Moens de la Croix was the young brother of Anne de la Croix, one of Peter’s early mistresses. He was Catharine’s chamberlain. His office brought him in close attendance on the empress, and an intimacy was established. This was for a time notorious to every one except Peter himself. At length, however, his suspicions were aroused, and, by setting spies on Catharine, he became a personal witness to her infidelity. The first explosion of his resentment was terrific, and he was on the point of executing both the empress and her paramour, but by the temperate advice of some of his friends, who counseled him to avoid a scandal, it was determined to arrest Moens on a false charge of conspiracy.
Moens and his sister were accordingly seized and confined in an apartment in the winter palace. Peter permitted nobody to approach them, and took them their food with his own hands. When they were examined as to the conspiracy, Moens, to save the empress with the public, confessed to every thing. He was accordingly condemned and beheaded. His sister was knouted and sent to Siberia.
Catharine had presented her lover with her miniature on a bracelet, which he always wore. As he walked to his death, he managed to deliver it, unperceived, to the Lutheran minister who accompanied him, with instructions to convey it back to the empress privately, which was accomplished. The Czar was a spectator of the execution, after which the head of the culprit was fixed on a stake, according to custom. To terrify Catharine the more effectually, Peter drove her round the head of her lover. Happily for her, she managed to preserve self-control during the torture of this horrid spectacle. After this the Czar only spoke to her in public.
At Peter’s death, Catharine ascended the throne of Russia by virtue of a pretended dying declaration of her husband. She went through a pantomime of sorrows and tears over his body, but, as soon as she was firmly seated, she abandoned herself to pleasure and voluptuousness, and had two lovers, Prince Sapicha and Loewenwolden, at the same time. “These two rivals equally strove to please her, and alternately received proofs of her tenderness, without suffering their happiness to be marred by jealousy.” The irregularity of the empress’s life, and her intemperate use of ardent liquors, hastened her death, which took place in her thirty-ninth year.
Peter himself was a wretched example of conjugal infidelity and low debauchery. His associates were often of the very lowest of the populace. It is true that in his time the highest were not much removed from their inferiors in decency of manners; while the inferiors often had the advantage, if not of intellectual cultivation, at least of practical intelligence, in which Peter took delight. He spent many of his hours drinking brandy and other liquors with sailors, carpenters, and artisans, irrespective of his temporary assumption of the working man’s pursuits. He consorted indiscriminately with women of all sorts and conditions. Eventually he contracted the venereal disease. From neglect, and the general depravity of his life, the disease became so aggravated that at last it proved the indirect cause of his death. He himself used to say that he had taken it from Madame Tchnertichoff, wife of the general and diplomatist of that name. Upon the fact being mentioned to her, whether casually or with malice prepense does not appear, she is reported to have replied very naïvely that she had not given it to him, but that he, on the contrary, had such loose habits and low associates that he had given it to her.[272]
It was in 1722 that Peter was attacked with this malady, and while suffering from it he marched into Persia, and shared the fatigues of the meanest soldier throughout the campaign. The heat, drought, and constant dust increased the disease frightfully, and the pains became so excruciating that he could not conceal them from his immediate attendants. Still, however, he would not consult the court physician, but directed his servant to get advice as if for some one else. He then went to the hot baths of Plonetz, and apparently recovered. But it seems the disease was not cured; it was merely palliated by this treatment, and he was obliged, on a relapse, to have recourse to the regular physicians, and for three months his life was despaired of. At last he recovered; but now, in spite of all warnings, he resumed his usual habits of life, renewed his long and severe journeys, his public works, and his general activity of mind and body, while he in nowise amended other and more injurious pursuits and practices.
On November 5, 1724, while on a journey to Finland, he stopped at the port of Lachta. There, from the shore, he saw a small vessel full of soldiers and sailors which had struck upon a shoal. Perceiving their imminent danger, he shouted to them, but the boisterous wind drowned his voice. He sprang into a skiff, pulled out to the shoal, and, having reached the vessel, jumped into the water, got her off, and landed the passengers all safe. He neglected all the precautions necessary in the then state of his health, and was seized with violent fever, and at the same time his former pangs came on with all their old force. He was taken back to St. Petersburg, where he obtained partial relief from his sufferings. He employed one of his intervals of ease in celebrating the great festival of blessing the waters of the Neva, and by his intemperance in the festivities renewed his attack, and after a period of protracted agony, died on the 28th of January, 1725.
Peter is described as having been excessively libidinous in temperament, and his coarse promiscuous amours were made the common subject of his jocularity, even in the presence of Catharine. He was even addicted to abominable depravities, which are stated by contemporary writers to have been the common practice of the Russians at that time.[273] Peter at times gave way to fits of lust, in which, like a furious beast, he regarded neither age nor sex. Unnatural vices were punished in the Russian army at this time by an express military regulation, and the crime was a standing reproach with the people, who were said to have acquired it from the Greeks of the lower empire.[274]
Anne, the successor of Peter and Catharine, had two publicly avowed lovers—Dolgorouki and Ernest John Biren. The latter was the better known, as his influence and importance during Anne’s reign were very great. Dolgorouki had become one of the deputies to announce to Anne her succession to the throne, which office he accepted, with the hope of being able to resume his former intimate relations with his future sovereign. When he entered the apartments, he found a man in mean apparel seated by the side of the princess. He ordered him to withdraw, and, upon his inattention to the order, took him by the arm to turn him out, when the empress stopped him. This unknown person was Biren, who became regent of the empire.[275]
Anne was not sunk in the same abyss of profligacy as her successor Elizabeth, nor in brutality as her ancestor Peter. She had been brought up in Courland, and had acquired some little refinement of ideas and manners. Gluttony and drunkenness were somewhat less in vogue at her court, but dissipation, ruinous gambling, and boundless extravagance were in full fashion. The whole court became a body of buffoons and jokers, and the most absurd and preposterous fashions of dress, the rudest and most boisterous romps and gambols were generally practiced. As a specimen of court manners, the practical joke played on Prince Galitzin, in which there was as much malice as fun, may be remembered.