At the beginning of winter, I saw that the Grand Duke was very much disturbed. I did not know what was the matter. He no longer trained his dogs. He came into my room twenty times a-day, looked anxious, thoughtful, and absent. He bought German books, and such books! One portion consisted of Lutheran prayer-books, the other of the history and trial of some highway robbers who had been hung or broken on the wheel. These he read by turns when not playing the violin. As he could not long keep on his mind anything which tormented him, and as he had no one to speak to but me, I waited patiently for his revelation.
At last he told me what it was that disturbed him, and I found the matter far more serious than I had anticipated. During the whole summer pretty nearly, at all events during our stay at Rajova, on the road to the convent of Troïtza, I scarcely ever saw him, except at table or in bed. He came to bed after I was asleep, and rose before I was awake. The rest of his time was passed in hunting or in preparations for it. Tchoglokoff had obtained, under pretext of amusing the Grand Duke, two packs of dogs from the Master of the Hounds, the one of Russian dogs and huntsmen, the other of French or German dogs. To the latter were attached an old French whipper-in, a lad from Courland, and a German. As M. Tchoglokoff took the direction of the Russian pack, the Grand Duke undertook that of the foreign one, about which Tchoglokoff did not in the least trouble himself. Each entered into the minutest details of his own charge, and the Grand Duke therefore was constantly going to the kennel of his pack, or the huntsmen were coming to him to inform him of its condition, and of the wants and deeds of the dogs. In a word, if I must speak plainly, he made himself the companion of these men, drinking with them in the chase, and being constantly among them. The regiment of Boutirsky was then at Moscow. In this regiment was a lieutenant named Yakoff Batourine, a man overwhelmed with debt, a gambler, and well known to be a worthless fellow, but a very determined one. I know not how this man happened to get acquainted with the Grand Duke’s huntsmen, but I believe both had their quarters in or near the village of Moutistcha or Alexeewsky. At last matters went on so far, that the huntsmen told the Duke there was a lieutenant in the regiment of Boutirsky who manifested a great attachment to his Imperial Highness, and who said, besides, that the entire regiment entertained the same feelings as himself. The Grand Duke listened to this recital with complacency, and made inquiries of the huntsmen relative to this regiment. They spoke very disparagingly of the superior officers, and very highly of the subalterns. At last Batourine, still through the huntsmen, asked to be presented to the Grand Duke, at the chase. To this the Duke was not altogether favourable at first, but at last he consented. By little and little it was so managed that the Duke, while hunting one day, met Batourine in a retired spot. Batourine on seeing him, fell on his knees, and swore to acknowledge no other master but him, and to do whatever he commanded. The Grand Duke told me that on hearing this oath he became very much alarmed, gave both spurs to his horse, and left Batourine on his knees in the wood. The huntsmen, he said, were in advance, and did not hear what had been said. He pretended that this was all the connection he had had with the man, and that he had even advised the huntsmen to take care that he did not get them into mischief. His present anxiety was occasioned by his learning from the huntsmen that Batourine had been arrested and transferred to Preobrajenskoe, where the Secret Chancery, which took cognizance of crimes against the state, was established. His Imperial Highness trembled for the huntsmen, and was very much afraid of being himself compromised. As far as the former were concerned, his fears were realized; for, a few days afterwards, they were arrested and conducted to Preobrajenskoe. I endeavoured to diminish his distress by representing to him, that if he really had not entered into any parley beyond what he had mentioned, it appeared to me that, at the worst, he had only been guilty of an imprudence, in mixing himself up with such bad company. I cannot say whether he told me the truth. I have reason to believe that he attenuated what there might be of parleying in the affair, for even to me he spoke about the matter in broken sentences, and as if unwillingly. However, the excessive fear he was in might also have produced this same effect upon him. A short time afterwards he came to tell me that some huntsmen had been set at liberty, but with an order to be conveyed beyond the frontier, and that they had sent him word that they had not mentioned his name. This information delighted him beyond measure; his mind became at ease, and no more was heard of the matter. As for Batourine, he was found very culpable. I have not since read or seen the account of his examination, but I have learned that he meditated nothing less than to kill the Empress, to set fire to the palace, and in the horror and confusion to place the Grand Duke on the throne. He was condemned, after being subjected to the torture, to pass the remainder of his days shut up in the fortress of Schlusselburg. Having, during my reign, endeavoured to make his escape from this prison, he was sent to Kamtchatka, whence he fled with Benjousky, and was killed while pillaging en passant the island of Formosa, in the Pacific Ocean.
On the 15th of December we left Moscow for St. Petersburg, travelling night and day in an open sledge. About midway I was again seized with a violent toothache. Notwithstanding this, the Grand Duke would not consent to close the sledge: scarcely would he allow me to draw the curtain a little, so as to shelter me from a cold and damp wind, blowing right into my face. At last we reached Zarskoe-Selo, where the Empress had already arrived, having passed us on the road, according to her usual custom. As soon as I stepped out of the sledge I entered the apartment destined for us, and sent for her Majesty’s physician Boërhave, the nephew of the celebrated Boërhave, requesting him to have the tooth which had tormented me so much for the last four or five months extracted. He consented with great reluctance, and only because I absolutely insisted on it. At last he sent for Gyon, my surgeon: I sat on the ground, Boërhave on one side, Tchoglokoff on the other, and Gyon drew the tooth; but the moment he did so, my eyes, nose, and mouth became fountains, whence poured out—from my mouth, blood, from my eyes and nose water. Boërhave, who was a man of clear and sound judgment, instantly exclaimed, “Clumsy!” and calling for the tooth, he added, “I feared it would be so, and that was why I did not wish it to be drawn.” Gyon, in extracting the tooth, had carried away with it a portion of the lower jaw, to which it was attached. At this moment the Empress came to the door of my room, and I was afterwards told that she was moved even to tears. I was put to bed, and suffered a great deal during four weeks, even in the city, whither we went next day, notwithstanding all this, and still in open sleighs. I did not leave my room till the middle of January, 1750, for the lower part of my cheek still bore in blue and yellow stains, the impression of the five fingers of M. Gyon. On new-year’s day this year wishing to have my hair dressed, I noticed that the young man who was to do it, a Kalmuck whom I had trained for this purpose, was excessively red, and his eyes very piercing. I asked what was the matter, and learned that he had a very bad headache and great heat. I sent him away, desiring him to go to bed, for indeed he was not fit to do anything. He retired, and in the evening I was informed that the small-pox had broken out upon him. I escaped with nothing worse than the fright which this gave me, for I did not catch the disease, although he had combed my hair.
The Empress remained at Zarskoe-Selo during a considerable portion of the Carnival. Petersburg was nearly deserted, for most of its residents lived there from necessity rather than choice. While the court was at Moscow, and also when on its return to St. Petersburg, all the courtiers were eager to obtain leave of absence for a year, six months, or even a few weeks. The officials, such as senators, and others, did the same; and when they were afraid of not succeeding, then came the illnesses, real or feigned, of husbands, wives, fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters, or children; or lawsuits, or other business which it was indispensable to settle. In a word, it sometimes took six months, or even more, before the court and the city became what they were previously to one of these absences; and when the court was away, the grass grew in the streets of St. Petersburg, for there were scarcely any carriages in the city. In such a state of things, at the present moment, there was not much company to be expected, especially by us who were so much shut up. M. Tchoglokoff thought to amuse us during this time, or rather to amuse himself and his wife, by inviting us to play at cards with him in the apartments which he occupied at court, and which consisted of four or five rather small rooms. He also invited there the ladies and gentlemen in waiting, and the Princess of Courland, daughter of Duke Ernest John Biren, the ancient favourite of the Empress Anne. The Empress Elizabeth had recalled this Duke from Siberia, whither he had been exiled under the regency of the Princess Anne. There, the Duke was living with his wife, his sons, and his daughter. This daughter was neither handsome nor pretty, nor well made, for she was humpbacked, and rather small; but she had fine eyes, much intelligence, and a singular talent for intrigue. Her parents were not very fond of her; she pretended, indeed, that they constantly ill-treated her. One day she fled from home, and took refuge with the wife of the Waiwode of Yaroslav, Madame Pouchkine. This woman, delighted to have an opportunity of giving herself importance at court, took her to Moscow, addressed herself to Madame Schouvaloff, and the flight of the Princess of Courland from her father’s house was represented as the result of the ill-treatment she had received from her parents, in consequence of her having expressed a desire to embrace the religion of the Greek church. In fact, the first thing she did at court was to make her profession of faith. The Empress stood godmother for her, after which she received an appointment among the maids of honour. M. Tchoglokoff made it a point to show her attention, because her elder brother had laid the foundation of his fortune, by taking him from the corps of cadets, where he was receiving his education, removing him into the horse-guards, and keeping him about himself as a messenger. The Princess of Courland thus brought into our society, and playing daily for hours at trisset with the Grand Duke, Tchoglokoff, and myself, conducted herself at first with great discretion. She was insinuating, and her intelligence made one forget what was disagreeable in her figure, especially when seated. She adapted her conversation to the character of her auditors, speaking to each in the manner most likely to be agreeable. Every one looked upon her as an interesting orphan, and a person not likely to be in any one’s way. In the eyes of the Grand Duke she had another merit, and no slight one either—she was a sort of foreign Princess, and, what was more, a German; he therefore always spoke to her in German, and this gave her a charm in his eyes. He began to pay her as much attention as he was capable of doing. When she dined alone, he sent her wine, as well as favourite dishes from his table, and when he got hold of some new grenadier’s cap or shoulder-belt, he sent them to her to look at. The Princess of Courland, who at that time might be about four or five and twenty, was not the only acquisition made by the court at Moscow. The Empress had then taken the two Countesses Voronzoff, nieces of the Vice-Chancellor, and daughters of Count Roman Voronzoff, his younger brother. Mary, the elder, might be about fourteen; she was placed among the Empress’ maids of honour. The younger sister, Elizabeth, was only eleven; she was given to me. She was a very ugly child, of an olive complexion, and excessively slovenly. Towards the end of the Carnival, her Majesty returned to town, and in the first week of Lent we began to prepare for our duty. On the Wednesday evening I was to take a bath at the house of Madame Tchoglokoff, but on Tuesday evening she came to my room, and told the Grand Duke, who was with me, that it was her Majesty’s pleasure that he also should take a bath. Now the baths, and all other Russian customs and habits, were not simply disagreeable to the Duke, he had a mortal hatred for them. He therefore unceremoniously declared that he would do nothing of the kind. She, who was equally obstinate, and had no kind of reserve or ceremony in her speech, told him that this was an act of disobedience to her Imperial Majesty. He maintained that he ought not to be required to do what was repugnant to his nature; that he knew that the bath, in which he had never been, was unsuitable to his constitution; that he did not want to die; that life was the thing he held most dear, and that her Majesty should never compel him to go into the bath. Madame Tchoglokoff replied that her Majesty would know how to punish his disobedience. At this he became angry, and exclaimed, passionately, “I should like to see what she can do; I am not a child.” Madame Tchoglokoff threatened that the Empress would send him to the Fortress. At this he cried bitterly; and they went on answering each other in the most outrageous terms that passion could dictate; in fact, they both acted as if they had not between them a grain of common sense. At last, Madame Tchoglokoff departed, saying that she would report the conversation to her Imperial Majesty word for word. I know not what she did in the matter, but she returned presently with an entirely different theme, for she came to inform us that her Imperial Majesty was very angry that we had no children, and wished to know which of us was in fault; that she would therefore send a midwife to me, and a physician to the Grand Duke. To this she added various other outrageous remarks—remarks which had neither head nor tail, and concluded by saying that her Majesty had dispensed with our going to our duty this week, because the Grand Duke said the bath was injurious to his health. I must state that during these two conversations I never once opened my lips; in the first place, because they both spoke with such vehemence that I could find no chance of putting in a word; secondly, because I saw that both of them were utterly unreasonable. I do not know what view the Empress took of the matter, but, at all events, nothing more was said on either topic.
About mid-Lent, her Majesty went to Gostilitza, to the residence of Count Razoumowsky, to celebrate his feast, and we were sent, together with her maids of honour and our ordinary suite, to Zarskoe-Selo. The weather was wonderfully mild, even warm, so that, on the 17th of March, instead of there being snow on the road, there was dust. Having established ourselves at Zarskoe-Selo, the Grand Duke and Tchoglokoff recommenced their hunting; I and the ladies walked or drove out as long as we could, and in the evening we all played at various small games. Here the Grand Duke manifested a decided partiality for the Princess of Courland, especially when he had been drinking in the evening—a thing which happened every day. He was always at her side, and spoke to no one but her. At last this thing went on in the most glaring manner, before my eyes, and before every one, so that my vanity and self-love began to be shocked at finding myself slighted for the sake of a little, deformed creature like this. One evening, on rising from table, Madame Vladislava said to me that every one was disgusted to see this little hunchback preferred to me. “It cannot be helped,” I said, as the tears started to my eyes. I went to bed; scarcely was I asleep when the Grand Duke also came to bed. As he was tipsy, and knew not what he was doing, he spoke to me for the purpose of expatiating on the eminent qualities of his favourite. To check his garrulity as soon as possible, I pretended to be fast asleep. He spoke still louder in order to wake me, but finding that I still slept, he gave me two or three rather hard blows in the side with his fist; then, growling at the heaviness of my slumbers, he turned on his side and dropped asleep himself. I wept long and bitterly that night, as well on account of the matter itself, and the blows he had given me, as on that of my general situation, which was in all respects as disagreeable as it was wearisome. In the morning, the Duke seemed ashamed of what he had done; he did not speak of it, and I acted as if I had not felt anything. Two days afterwards we returned to town. The last week of Lent we recommenced our preparations for going to our duty. Nothing more was said to the Duke about the bath.
Another occurrence took place this week which perplexed him a little. While in his room he was nearly always in constant movement of one sort or other. One afternoon he was exercising himself in cracking an immense coachman’s whip, which he had had made for him. He whipped about right and left, and made his valets jump from one corner to another, fearing to come in for a chance slash. At last he somehow contrived to give himself a severe blow on the cheek. The mark extended all along the left side of his face, and the blow was severe enough to make the blood start. He was very much disturbed, fearing that he should not be able to go out even by Easter; that the Empress should again forbid him to communicate, as his face was bloody; and that when she came to learn the cause of the accident, he should get some disagreeable reprimand for his whipping amusements. He instantly ran to consult me, as he always did in such emergencies. Seeing him enter with his cheek all bloody, I exclaimed, “Good heavens! what has happened to you?” He told me. Having thought a little, I said, “Well, perhaps I can manage the matter for you; but, first of all, go to your room, and try if possible to prevent your cheek from being seen by any one. I will come to you as soon as I have got what I want, and I trust we shall so manage that no one will be the wiser.” He went off, and I recollected a preparation which had served me some years before in a similar predicament. I had a fall in the garden at Peterhoff, and took the skin off my face so that it bled; my surgeon Gyon gave me some white lead in the form of pomade, and I covered the wound with it, and went out as usual, without any one having perceived that I had scratched myself. I now sent for this pomade, and having received it, I went to the Grand Duke, and dressed his face so well, that he could not detect anything himself by looking in the glass. On the Thursday we received the communion, in company with the Empress, in the great church of the court, and then returned to our places. The light fell on the Grand Duke’s cheek. Tchoglokoff approached for some purpose or other, and looking at the Duke, said, “Wipe your cheek, there is some pomatum on it.” Instantly, as if in jest, I said to the Grand Duke, “And I, who am your wife, forbid your doing it.” The Grand Duke, turning to Tchoglokoff, said, “See how these women treat us; we dare not even wipe our faces, if they do not like it.” Tchoglokoff laughed, saying, “Well, this is indeed a woman’s caprice!” The matter rested there, and the Duke felt grateful to me as well for the pomade which had spared him unpleasant results, as for my presence of mind, which had prevented all suspicion even in the case of M. Tchoglokoff.
As I had to be up before daylight on Easter morning, I went to bed about five o’clock in the afternoon of Holy Saturday, intending to sleep till the time arrived for dressing. Scarcely had I got into bed when the Duke came running in in a violent hurry, telling me to make haste and get up to eat some fresh oysters, which had just been brought to him from Holstein. This was a great and double treat for him; first, because he was fond of oysters, and, secondly, because they came from Holstein, his native country, for which he had a great love, though he did not govern it any the better for that; for he both did, and was made to do, terrible things in it, as will be seen in the sequel. Not to get up would have been to disoblige him, and risk a serious quarrel; I therefore rose, dressed myself, and went to his apartments, though I was very much fatigued by the devotional exercises of the Holy Week. When I reached his room, I found the oysters served. Having eaten a dozen of them, I was allowed to return to bed, while he continued his repast. Indeed, he was all the better pleased by my not eating too many, as there were more left for himself, for he was excessively greedy in the matter of oysters. At midnight I got up, and dressed myself for the matins and mass of Easter Sunday; but I could not remain till the end of the service, for I was seized with a violent cholic. I never remember having had such severe pains. I returned to my room with no one but the Princess Gagarine, all my people being in church. She assisted me to undress and get into bed, and sent for the doctors. I took medicine, and kept my bed during the first two days of the festival.
It was a little before this time that Count Bernis, Ambassador from the Court of Vienna, Count Lynar, the Envoy of Denmark, and General Arnheim, Envoy of Saxony, arrived in Russia. The latter brought with him his wife, who was by birth of the family of Hoim. Count Bernis was a native of Piedmont; he was intellectual, amiable, gay, and well educated, and of such a disposition that, although more than fifty years of age, young people preferred his society to that of persons of their own age. He was generally loved and esteemed, and I have a thousand times said, that if he, or some one like him, had been placed with the Grand Duke, the most beneficial results would have followed, for the Duke as well as myself had a very great regard and affection for him. In fact, the Duke said himself, that with such a man near, a person would be ashamed of doing anything wrong or foolish—an excellent remark, which I have never forgotten. Count Bernis had with him, as attaché, Count Hamilton, a Knight of Malta. One day, when I made inquiries of this gentleman about the health of the Ambassador Count Bernis, who was indisposed, it occurred to me to say that I had the highest opinion of Count Bathyani, whom the Empress-Queen had just named tutor to her two elder sons, the Archdukes Joseph and Charles, since she had preferred him for this office to Count Bernis. In the year 1780, when I had my first interview with the Emperor Joseph II. at Mohilev, his Imperial Majesty told me that he was aware I had made this remark. I replied that he must have learnt this from Count Hamilton, who had been placed with him on his return from Russia. He then said that I had surmised correctly in the case of Count Bathyani; for Count Bernis, whom he had not known, had left the reputation of being better suited to the office than his old tutor.
Count Lynar, the Envoy of the King of Denmark, had been sent to Russia to treat of the exchange of Holstein, which belonged to the Grand Duke, for the country of Oldenburg. He was, according to report, a person of much information, and of no less capacity. His appearance was that of a most complete fop. He was tall and well made, his hair fair with a tinge of red, and his complexion as delicately white as a woman’s. It was said that he took such care of his skin, that he never went to bed without covering his face and hands with pomade, and also that he wore gloves and a mask at night. He boasted of having eighteen children, and pretended that he had always put the nurses of those children in the condition of continuing their vocation. This white Count wore the white order of Denmark, and dressed in the lightest colours; such as sky-blue, apricot, lilac, flesh colour, &c., although such light shades were, at that time, rarely worn by men. The High Chancellor, Count Bestoujeff, and his wife, treated him with the most marked favour. He was received at their house as one of the family, and greatly fêted. This, however, did not shelter him from ridicule. There was also another point against him, viz., that it was not forgotten that his brother had been more than well-received by the Princess Anne, whose regency had been disapproved of. The Count had hardly arrived when he announced the object of his mission, which was, to negotiate an exchange of the duchy of Holstein for the territory of Oldenburg. The High Chancellor sent for M. Pechlin, minister of the Grand Duke for his duchy of Holstein, and told him the purport of Count Lynar’s mission. M. Pechlin made his report to the Grand Duke. The Duke was passionately attached to his country of Holstein. From the period of our stay in Moscow, it had been represented to her Imperial Majesty as insolvent. He had asked her for money for it, and she had given him a little, but it had never reached Holstein; it went to pay the clamorous debts of his Imperial Highness in Russia. M. Pechlin represented the affairs of Holstein, as far as pecuniary considerations were concerned, as desperate. This was easy for him to do, as the Grand Duke depended upon him for the administration, and gave the matter but little or no attention himself; so that, on one occasion, Pechlin, quite out of patience, said to him, in slow and measured accents, “My Lord, it depends on a sovereign to give his attention to the government of his country, or not to do so. If he does not attend to it, the country governs itself, but it governs itself badly.” This Pechlin was a very short, fat man, wearing an immense wig, but he was not deficient either in acquirements or capacity. This heavy and short body enclosed a subtle and shrewd spirit; he was accused, however, of not being over-delicate in his choice of means. The High Chancellor had great confidence in him; indeed, he was one of the persons most in his confidence. M. Pechlin represented to the Duke that to listen was not to negotiate, and that negotiation, also, was a very different thing from acceptance, and that he would always have it in his power to break off the negotiation when he thought proper. At last, step by step, they got him to consent that M. Pechlin should listen to the propositions of the Danish minister, and thus the negotiation was opened. The Grand Duke was distressed, and spoke to me on the subject. I, who had been brought up in the ancient hatred of the house of Holstein against Denmark, and had constantly heard it averred that the projects of Count Bestoujeff were all directed against the interests of the Grand Duke and myself, I, of course, could not hear of this project without impatience and anxiety. I opposed it to the Grand Duke as much as I could. No one, however, except himself, ever mentioned the subject to me, and to him the utmost secrecy had been recommended, especially in regard to women. I believe this caution had more reference to me than to any one else, but they were deceived in their expectations; for the Duke was always eager to tell me everything about it. The more the negotiations advanced, the more did they endeavour to present the matter in an agreeable aspect to him. I often found him delighted at the prospect of what he should have, but then came revulsions of bitter regret for what he was going to lose. When they saw him hesitating, they relaxed the conferences, and only renewed them when they had invented some new bait for making him see things in a favourable light.
In the beginning of the spring we moved to the Summer Garden, and occupied the little house built by Peter I, the apartments of which are on a level with the garden. The stone quay, and the bridge of the Fontanka, had not then been built. In this house I had one of the most painful annoyances which I experienced during the entire reign of the Empress Elizabeth. One morning I was informed that the Empress had removed from my service my old valet de chambre, Timothy Yevreinoff. The pretext for this removal was, that Yevreinoff had had a quarrel, in a wardrobe chamber, with a man who used to bring us in coffee. Of this quarrel the Grand Duke had been in part a witness, having gone into the room while they were arguing, and heard a portion of their mutual abuse. The antagonist of Yevreinoff complained to M. Tchoglokoff, saying that Yevreinoff, without regard to the presence of the Grand Duke, had used most abusive language to him. M. Tchoglokoff immediately made his report to the Empress, who ordered both of them to be dismissed from the court, and Yevreinoff was sent off to Kasan, where he was subsequently made master of police. The truth of the matter was, that both men were very much attached to us, especially Yevreinoff, and this was but a pretext for depriving me of him. He had charge of everything belonging to me. The Empress ordered that a man named Skourine, whom he had taken in as an assistant, should take his place. In this person I had, at the time, no confidence.