Chapter VII: Catherine I to Peter III (3)

All these beautiful architectural productions, and likewise those of music and painting, were for the greater part the work of foreign artists--visitors to Russia; but under their influence Russian artists were formed and taste developed. The church of Nicholas Morskoi was built by a pupil of Rastrelli. The almost daily theatrical representations produced at court gave rise to the idea of organising similar representations at the _corps des Cadets_. The empress took a lively interest in them; she often assisted at them and lent her diamonds for the women’s costumes. In their turn these representations could not but assist the development of a taste for the stage, for dramatic art and literature in general and from amongst the number of cadet actors not a few became well known writers, as for instance Beketov, Kheraskov, and Sumarokov.

We must dwell for a few moments on Sumarokov--a man who in his time enjoyed an extensive literary reputation and secured for himself the appellation of Father of the Russian Stage. The love of literature, and especially of the stage, was already developed in Sumarokov when he was in the corps des Cadets; when he was afterwards made aide-de-camp to Razumovski, he could almost daily assist at operas and ballets. At that period he read with avidity the dramatic authors then in fashion: Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, and Molière became his idols; he decided to try to imitate them in his own native language then very undeveloped, and in 1747 he wrote a tragedy, the _Chorists_.

It was not the merits of this work, which were very insignificant, but the unwontedness of the appearance of an original Russian tragedy, and besides that the fact of its being in verse, that so astounded and enraptured his contemporaries that they proclaimed Sumarokov the “Russian Racine”; encouraged by such a success he wrote a second and yet, a third tragedy; he took up comedy (for which he had hardly any more vocation) and in fact wrote a whole repertory; there were, however, no actors; because neither in St. Petersburg nor in Moscow did there any longer exist such company and such theatres as were begun in the time of Peter.

Meanwhile, far away from both capitals, in Iaroslav there was formed, almost of itself without any commands or even any encouragement being given, a Russian dramatic company which is indissolubly bound up with the name of Volkov. Theodore Volkov was the son of a merchant and had been educated in the Iaroslav seminary, where, following the example of the Academy of Kiev, and others, representations of a spiritual or religious character were given. They produced a great impression upon the young merchant; when later on he managed to get to St. Petersburg and saw on the stage of the corps des Cadets a dramatic representation given with scenery, lighting, and mechanical contrivances, Volkov was stupefied with rapture and astonishment. Being to the highest degree sensitive to every artistic impression, being a painter, a musician, and a sculptor--all self-taught--Volkov was also endued with that constancy and patience without which even gifted natures do not attain to any results. Volkov studied the material side of scenic art to the smallest details--that is, the arrangement of the machinery, of the scenes, etc.; when he returned to Iaroslav he asked his parents, with whom he lived, to let him have an empty tanner’s shed; there he arranged a pit and a stage, and making up a company of young merchants like himself, sons of citizens and clerks, gave representations which aroused the enthusiasm of all the spectators. The intelligent and practical Volkov, seeing how the population of Iaroslav flocked to his representations, named a price for them--a five kopeck piece for the first rows--and thus little by little he amassed a sum with which in 1752 he was able to build a general public theatre with room for one thousand spectators.

The taste for the stage had meanwhile greatly spread in St. Petersburg; in various private houses dramatic representations were given at evening parties; it was therefore not surprising that the Iaroslav theatre soon began to be talked of. The empress invited Volkov to come to St. Petersburg with his company, as she wished to see his representations given on the stage of the court theatre. She was remarkably pleased with them, and four years later issued an ukase for the establishment of a public theatre. The first director of this theatre and almost the only dramatic writer was Sumarokov; according to the testimony of contemporaries Volkov was one of its most talented actors and his friend and fellow worker Dmitrievski a great artist.

We must here speak of another still more remarkable Russian native genius--Lomonosov. It is well known how, when he was a youth of sixteen, devoured by a thirst for knowledge, he secretly left the paternal roof and made his way on foot from Kholmogori to Moscow. How unattractive must life and learning have appeared to him in those early days! “Having only one altyn (a three-kopeck piece) a day for salary, it was impossible for him to spend more on food than a halfpenny a day for bread and a halfpenny worth of _kvass_ (a kind of beer or mead); the rest had to go for paper, books, and other necessities.” Thus he described his life in the Zaikonospaskvi Ecclesiastical Academy to Ivan Shuvalov and concluded with the following words: “I lived thus for five years and did not abandon science!” Theodore Prokopovitch, when he was already an old man, visited the Moscow academy a few years before his death; he noticed Lomonosov there and praised him for his laboriousness and learning. In 1737 Lomonosov was sent abroad to perfect himself and placed himself under the surveillance of the then famous scholar, Wolff, who, while despising him for his disorderly life, spoke with respect of his capacities and success in study. Lomonosov followed the lectures of the German professors and amused himself with the German students. The news of Minikh’s great victories and the taking of Khotin reached him; his patriotic feelings were aroused, and he wrote an ode. When the verses were received in St. Petersburg everyone was struck with their harmony; and when Lomonosov returned from Germany in the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign his reputation as a poet had already preceded him--the more he wrote the greater his fame became. Poetry, however, was not Lomonosov’s strongest point, and verses do not occupy a quarter of his entire works. His mind worked even more than his imagination, and his scholarly writings are striking in their variety. He composed a grammar of the Russian language from which several generations have learned; he laid down rules of versification, the foundation of which are even now recognised by everyone; he wrote on chemistry, physics, astronomy, metallurgy, geology; he composed a Russian history, wrote a hypothesis concerning the great learned expeditions and memoranda bearing on questions of the state (as for instance measures for increasing and maintaining the population in Russia): in fact, Lomonosov’s extraordinary intellect seemed to touch upon every branch of mental activity. He was made a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, but there the German element reigned supreme and Lomonosov was one of those who, while venerating the work of Peter the Great and the European learning introduced by him, yet was oppressed by foreign tutorage and took offence when the Germans put forward their own countrymen to the detriment of meritorious Russians. Continual disputes and quarrels arose between Lomonosov and his fellow members; nor, being of a very impetuous and obstinate nature, was Lomonosov always in the right. His rough and sharp measures frequently led him into quarrels even outside the academy, for instance with his literary brethren, Frediakovski and Sumarokov. All this might greatly have injured Lomonosov, but fortunately for him he possessed powerful protectors in the persons of Count Worontzov and Count Razumovski, who liked to show favour to the first Russian scholar and poet.

But the strongest, truest, and most constant of his protectors was Ivan Shuvalov. Shuvalov had many defects--his character was weak, lazy, and careless; but he nevertheless represented one of the most consolatory types of his epoch: strong, energetic types were not uncommon in the first half of the eighteenth century, but gentle, benevolent, indulgent natures were rarely to be met with. Shuvalov was not captivated by clamorous deeds, like the men of Peter’s time, but by the peaceful progress of science and art. Therefore if the weakness of his character made him an instrument for the ambitious designs of his cousin, his heartfelt sympathies drew him towards Lomonosov, of whom he naturally learned much and--what is of more importance--with whom he devised means for the spread of education in Russia. The result of these deliberations was a vast plan for the establishment of schools throughout the governments, and finally of a university in Moscow. The establishment of a university seemed of the first necessity, as it was to furnish Russia with teachers; this had been Peter’s intention with regard to the academy: but it had not been fulfilled. In his report to the senate upon this subject, Shuvalov wrote that it would be desirable to appoint a “sufficient number of worthy men of the Russian nationality, acquainted with the sciences, to spread education in distant parts among the common people, so that thus superstition, dissent, and other like heresies proceeding from ignorance might be destroyed.” The senate approved Shuvalov’s proposition and in 1755 the University of Moscow was founded.

We have given as just and complete a picture of the period of the empress Elizabeth as is possible in view of the scarcity of information obtainable concerning many circumstances of that time. Elizabeth left behind her if not a great memory yet, broadly speaking, a good one. Her administration may be reproached with much: in its foreign policy it was not sufficiently independent; it was not sufficiently watchful in interior affairs, where oversights occasioned special evils; moreover examples of unlawful enrichment attained huge dimensions. But her reign may be said to have led Russia out of bondage to the Germans, while the level of education was not in the smallest degree lowered, but on the contrary considerably raised. Much that brought forth such brilliant fruits under Catherine II was sown under Elizabeth.[d]

_Bain’s Estimate of Elizabeth_

It is the peculiar glory of Elizabeth Petrovna that she consulted once for all the life work of her illustrious father. During the first fifteen years after the death of the great political regenerator, his stupendous creation, Russia, (before him we only hear of Muscovy,) was frequently in danger. The reactionary boyars who misruled the infant empire under Peter II would have sacrificed both the new capital and the new fleet, the twin pivots upon which the glory and the prosperity of the new state may be said to have turned; the German domination under the empress Anna, directly contrary as it was to the golden rule of Peter, “Russia for the Russians,” threatened the nation with a western yoke far more galling than the eastern or Tatar yoke of ruder times. From this reaction, from this yoke the daughter of Peter the Great set the nation free, and beneath her beneficent sceptre Russia may be said to have possessed itself again. All the highest offices of state were once more entrusted to natives and to natives only, and whenever a foreigner was proposed for the next highest, Elizabeth, before confirming the appointment, invariably inquired: “Is there then no capable Russian who would do as well?” Moreover she inherited from her father the sovereign gift of choosing and using able councillors, and not only did she summon to power a new generation of native statesmen and administrators, but she constrained them to work harmoniously together despite their mutual jealousies and conflicting ambitions. She herself had advantageously passed through the bitter but salutary school of adversity. With all manner of dangers haunting her path from her youth upwards, she had learnt the necessity of circumspection, deliberation, self-control; she had acquired the precious faculty of living in the midst of people intent on jostling each other, without in any way jostling them; and these great qualities she brought with her to the throne without losing anything of that infinite good-nature, that radiant affability, that patriarchal simplicity which so endeared her to her subjects and made her, deservedly, the most popular of all the Russian monarchs. As regards her foreign policy, it may be safely affirmed she laid down the deep and durable foundations upon which Catherine II was to build magnificently indeed, but too often, alas! so flimsily. The diplomacy of Elizabeth, on the whole, was not so confident or so daring as the diplomacy of her brilliant successor; but, on the other hand, it was more correct, equally dignified and left far less to chance. It must also be borne in mind that the energy and firmness of Elizabeth considerably facilitated the task of Catherine by rendering Prussia, Russia’s most dangerous neighbour, practically harmless to her for the remainder of the century. This of itself was a political legacy of inestimable value, and it was not the only one. All the great captains, all the great diplomatists of the “ever victorious Catherine,” men like Rumiantsev, Suvarov, Riepnin, Besborodko, the Panins and the Galitzins, were brought up in the school of Elizabeth. Excellent was the use which the adroit and audacious Catherine made of these instruments of government, these pioneers of empire, but it should never be forgotten that she received them all from the hands of the daughter of Peter the Great.[g]

PETER III (1762 A.D.)

As Elizabeth, on her death-bed, had confirmed the rights of Peter III; and as the conspirators, deprived of Bestuzhev their guide, were unable to act with energy, the new emperor encountered no opposition. On the contrary, he was immediately recognised by the military; and the archbishop of Novgorod, in the sermon preached on the occasion, thanked heaven that a prince so likely to imitate his illustrious grandfather was vouchsafed to Russia. Catherine was present. She wore a peculiar dress to conceal her pregnancy, and her countenance exhibited some indication of the anxious feeling which she was obliged to repress. Compelled to defer the execution of her ambitious purposes, and uncertain what vengeance the czar might exert for her numerous infidelities, she might well be apprehensive.

But she had no real foundation for the fear. Of all the sovereigns of that or any age, Peter was among the most clement. Whether he thought that clemency might bind to his interests one whose talents he had learned to respect, or that her adherents were too numerous and powerful to allow of her being punished--whether, in short, he had some return of affection for her, or his own conscience told him that she had nearly as much to forgive as he could have, we will not decide. One thing only is certain--that, in about three months after his accession, he invested her with the domains held by the late empress. Certainly his was a mind incapable of long continued resentment. His heart was better than his head. Resolved to signalise his elevation by making others happy, he recalled all whom his predecessor had exiled, except Bestuzhev. Many he restored to their former honours and possessions. Thus the aged Munich was made governor-general of Siberia, restored to his military command; while Biron, who certainly deserved no favour, was reinvested with the duchy of Courland. He did more: he restored the prisoners made by the generals of Elizabeth, and gave them money to defray their passage home. And, as Frederick had always been the object of his idolatry, the world expected the armistice which he published, and which was preparatory to a peace between the two countries.

That declaration was an extraordinary document. In it the emperor declares that, his first duty being the welfare of his people, that welfare could not be consulted so long as hostilities were continued; that the war, which had raged six years, had produced no advantage to either party, but done incredible harm to both; that he would no longer sanction the wanton destruction of his species; that, in conformity with the divine injunction relative to the preservation of the people committed to his charge, he would put an end to the unnatural, impious strife; and that he was resolved to restore the conquests made by his troops. In this case he had been praised, and with great justice, for his moderation. We fear, however, he does not merit so high a degree of praise of humanity as many writers have asserted. At this moment, while proclaiming so loudly his repugnance to war, he was sending troops into his native principality of Holstein, with the intention of wresting from the king of Denmark the duchy of Schleswig, which he considered the rightful inheritance of his family. He even declared that he would never rest until he had sent that prince to Malabar.

(1728-1762)]

Nor must we omit to add that from the enemy he became the ally of Frederick; that his troops joined with the Prussians to expel the Austrians from the kingdom. His humanity only changed sides; if it spared the blood of Prussians, it had little respect for that of Austrians. We may add, too, that there was something like madness in his enthusiastic regard for Frederick. He corresponded with that monarch, whom he proclaimed his master, whose uniform he wore, and in whose armies he obtained the rank of major-general. Had he been capable of improvement, his intercourse with that far-sighted prince might have benefited him. Frederick advised him to celebrate at Moscow his coronation--a rite of superstitious importance in the eyes of the multitude. He was advised, too, not to engage in the Danish war, not to leave the empire. But advice was lost on him.

In some other respects, Peter deserves more credit than the admirers of Catherine are willing to allow him. (1) Not only did he pardon his personal enemies--not only did the emperor forget the wrongs of the grand duke--but on several he bestowed the most signal favours. He suppressed that abominable inquisitorial court, the secret chancery, which had consigned so many victims to everlasting bondage, which had received delations from the most obscure and vicious of men, which had made every respectable master of a family tremble lest his very domestics should render him amenable to that terrible tribunal. Had this been the only benefit of his reign, well would he have been entitled to the gratitude of Russia. (2) He emancipated the nobles from the slavish dependence on the crown, so characteristic of that barbarous people. Previous to his reign, no boyar could enter on any profession, or forsake it when once embraced, or retire from public to private life, or dispose of his property, or travel into any foreign country, without the permission of the czar. By breaking their chains at one blow, he began the career of social emancipation. (3) The military discipline of the nation loudly demanded reform, and he obeyed the call. He rescued the officers from the degrading punishments previously inflicted; he introduced a better system of tactics; and he gave more independence to the profession. He did not, however, exempt the common soldier from the corporal punishment which at any moment his superior officers might inflict. (4) He instituted a useful court to take cognisance of all offences committed against the public peace, and to chastise the delinquencies of the men entrusted with the general police of the empire. (5) He encouraged commerce, by lessening the duties on certain imports, and by abolishing them on certain exports. (6) In all his measures, all his steps, he proved himself the protector of the poor. In fact, one reason for the dislike with which he was regarded by the nobles arose from the preference which he always gave to the low over the high.

_Impolitic Acts of Peter III_

But if impartial history must thus eulogise many of this monarch’s acts, the same authority must condemn more. He exhibited everywhere great contempt for the people whom he was called to govern. He had no indulgence for their prejudices, however indifferent, however inveterate. Thus, in commanding that the secular clergy should no longer wear long beards, and should wear the same garb as the clergy of other countries, he offended his subjects to a degree almost inconceivable to us. In ordering the images to be removed from the churches--he was still a Lutheran, if anything--he did not lessen the odium which his other acts had produced. The archbishop of Novgorod flatly refused to obey him, and was in consequence exiled; but the murmurs of the populace compelled the czar to recall him. Still more censurable were his efforts to render the church wholly dependent on the state--to destroy everything like independence in its ministers; to make religion a mere engine in the hands of arbitrary power for the attainment of any object. His purpose, in fact, was to seize all the demesnes of the church--its extensive estates, its numerous serfs--and to pension the clergy like other functionaries.

In the ukase published on this occasion, he expressed a desire to relieve ecclesiastics of the temporal cares so prejudicial to their ghostly utility; to see that they indeed renounced the world, and free from the burden of perishing treasures, applied their whole attention to the welfare of souls. He therefore decreed that the property of the church should in future be managed by imperial officers; and that the clergy should receive, from the fund thus accumulated, certain annual pensions, corresponding to their stations. Thus the archbishops of Novgorod, Moscow, and St. Petersburg were to have each 2,500 rubles; and the same sum was to be allowed for the support of their households, of their capitular clergy, and for the sustentation of the sacred edifices. But the twenty-three other archbishops and bishops were to have only 3,000 rubles for both purposes. The salaries of the other ecclesiastics were carefully graduated. The inferior were divided into three classes--individuals of the first to receive 500, of the second 300, of the third 150 rubles per annum. The surplus funds were to be applied to the foundation of hospitals, to the endowment of colleges, and to the general purposes of the state.

Peter attempted these and other innovations in virtue of the two-fold character which, from the time of his grandfather, the czars had been anxious to assume, as supreme heads alike of religion and of the state. Not even the grand lama of Thibet ever arrogated a higher degree of theocratic authority. Indeed, our only surprise is that in addition to their other functions they did not assume that of bishops; that they did not array themselves in pontificals, and celebrate mass at the altar. But they certainly laid something like a claim to the sacerdotal character. Thus, on the death of the patriarch, Peter I opposed the election of another supreme head of the church; and when he found that the synod durst not venture on so far irritating the people as to dispense with the dignity, he insisted on being elected himself. If the sultan of Constantinople combined with himself the two-fold character, why should it be refused to him? The reign of Peter was too short to permit his designs of spoliation to be carried into effect; but, by confirming the dangerous precedent of his grandfather, he had done enough, and his successor Catherine was enabled to complete the robbery which he commenced.

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.

Though the conspirators were, in point of numbers, formidable, their attempt was one of danger. Peter was about to leave Russia for Holstein, to prosecute the war against the Danish king; and of the troops whom he had assembled, though the greater part were on their march, some were now with him, and might be induced to defend him. Besides, the two great divisions of his fleet were at Kronstadt and Revel, and nobody could foresee how they would act. The conspirators agreed that he should be taken by surprise; that midnight should see him transferred from the throne to a dungeon. The festival of St. Peter and St. Paul--one of high importance in the Greek church--was approaching: the following day the emperor had resolved to depart. It was to be celebrated at Peterhov; there it was resolved to arrest him.

But accident hastened the execution of the plot. Until the arrival of the festival, Peter left St. Petersburg for Oranienbaum, to pass in riot and debauchery the intervening time. Accompanied by the most dissolute of his favourites, and by many of the court ladies, he anticipated the excesses which awaited his arrival. That he had received some hints of a plot, though he was unacquainted alike with its object and authors, is exceedingly probable. His royal ally of Prussia is said to have advised him to be on his guard, and several notes are supposed to have been addressed to him by his own subjects. If such information was received, it made no impression on him; and indeed its vagueness might well render him indifferent to it. But on the eve of his departure, when the superior officer of Passik, who had accidentally learned that danger attended the steps of the emperor, denounced the lieutenant, and the culprit was arrested, he had an opportunity of ascertaining all the details of the conspiracy. He treated the denunciation with contempt; affirmed that Passik belonged to the dregs of the people, and was not to be dreaded; and proceeded to Oranienbaum. The culprit, though narrowly watched, had time to write a line to the hetman, whom he exhorted to instant action, if they wished to save their lives. The note fell into the hands of the princess Dashkov, who immediately assembled the conspirators.

Not a moment was to be lost: the presence of Catherine was indispensable; and, though it was midnight and she was at Peterhov, seven leagues distant from St. Petersburg, one of the Orlovs went to bring her. He arrived at the fortress, entered a private door, and by a secret staircase ascended to the apartments occupied by the empress. It was now two o’clock in the morning: the empress was asleep; and her surprise was not unmixed with terror, when she was awakened by a soldier. In a moment she comprehended her situation: she arose, called one of her women, and both, being hastily clad in a strange habit, descended with the soldier to one of the gates, passed the sentinel without being recognised, and stepped into the carriage which was waiting for her. Orlov was the driver, and he urged the horses with so much severity that before they had proceeded half way from Peterhov to St. Petersburg, they fell down from exhaustion. The situation of the empress was critical: she might at any moment be overtaken; and she was certain that with the dawn of day Peter would acquire some more definite intelligence of the plot. In a state bordering on distraction, she took refuge in the first house that she approached: it was a tavern, and here she burned the letters which had passed between her and the conspirators. Again she recommenced her journey on foot: by good fortune she met a countryman with a cart; Orlov seized the vehicle, the peasant ran away; Catherine ascended it, and, in this undignified manner, she, her woman, and Orlov entered St. Petersburg about seven o’clock on the morning of July the 9th.

_Catherine Usurps the Crown_

No sooner was Catherine in the capital than she was joined by the hetman; and, accompanied by him, she hastened to the barracks of the troops which he commanded. Four companies immediately declared for her; their example constrained the rest of the regiment; three other regiments, hearing the acclamation, and seeing the people hurry to the spot, joined in the cry; all St. Petersburg was in motion; a report was spread that she and her son had just escaped assassination by order of the czar; her adherents rapidly multiplied: and, accompanied by about two thousand soldiers, with five times that number of citizens, who loudly proclaimed her sovereign of Russia, she went to the church of Our Lady of Kazan. Here everything was prepared for her reception: the archbishop of Novgorod, with a host of ecclesiastics, awaited her at the altar; she swore to observe the laws and religion of the empire; the crown was solemnly placed on her head; she was proclaimed sole monarch of Russia, and the grand duke Paul her successor; and _Te Deum_ concluded the eventful ceremony.

From the church she proceeded to the palace occupied by the late empress; the mob crowded to see her, and to take the oath of allegiance; while the more respectable portion of the citizens were awed into submission, or at least into silence, by a report that Peter had just been killed by falling from his horse. To gratify the populace, the taverns were abandoned to them: the same fate visited the houses of all who were obnoxious to the conspirators; intoxication was general; robbery was exercised with impunity; the palace, to which Catherine had hastened, was strengthened; a numerous guard was stationed in its defence; a manifesto was proclaimed; a notification was delivered into the hands of each foreign minister, and the revolution was complete.

One object of the conspirators had been to close every avenue of egress from the capital, that Peter might not be acquainted with the revolution until it was too powerful to be repressed. All the troops in the vicinity were called within the walls; but there was one regiment about sixteen hundred strong, which lay between the city and Peterhov, the conduct of which was doubtful. Without the slightest knowledge of what had taken place, the colonel arrived in the city, and was soon persuaded not only to declare for the new sovereign but to prevail on the regiment to follow his example. He was successful; and, with the whole body, he returned in triumph to the capital. On this very day Peter had promised to dine with Catherine: on reaching Peterhov he was surprised to hear of her flight. Vorontzov, the father of his mistress, the father also of the princess Dashkov, who had witnessed without repugnance the dishonour alike of his wife and daughter, proposed to the emperor to visit St. Petersburg to ascertain the cause of her departure; and, if any insurrection were meditated, to suppress it. He arrived in the presence of the empress, was induced to swear allegiance to her, and was ordered to retire into his own house.

But Peter had already been informed of the revolution; and he traversed with hasty steps the gardens of Peterhov, indecisive and terrified. Yet he was not wholly deserted. The brave Munich, whose locks were ripened by age, and whose wisdom equalled his valour, advised him instantly to place himself at the head of his Holstein troops, march on the capital, and thereby enable all who were yet loyal to join him. Whether the result would have been such as the veteran anticipated, _viz._ a counter-revolution, may well be doubted; but there can be no doubt that a considerable number of soldiers would have joined him, and that he would have been able to enter into negotiations with the hostile party. He was too timid to adopt the suggestion: nothing, in fact, could urge him to decisive action. When informed that Catherine was making towards Peterhov, at the head of ten thousand men, all that he could resolve to do was to send messengers to her with proposals. His first was that the supreme power should be divided between them; the second, when no reply was deigned to his letter, that he should be allowed to leave Russia, with his mistress and a favourite, and pass the rest of his days in Holstein. She detained his messenger, and still advanced.

Munich now advised him to embark for Kronstadt, and join his fleet, which was still faithful; but unfortunately he delayed so long that one of Catherine’s emissaries had time to corrupt the garrison of the fort: on arriving, he was prohibited from disembarking, and told that if he did not immediately retire his vessel would be sunk by the cannon of the place. Still he had a fleet at Revel; and if it were disloyal he might escape into Prussia, Sweden, or Holstein. With the fatality, however, which characterised all his measures on this eventful day, he returned to Oranienbaum, where he disembarked at four o’clock in the morning of July the 10th. Here he was soon visited by the emissaries of Catherine; was persuaded to sign an act of abdication; was conducted to Peterhov; was divested of all his imperial orders; was clad in a mean dress, and consigned, first to one of the country houses of the hetman, and soon afterwards to the fortress of Ropscha, about twenty miles distant from Peterhov. He was not allowed to see the empress; and his mistress and attendants were separated from him.[b]

_Death of Peter III (1762 A.D.)_

What was to be done with Peter? At the deliberations on this question Catherine calmly listened to arguments as to the necessity of measures being taken in order that the former emperor should not injure her rule by disturbing weak minds; she clearly realised all the dangers that might be created for her, if not by Peter himself at any rate by his partisans. They were not numerous, yet they did exist and they might multiply in the future. It was necessary that Peter should be definitively made harmless, but how was it to be done? During the deliberations on the means to be taken, no restraint was imposed by Catherine’s presence. The empress was not an Elizabeth Petrovna: she at once understood the uselessness of imprisonment at Schlüsselburg or any other place; she was not likely to fall into a fainting fit at any proposition made. The examples of Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great did not disturb her. Nevertheless, not one of those present, not even the persons nearest to her, reading in her eyes the secret desire decisively to finish once for all with this unbearable question, would have dared even to hint at an unnatural death--they knew Catherine, they might read her thought, but not aloud.

When the persons who surrounded Catherine were definitively convinced that Peter’s removal was recognised by her as indispensable, they decided to devise a means for it without her knowledge and to accomplish it without her consent. In this were interested all the personal partisans of Catherine, those “chosen sons of the people,” who had stirred up the empress to put herself at the head of the movement. They were far more interested in the matter than Catherine herself: the change had been brought about by all classes of society, by the whole nation, not by her; no one could even think of the detested Peter ascending the throne a second time--it was not on Catherine that the malcontents would revenge themselves, that is if there were or would be any, but on the “chosen of the people.” Peter did not prevent a change being brought about; still, he might hinder not Catherine but many of the “chosen ones” from reaping the fruits of their labours. The Orlov brothers were above all interested in the matter; all of them, and especially Gregory, occupied important posts, which gave them the right to dream of great things; the realisation of these dreams could, it seemed to them, be prevented only by Peter’s perpetual imprisonment. As long as Peter lived, Catherine was not free: it was now observed by everyone that in the manifesto of the 28th of June Peter was not once called the consort, the husband of Catherine; but such bonds imposed by the church are not broken either by manifestoes or imprisonment: Peter living, by the one fact of his being alive, prevented the Orlovs from attaining the final results of their efforts, their sacrifices. No matter by what means, somehow the Orlovs must guard not merely what was as yet only possible and cherished in their dreams, but the good fortune that had already been attained to; and, for this, haste must be made. The favour shown to them, especially to Gregory, was visible to every eye. At the court there were already snares laid for them, intrigues began to be carried on against them, endeavours were made to overthrow Gregory; if Gregory fell his brothers would fall with him. Haste must be made.

On Wednesday, the 3rd of July, on the fourth day after the appearance of the attacks of Peter’s illness, in the evening the doctor, Leyders, came to Ropscha from St. Petersburg. On Thursday, the 4th of July, the former emperor probably grew worse: at any rate a second doctor came that day from St. Petersburg--the regimental surgeon Paulsen. The doctors did not observe any change for the worse, and according to the expressions of the language of contemporaries, the condition of the patient left nothing to be desired. Friday passed quietly. On Saturday, the 6th of July, in the morning while the prisoner was still asleep, the valet who attended on Peter went out into the garden, “to breathe the fresh air.” An officer who was in the garden ordered him to be seized and the valet was put into a carriage which stood in readiness and removed from Ropscha. In the evening, at six o’clock, a messenger who had ridden from Ropscha gave to Catherine a packet from Alexis Orlov. On a sheet of soiled gray paper, in the ignorant handwriting of Alexis Orlov and by his own drunken hand was traced the following:

Merciful sovereign mother![52]

How can I explain, how describe what has happened; you will
not believe your faithful servant; but before God I speak the
truth. Matushka! I am ready to go to my death; but I myself
do not know, how this calamity happened. We are lost, if you
do not have mercy. Matushka, he is no more on earth. But no
one had thought of this, and how could we have thought to
raise our hands against the sovereign! But, your majesty, the
calamity is accomplished. At table he began to dispute with
Prince Theodore;[53] we were unable to separate them and he was
already no more; we do not ourselves remember what we did; but
we are all equally guilty and deserving of punishment. Have
mercy upon me, if it is only for my brother’s sake. I have
brought you my confession and seek for nothing. Forgive or
command that it may be quickly finished. The world is not kind;
we have angered you and destroyed our souls forever.

The news of death is a great matter. It is impossible either to prepare for it or grow accustomed to it. In the present case the death of Peter, doing away with many perplexities, and giving a free hand to many persons, appeared as the only possible and most desirable issue to the political drama which was agitating the people of Russia. Nevertheless the news of this death struck some, disturbed others, and puzzled all as an unexpected sudden phenomenon. On Catherine it produced the strongest impression, and (justice must be rendered to her) she was the first to control herself, to examine into the mass of new conditions, created by the death of Peter, and to master the various feelings which made their invasion together with the news of the catastrophe of Ropscha.

“_Que je suis affectée: même terrassée par cette mort_” (How affected and even overwhelmed I am by this death), said Catherine to Princess Dashkov. She was touched by it as a woman; she was struck by it as empress. Catherine clearly recognised her position: the death of Peter, a death that was so sudden, would at such a time awaken rumours, throw a shadow on her intentions, lay a spot on the memory of those until then clear, bright ten days; yet she did not hide from herself that it was only by death that the great undertaking “begun by us” could be entirely consummated. The tragedy of Catherine’s position was still further increased by the circumstance of Alexis Orlov’s having taken an active part in the catastrophe of Ropscha: she was under great obligations to the Orlovs as empress, while as a woman she was bound by the ties of affection to Gregory Orlov; she loathed the crime, but she could not give up the criminal. “One must be firm in one’s resolutions,” said Catherine, “only weak-minded people are undecided.” Even she herself, she must conceal the crime and protect the criminal, taking upon herself all the moral responsibility and political burden of the catastrophe. Catherine then for the first time showed a healthy political understanding of the widest diapason and played the rôle she had taken upon herself with the talent of a virtuoso.

The letter of Alexis Orlov, which entirely exculpated her from all suspicion was hidden in a cupboard, where it lay for thirty-four years, until the very death of the empress. With the exception of two or three persons in the immediate entourage of Catherine, who were near her at the moment when the letter was received besides Nikita Panin and the hetman Razumovski, no one ever read it, no one knew of it while the empress lived. Having decided upon the fate of the letter, she herself marked out the programme of her actions clearly and shortly: “_Il faut marcher droit; je ne dois pas être suspecte_.” (I must walk uprightly; I must not be suspected.)

The programme was exactly fulfilled. The letter of Alexis Orlov did not communicate the trifling details of the catastrophe, but the general signification of the narrative did not leave any doubts as to its chief features, and therefore Catherine considered it first of all necessary to certify whether poison had been employed; the postmortem examination, made by order of the empress, did not show the least trace of poison. Neither the medical certificate as to the cause of death nor the act of death has been preserved; we can only guess that these certificates directed the composition of the following “mourning” manifesto: