deigned to make had in itself brought me back to life. After this, she said to me, “I demand that you tell me the truth about everything I shall ask you.” I replied by assuring her that she would hear only the most exact truth from my mouth and that I asked no more than to open my heart to her without any restriction of any kind. Then she asked me again if truly there had been only these three letters written to Apraksin. I swore this to her with the greatest truthfulness, for indeed it was so. Then she asked me for details about the Grand Duke’s life.