Love affairs of the Courts of Europe

by Thornton Hall

In vain did Domanski, who was still by her side, warn her against the smooth-tongued envoy. She was flattered by such unexpected homage, her eyes were dazzled by the near prospect of the coveted crown which was to be hers, at last, just when hope seemed dead. She would accept Orloff's invitation to go to Pisa to meet him. "As for you," she said, "if you are afraid, you can stay behind. I am going where Destiny calls me."

This revolution in her fortunes acted like magic. New life coursed through her veins, colour returned to her cheeks, and brightness to her eyes, as one February day in 1775 she left Rome, with the devoted Domanski for companion and a brilliant escort, for Pisa, where Orloff greeted her as an Empress. He gave regal fêtes in her honour and filled her ears with honeyed and flattering words.

Affecting to be dazzled by her beauty, he even dared to make passionate love to her, which no man of his day could do more effectively than this handsomest of the Orloffs; and so infatuated was the poor Princess by the adoration of her handsome lover and the assurance of the throne he was to give her, that she at last consented to share that throne with him, and by his side went through a marriage ceremony, at which two of his officers masqueraded as officiating priests.

Nothing remained now between her and the goal of her desires, except to make the journey to Russia as speedily as possible, and a few hours after the wedding banquet we see her in the Admiral's launch, with Orloff and Domanski and a brilliant suite of officers, leaving Leghorn for the Russian flagship, where she was received with the blare of bands and the booming of artillery. The crowning moment arrived when, as she was being hoisted to the deck in a gorgeous chair suspended from the yard-arm, her future sailors greeted her with thunders of shouts, "Long live the Empress!"

The moment she set foot on deck she was seized, handcuffs were snapped on her wrists, and she was carried a helpless captive to a cabin. At the same moment Domanski was overpowered before he had time to use his sword, and made a prisoner.

The Princess's cries for Orloff, her husband and saviour, are met with derision. Orloff she is told is himself a prisoner. He has, in fact, vanished, his dastardly mission executed; and she never saw him again. Two months later the victim of a man's treachery and a woman's vengeance is looking with tear-dimmed eyes on "her capital" through a barred window of a cell in the fortress of Saints Peter and Paul.

Over the tragic closing of her days we may not dwell long. The scene is too pitiful, too harrowing. In vain she implores an interview with Catherine, who blazes into anger at the request. "The impudence of the wretch," she exclaims, "is beyond all bounds! She must be mad. Tell her if she wishes any improvement in her lot to cease the comedy she is playing." Prince Galitzin, Grand Chancellor, exerts all his skill in vain to force a confession of imposture from her. To his wiles and threats alike she opposes a dignified and calm front. She persists in the story of her birth; refuses to admit that she is an impostor.

Even when she is flung into a loathsome cell, with bread and water for diet, she does not waver a jot in her demeanour of dignity or in her Royal claims. Only when she is charged with being the daughter of a Prague innkeeper does she allow indignation to master her, as she retorts, "I have never been in Prague in my life, and if I knew who had thus slandered me I would scratch his eyes out." Domanski, too, proves equally intractable; even the promise of marriage to her will not wring from him a word that might discredit his beloved Princess.

But although the Princess keeps such a brave heart under conditions that might well have broken it, her spirit is powerless against the insidious disease that is working such havoc with her body. In her damp, noisome cell consumption makes rapid headway. Her strength ebbs daily; the end is coming swiftly near. She makes a last dying appeal to Catherine to see her if but for a few moments, but the appeal falls on deaf ears. When she sends for a priest to minister to her last hours, and, by Catherine's orders, he makes a final attempt to wrest her secret from her, she moans with her failing breath, "Say the prayers for the dead. That is all there is for you to do here."

Four days later death came to her release. Catherine's throne was safe from this danger at least, and she was left to dalliance with her legion of lovers, while the woman on whom she had wreaked such terrible vengeance lay deeply buried in the courtyard of her prison, the very soldiers who dug her grave being sworn to secrecy. Thus in mystery her life opened, and in secrecy it closed.