And now, after all that has been said, let the reader picture to himself what must have been the nature of the medium into which destiny had cast this young girl, gifted, as she was, not only with great talent, but also with a character pliant, though full of pride and passion.
Her position at St. Petersburg was horrible. On one side was her mother, a peevish, scolding, greedy, niggardly, pedantic German, boxing her ears, and taking away her new dresses to appropriate them to her own use; on the other, the Empress Elizabeth, a coarse and grumbling virago, never quite sober, jealous, envious, causing every step of the young Princess to be watched, every word reported, taking offence at everything, and all this after having given her for a husband the most ridiculous Benedict of the age.
A prisoner in the palace, she could do nothing without permission. If she wept for the death of her father, the Empress sent her word that she had grieved enough. “That her father was not a king, that she should mourn him longer than a week.” If she evinced a friendship for any of her maids of honour, she might be sure the lady would be dismissed. If she became attached to a faithful servant, still more certain was it that that servant would be turned away.
Her relations with the Grand Duke were monstrous, degrading. He made her the confidante of his amorous intrigues. Drunk from the age of ten, he came one night in liquor to entertain his wife with a description of the graces and charms of the daughter of Biren; and as Catherine pretended to be asleep, he gave her a punch with his fist to awaken her. This booby kept a kennel of dogs, which infested the air, at the side of his wife’s bed-chamber, and hung rats in his own, to punish them according to the rules of martial law.
Nor is this all. After having wounded and outraged nearly every feeling of this young creature’s nature, they began to deprave her systematically. The Empress regards as a breach of order her having no children. Madame Tchoglokoff speaks to her on the subject, insinuating that, for the good of the state, she ought to sacrifice her scruples, and concludes by proposing to her a choice between Soltikoff and Narichkine. The young lady affects simplicity and takes both—nay, Poniatowsky into the bargain, and thus was commenced a career of licentiousness in which she never halted during the space of forty years.
What renders the present publication of serious consequence to the imperial house of Russia is, that it proves not only that this house does not belong to the family of Romanoff, but that it does not even belong to that of Holstein Gottorp. The avowal of Catherine on this point is very explicit—the father of the Emperor Paul is Sergius Soltikoff.
The Imperial Dictatorship of Russia endeavours in vain to represent itself as traditional and secular.
One word before I close.
In perusing these Memoirs, the reader is astonished to find one thing constantly lost sight of, even to the extent of not appearing anywhere—it is Russia and the People. And here is the characteristic trait of the epoch.
The Winter Palace, with its military and administrative machinery, was a world of its own. Like a ship floating on the surface of the ocean, it had no real connection with the inhabitants of the deep, beyond that of eating them. It was the State for the State. Organized on the German model, it imposed itself on the nation as a conqueror. In that monstrous barrack, in that enormous chancery, there reigned the cold rigidity of a camp. One set gave or transmitted orders, the rest obeyed in silence. There was but one single spot within that dreary pile in which human passions reappeared, agitated and stormy, and that spot was the domestic hearth; not that of the nation—but of the state. Behind that triple line of sentinels, in those heavily ornamented saloons, there fermented a feverish life, with its intrigues and its conflicts, its dramas and its tragedies. It was there that the destinies of Russia were woven, in the gloom of the alcove, in the midst of orgies, beyond the reach of informers and of the police.