The apartment in which we were was long, and had three windows between which stood two tables, containing the gold toilet-service of the Empress. No one was in the room but myself, the Empress, the Grand Duke, and Alexander Schouvaloff. Opposite the Empress were some large screens, in front of which was a couch. I suspected from the first that John Schouvaloff certainly, and perhaps also his cousin Peter, were behind these. I learnt afterwards that my conjecture was in part correct, and that John Schouvaloff actually was there. I stood by the side of the toilet-table, nearest to the door by which I entered, and noticed in the toilet-basin some letters folded up. The Empress again approached me, and said, “God is my witness how I wept when you were dangerously ill, just after your arrival in Russia. If I had not liked you, I should not have kept you.” This I looked upon as an answer to what I had just said in reference to my having incurred her displeasure. I replied by thanking her Majesty for all the kindness and favour she had shown me then and since, saying that the recollection of them would never be effaced from my memory, and that I should always regard my having incurred her displeasure as the greatest of my misfortunes. She then drew still nearer to me, and said, “You are dreadfully haughty: do you remember, that at the Summer Palace, I one day approached you, and asked if you had a stiff neck, because I noticed that you hardly bowed to me, and that it was from pride you merely saluted me with a nod.” “Gracious heavens! madame,” I said, “how could your Majesty possibly suppose that I should be haughty to you? I solemnly declare that it never once occurred to me that this question, asked four years ago, could have reference to any such thing.” Upon this she said, “You fancy there is no one so clever as yourself.” “If I ever had any such conceit,” I replied, “nothing could be better calculated to undeceive me than my present condition and this very conversation, since I see that I have been stupid enough not to understand, till this moment, what you were pleased to say to me four years ago.” During my conversation with her Majesty, the Grand Duke was whispering to Count Schouvaloff. She perceived this, and went over to them. They were both standing near the middle of the room. I could not very well hear what they were saying, as they did not speak loud, and the room was large. At last I heard the Grand Duke raise his voice and say, “She is dreadfully spiteful, and very obstinate.” I then perceived they were talking about me, and, addressing the Grand Duke, I observed, “If it is of me you are speaking, I am very glad to have this opportunity of telling you, in the presence of her Imperial Majesty, that I am indeed spiteful to those who advise you to commit injustice, and that I have become obstinate because I see that I have gained nothing by yielding, but your hostility.” He immediately retorted, “Your Majesty can see how malicious she is by what she says herself.” But my words made a very different impression on the Empress, who had infinitely more intellect than the Grand Duke. I could plainly see as the conversation progressed, that although she had been recommended, or had herself, perhaps, resolved to treat me with severity, her feelings softened by degrees in spite of herself and her resolutions. She, however, turned towards him, and said, “Oh, you do not know all she has told me against your advisers, and against Brockdorff, relative to the man you have had arrested.” This must naturally have appeared to the Duke a formal treason on my part. He did not know a word of my conversation with the Empress, at the Summer Palace, and he saw his dear Brockdorff, who had become so precious in his eyes, accused to her Majesty, and that by me. This, therefore, was to put us on worse terms than ever, and perhaps render us irreconcilable, as well as deprive me, for the future, of all share in his confidence. I was thunderstruck when I heard her relating to him, in my presence, what I had told her, and, as I believed, for his own good, and found it thus turned against me like a weapon of destruction. The Grand Duke, very much astonished at this disclosure, said, “Ah! here is an anecdote quite new to me; it is very interesting, and proves her spitefulness.” I thought to myself, “God knows whose spitefulness it proves.” From Brockdorff her Majesty passed abruptly to the connection discovered between Stambke and Count Bestoujeff, and said to me, “I leave you to imagine how it is possible to excuse him for having held communication with a state-prisoner.” As my name had not appeared in this affair, I was silent, as if the matter did not concern me. Upon which the Empress approached me, and said, “You meddle with many things which do not concern you. I should not have dared to have done so in the time of the Empress Anne. How, for instance, could you presume to send orders to Marshal Apraxine?” I replied, “I, madame? Never has such an idea entered my head.” “What!” she said, “will you deny having written to him? There are your letters in that basin,” and she pointed to them as she spoke. “You are forbidden to write.” “True,” I replied, “I have transgressed in this respect, and I beg your pardon for it; but since my letters are there, these three letters will prove to your Imperial Majesty that I have never sent him any orders; but that in one of them I informed him of what was said of his conduct.” Here she interrupted me by saying, “And why did you write this to him?” I replied simply, “Because I took a great interest in the Marshal, whom I like very much. I begged him to follow your orders. Of the two other letters, one contains only my congratulations on the birth of his son; and in the other I merely presented to him the compliments of the new-year.” Upon this she said, “Bestoujeff asserts that there were many others.” I replied, “If Bestoujeff says that, he lies.” “Very well, then,” she said, “since he has told lies concerning you, I will have him put to the torture.” She thought by this to frighten me, but I answered that she could, of course, act according to her sovereign pleasure, but that I had never written more than those three letters to Apraxine. She was silent, and appeared to be meditating.
I relate the most salient points of this conversation which have remained in my memory; but it would be impossible for me to recollect all that was said in the course of an interview which lasted an hour and a-half at the least. The Empress walked to and fro in the apartment, sometimes addressing herself to me, sometimes to her nephew, but more frequently to Count Alexander Schouvaloff, with whom the Grand Duke conversed the greater part of the time, while the Empress was speaking to me. I have already said that I remarked in her Majesty’s manner less of anger than of anxiety. As to the Grand Duke, during the whole interview he manifested much bitterness, animosity, and even passion towards me. He endeavoured as much as he could to excite the anger of her Majesty against me, but as he did it so stupidly, and displayed more anger than justice, he failed in his object, and the penetration and sagacity of the Empress disposed her rather to take my part. She listened, with marked attention and a kind of involuntary approval, to my firm and temperate replies to my husband’s outrageous statements, from which it was perfectly evident that his object was to clear out my place, in order to establish in it the favourite of the moment. But this might not be to the Empress’ liking, neither might it suit the fancy of the Messrs. Schouvaloff to give themselves Count Voronzoff for a master; but all this transcended the judicial penetration of his Imperial Highness, who always believed in what he wished, and never would listen to anything which appeared the dominant idea of the moment; and on this occasion he dwelt so much upon it that the Empress approached me and said, in a low voice, “I have many other things to say to you, but I do not wish you to be embroiled more than you are already.” And with a look and a movement of her head, she intimated that it was on account of the presence of the others that she would not speak. Perceiving this mark of sincere good-will at so critical a moment, my heart was moved, and I said to her, in a similar tone, “And I also am prevented from speaking, however earnest my desire to open to you my mind and heart.” I saw that this made a favourable impression on her. Tears came into her eyes, and to conceal her emotion, and the extent to which she was moved, she dismissed us, observing that it was very late; and, in fact, it was nearly three o’clock in the morning. The Grand Duke went out first, I followed, and just as Alexander Schouvaloff was passing out after me, her Majesty called him back, and he remained with her. The Grand Duke strode on rapidly, as usual, but on this occasion I did not hurry myself to follow him. He entered his apartments, and I mine. I was beginning to undress, in order to go to bed, when I heard some one knocking at the door by which I had entered. On asking who was there, Schouvaloff replied that it was he, and begged me to admit him, which I did. He desired me to dismiss my maids. They left the room. He then told me that the Empress had called him back, and that, after talking to him for some time, she had charged him to bear to me her compliments, and to tell me not to distress myself, and that she would have another conversation with me quite alone. I made a low bow to the Count, and begged him to present my most humble respects to her Imperial Majesty, and thank her for her kindness, which had restored me to life. I told him that I should look forward to this second interview with the utmost impatience, and entreated him to hasten its time. He requested me not to speak of it to any one whatever, especially the Grand Duke, who, her Majesty saw, with regret, was greatly irritated against me. This I promised; though I could not help thinking to myself, “But if she regrets his irritation, why increase it by repeating our conversation at the Summer Palace, concerning those people whose society was brutalizing him?”
This unexpected restoration of the favour and confidence of the Empress, gave me, however, great pleasure. The next day I desired my confessor’s niece to thank her uncle from me, for the signal service he had rendered me, by procuring for me this interview with her Majesty. On her return she told me that her uncle had heard that the Empress had called her nephew a fool, but said that the Grand Duchess had a great deal of sense. This remark came to me from more quarters than one, as well as that her Majesty, among her intimate associates, was constantly extolling my talents, often adding, “She loves truth and justice; she is a woman of great sense; but my nephew is a fool.”
I still continued to keep my room, as before, under the pretext of bad health. I recollect that I read at this time, with the map before me, the first five volumes of the “Histoire des Voyages,” and that I was both amused and instructed by the perusal. When tired of these, I turned over the early volumes of the “Encyclopedia,” while waiting until it should please her Majesty to admit me to a second interview. I renewed, from time to time, my request to Count Schouvaloff, telling him that I was very anxious to have my destiny decided. As to the Grand Duke, I heard nothing more about him. I only knew that he was impatiently waiting for my dismissal, and that he confidently calculated on afterwards marrying Elizabeth Voronzoff. She came into his apartments, and already did the honours there. It appeared that her uncle, the Vice-Chancellor, who was a hypocrite, if ever there was one, had become aware of the projects of his brother, perhaps, or rather, it may be, of his nephews, who were then very young, the eldest being only twenty, or thereabouts, and fearing that his newly-revived credit with her Majesty might suffer by it, he intrigued for the commission of dissuading me from demanding my dismissal; for this is what occurred.
One morning, it was announced to me, that the Vice-Chancellor Count Voronzoff requested to speak to me on the part of the Empress. Surprised at this extraordinary deputation, I ordered him to be admitted, though I was not yet dressed. He began by kissing my hand, and pressing it warmly, and then wiped his eyes, from which a few tears fell. As I was a little prejudiced against him at that time, I did not put much faith in this preamble, by which he intended to show his zeal, but allowed him to go on with what I looked upon as a piece of buffoonery. I begged him to be seated. He was a little out of breath, owing to a species of goitre which troubled him. He sat down by me, and told me that the Empress had charged him to speak to me, and dissuade me from insisting on my dismissal; that her Majesty had even gone so far as to authorize him to beg me, in her name, to renounce a wish to which she never would give her consent, and that for his own part, especially, he conjured me to promise him that I would never speak of it again; adding that the project was a source of great grief to the Empress, and to all good men, among whom, he begged to include himself. I replied that there was nothing I would not willingly do to please her Majesty, and satisfy good men; but that I believed my health and life were endangered by my present mode of existence, and the treatment to which I was exposed; that I made everybody miserable; that all who came near me were either driven into exile or dismissed; that the Grand Duke was embittered against me even to hatred, and that, besides, he had never loved me; that her Imperial Majesty had shown me almost unceasing marks of her displeasure, and that seeing myself a burden to everybody, and nearly worn out with ennui and grief, I had asked to be sent back to my home, in order to free them all from the presence of so troublesome a personage. He spoke to me about my children; I told him I never saw them, and that I had not seen the youngest since my confinement, nor could I see them without an express permission from the Empress, as their apartment was only two rooms distant from her own, and formed part of her suite; that I had not the least doubt she took great care of them, but that being deprived of the pleasure of seeing them, it was a matter of indifference to me whether I was a hundred yards or a hundred leagues away from them. He informed me that the Empress would have a second conversation with me, and that it was greatly to be desired that her Majesty should become reconciled to me. To this I replied by begging him to accelerate this second interview, and that I for my part would neglect nothing that could tend to realize his wishes. He remained more than an hour with me, and spoke at great length upon a multitude of things. I remarked that the increase of his influence had given him a certain advantage in speech and deportment which he did not formerly possess when I saw him in the crowd; and when discontented with the Empress, with the state of affairs, and with those who possessed her confidence and favour, he said to me one day at court, seeing the Empress speaking for a long time to the Austrian Ambassador, while he and I, and all besides, were kept standing, and tired to death, “What will you wager that she is not talking mere fiddle-faddle to him?” “Good heavens!” I replied laughing, “what is it you say?” He answered me in Russian, in the characteristic words, “She is by nature....”[13] At length he left me, assuring me of his zeal, and took his leave, again kissing my hand.
For the present, then, I might feel sure of not being sent home, since I was requested not even to speak of it; but I deemed it as well not to quit my room, and to continue there as if I did not expect my fate to be finally decided until the second audience which the Empress was to give. For this I had to wait a long time. I remember that on the 21st of April, 1759, my birth-day, I never went out. The Empress, at her dinner-hour, sent me word by Count Alexander Schouvaloff that she drank to my health. I requested my thanks to be given to her for her kind remembrance of me upon this day of my unhappy birth, which, I added, I would curse, were it not also the day of my baptism. When the Grand Duke learned that the Empress had sent this message to me, he took it into his head to do the same. When his message was announced to me, I rose, and with a low courtesy expressed my thanks.
After the fêtes in honour of my birth-day, and of the Empress’ coronation day, which occurred within four days of each other, I still remained in my chamber, and never went out until Count Poniatowsky sent me word that the French Ambassador, the Marquis de l’Hôpital, had been eulogizing the firmness of my conduct, and observed that the resolution I maintained of never leaving my room could not but be productive of advantage to me. Taking this speech as the treacherous praise of an enemy, I determined to do exactly the contrary to what he advised; and, one Sunday, when it was least expected, I dressed, and came out of my private room. The moment I entered the apartment occupied by the ladies and gentlemen in waiting, I remarked their astonishment at seeing me. Some minutes after my appearance, the Grand Duke also entered. He looked equally astonished, and, while I was conversing with the company, he joined in the conversation, and addressed some remarks to me, to which I civilly replied.
About this time, Prince Charles of Saxony paid a second visit to St. Petersburg. The Grand Duke had treated him cavalierly enough on the first occasion, but this time his Imperial Highness thought himself justified in observing no terms with him, and for this reason: It was no secret in the Russian army that in the battle of Zorndorf Prince Charles had been one of the first to fly; and it was even asserted that he had fled without once stopping until he reached Landsberg. Now his Imperial Highness having heard this, resolved that, as a proved coward, he would not speak to him, nor have anything to do with him. There was every reason to believe that the Princess of Courland, daughter of Biren, did not a little contribute to this; for it had already begun to be whispered that there was an intention of making Prince Charles Duke of Courland. The father of the Princess of Courland was constantly retained at Yaroslav. She communicated her hostility to the Grand Duke, over whom she had always contrived to retain a kind of ascendancy. She was then engaged for the third time to Baron Alexander Tcherkassoff, to whom she was married the winter following.
At last, a few days before our going into the country, Count Alexander Schouvaloff came to inform me, on the part of the Empress, that I was to ask this afternoon, through him, permission to visit my children, and that then, upon my leaving them, I should have that second audience with her Majesty which had been so long promised. I did as I was directed, and, in presence of a number of people, I begged Count Schouvaloff to ask her Majesty’s permission for me to see my children. He went away, and on his return told me that I could see them at three o’clock. I was punctual to the time, and remained with my children until Count Schouvaloff came to tell me that her Imperial Majesty could be seen. I went to her, and found her quite alone, and this time there were no screens in the room, and consequently we were able to speak freely. I began by thanking her for the audience she gave me, saying that her gracious promise of it had restored me to life. Upon which she said, “I expect you to reply with sincerity to all the questions that I may put to you.” I assured her that she should hear nothing but the strict truth from me, and that there was nothing I desired more than to open my heart to her without reserve. Then she again asked if there really had been no more than three letters written to Apraxine. I solemnly assured her, and with perfect truth, that such was the fact. Then she asked me for details concerning the Grand Duke’s mode of life....