Sophia and her mother were lodged in the Kreml, and the work of preparation began. The young princess soon realised her destiny and determined not to spoil it. But she had three near misses within a year. She worked so hard at the Russian that she would get up during the night and pace the room, repeating her lessons, in bare feet; and she caught pneumonia and nearly died a few weeks after her arrival. Incidentally she won the Empress’s favour completely. In the hour of danger they asked if she would see her Lutheran pastor. No, she said, the Russian priest; and the rumour of her piety, which—she afterwards said—was really policy, spread through the court. She was received into the Russian Church in July, and solemnly betrothed to Peter. Then Peter had the smallpox and nearly died; and in fine her mother nearly spoiled her prospect. She had come with secret instructions from Frederick of Prussia, and, like a good German, she stealthily pushed his interest. The inquiry into the supposed Bestuzheff plot exposed her, and she retired to her obscure province. But Elizabeth liked her daughter, and Catherine—her name was changed on entering the Orthodox Church—remained, and married Peter in the following year.
The years that followed were filled with European struggle, which does not much concern us here. The capture of the letters of Chétardie exposed the machinations of both France and Prussia. Elizabeth found herself described as living in a state of “voluptuous lethargy,” and her passion for France and Frederick suddenly chilled. Alexis Bestuzheff became her chief counsellor, and inclined her toward England and Austria. The court was honeycombed by intrigue, and even the favourite, Lestocq, was at length (1748) detected in his treachery. He was put to the torture and banished.
Elizabeth was not long drawn out of her “voluptuous lethargy.” In fact, the attainment of middle age seemed to bring back the looseness of her youth, and her lovers were the jest of the courts of Europe. One of her pages, Ivan Shuvaloff, was promoted and placed in apartments near those of the Empress. Ivan took his good fortune modestly, but the customary tribe of relatives appeared and blossomed into wealthy and influential courtiers. Count Bestuzheff and others were alarmed, and they put in the way of the Empress a very handsome young amateur actor named Beketoff. Elizabeth genially added the youth to the intimate circle which caroused in her room at night, but Peter Shuvaloff, uncle of the earlier favourite, did not like the prospect. The more credible version of his action is that he met young Beketoff one day, and, impressing upon him how much the Empress liked to see her favourites fresh and healthy, gave him a box of ointment for his face. There was in the stuff something which caused an eruption of the skin, and his condition was represented to the Empress in such a light that he fled.
It should be added that she still guarded the propriety of her subjects. The elder Count Bestuzheff held that his wife’s crime had dissolved his marriage, and he wished to take a second wife. Elizabeth sternly refused to consent, holding that marriage was indissoluble. When the desperate Count did at length marry she refused to receive his “paramour” at court.
In many other respects she tried to continue the process of cleaning the face of Russia. At first she had undone her father’s control of the monks, and let them gather enormous wealth. As the needs of war pressed on her, she revoked this and checked them. She endeavoured also to check the irregularities and dispel the ignorance of the secular clergy. Wandering priests would gather in the streets of Moscow and importune passers-by to give them the price of a mass. Some are said to have held a crust in their hands, and threatened to eat (which would make them unable to say mass that day), unless a man offered his purse. Elizabeth set the bishops to remove these and other irregularities. She promoted letters, since it was the proper thing for an enlightened monarch to do, and her ministers attempted to improve trade and agriculture. Agricultural banks were opened; industries were protected; mines were sunk; Siberia and the southern steppes were partly colonised. It was forbidden for men and women to mix in the public baths. These were, on the whole, slight improvements of a terribly backward country. Ignorance, violence, drunkenness, dishonesty in trade, official corruption, brigandage, listlessness, and idleness were still general.
The later years of the reign were filled with the inevitable Prussian war. After years of diplomatic struggle Elizabeth, in 1756, concluded an alliance with England. To her great disgust, and Bestuzheff’s grave danger, England then formed an alliance with Frederick, and the French redoubled their efforts to oust Bestuzheff and receive the friendship of Russia. By this time the Princess Catherine openly disdained her husband and went her own way. For years the Empress, eager to see an heir to the throne she would leave to Peter, tried to bring them together, but each hated the other, and Catherine found consolation elsewhere. In 1754, however, Catherine had a son who was presumed to be a Romanoff. Elizabeth fell ill, and Bestuzheff, believing that she would die, approached Catherine, through her latest lover, Poniatowski, and suggested that he could make her Empress if she would support his anti-French and anti-Prussian policy.
Elizabeth recovered, however, and declared that the good of the world demanded the destruction of Frederick of Prussia, who had said caustic things about her. The Seven Years’ War opened, and Russia joined France and Austria against Prussia. The Russian army under General Apraksin won a great victory, and then, instead of pressing it, retired. Now this coincided with a second serious illness of the Empress, and the French envoy raised a cry of treachery. Vorontsoff, who waited impatiently for the official shoes of Count Bestuzheff, and hated Catherine, joined the French in demanding an inquiry. Bestuzheff’s papers were searched, and it was found that he had been in communication with Catherine. A plot was easily constructed out of this material. Bestuzheff was to raise Catherine’s baby to the throne and make her Regent; and Apraksin’s troops were withdrawn toward the capital for the event of the death of Elizabeth.
Catherine in later years looked back with a shudder upon that critical time. Bestuzheff contrived to send her word that he had burned her letters, and there was no danger, but she saw a very serious danger. She wrote to Elizabeth, and for weeks she received no answer. At last she was summoned to the Empress’s room. Her enemy, Alexis Shuvaloff, was with the Empress; her husband, another enemy, waited in the room; and on the table she saw letters that she had written to Apraksin. They were innocent letters, but what right had she to communicate with commanders in the field, as if she were already Empress? With tears and prayers she mollified the angry Empress, and her enemies were beaten. Apraksin died of apoplexy, and Bestuzheff was compelled to retire to his estates.
For the brief remainder of the reign of the Empress Elizabeth Catherine went warily. Elizabeth, who was little beyond her fiftieth birthday, would not control her appetites, and her health slowly departed. She became a chronic invalid and would lie for hours on a couch admiring the little babe, Paul, who would carry on the line of the Romanoffs. Some misgiving in regard to the future seemed to trouble her. Peter, though a Romanoff, was emphatically a brutal German. He lived in an entirely German atmosphere; an atmosphere of smoke and beer-fumes and Teutonic disdain of everything Russian. Catherine, on the other hand, had developed into a thorough Russian. Her strong sense and feeling of policy told her to eradicate all Germanism from her composition and wholly transnationalise herself. Peter had an immense admiration of Prussia and Frederick, while Catherine was a Russian patriot.
And Elizabeth hated Prussia. Throughout her last years she kept alive the League against Frederick and spurred her generals in the struggle. Frederick sought peace, and she refused it. France and Austria became faint under their efforts and sacrifices, and she lashed them to the task. All through the year 1761 her strength ebbed, and she saw Frederick sinking from defeat to defeat. Would death spare her to see Prussia crushed? Would that unhappy nephew take over her power before her work was completed, and spare his idol? Her own ministers drooped, and her resources wore thin, but she cried for decisive and utter victory. In December a fit of coughing brought on hemorrhage, and she entered the last stage. She died on January 11th, 1762, in the fifty-third year of her age, not the least picturesque figure of the Romanoff gallery of monarchs.