About two years afterwards the younger of the Dolgorouky girls, Catherine Michailovna, in her turn appeared at the Imperial Court, and her arrival there sounded the death-knell of her sister’s favour. Prince Mestchersky, an aide-de-camp of the Emperor, was persuaded to marry Mary Dolgorouky. The Emperor gave her a large dowry, and as a wedding present a lovely house on the English Quay.
Prince Mestchersky was killed during the Turkish War, and his widow afterwards married the nephew of the Viceroy of Poland, Count George Berg, one of the most charming men in St. Petersburg Society. She had kept upon excellent terms with her sister, and they both settled later in Nice, where they lived together in the same villa. The Countess Berg died some four or five years ago.
Princess Catherine Dolgorouky was a tall, fair, placid looking person, with lovely blonde hair, a slight figure, with unmistakably graceful movements and the best possible taste in dress, a quality to which Alexander II. was particularly susceptible. Intelligence she had little; tact even less; but she had enough sense to know that on this road which was to lead her towards the Throne of All the Russias she needed the help of someone more intelligent than herself, and with more knowledge of the world. That person she found in a distant cousin, Mademoiselle Schébéko.
The latter was one of those master minds that at once recognise the weak as well as the strong sides of every position. She directed her batteries with consummate skill towards the aim she had in view. She persuaded Catherine Michailovna to play the part of the woman capable of giving everything up for love, of resigning herself to any misfortune, and to any humiliation rather than being parted from the man to whom she wanted to devote her life. No one could have played that difficult part better than did the Princess, under the guidance of Mademoiselle Schébéko, and when it came to asking anything from the Emperor, it was always the latter, and never Catherine Michailovna, who did so. She used only to accept with astonishment, and with a gratitude that apparently savoured of pain, all the presents with which the Emperor loaded her, and she always complained that he was doing too much for her.
By and by the two ladies exercised such an influence that Ministers began to take it into account and to ask themselves where it would lead to. Politics, which at first had played no part in the alliance, became a prominent matter of discussion, and the Emperor began to meet people at the Princess’s house whom it was inconvenient to receive at the Winter Palace.
Every afternoon the Emperor used to go and visit Catherine Michailovna at the house which belonged to the Princess Mestchersky, her sister, and in which she lived together with Mlle. Schébéko. There he used to spend hours, and there it was that the three children of the Princess Dolgorouky were born. Their birth only consolidated the ties between the parents. When the Emperor travelled to Ems the Princess followed him there, and once stayed at the Russian Embassy in Berlin, much to the indignation of the Empress Augusta of Germany. Later on, when the Nihilist movement became so terribly active, and it became unwise for the Emperor to drive about in the streets alone, Princess Dolgorouky removed with her children to the Winter Palace. Her rooms were situated exactly above those of the dying Empress, who could hear the clatter of little children’s feet over her head.
When at length Marie Alexandrovna expired, it was with no one by her side to close her eyes, save her devoted daughter the Duchess of Edinburgh, who had arrived from England to be with her mother during the last days of her life. Owing to the indignation of the Duchess at the presence of the Princess Dolgorouky in the Palace, the latter removed to Tsarskoye Selo, whither the Emperor followed her, and where he was still when the Empress breathed her last.
Forty days after the death of the Empress, Alexander II. married Catherine Michailovna Dolgorouky, and created her Princess Yourievsky.
The little popularity which remained to the Emperor disappeared after this mad act. St. Petersburg was incensed, and discontent was openly expressed at this outrage on the conventions of life.
Catherine Michailovna, nevertheless, had her partisans. All the Liberal element in the country turned to her, and expected through her influence to obtain the promulgation of a Constitution. Count Loris Melikoff, M. Abaza, and all their friends thought the moment favourable to persuade the Emperor that the time had come when it was his duty to put the topstone to the reforms for which his reign had been remarkable, by granting the blessings of Constitutional government. They explained to him that such a measure would do away with the discontent that his marriage had raised, that the nation would bless the woman to whose influence liberty had been given to it, and would see with pleasure that woman raised to the rank of Empress.