The Memoirs of Catherine the Great (18 page)

In May we went to the Summer Palace. At the end of May the Empress placed with me as chief governess Madame Choglokova, one of her maids of honor and a relative.
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This was a serious blow for me, since this woman was entirely on the side of Count Bestuzhev, extremely simple-minded, cruel, capricious, and very self-serving. Her husband, the Empress’s chamberlain, had at that time gone to Vienna with I know not what commission. I cried a great deal when she arrived and for the rest of the day; I had to be bled the following day. The morning before my bloodletting, the Empress came into my room, and seeing my red eyes, said to me that young women who did not love their husbands always cried, but that my mother had assured her that I had no aversion to marrying the Grand Duke, and that besides, she would not have forced me to do it, but that since I was married, I should not cry anymore. I remembered Madame Kruse’s instructions, and I said to her, “
, I beg your pardon, mother,” and she was appeased. Meanwhile the Grand Duke arrived, whom the Empress greeted graciously this time, and then she left. I was bled, and in this instance I needed it greatly; then I went to bed and cried all day long. The following day the Grand Duke took me aside after dinner, and I saw clearly that he had been informed that Madame Choglokova had been placed with me because I did not love him. But as I told him, I did not understand how they believed they would increase my tenderness for him by giving me this woman. To serve as my Argus was another matter, but for this, it would have been necessary to choose someone less stupid, and certainly this position required more than being cruel and malevolent. Madame Choglokova was believed to be extremely virtuous because at that time she loved her husband adoringly; she had married him out of love. Such a fine example, placed before me, was perhaps meant to persuade me to do the same. We will see whether this succeeded.

Here is what precipitated this arrangement, or so it seems. I say “precipitated” because I think that since the beginning, Count Bestuzhev had always had the intention of surrounding us with his creatures. He would very much have liked to do the same with Her Imperial Majesty’s entourage, but there the matter was more complicated. Upon my arrival in Moscow, the Grand Duke had in his chambers three servants named Chernyshev, all three sons of grenadiers in the Empress’s bodyguard; they held the rank of lieutenant, a distinction that she had given them as recompense because they had put her on the throne. The eldest Chernyshev was a cousin of the other two, who were brothers. The Grand Duke had great affection for all three of them; they were his closest intimates and truly served him well, all three being big and well built, especially the eldest. The Grand Duke used him for all his commissions and sent him to my apartment several times a day. It was in him moreover that the Grand Duke confided when he did not wish to come see me. This man was a friend of and very close to my chamber valet Evreinov, and I often learned things by this channel that I would not have known otherwise. Both were greatly devoted to me in heart and soul, and I often gained insight from them into a great many matters that I would have acquired otherwise only with difficulty. I know not in what context, but one day the eldest of the Chernyshevs had said while speaking of me to the Grand Duke,
she is not my fiancée, but yours.” This remark had made the Grand Duke laugh; he related it to me, and from that moment it had pleased His Imperial Highness to call me his fiancée,
and when Andrei Chernyshev spoke with me, he called the Grand Duke your fiancé,
To finish this joke, after our marriage, Chernyshev proposed to His Imperial Highness that he, Chernyshev, call me mother, “matushka,” and that I call him son,
But since this son was a constant subject of conversation both for the Grand Duke, who loved this man dearly, and for me, who had great affection for him as well, my servants grew agitated, some out of jealousy, others out of fear for the consequences that could result both for them and for us.

One day when there was a masked ball at the court and I had returned to my room to change my dress, my chamber valet Timofei Evreinov took me aside and told me that he and all of my house servants were frightened by the danger into which they saw me rushing. I asked him what this could be; he said to me, “You are only making people talk and you are always thinking about Andrei Chernyshev.” “Well,” I said with my innocent heart, “what harm is there in that? He is my son. The Grand Duke loves him as much as and even more than I, and he is devoted and faithful to us.” “Yes,” he replied to me, “this is true. The Grand Duke can do as he pleases, but you do not have the same right. What you call kindness and affection because this man is faithful to you and serves you, your servants call love.” When he had pronounced this word, which I had not even suspected, I was struck as if by lightning, both by the judgment of my servants, which I found rash, and by the situation in which I found myself without even suspecting it. He told me that he had advised his friend Andrei Chernyshev to say that he was ill in order to put an end to this talk. He had taken Evreinov’s advice, and his supposed illness lasted until around the month of April. The Grand Duke was greatly concerned by this man’s illness and spoke to me constantly about it, knowing nothing of the truth. Andrei Chernyshev reappeared in the Summer Palace; I could no longer see him without embarrassment.

Meanwhile the Empress had seen fit to make a new arrangement for the court servants. They took turns serving in all the rooms, and consequently, Andrei Chernyshev did as the others. At that time the Grand Duke often held concerts in the afternoon; he played the violin himself. During one of these concerts, I grew bored as usual and went to my room, which led out to the great hall of the Summer Palace, whose ceiling was being painted and which was entirely filled with scaffolding. The Empress was absent, and Madame Kruse had gone to the house of her daughter, Madame Sievers; I did not find a single living soul in my room. Out of boredom I opened the door to the hall and saw at the other end Andrei Chernyshev. I made a sign for him to approach; he came to the door with, to be honest, a great deal of apprehension. I asked him if the Empress would return soon. He said to me, “I cannot speak to you, there is too much noise in the hall. Invite me into your room.” I replied to him, “That is something I will not do.” He was on one side of the door and I on the other, holding the door half open and speaking to him. A sudden movement made me turn my head away from the door next to which I was standing. Behind me at the other door of my dressing room I saw Chamberlain Count Devier, who said to me, “The Grand Duke is asking for you, Madame.” I closed the door to the hall and went with Count Devier into the apartment where the Grand Duke was having his concert. I learned afterward that Count Devier was a kind of spy charged with this mission, like several others close to us.

The following day, a Sunday, after mass the Grand Duke and I learned that the three Chernyshevs had been placed as lieutenants in the regiments near Orenburg, and that afternoon Madame Choglokova was placed in my entourage. A few days later, we were ordered to prepare to accompany the Empress to Revel.
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At the same time, Madame Choglokova came to tell me on behalf of Her Imperial Majesty that I had been excused from coming in the future into her dressing room and that if I had something to tell her, it should only be through her, Madame Choglokova. Deep down I was extremely happy with this order, which freed me from having to stand about waiting among the Empress’s women, and besides, I did not go there often and only saw Her Majesty very rarely. Since I had started going there, she had shown herself to me only three or four times, and little by little, one by one, the Empress’s ladies usually left the room when I entered; so as not to be alone, I did not stay there very long either.

In the month of June the Empress left for Revel and we accompanied her. The Grand Duke and I traveled in a four-seated carriage; Prince August and Madame Choglokova were our companions. Our manner of traveling was neither pleasant nor comfortable. The houses and way stations were occupied by the Empress; we were either given tents or else placed in the servants’ quarters. I remember that one day during this trip I got dressed next to an oven in which they had just baked bread, and that another time when I walked in, there was water ankle-deep in the tent in which my bed had been set up. Moreover, as the Empress had no fixed hour either for departing or for arriving, nor for meals or rests, we were all, both masters and servants, exhausted to an extraordinary degree. Finally, after ten or twelve days of travel, we arrived at a property of Count de Stenbock at forty versts
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from Revel, from where the Empress departed with great ceremony, wishing to arrive at Catherinenthal during the day. But I know not how it happened that the journey lasted until one-thirty in the morning. During the whole journey from Petersburg to Revel, Madame Choglokova plunged our carriage into boredom and grief. She responded to the least remark that anyone made with, “Such talk would displease Her Majesty,” or “Such things would not be approved by the Empress.” She sometimes attached such judgments to the most innocent and the most unimportant things. I for one remained aloof. I did nothing but sleep during the journey in the carriage.