The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 17

by Unknown

But the most impolitic measure of Peter—that which rendered those who might have defended him indifferent to his fate—was his conduct towards the imperial guards. Two regiments he ordered to be in readiness for the Danish war. This was contrary to custom. In the faith of remaining near the court, most of the soldiers had embraced the military life; and they were as indignant as they were surprised when told that they must exchange the dissipations of a metropolis for the fatigues and privations attending a distant campaign. They were offended, too, with the introduction of the Prussian discipline, which they found by experience to be far more rigid than that to which they had hitherto been subject; and they patriotically condemned the innovation as prejudicial to the military fame of the empire. Still more irritating was the preference which he everywhere gave to the German over the native troops. His most intimate friends were Germans; the officers around his person were of the same nation; Germans directed the manœuvres not only of his household but of all his regiments; and a German—Prince George of Holstein, his uncle—was placed at the head of all the imperial armies.

Couple these acts of imprudence with others of which he was hourly guilty. In his palace of Oranienbaum he constructed a Lutheran chapel; and though he appears to have been indifferent to every form of religion, he held this in much more respect than the Greek form, which in fact, he delighted to ridicule. If churchmen became his enemies, the people in general were not likely to become his friends when they heard of a boast—probably a true one—that in the last war he had acquainted the Prussian monarch with the secrets of the imperial cabinet. Lastly, he insulted men of honour by making them the jest of his buffoons.

Circumstances much less numerous and much less cogent than these would have sufficed so ambitious, able, and unprincipled a woman as Catherine to organise a powerful conspiracy against the czar. But he was accused of many other things of which he was perfectly innocent. In fact, no effort seems to have been spared to invent and propagate stories to his disadvantage. In some instances, it is scarcely possible to separate the true from the false. Whether, for example, he, from the day of his accession, resolved to divorce his wife, to marry his mistress, to set aside Paul from succession, and to adopt Ivan, still confined in the fortress of Schlüsselburg, can never be known with certainty. That he secretly visited that unhappy prince seems undoubted; but we have little evidence for the existence of the design attributed to him. If, in fact, he sincerely contemplated raising the daughter of Count Vorontzov to the imperial throne, he would scarcely have adopted Ivan, unless he felt assured that no issue would arise from the second marriage. He could not, however, entertain any regard for a consort who had so grievously injured him, and little for a boy whom he knew was not his own. And, as there is generally some foundation for every report, there seems to be no doubt that Peter had promised to marry his mistress if she survived his wife. The report was enough for Catherine: on it she built her own story that her life was in danger; and that if her son were not designed for a similar fate, he would at least have that of Ivan.

Catherine Plots against the Czar

The anxiety of the empress to secure adherents was continually active; and as her husband passed so much time in drunkenness, her motions were not so closely scrutinised as they should have been. Gregory Orlov, her criminal favourite, was the man in whom she placed the most reliance. Gregory had four brothers—all men of enterprise, of courage, of desperation; and none of them restricted by the least moral principle. Potemkin, afterwards so celebrated, was the sixth. This man was, perhaps, the most useful of the conspirators, as by means of his acquaintance with the priests of the metropolis he was able to enlist that formidable body in the cause. They were not slow to proclaim the impiety of the czar, his contempt of the orthodox faith, his resolution “to banish the fear of the Lord” from the Russian court, to convert churches into hospitals and barracks, to seize on all revenues of the church, and to end by compelling the most orthodox of countries to embrace the errors of Luther. The archimandrites received these reports from the parish priests, the bishops from the archimandrites; nor was there much difficulty in obtaining an entrance for them into the recesses of the neighbouring monasteries. The hetman of the Cossacks, an officer of great authority and of great riches, was next gained. Not less effectual than he was the princess Dashkov, who, though the sister of Peter’s mistress, was the most ardent of the conspirators: perhaps the threatened exaltation of that sister, by rendering her jealous, only strengthened her attachment to the czarina. Through the instrumentality of this woman, Count Panin, the foreign minister and the governor of the grand duke Paul, was gained over. Whether the argument employed was, as one writer asserts, the sacrifice of her sister, or whether, as another affirms, she was the daughter of the count, who notoriously intrigued with her mother, is of no moment. What is certain is, that the count was exceedingly fond of her; and one authority expressly asserts that he became acquainted with the details of the conspiracy before her, and admitted her into the plot. This, however, is less probable than the relation we have given; for the princess had long been the friend of Catherine.

Her activity was unceasing. A Piedmontese adventurer, Odart by name, being forced to leave his native country for some crime, and having tried in vain to obtain a subsistence in the neighbouring capitals, wisely resolved to try his fortune in St. Petersburg—a city where guilt might reside with impunity, and where it had only to be successful to win the applause of mankind. As he had a considerable knowledge of the fine arts, especially of music and painting, he had little difficulty in obtaining an introduction to the princess Dashkov. She, who had a shrewd insight into human character, soon perceived that this supple, crafty, active, sober, intriguing, unprincipled foreigner was just the man that was required to act as spy and confidential agent. He was introduced to Catherine, whose opinion confirmed that of her favourite. No choice could, indeed, have been better. Little cared he in what service he was employed. If a partisan were to be gained, no man could be more insinuating: if an enemy were to be removed, he had his pistols and his dirk, without which he never appeared in the street. His penetration soon enabled him to secure the aid of two other bravos—the one, Possik, a lieutenant in the guards; the other, Globov, a lawyer in the employment of the senate. Of the character of these men, some notion may be formed from the fact that Possik offered to stab the emperor in the midst of the court. He knew how to ally duplicity with desperation; he was at once the hypocritical intriguer and the remorseless bravo.

Through the same Princess Dashkov, Volkonski, major-general of the guards, was won; and by Potemkin, or his ghostly allies, the archbishop of Novgorod was soon in the secret. The hetman of the Cossacks went further. Great as was the danger of entrusting that secret to many, he assembled the officers who served under him, assured them that he had heard of a conspiracy to dethrone the emperor, too irresistible to be appeased; and exhorted them to seize the favourable moment of propitiating the favour of the czarina, rather than, by remaining hostile or inactive, to bring down vengeance on their own heads. His advice had all the success that he could desire.

While these most vicious and in every way most worthless of men were thus employed in her behalf, Catherine was no less active. She knew that Count Panin espoused the cause of her son—less, perhaps, from affection to his charge, than from the hope of exercising more power under an infant emperor than under one of the mother’s enterprising character. Her promise, that his influence should be second only to her own, made him her willing instrument. His defection constrained the rest of the conspirators: there was no more heard of a regency; and Catherine was to be proclaimed autocratrix of all the Russias.

Without increasing unnecessarily the number of the initiated, she yet prepared the minds of many for some impending change, and rendered them eager for its arrival by her artful and seasonable insinuations. If an officer of the guards stood near her, she whispered in his ear that the emperor had resolved on disbanding the present force, and exiling its chiefs; if an ecclesiastic, she bewailed the fate of the pure orthodox church; if a less interested person, she lamented her own misfortunes and those of her son—both doomed to immediate imprisonment, and she, at least, to an ultimate death. If a senator were near, she deplored the meditated destruction of the venerable and patriotic body to which he belonged; the transformation of the debauchees, perpetually around the emperor, into judges; and the substitution of the Code Frederic for the ancient law of Russia.

By these means she prepared the minds of the people for the revolution: her affability, in fact, was the theme of their praise. But she did not trust merely to their good will. She knew that, unless two or three regiments were secured, the insurrection might not find immediate supporters, and that the critical moment might be lost. Without money this object could not be obtained; and though both she and her confidential agents voluntarily disbursed all that they could command, and converted their most valuable effects into coin, the amount was alarmingly inadequate. In this emergency she applied to the French ambassador for a loan; and when he showed less readiness to accommodate her than she expected, she addressed herself, we are told, to the ambassador from England, and with more success. But this statement is untrue: it was not the English ambassador, but an English merchant, who furnished her with the sum she demanded. With this aid, she prevailed on the greater part of three regiments to await the signal for joining her.