Memoirs of Catherine the second part 2. Memoirs of Empress Catherine II

First published online on the Russian Memoir website (http://fershal.narod.ru)

Full compliance of the text with the printed edition is not guaranteed.

The text is based on the edition: Empress Catherine II. "On the greatness of Russia." M., EKSMO, 2003

Happiness is not as blind as people imagine it to be. It is often the result of a long series of measures, correct and accurate, not noticed by the crowd and preceding the event. And in particular, the happiness of individuals is a consequence of their qualities, character and personal behavior. To make it more tangible, I will construct the following syllogism:

quality and character will be the big premise;

behavior - less;

happiness or unhappiness is the conclusion.

Here are two striking examples:

Catherine II,

At the head of Peter III's tutors was chief marshal of his court, Brummer, a Swede by birth; subordinate to him were the chief chamberlain Bergholz, the author of the above "Diary", and four chamberlains; two of them - Adlerfeldt, author of The History of Karl XII, and Wachtmeister were Swedes, and the other two, Wolf and Mardefeld, were Holsteins. This prince was brought up in view of the Swedish throne at a court too large for the country in which he was, and divided into several parties, burning with hatred; of these, each wanted to master the mind of the prince she was supposed to educate, and therefore instilled in him the repugnance that all parties mutually harbored towards their opponents. The young prince from the bottom of his heart hated Brummer, who instilled in him fear, and accused him of excessive severity. He despised Bergholz, who was a friend and pleaser of Brummer, and did not love any of his entourage, because they embarrassed him.

From the age of ten, Peter III discovered a propensity for drunkenness. He was forced into excessive representation and was not let out of sight, day or night. Whom he loved most in childhood and in the first years of his stay in Russia were two old valets: one - Kramer, Livonian, the other - Rumberg, Swede. The latter was especially dear to him. He was a rather rude and tough man, one of the dragoons of Charles XII. Brummer, and therefore Bergholz, who looked at everything only through the eyes of Brummer, were devoted to the prince, guardian and ruler; everyone else was unhappy with this prince and even more with his entourage. Having ascended the Russian throne, Empress Elisabeth sent Chamberlain Korf to Holstein to summon her nephew, whom the prince-ruler sent immediately, accompanied by Chief Marshal Brummer, Chief Chamberlain Bergholz and Chamberlain Ducker, who was the first nephew.

Great was the joy of the Empress on the occasion of his arrival. A little later, she went to the coronation in Moscow. She decided to declare this prince her heir. But first of all he had to convert to the Orthodox faith. The enemies of Chief Marshal Brummer, namely, the great chancellor Count Bestuzhev [x] and the late Count Nikita Panin, who had been the Russian envoy to Sweden for a long time, claimed that they had in their hands convincing evidence that Brummer since he saw that the empress decided to declare her nephew the prospective heir to the throne, made as much effort to spoil the mind and heart of her pupil as she had previously cared to make him worthy of the Swedish crown. But I always doubted this vileness and thought that the upbringing of Peter III turned out to be unsuccessful due to unfortunate circumstances. I will tell you what I saw and heard, and this will explain a lot.

I saw Peter III for the first time, when he was eleven years old, in Eitin, with his guardian, the Prince-Bishop of Lubeck. A few months after the death of Duke Karl-Friedrich, his father, the Prince-Bishop gathered the whole family in Eitin in 1739 to introduce his pet into it. My grandmother, the mother of the prince-bishop, and my mother, the sister of the same prince, came there from Hamburg with me. I was ten years old then. There were also Prince Augustus and Princess Anne, brother and sister of the guardian prince and ruler of Holstein. It was then that I heard from this family gathered together that the young duke was inclined to drunkenness and that his entourage hardly prevented him from getting drunk at the table, that he was stubborn and quick-tempered, that he did not like those around him, and especially Brummer, which, however , he showed liveliness, but was weak and frail in build.

Indeed, his complexion was pale and he seemed thin and weak in build. The associates wanted to present this child as an adult, and for this purpose they embarrassed and held him in compulsion, which was supposed to instill in him falsehood, starting with the demeanor and ending with character.

As soon as the Holstein court arrived in Russia, it was followed by the Swedish embassy, \u200b\u200bwhich arrived to ask the Empress for her nephew to inherit the Swedish throne. But Elizabeth, who had already announced her intentions, as mentioned above, in the preliminary articles of the peace in Abo, replied to the Swedish Diet that she declared her nephew the heir to the Russian throne and that she kept the preliminary articles of peace in Abo, which appointed Sweden as the alleged heir to the crown of the prince-ruler Holstein. (This prince had a brother to whom Empress Elizabeth was engaged after the death of Peter I. This marriage did not take place because the prince died of smallpox a few weeks after the betrothal; Empress Elizabeth retained a very touching memory of him and gave proof of this to the entire family of this prince .)

So, Peter III was declared the heir of Elizabeth and the Russian Grand Duke, following the confession of his faith according to the rite of the Orthodox Church; Simeon of Theodorsky, who later became the Archbishop of Pskov, was given to him as a mentor. This prince was baptized and brought up according to the Lutheran rite, the most severe and least tolerant, since from childhood he was always intractable to any edification.

I heard from his entourage that in Kiel it was worth the greatest work to send him to church on Sundays and holidays and encourage him to perform the rituals that were required of him, and that for the most part he showed unbelief. His Highness allowed himself to argue with Simeon of Theodore on every point; often his entourage was called to resolutely interrupt the battle and moderate the ardor that was brought into it; finally, with great bitterness, he submitted to what the empress and his aunt wanted, although he made it felt more than once - whether out of prejudice, out of habit, or out of a spirit of contradiction - that he would rather leave for Sweden than stay in Russia ... He kept Brummer, Bergholz and his Holstein associates with him until his marriage; to them were added, for the form, several teachers: one, Isaac Veselovsky, for the Russian language - he occasionally came to him at first, and then did not go at all; the other, Professor Shtelin, who was supposed to teach him mathematics and history, but in fact played with him and almost served him as a jester.

The most diligent teacher was Lange, the choreographer who taught him to dance.

In his inner chambers, the Grand Duke at that time was only engaged in organizing military exercises with a handful of people given to him for room services; he first gave them ranks and distinctions, then deprived them of everything, depending on how he liked. These were real childish games and constant childishness; in general, he was still very childish, although he was sixteen years old in 1744, when the Russian court was in Moscow. This year, Catherine II arrived with her mother on February 9 in Moscow. The Russian court was then divided into two large camps, or parties. At the head of the first, which began to rise after its decline, was the Vice-Chancellor, Count Bestuzhev-Ryumin; they feared him incomparably more than they loved him; he was an extraordinary rogue, suspicious, firm and undaunted, rather domineering in his convictions, an implacable enemy, but a friend of his friends whom he left only when they turned their backs on him, however, quarrelsome and often petty. He stood at the head of the College of Foreign Affairs; in the struggle with the empress's entourage, before the trip to Moscow, he suffered a loss, but began to recover; he adhered to the Viennese court, Saxon and England. The arrival of Catherine II and her mother did not give him pleasure. It was a secret affair of a party hostile to him; Count Bestuzhev's enemies were in large numbers, but he made them all tremble. He had the advantage of his position and character over them, which gave him a significant advantage over the politicians in the front.

The party hostile to Bestuzhev held on to France, Sweden, which enjoyed its patronage, and the King of Prussia; the Marquis de la Chetardie was her soul, and the court, which came from Holstein, was matadors; they attracted Count Lestock, one of the main agents of the coup, who elevated the late Empress Elisabeth to the Russian throne. This latter enjoyed great confidence in her; he was her surgeon since the death of Catherine I, with whom he was, and rendered essential services to mother and daughter; he had no lack of intelligence, tricks, or sneakiness, but he was angry and black and nasty at heart. All these foreigners supported each other and put forward Count Mikhail Vorontsov, who also took part in the coup and accompanied Elisabeth on the night she ascended the throne. She forced him to marry the niece of Empress Catherine I, Countess Anna Karlovna Skavronskaya, who was raised with Empress Elisabeth and was very attached to her.

Count Alexander Rumyantsev, the father of the field marshal, joined this party, having signed a peace treaty with the Swedes in Abo, about which they did not really consult with Bestuzhev. They also counted on the Prosecutor General Prince Trubetskoy, on the whole Trubetskoy family and, consequently, on the Prince of Hesse-Homburg, who was married to the princess of this house. This prince of Hesse-Homburg, then highly respected, was nothing in itself, and his importance depended on the numerous relatives of his wife, whose father and mother were still alive; this latter was very heavy. The rest of the empress's confidants were then the Shuvalov family, who hesitated at every step, the Chief Jägermeister Razumovsky, who at that time was a recognized favorite, and one bishop. Count Bestuzhev knew how to benefit from them, but his main support was Baron Cherkasov, secretary of the Empress's Cabinet, who had previously served in the Cabinet of Peter I. He was a rude and stubborn man who demanded order and justice and observance of rules in every matter.

The rest of the courtiers stood on one side or the other, depending on their interests and everyday views. The Grand Duke seemed delighted at the arrival of my mother and mine.

I was in my fifteenth year; for the first ten days he was very busy with me; immediately and during this short period of time, I saw and understood that he did not really appreciate the people over which he was destined to reign, that he adhered to Lutheranism, did not like his entourage and was very childish. I was silent and listened, which earned his trust; I remember he told me, by the way, that what he liked most about me was that I was his second cousin, and that as a relative he could talk to me to his liking, after which he said that he was in love with one of the Empress's maids of honor, who was then removed from the court due to the misfortune of her mother, a certain Lopukhina, exiled to Siberia; that he would like to marry her, but that he resigns himself to the necessity of marrying me, because his aunt so desires.

I listened, blushing, to these kindred conversations, thanks to his early trust, but deep down I looked with amazement at his foolishness and lack of judgment about many things.

On the tenth day after my arrival in Moscow, one Saturday the Empress left for the Trinity Monastery. The Grand Duke stayed with us in Moscow. I have already been given three teachers: one, Simeon Theodorsky, to instruct me in the Orthodox faith; another, Vasily Adadurov, for the Russian language, and Lange, a ballet master, for dancing. In order to make faster progress in Russian, I got out of bed at night and, while everyone was asleep, memorized the notebooks that Adadurov left me; since my room was warm and I hadn’t gotten used to the climate at all, I didn’t put on shoes - as I got out of bed, I studied.

On the thirteenth day, I grabbed pleurisy, from which I almost died. It opened with a chill, which I felt on Tuesday after the Empress left for the Trinity Monastery: the minute I dressed to go to dinner with my mother at the Grand Duke, I hardly received permission from my mother to go to bed. When she returned from lunch, she found me almost unconscious, in extreme heat and with unbearable pain in my side. She imagined that I would have smallpox: she sent for the doctors and wanted them to treat me accordingly; they argued that I needed to bleed; the mother never wanted to agree to this; she said that doctors let her brother in Russia die of smallpox by bleeding him, and that she did not want the same thing to happen to me.

The doctors and associates of the Grand Duke, who did not yet have smallpox, were sent to accurately report to the empress on the state of affairs, and I remained in bed, between my mother and the doctors, who were arguing among themselves. I was unconscious, in extreme heat and with pain in my side, which made me suffer terribly and utter moans for which my mother scolded me, wishing that I would patiently endure the pain.

Finally, on Saturday evening, at seven o'clock, that is, on the fifth day of my illness, the empress returned from the Trinity Monastery and right after leaving the carriage entered my room and found me unconscious. The Earl Lestock and the surgeon followed her; After listening to the opinion of the doctors, she sat down at the head of my bed and ordered me to bleed. The minute the blood gushed, I came to my senses and, opening my eyes, saw myself in the arms of the Empress, who was lifting me.

I stayed between life and death for twenty-seven days, during which I was bled sixteen times and sometimes four times a day. Mother was almost never allowed into my room anymore; she was still against these frequent bloodletting and said loudly that they would kill me; however, she was beginning to make sure that I would not have smallpox.

The Empress assigned Countess Rumyantseva and several other women to me, and it was clear that the mother's judgment was not trusted. Finally, the abscess, which was in my right side, burst, thanks to the efforts of the Portuguese doctor Sanchets; I spat it out with vomiting, and from that moment I came to myself; I immediately noticed that my mother’s behavior during my illness had hurt everyone’s opinion.

When she saw that I was very bad, she wanted a Lutheran priest to be invited to me; They say I was brought to my senses or took advantage of the moment when I came to myself to offer me this, and that I replied: “Why? Better send for Simeon of Theodorsky, I will gladly talk to him. " They brought him to me, and in front of everyone he talked to me in such a way that everyone was happy. This really raised me in the opinion of the empress and the entire court.

Another very insignificant circumstance still hurt the mother. Around Easter, one morning, my mother took it into her head to send a message to me with the maid to give her the blue and silver fabric that my father’s brother had given me before my departure to Russia, because I really liked it. I told her to tell her that she was free to take it, but that, really, I love her very much, because my uncle gave it to me, seeing that I liked her. Those around me, seeing that I was giving the matter reluctantly, and in view of the fact that I had been lying in bed for so long, being between life and death, and that I had felt better for only two days, began to talk among themselves that it was very unreasonable on the part of my mother cause the dying child the slightest displeasure and that instead of wanting to take this matter, she would do better without mentioning it at all.

Let's go tell this to the Empress, who immediately sent me several pieces of rich and luxurious cloth, and, by the way, one blue and silver; this hurt the mother in the eyes of the empress: she was accused of not having any tenderness for me at all, nor solicitude. I used to lie with my eyes closed during illness; they thought I was sleeping, and then Countess Rumyantseva and the women who were with me talked among themselves about what they had in their souls, and in this way I recognized a lot of things.

When I got better, the Grand Duke began to come to spend the evenings in his mother's room, which was also mine. He and everyone seemed to be watching my condition with the liveliest concern. The Empress often shed tears about this.

Finally, on April 21, 1744, on my birthday, when I was fifteen, I was able to appear in society for the first time after this terrible illness. I think that they were not too happy with my appearance: I lost weight like a skeleton, grew, but my face and features lengthened; my hair was falling, and I was deadly pale. I myself found myself scary, like a scarecrow, and could not recognize myself. The Empress sent me a tin of blush that day and ordered me to blush.

With the onset of spring and good weather, the Grand Duke stopped visiting us every day; he preferred to walk and shoot in the vicinity of Moscow. Sometimes, however, he came to us for lunch or dinner, and then his childish frankness with me continued again, while his entourage talked with his mother, who had a lot of people and all kinds of gossip were going on that did not like those who were not in them. participated, and, by the way, to Count Bestuzhev, whose enemies all gathered with us; among them was the Marquis de la Chetardie, who had not yet used any of the powers of the French court, but had his credentials in his pocket.

In the month of May, the Empress again left for the Trinity Monastery, where the Grand Duke and my mother and I followed her. For some time now the Empress began to treat her mother very coldly; in the Trinity Monastery, the reason for this became clear. One afternoon, when the Grand Duke was in our room, the Empress came in suddenly and told her mother to follow her into another room. Earl Lestock also entered; the Grand Duke and I sat at the window, waiting.

This conversation went on for a very long time, and we saw Lestok leave; passing, he came up to the Grand Duke and me - and we laughed - and said to us: "This noisy fun is now over"; then, turning to me, he said: "You just have to pack, you will immediately go to return to your home." The Grand Duke wanted to know how it is; he replied: "You will find out about this later," and went off to carry out the commission that was entrusted to him and which I do not know. He left the Grand Duke and me to reflect on what he had just told us; the first reasoned out loud, I - to myself. He said: "But if your mother is to blame, then you are not guilty," I answered him: "My duty is to follow my mother and do what she orders."

I saw clearly that he would leave me without regret; as for me, because of his mood, he was almost indifferent to me, but the Russian crown was not indifferent to me. Finally, the bedroom door opened, and the Empress went out with a very red face and with an air of anger, and her mother followed her with red eyes and in tears. Since we were in a hurry to go down from the window, which we climbed and which was quite high, the Empress smiled, and she kissed both of us and left.

When she came out, we found out approximately what was the matter. The Marquis de la Chetardie, who before, or, more correctly, on his first trip or mission to Russia, enjoyed great favor and confidence of the empress, on this second visit or mission he was greatly deceived in all his hopes. His conversations were more modest than letters; these latter were full of the most acrid bile; they were opened and the code was taken apart; they found details of his conversations with his mother and many other persons about contemporary affairs; conversations about the empress included expressions of little caution.

Count Bestuzhev did not fail to hand them over to the Empress, and since the Marquis de la Chetardie had not yet announced any of his powers, the order was given to expel him from the empire; the Order of St. Andrew and the portrait of the Empress were taken away from him, but they left all the other gifts made of diamonds that he had from this Empress. I don't know if my mother managed to justify herself in the eyes of the empress, but, be that as it may, we did not leave; the mother, however, continued to be treated very coldly and with restraint. I don’t know what was said between her and de la Chetardie, but I know that one day he turned to me and congratulated me for having my hair done en Moyse; I told him that to please the Empress I would comb my hair in all the styles that she might like; when he heard my answer, he pirouette to the left, went to the other side and never spoke to me again.

Returning with the Grand Duke to Moscow, my mother and I began to live more secluded; we had fewer people and they prepared me for a confession of faith. June 28 was appointed for this ceremony and the next day, Peter's day, for my betrothal to the Grand Duke. I remember that the Chief Marshal Brummer turned to me at this time several times, complaining about his pupil, and wanted to use me to correct and reason with his Grand Duke; but I told him that this was impossible for me and that by doing this I would only become as hateful to him as all his entourage were already hated.

At this time, the mother became very close to the Prince and Princess of Hesse and even more to the latter's brother, Chamberlain Betsky. This connection did not like Countess Rumyantseva, Chief Marshal Brummer and everyone else; while mother was with them in her room, the Grand Duke and I fiddled in the hallway, and she was at our complete disposal; we both had no lack of childish liveliness.

In the month of July, the empress celebrated peace with Sweden in Moscow, and on the occasion of this holiday she formed a court for me, as the betrothed Russian Grand Duchess, and immediately after this holiday the empress sent us to Kiev. She set off on her own a few days after us. We drove a little during the day: mother, myself, Countess Rumyantseva and one of the maids of honor of mother - in the same carriage; the Grand Duke, Brummer, Bergholz and Duker - in another. One afternoon, the Grand Duke, bored with his teachers, wanted to go with his mother and with me; since he did this, he did not want to leave our carriage any more. Then my mother, who was bored to travel with him and with me all day long, decided to increase the company. She communicated her idea to young people from our retinue, among whom were Prince Golitsyn, later Field Marshal, and Count Zakhar Chernyshev; took one of the carts with our beds; they fitted benches all around, and the very next day mother, Grand Duke and I, Prince Golitsyn, Count Chernyshev and one or two younger ladies from the retinue fit in it, and so we made the rest of the trip very fun, how much concerned our carriage; but everything that did not have an entrance there rebelled against such an undertaking, which was especially disliked by Chief Marshal Brummer, Chief Chamberlain Bergholz, Countess Rumyantseva, mother's maid of honor and also the rest of the retinue, for they were never allowed there, and meanwhile how we laughed dear, they scolded and missed. With this state of affairs, we arrived three weeks later at Kozelets, where we waited for the Empress for another three weeks, whose journey was slowed down by the road due to some adventures. We learned in Kozelts that several persons from the Empress's retinue had been exiled from the road and that she was in a very bad mood.

Finally, in mid-August, she arrived at Kozelets; we still stayed there with her until the end of August. Here they played a large game of Pharaoh from morning to evening in the great hall in the middle of the house; in the rest of the rooms, everyone was very crowded: my mother and I slept in the same common room, Countess Rumyantseva and mother's maid of honor - in the hall, and so on. One day the Grand Duke came to his mother's room and to mine as well, while his mother was writing, and next to her there was an open box; he wanted to rummage in it out of curiosity; his mother told him not to touch, and he really began to jump around the room in the other direction, but, jumping here and there to make me laugh, he touched the lid of the open casket and dropped it; the mother then got angry, and they began to scold violently; his mother reproached him for overturning the box on purpose, and he complained of injustice, and both of them turned to me, demanding my confirmation; knowing my mother's temper, I was afraid of getting a slap in the face if I did not agree with her, and, not wanting either to lie or offend the Grand Duke, I was between two fires; nevertheless, I told my mother that I didn’t think the Grand Duke would do it on purpose, but that when he jumped, his dress brushed the lid of the box, which was on a very small stool.

Then my mother attacked me, for when she was angry, she needed to scold someone; I fell silent and cried; The Grand Duke, seeing that all my mother's anger fell on me because I testified in his favor, and, since I was crying, began to accuse my mother of injustice and called her anger rage, and she told him that he was an ill-mannered boy ; in a word, it is difficult, without, however, bringing the quarrel to a fight, to go further in it than they both did. Since then, the Grand Duke disliked his mother and could never forget this quarrel; his mother, too, could not forgive him; and their dealings with each other became constrained, without mutual trust, and easily turned into strained relations. Both of them did not hide from me; no matter how hard I tried to soften both of them, I succeeded only for a short time; both of them were always ready to throw a taunt to sting each other; my position became more delicate day by day.

I tried to obey one and please the other, and, indeed, the Grand Duke was more frank with me then than with anyone; he saw that my mother often jumped at me when she could not find fault with him. It didn't hurt me in his eyes, because he was convinced that he could be sure of me. Finally, on August 29, we arrived in Kiev. We stayed there for ten days, after which we went back to Moscow in exactly the same way as we went to Kiev.

When we arrived in Moscow, the whole autumn was spent in comedies, court balls and masquerades. Despite this, it was noticeable that the Empress was often very out of sorts. Once, when we - my mother, I and the Grand Duke - were in the theater in a box opposite the box of Her Imperial Majesty, I noticed that the Empress was talking to Count Lestock with great heat and anger. When she finished, Lestok left her and came to our box; he came up to me and asked: "Did you notice how the empress spoke to me?" I said yes. “Well,” said Lestock, “she’s very angry with you.” “At me! What for? " Was my answer. “Because you,” he answered me, “have a lot of debts; she says that this is a bottomless barrel and that when she was the Grand Duchess she did not have more content than you did, that she had to support the whole house and that she tried not to go into debt, for she knew that no one was for her will pay. " He told me all this with an angry and dry air, probably so that the Empress could see from her box how he was carrying out her order. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I said nothing. Having said everything, he left.

The Grand Duke, who was next to me and approximately heard this conversation, after asking me what he did not hear, made me understand with a play of his face more than words that he shares the thoughts of his aunt and that he is happy that I was chosen. This was a fairly common reception for him, and in such cases he thought to please the empress, catching her mood when she was angry with someone. As for the mother, when she found out what was the matter, she said that it was the result of the efforts that were used to snatch me out of her hands, and that, since they put me in such a way that I could act without asking her, she washes her hands in this matter; so they both turned against me. I immediately decided to put my affairs in order and the next day I demanded an account. From them I saw that I owed seventeen thousand rubles; before leaving Moscow for Kiev, the Empress sent me fifteen thousand rubles and a large chest of simple materials, but I had to dress richly.

As a result, it turned out that I owe only two thousand; it seemed to me how much. Various reasons have introduced me to these costs. First, I came to Russia with a very meager wardrobe. If I had three or four dresses, this was already the limit of the possible, and this is at court, where the dresses were changed three times a day; a dozen shirts made up all my linen; I used my mother's sheets. Secondly, I was told that gifts are loved in Russia and that generosity makes friends and becomes pleasant to everyone. Third, I was assigned the most wasteful woman in Russia, Countess Rumyantseva, who was always surrounded by merchants; every day she presented to me a lot of things that she advised to take from these merchants and which I often took only to give it to her, as she really wanted to. The Grand Duke also cost me a lot, because he was greedy for gifts; Mother's bad mood was also easily pacified by some thing that she liked, and since she was very often angry then, and especially at me, I did not neglect the way of pacification that I had discovered. The mother's bad mood was partly due to the fact that she did not at all enjoy the favor of the empress, who often insulted and humiliated her.

Moreover, the mother, whom I usually followed, looked with displeasure at what I was now walking in front of her; I avoided it wherever I could, but in public it was impossible; in general, I made it a rule to show her the greatest respect and the greatest deference possible, but all this did not help me very much; she always and in any case burst out with displeasure at me, which did not serve her in her favor and did not dispose people to her. Countess Rumyantseva, with her stories and retellings and various gossips, greatly contributed, like many others, to lowering her mother in the opinion of the empress. The eight-person carriage, during a trip to Kiev, also did its job: all the old people were expelled from it, all the young people were allowed in. God knows what turn they have given to this routine, which, however, is very innocent; The most obvious thing was that it offended everyone who could be admitted there due to their position and who saw that they preferred those who were funnier.

In essence, all this annoyance of the mother came from the fact that they did not take with them during the Kiev trip neither Betskoy, in whom she was imbued with confidence, nor Prince Trubetskoy. Of course, this was facilitated by Brummer and Countess Rumyantseva, and the eight-seater carriage, into which they were not allowed, became the cause of hidden anger. In the month of November in Moscow, the Grand Duke caught measles; since I did not have it yet, we took all measures so that I did not get infected. Those surrounding this prince did not come to us, and all the amusements ceased. As soon as the illness passed and the winter settled down, we rode from Moscow to Petersburg in a sleigh: mother and I in some, the Grand Duke and Count Brummer in others. December 18, the Empress's birthday, we celebrated in Tver, from where we left the next day. Arriving halfway to Khotilovsky Yar, in the evening, in my room, the Grand Duke felt bad; they took him to him and put him to bed; he had a high fever at night.

The next day, at noon, my mother and I went to his room, but as soon as I crossed the threshold of the door, Count Brummer walked towards me and told me not to go further; I wanted to know why; he told me that the Grand Duke had just had smallpox spots. Since I did not have smallpox, my mother quickly took me out of the room, and it was decided that my mother and I would leave on the same day for Petersburg, leaving the Grand Duke and his entourage in Hotilovo; Countess Rumyantseva and the maid of honor of the mother stayed to go, as they said, for the sick. A courier was sent to the Empress, who had outstripped us and was already in Petersburg.

At some distance from Novgorod we met the Empress, who, upon learning that the Grand Duke had smallpox, was returning from Petersburg to him in Hotilovo, where she remained until his illness continued. As soon as the empress saw us, although it was at night, she ordered her sleigh and ours to stop and asked about the health of the Grand Duke. Mother told her everything she knew, after which the Empress ordered the coachman to go, and we also continued on our way and arrived in Novgorod in the morning.

It was Sunday, I went to mass, after which we had lunch, and when we were about to leave, the chamberlain Prince Golitsyn and the chamberlain count Zakhar Chernyshev, who were traveling from Moscow to Petersburg, arrived. Mother was angry with Golitsyn for the fact that he was traveling with Count Chernyshev, for the latter had spread some kind of lie. She argued that he should be avoided as a dangerous person who invented all kinds of stories. She sulked at both, but since, thanks to this annoyance, it was boring to nausea and there was no choice, and they were more educated and more pleasant interlocutors than others, I did not go into annoyance, which brought on me several attacks from mother's side.

Finally, we arrived in Petersburg, where we were placed in one of the cavalier's court houses. Since the palace was not yet large enough for even the Grand Duke to fit there, he was also assigned a house located between the palace and our house. My rooms were to the left of the stairs, my mother's to the right; as soon as the mother saw this device, she became angry: firstly, because it seemed to her that my room was better located than hers; secondly, because her rooms were separated from mine by the general hall; in fact, each of us had four rooms: two to the street, two to the courtyard of the house; thus, the rooms were the same, covered with blue and red cloth, without any difference; but this further contributed to her anger.

Countess Rumyantseva, while still in Moscow, brought me a plan of this house, on the order of the empress, forbidding me to speak on her behalf about this dispatch, consulting me on how to place us. There was nothing to choose from as both rooms were the same. I told this to the Countess, who made me understand that the Empress prefers that I have a separate room, instead of living, as in Moscow, in a common room with her mother. I also liked such a device, because I was very cramped in my mother's rooms and that literally the intimate circle that she formed for herself liked me all the less, that it was clear to me as daylight that no one liked this company. Mother found out about the plan shown to me; she began to talk to me about him, and I told her the real truth, how it was. She began to scold me for keeping it a secret; I told her that I was forbidden to speak, but she found that this was not the reason, and, in general, every day I saw that she was more and more angry with me and that she was in a quarrel with almost everyone, so she stopped appearing at the table for lunch and dinner, and ordered them to be served to her rooms. As for me, I went to see her three or four times a day, the rest of the time I used to study Russian, play the harpsichord and buy myself books, so at fifteen I lived alone in my room and was quite diligent for my age ...

Towards the end of our stay in Moscow, the Swedish embassy arrived, headed by Senator Tsederkreutz. A short time later, Count Güllenborg also arrived to announce to the Empress the wedding of the Swedish Crown Prince, mother's brother, to the Princess of Prussia. We knew this Count of Güllenborg; we saw him in Hamburg, where he came with many other Swedes during the Crown Prince's departure for Sweden. He was a very intelligent man, no longer young, and whom my mother highly valued; I was in some way obliged to him, because in Hamburg, seeing that my mother paid little or no attention to me, he told her that she was wrong and that, of course, I was a child much older than my age.

Arriving in Petersburg, he came to us and said, as in Hamburg, that I had a philosophical mindset. He asked how things stand with my philosophy in the whirlwind in which I find myself; I told him what I was doing in my room. He told me that a fifteen-year-old philosopher cannot yet know himself and that I am surrounded by so many pitfalls that there is every reason to fear that I might break about them, if only my soul is not of exceptional temper; that it should be nourished with the best reading, and for this he recommended to me Plutarch's Life of Famous Men, Cicero's Life and Montesquieu's Reasons for the Greatness and Decline of the Roman Republic.

I immediately sent for these books, which were then found with difficulty in Petersburg, and told him that I would sketch for him my portrait as I understood myself, so that he could see whether I knew myself or not. Indeed, I wrote my portrait on the letter, which I titled: "Portrait of a Philosopher at Fifteen," and gave it to him. Many years later, and it was in 1758, I again found this essay and was surprised at the depth of knowledge of myself that it contained. Unfortunately, I burned it the same year, during the unfortunate story of Count Bestuzhev, with all my other papers, fearing to keep at least one in my room. Count Güllenborg returned my work to me a few days later; I don't know if he made a copy of it. He accompanied it with a dozen pages of reflections made about me, through which he tried to strengthen in me both the elevation and firmness of spirit, and other qualities of heart and mind. I read and re-read his essay several times, I became imbued with it and intended to seriously follow his advice. I promised this to myself, and since I promised myself, I don’t remember a case that I didn’t fulfill it. Then I returned to Count Güllenborg his composition, as he asked me about it, and, I confess, it has served very much to educate and strengthen the mentality of my mind and my soul.

In early February, the Empress returned with the Grand Duke from Khotilov. As soon as we were told that she had arrived, we went to meet her and saw her in the great hall, almost in the dark, between four and five in the evening; Despite this, I almost got scared at the sight of the Grand Duke, who had grown very much, but his face was unrecognizable: all his features were coarse, his face was still swollen, and it was undoubtedly evident that he would remain with very noticeable traces of smallpox. Since his hair was cut off, he wore a huge wig, which disfigured him even more. He came up to me and asked if I hardly recognized him. I mumbled my greetings to him on the occasion of his recovery, but in fact he became terrible.

On February 9 exactly one year has passed since my arrival at the Russian court. On February 10, 1745, the empress celebrated the grand duke's birthday, he was seventeenth year old. She dined alone with me on the throne; the grand duke did not appear in public either on that day or long after; they were in no hurry to show him in the form in which smallpox brought him.

The Empress caressed me very much at this dinner. She told me that the Russian letters I wrote to her in Hotilovo gave her great pleasure (to tell the truth, they were composed by Adadurov, but I copied them with my own hand) and that she knew how I tried to learn the local language. She began to speak to me in Russian and wanted me to answer her in that language, which I did, and then she was pleased to praise my good pronunciation. Then she let me know that I had grown prettier from my Moscow illness; in a word, during the whole dinner she was only occupied with showing me signs of her kindness and affection.

I returned home very pleased with this dinner and very happy, and everyone congratulated me. The Empress ordered my portrait, begun by the artist Caravak, to be taken down to her and left it in her room; this is the one that the sculptor Falconet took with him to France; I was completely alive on it.

To go to Mass or to the Empress, my mother and I had to pass through the chambers of the Grand Duke, who lived next to my premises; therefore we have seen him often. He also came to me in the evenings for a few minutes, but without any desire; on the contrary, I was always glad to find some excuse to get rid of it and stay at home, among my usual childish amusements, which I have already mentioned. A few time after the arrival of the Empress and the Grand Duke to Petersburg, the mother had a great grief, which she could not hide. That's the problem. Prince Augustus, the mother's brother, wrote to her in Kiev to express his desire to come to Russia; his mother knew that this trip had only one purpose for him: to get, at the age of majority, the Grand Duke, whom they wanted to accelerate, the administration of Holstein; in other words, the desire to take away the custody of the older brother, who became the Swedish crown prince, in order to entrust the administration of the Holstein country on behalf of the adult Grand Duke to Prince August, the younger brother of the mother and the Swedish crown prince. This intrigue was started by the Holstein party hostile to the Swedish crown prince, in alliance with the Danes, who could not forgive this prince for defeating the Danish crown prince in Sweden, whom the far-Carlians wanted to elect heir to the Swedish throne.

The mother replied to Prince Augustus, her brother, from Koselc that, instead of succumbing to the intrigues that forced him to act against his brother, he would have done better if he went to serve in Holland, where he was, and there he would have allowed himself to be killed with honor in battle than plotting against his brother and joining his sister's enemies in Russia. By "enemies" the mother meant Count Bestuzhev, who supported this intrigue in order to harm Brummer and all the other friends of the Swedish Crown Prince, the Grand Duke's guardian in Holstein. This letter was opened and read by Count Bestuzhev and the Empress, who was not at all pleased with her mother and was already very annoyed against the Swedish Crown Prince, who, under the influence of his wife, the sister of the Prussian king, allowed himself to be drawn into the French party in all its forms, completely opposite to the Russians. He was reproached for ingratitude and his mother was accused of a lack of affection for his younger brother for what she wrote to him about letting himself be killed - an expression that was considered cruel and inhuman, while his mother, in the eyes of friends, boasted that used a firm and sonorous expression. The result of all this was that, ignoring the intentions of the mother, or, rather, to prick her and annoy the entire Holstein-Swedish party, Count Bestuzhev, without the knowledge of his mother, received permission for Prince August of Holstein to come to St. Petersburg.

Mother, having learned that he was on the road, was very angry, upset and received him very badly, but he, incited by Bestuzhev, kept his line. They persuaded the empress to accept him well, which she did for show; however, this did not and could not last long, because Prince Augustus himself was not a decent man. His appearance alone did not dispose to him any more: he was small in stature and very awkward, narrow-minded and extremely hot-tempered, besides, we lead our entourage, who themselves were nothing. The foolishness - since it had already gone to cleanliness - her brother was very angry with his mother; in short, she was almost in despair at his arrival.

Count Bestuzhev, having mastered the mind of this prince by means of those close to him, killed several birds with one stone. He could not help but know that the Grand Duke hated Brummer as much as he did; Prince Augustus did not like him either, because he was devoted to the Swedish prince. Under the pretext of kinship and as a Holsteiner, this prince got close to the Grand Duke, talking to him constantly about Holstein and talking about his future coming of age, that he himself began to ask his aunt and Count Bestuzhev to try to speed up his coming of age. This required the consent of the Roman emperor, who was then Charles VII of the Bavarian house; but then he died, and this business dragged on until the election of Franz I.

Since Prince Augustus was still rather poorly received by my mother and showed little respect to her, he thereby diminished the little respect that the Grand Duke still retained for her; on the other hand, both Prince Augustus and the old valets, the Grand Duke's favorites, probably fearing my future influence, often told him how to deal with his wife; Rumberg, an old Swedish dragoon, told him that his wife did not dare to breathe in his presence, nor interfere in his affairs, and that if she only wanted to open her mouth, he ordered her to shut up, that he was the master of the house, and that her husband was ashamed to allow wife to lead herself like a fool. By nature, the Grand Duke knew how to hide his secrets, like a cannon his shot, and when he had something on his mind or heart, he first of all hurried to tell it to those with whom he was used to talking, without understanding who he was talking to, and therefore His Imperial Highness himself told me from the spot all these conversations on the first occasion when he saw me; he always innocently imagined that everyone agreed with his opinion and that nothing was more natural. I by no means entrusted this to anyone, but I did not stop seriously thinking about the fate awaiting me. I decided to be very careful with the trust of the Grand Duke, so that he could at least consider me a reliable person for him, to whom he could say everything, without any consequences for himself; I did it for a long time.

However, I treated everyone as best I could and tried to acquire friendship, or at least reduce the unfriendliness of those whom I could only suspect of being unfriendly to me; I did not show inclination towards any of the parties, did not interfere in anything, I always had a calm appearance, was very helpful, attentive and polite with everyone, and since I was by nature very cheerful, I noticed with pleasure that every day I more and more acquired the disposition of society, which considered me an interesting child and not devoid of intelligence. I showed great respect to my mother, boundless obedience to the Empress, excellent respect for the Grand Duke, and I tried with all my diligence to find a means to gain the favor of society.

The Empress in Moscow gave me maids of honor and gentlemen who made up my court; a little time after her arrival in St. Petersburg, she gave me Russian maids in order, as she said, to make it easier for me to master the Russian language; I was very pleased with this, they were all young girls, of which the oldest was about twenty years old. All these girls were very funny, so from that moment on I sang, danced and frolicked in my room from the moment I woke up until sleep. In the evening, after supper, I let in my three ladies-in-waiting: two princesses Gagarins and a girl Kosheleva - and we played blind man's buff and various other games appropriate for our age.

All these girls were mortally afraid of Countess Rumyantseva, but since she played cards from morning to evening in the hallway or at her place, getting up from her chair only for her own need, she rarely came to me. Among all our amusements, I decided to distribute the care of my things between my women: I left my money, expenses and linen in the hands of the girl Schenck, a maid brought from Germany. She was a stupid and grumpy old maid who did not like our gaiety very much; besides, she was jealous of me for all her young companions who had to share her responsibilities and my affection.

I gave the keys to my diamonds to Maria Petrovna Zhukova; the latter, being smarter, more cheerful and franker than the others, was already beginning to gain confidence in me. I entrusted the dresses to my valet Timofey Evreinov; lace - to the girl Balk, who later married the poet Sumarokov. My ribbons were handed over to the girl Skorokhodova-senior, who later married Aristarkh Kashkin [l]; her younger sister, Anna, received nothing because she was only thirteen or fourteen years old. The day after the establishment of this wonderful order, in which I exercised my complete power in my room, without asking a single soul for advice, there was a performance in the evening; to go there, one had to pass through the chambers of the mother.

The Empress, the Grand Duke and the whole court came there; in the arena that served in the time of Empress Anna for the Duke of Courland, whose chambers I occupied, a small theater was set up. After the performance, when the empress returned to her room, Countess Rumyantseva came to my room and said that the empress did not approve of the fact that I had distributed the care of my things between my women, and that she was ordered to take the keys to my diamonds from Zhukova's hands and give Shenk , which she did in my presence, after which she left and left us, Zhukova and me, with slightly elongated faces, and Schenk - triumphant from the trust placed in her by the empress. Schenck began to look defiant with me, which made her even more stupid and less pleasant than ever.

During the first week of Lent, I had a very strange scene with the Grand Duke. In the morning, when I was in my room with my women, who were all very pious, and listened to the matins that were served in my front hall, an embassy came to me from the Grand Duke; he sent me his Karl with the order to ask me how my health was and to say that due to Lent he would not come to me that day.

Karla found us all listening to prayers and exactly fulfilling the prescriptions of Fasting, according to our rite. I answered the Grand Duke through Karl with the usual greeting, and he left. Charles, returning to his master's room, whether because he really felt respect for what he saw, or because he wanted to advise his dear sovereign and master, who was least devout, to do the same, or simply because frivolity, - began to extol the piety that reigned in my rooms, and by this caused him a bad mood against me.

The first time I saw the Grand Duke, he began by pouting at me; when I asked what the reason was, he began to scold me very much for the excessive piety, into which, in his opinion, I fell. I asked who told him that. Then he told me his Karla as an eyewitness. I told him that I did not do more than was required and to which everyone obeyed and which could not be avoided without a scandal; but he was of the opposite opinion. This dispute ended, as most disputes end, that is, that everyone remained unconvinced, and His Imperial Highness, having no one else at mass to talk to, except me, little by little stopped sulking at me.

Two days later, another alarm occurred. In the morning, while I was serving matins, the girl Schenk, perplexed, came to me and said that it was not good with her mother, that she was fainting; I immediately ran there and found her lying on the floor, on a mattress, but already awake. I allowed myself to ask what happened to her; she told me that she wanted to bleed herself, but that the surgeon was so awkward that he missed four times on both arms and legs, and that she fainted. I knew that she, however, was afraid of bloodletting, but I did not know that she had the intention of bleeding herself, not even that she needed it; however, she began to reproach me for not taking part in her condition, and told me a bunch of unpleasant things about this. I apologized as best I could, confessing my ignorance, but seeing that she was very angry, I fell silent and tried to hold back tears and left only when she ordered me to do so with obvious annoyance.

When I returned to my room in tears, my women wanted to know the reason, which I simply explained to them. I went several times a day to my mother's chambers and stayed there as long as necessary so as not to be a burden to her; in relation to her, it was very significant, and I was so used to it that there is nothing that I would avoid so much in my life as being a burden, and I always retired at the moment when a suspicion arose in my mind that I can be a burden and therefore bored. But I know from experience that not everyone adheres to this rule, because my patience was often tested by those who do not know how to leave before becoming a burden or catching up with melancholy.

Then the mother experienced a very significant grief. She received the news the minute she least expected her that her daughter, my younger sister Elizabeth, had died suddenly, when she was three or four years old. She was very saddened by this, I also mourned her.

A few days later, one fine morning, the Empress came into my room. She sent for my mother and entered my dressing room with her, where they both had a long conversation in private, after which they returned to my bedroom, and I saw that my mother's eyes were very red and in tears as a result of the conversation. I realized that they had raised a question about the subsequent death of Charles VII, the emperor from the Bavarian house, of which the empress had just received news.

The Empress was not yet in an alliance then, and she hesitated between an alliance with the king of Prussia and the Austrian house, of which each had his supporters; the empress had the same reasons for displeasure against the Austrian house and against France, to which the Prussian king gravitated, and if the Marquis of Botta, the envoy of the Vienna court, was sent away from Russia for bad talk about the empress, which at one time they tried to reduce to a conspiracy, then the marquis de la Chetardie was expelled on the same grounds. I don't know the purpose of this conversation; but his mother seemed to have placed great hopes on him and came out very pleased; she was not at all inclined then to the side of the Austrian house; as for me, in all this I was a very indifferent spectator, very cautious and almost indifferent. After Easter, when spring had settled, I expressed my desire to learn to ride a horse to Countess Rumyantseva; she received permission from the empress for me; by the end of the year, I started having chest pains after pleurisy, which I had upon arrival in Moscow, and I continued to be very thin; the doctors advised me to drink milk with seltzer water every morning.

I took my first riding lesson at the dacha of Countess Rumyantseva, in the barracks of the Izmailovsky regiment; I have already ridden horseback several times in Moscow, but very badly. In the month of May, the Empress and the Grand Duke moved to the Summer Palace; my mother and I were given a stone building for living, which was then along the Fontanka River and adjacent to the house of Peter I. Mother lived in one side of this building, I in the other. Here the frequent visits of the Grand Duke ended. He told a servant to tell me bluntly that he lived too far from me to come to me often; I perfectly felt how little he was busy with me and how little I loved; my pride and vanity suffered from it in secret, but I was too proud to complain; I would consider myself humiliated if a sympathy was expressed to me, which I could take for pity. However, when I was alone, I burst into tears, wiped them off on the sly and then went to frolic with my women. My mother also treated me very coldly and ceremoniously; but I never missed an opportunity to visit her several times a day; in my heart I was very homesick “but was careful not to talk about it. However, Zhukova somehow noticed my tears and told me about it; I gave the best reasons without telling her the true ones. I tried more than ever to gain the affection of everyone, from. small to large; I did not neglect anyone on my part and made it a rule for myself to believe that I needed everything, and to act accordingly, in order to win general favor, in which I managed.

After a few weeks in the Summer Palace, where they began to talk about preparations for my wedding, the yard moved to live in Peterhof, where it was more in assembly than in the city. The Empress and the Grand Duke lived upstairs in the house built by Peter I; my mother and I are below, under the rooms of the Grand Duke; we dined with him every day under the canopy in the open gallery adjacent to his room; he dined with us. The Empress was often away, traveling here and there to different dachas belonging to her.

We did frequent walks, horseback riding and carriage rides. Here it became clear to me like daylight that all those close to the Grand Duke, namely his educators, had lost all influence and authority over him; his war games, which he had previously hidden, now he played almost in their presence. Count Brummer and the senior educator saw him almost only in public, being in his retinue. The rest of the time he literally spent in the company of his servants, in childishness unheard of at his age, since he played with dolls. Mother took advantage of the Empress's absence to go to dinner at the neighboring dachas, namely to the Prince and Princess of Hesse-Homburg.

One evening, when she went there on horseback, and after dinner, I was sitting in my room, which was level with the garden and one of the doors of which went there, I was tempted by the wonderful weather and invited my women and three maids of honor to go for a walk in the garden. It was not difficult for me to convince them; there were eight of us, my valet the ninth and two other lackeys who followed us; we walked out until midnight in the most innocent way; when my mother returned, Schenk, who refused to go for a walk with us, grumbling against the walk we had invented, hurried to go and tell my mother that I went for a walk despite her reasons. My mother went to bed, and when I returned with all my company, Schenck told me with a triumphant air that my mother sent me two times to find out if I had returned, because she needed to talk to me, and since it was very late and she was very tired. wait for me, then she lay down; I wanted to run to my mother at once, but her door was locked. I told Schenck that she could tell her to call me; she insisted that she would not find us, but all these were just her pieces, to quarrel with me, in order to scold me; I felt it perfectly and went to bed with great anxiety about tomorrow. As soon as I woke up, I went to my mother, whom I found in bed; I wanted to come up to kiss her hand, but she pulled it back with great anger and scolded me terribly for daring to walk in the evening without her permission.

I told her that she was not at home. She called the hour untimely, and I don’t know what she was inventing to upset me - probably in order to discourage me from walking at night; but what was true was that this walk might have been imprudence, but that it was the most innocent in the world. What upset me the most was the accusation that we went up to the chambers of the Grand Duke. I told her that it was a vile slander, which made her so angry that she seemed beside herself. Even though I knelt down to soften her anger, she called my obedience a comedy and kicked me out of the room. I returned to my room in tears; at noon I went upstairs with my mother, still very angry, to the chambers of the Grand Duke, who asked what was wrong with me, because my eyes were red. I told him truthfully what had happened; this time he took my side and began to accuse my mother of whims and outbursts; I asked him not to tell her about it, which he did, and little by little her anger passed, but she still treated me coldly.

From Peterhof, towards the end of July, we returned to the city, where everything was being prepared for the celebration of our wedding. Finally, on August 21st, the Empress appointed for this ceremony. As this day approached, my sadness became deeper and deeper, my heart did not bode well for me, ambition alone supported me; deep in my heart I had something that did not allow me to doubt for a moment that sooner or later I myself would be able to become the autocratic Russian empress.

The wedding was celebrated with great pomp and splendor. In the evening I found in my chambers Kruse, the sister of the elder chamber-frau of the Empress, who placed her with me as senior chamber-frau. The next day I noticed that this woman terrified all my other women, because when I wanted to approach one of them in order to talk to her as usual, she told me: “For God's sake, do not come near me, we are forbidden to speak to you in an undertone. " On the other hand, my dear husband did not take care of me at all, but constantly played with his servants as soldiers, doing exercises for them in his room and changing his uniform twenty times a day. I yawned and missed because there was no one to talk to or I was on the way out.

On the third day of my wedding, which was supposed to be a day of rest, Countess Rumyantseva sent me to tell me that the Empress had dismissed her from her post in my presence and that she would return to live at her home with her husband and children. Neither I nor anyone else really regretted this, because she gave rise to a lot of gossip. The wedding celebrations lasted ten days, after which the Grand Duke and I moved to live in the Summer Palace, where the empress lived, and began to talk about the departure of my mother, whom I did not see every day from my wedding, but who softened very much towards me. this time.

By the end of September she left, the Grand Duke and I accompanied her to Krasnoe Selo; I was very sincerely upset by her departure, I cried a lot; when she left, we returned to the city. Returning to the Summer Palace, I ordered my girlfriend Zhukova to be called; I was told that she went to her mother, who fell ill; the next morning: the same question on my part - the same answer on the part of my women. About noon the empress moved with great pomp from her summer dwelling to her winter one; we followed her to her chambers. Arriving at her formal bedchamber, she stopped there and after a few insignificant words began to talk about my mother's departure; she seemed to kindly tell me about this to moderate my grief, but what was my amazement when she told me loudly, in the presence of about thirty people, that at my mother's request she removed Zhukova from me because my mother was afraid that I did not become too attached to a person who so little deserved it, and after that she began to revile poor Zhukova with noticeable malice.

To tell the truth, I did not understand anything from this scene and was not convinced of what the empress was saying, but I was deeply grieved by the misfortune of Zhukova, who was removed from the palace solely because she liked me more than my other women for her sociable character. ; for, I said to myself, why was she placed with me if she was not worthy of it; her mother could not know her, since she could not even speak to her, not knowing Russian, and Zhukova did not know another language. Mother could only rely on Schenck's absurd tales, which did not even have common sense; this girl is suffering because of me, therefore, one should not leave her in her misfortune, of which the only reason is my affection for her. I could never find out whether my mother really asked the empress to remove this person from me; if so, then the mother chose violent ways over peaceful ones, because she never opened her mouth about this girl; and yet one word from her side would have been enough to warn me against attachment, after all, very innocent; on the other hand, the empress could also take on this business not so cool: this girl was young, it was only necessary to find a suitable party for her, which would have been very easy, but instead she did as I just told.

When the Empress let us go, the Grand Duke and I went into our chambers. On the way, I saw that what the Empress had said had favored her nephew in favor of what had just been done; I expressed to him my objections to this and made him feel that this girl was unhappy solely because it was assumed that I had an addiction to her, and that, since she suffered for my sake, I considered myself entitled not to leave her. How much it will, at least, depend on me. Indeed, I immediately sent her money with my valet, but he told me that she had already left with her mother for Moscow; I ordered to send her what I assigned her, through her brother, the sergeant of the guard; came to tell me that this man and his wife received orders to leave as well and that he was transferred as an officer to one of the field regiments.

At the present time it is difficult for me to find any good reason for all this, and it seems to me that it meant doing evil in vain on a whim, without the slightest reason and even without a reason. But this was not the case: through my valet and through my other people I tried to find some decent party for Zhukova; I was offered one, a guard sergeant, a nobleman who had a certain fortune, named Travin; he went to Moscow to marry her if she liked it; she accepted his offer, he was made a lieutenant in a field regiment; as soon as the empress found out this, she exiled them to Astrakhan. It is even more difficult to find reasons for this persecution.

In the Winter Palace we were accommodated, the Grand Duke and I, in the chambers that served for my wedding; the Grand Duke's chambers were separated from mine by a huge staircase, which also led to the Empress's chambers; to go to him, one had to pass through the porch of this staircase, which was not very convenient, especially in winter; however, both he and I have done this path many times a day; in the evening I went to play billiards in the hall with the chief chamberlain Bergholz, while the Grand Duke frolicked in another room with his gentlemen. My billiards games were interrupted by the removal of Brummer and Bergholz, dismissed by the Empress from the Grand Duke by the end of the winter, which passed in masquerades in the main houses of the city, which were then very small. The whole court and the whole city were usually present at them.

The last masquerade was given by Chief of Police Tatishchev in a house that belonged to the empress and was called the Smolny Palace; the middle of this wooden house was destroyed by fire, only two outbuildings remained; they danced in one, but in order to go to supper, we were forced to pass, in January, through the yard in the snow; after supper it was necessary to follow the same path again. The Grand Duke, returning home, lay down, but the next day he woke up with a severe headache, because of which he could not get up. I sent for the doctors, who announced that it was the worst fever; they carried him out of my bed to my waiting room and, bleeding him, put him in a bed, which was immediately placed for this.

He was very ill; he was bled more than once; the empress visited him several times a day and, seeing the tears in my eyes, was grateful to me for them. Once, when I was reading evening prayers in a small prayer house near my dressing room, Mrs. Izmailova, whom the empress loved very much, came to me. She told me that the Empress, knowing how saddened I was by the Grand Duke's illness, sent her to tell me that I should hope in God, not be upset, and that in no case would she leave me. Izmailova asked what I was reading, I told her: evening prayers; she took my book and said that I would ruin my eyes reading such a small print by candlelight.

After that, I asked her to thank Her Imperial Majesty for her favors to me, and we parted very amicably; she went to convey my instructions to the Empress, and I went to bed. The next day the Empress sent me a prayer book, printed in large letters, to preserve my eyes, as she said.

In the room of the Grand Duke, in the one where he was placed, although it was adjacent to mine, I entered only when I did not consider myself superfluous, for I noticed that he did not care too much about me being here, and that he preferred to stay with his associates, whom I, in truth, did not like either; however, I'm not used to spending time all alone among men. Meanwhile Great Lent began, I fasted in the first week; in general, I had then a disposition for piety. I saw very well that the Grand Duke did not love me at all; two weeks after the wedding, he told me that he was in love with the maid Karr, the maid of honor of the empress, who later married one of the princes Golitsyn, the equestrian of the empress. He told Count Divier, his chamberlain, that there was no comparison between this girl and me. Divier argued otherwise, and he was angry with him; this scene took place almost in my presence, and I saw this quarrel. To tell the truth, I told myself that with this man I would certainly be very unhappy if I gave in to the feeling of love for him, for which they paid so poorly, and that there would be something to die of jealousy for no good at all.

So, out of pride, I tried to force myself not to be jealous of a person who does not love me, but in order not to be jealous of him, there was no other way but not to love him. If he wanted to be loved, it would not be difficult for me: I was naturally inclined and accustomed to fulfilling my duties, but for this I would need to have a husband with common sense, and mine did not. I fasted the first week of Lent; the empress told me to say on Saturday that I would please her if I fast for the second week; I told Her Imperial Majesty to reply that I ask her to allow me to fast for the entire Fast.

The court marshal of the Empress Sivere, Kruse's son-in-law, who conveyed these words, told me that the empress received a real pleasure from this request and that she allowed me to do so.

When the Grand Duke found out that I was fasting everything, he began to scold me; I told him that I could not do otherwise; when he got better, he played the patient for a long time not to leave the room where he liked to be more than at the court exits. He came out only in the last week of Lent, when he was fasting. After Easter, he set up a puppet theater in his room and invited guests and even ladies there. These performances were the stupidest thing in the world.

In the room where the theater was located, one door was boarded up, because this door opened into a room that was part of the Empress's chambers, where there was a table with a lifting machine that could be raised and lowered for unattended dining. Once the Grand Duke, being in his room preparing for his so-called performance, overheard a conversation in the next room and, since he possessed frivolous liveliness, took from his theater a carpenter's tool, which is usually used to drill holes in boards, and made holes in the boarded-up door , so that he saw everything that was happening there, namely, how the Empress dined, how Ober-Jägermeister Razumovsky dined with her in a brocade dressing gown - he was taking medicine that day - and about twelve of the empress's most trusted. His Imperial Highness, not content with enjoying the fruit of his skillful labors himself, called everyone around him to let them enjoy the pleasure of looking into the holes that he had so skillfully made. He did even more: when he himself and all those who were near him saturated their eyes with this immodest pleasure, he came to invite Kruse, me and my women to come to him in order to see something that we had never seen. He did not tell us what it was, probably to give us a pleasant surprise. Since I was not in such a hurry as he wanted, he took Kruse and my women away; I came last and saw them sitting at this door, where he set up benches, chairs, benches - for the convenience of the audience, as he said.

Entering, I asked what it was, he ran to meet me and told me what was the matter; I was so frightened and outraged by his insolence, and I told him that I did not want to watch or participate in such a scandal, which, of course, would cause him great trouble if his aunt found out, and that it was difficult for her not to know, because that he dedicated at least twenty people to his secret; everyone who was tempted to look through the door, seeing that I did not want to do the same, began to leave the room one after another; The Grand Duke himself felt a little embarrassed by what he had done, and he again set to work for his puppet theater, and I went to my room.

Until Sunday we did not hear any conversations, but on that day, I don’t know how it happened, I came to mass later than usual; returning to my room, I was about to take off my court dress, when I saw that the empress was walking with a very angry look and a little red; since she was not at the mass in the court church, but was present at the divine service in her small home church, as soon as I saw her, I went to meet her as usual, having not seen her that day, to kiss her hand; she kissed me, ordered me to call the Grand Duke, but in the meantime she scolded me for being late for mass and preferring attire before the Lord God; she added that during the time of Empress Anna, although she did not live at court, she never violated her duties in her house, quite remote from the palace, that she often got up by candlelight for this; then she ordered to call my valet-hairdresser and told him that if he continued to brush my hair with such slowness, she would drive him away; when she was done with him, the Grand Duke, who undressed in his room, came in a dressing gown and with a nightcap in his hand, with a cheerful and cheeky look, and ran to the hand of the Empress, who kissed him and began by asking where he got had the courage to do what he did; then she said that she entered the room where the car was and saw a door all drilled; that all these holes were directed to the place where she usually sits; that, in doing this, he must have forgotten everything that he owes her; that she could not look at him otherwise than as ungrateful; that her father, Peter I, also had an ungrateful son; that he punished him by depriving him of his inheritance; that during the time of Empress Anna she always showed her the respect befitting a crowned head and anointed of God; that this empress did not like to joke and put in the fortress those who did not show her respect; that he is a boy whom she can teach a lesson.

Then he began to get angry and wanted to contradict her, for which he muttered a few words, but she ordered him to be silent and was so angry that she no longer knew the measure of her anger, which usually happened to her; when she was angry, and said hurtful and offensive things to him, showing him as much contempt as anger. We were both dumbfounded and embarrassed, and although this scene did not apply directly to me, tears came to my eyes; she noticed this and said to me: “What I am saying does not apply to you; I know that you were not involved in what he did and that you did not and did not want to peep through the door. " This conclusion, justly drawn by her, calmed her a little, and she fell silent; it was true, it was difficult to add anything else to what she had just said; after which she bowed to us and went home very flushed and with sparkling eyes.

The Grand Duke went to his room, and I began to silently take off my dress, thinking about everything I had just heard. When I undressed, the Grand Duke came to me and said in a tone half embarrassed, half mocking: "She was like a fury and did not know what she was saying." I answered him: "She was extremely angry." We went over with him what we had just heard, then dined only together in my room.

When the Grand Duke went to his room, Kruse came to me and said: "I must confess that the Empress acted today like a true mother!" I saw that she wanted to challenge me to a conversation, and therefore was silent. She said: “The mother gets angry and scolds the children, and then it goes away; you would both have to say to her: "I'm sorry, mother," and you would disarm her. " I told her that I was embarrassed and amazed at Her Majesty's anger, and that all I could do at that moment was just listen and be silent. She left me, probably to give her report. As for me, the words "guilty, mother", as a means to disarm the empress's anger, sunk into my head, and since then I have used them on occasion with success, as will be seen later.

A few time before the Empress dismissed Count Brummer and Ober-Chamberlain Bergholz from their posts under the Grand Duke, once, when I went out in the morning earlier than usual in the hall, the first of them, being there, as it were, alone, took the opportunity to talk to me and he began to beg and conjure that I should go every morning to the Empress's dressing room, since my mother, before leaving, obtained permission for me to do so - an advantage that I had used very little until now, because this advantage bored me; I went there once or twice, found the empress's women there, who gradually moved away, so that I was left alone; I told him this; he answered me that it didn’t mean anything, that we should continue.

To tell the truth, I did not understand anything about this insistence of the courtier; it could serve for his purposes, but it could not serve me for anything if I was stuck in the empress's dressing room, and even be a burden to her. I expressed my disgust to Count Brummer, but he did everything he could to convince me, but to no avail. I liked being in my quarters more, and especially when Kruse was not there. I discovered in her this winter a very definite weakness for wine, and since she soon passed off her daughter for the Chief Marshal Sievers, either she constantly left, or my people found ways to get her drunk, then she went to sleep, which freed my room from this grumpy Argus.

Since Count Brummer and Chief Chamberlain Bergholz were dismissed from their posts under the Grand Duke, the Empress appointed General Vasily Repnin to be under the Grand Duke. This appointment was, of course, the best that the empress could do, because Prince Repnin was not only a decent and honest man, but also very clever and noble, with a pure and sincere soul. Personally, deep down, I could only be very pleased with Prince Repnin's treatment; as for Count Brummer, I did not really regret him; he bored me with his eternal talks about politics, which echoed with intrigue, while the open and military character of Prince Repnin inspired me with confidence.

As for the Grand Duke, he was delighted that he got rid of his teachers, whom he hated; however, the latter, leaving him, frightened him by the fact that they left him to the mercy of the intrigues of Count Bestuzhev, who was the main spring of all those changes that were made in his Duchy of Holstein under the plausible pretext of His Imperial Highness's coming of age; Prince Augustus, my uncle, was still in Petersburg and watched over the management of the grand duke's inheritance.

In the month of May we moved to the Summer Palace; at the end of May, the empress assigned me as chief overseer Choglokova, one of her state ladies and her relative; it struck me like a thunder; this lady was completely devoted to Count Bestuzhev, very rude, angry, capricious and very selfish. Her husband, the Empress’s chamberlain, left then, I don’t know on some errand, to Vienna; I cried a lot when I saw her move, and also the rest of the day; the next day I was to be bled. In the morning, before the bloodletting, the empress entered my room, and seeing that my eyes were red, she told me that young wives who did not love their husbands always cry, that my mother, however, assured her that I did not I was disgusted with the marriage with the Grand Duke, which, however, she would not have forced me to do that, and since I am married, there is no need to cry anymore.

I remembered the instruction to Kruse and said: “I'm sorry, mother,” and she calmed down. Meanwhile, the Grand Duke came, with whom she greeted affectionately this time, then she left. They bled me, which I really needed at that time. The next day, the grand duke took me aside in the afternoon, and I clearly saw that he had been given to understand that Choglokova was assigned to me because I did not love him, the grand duke; but I do not understand how they could have thought about the strengthening of my affection for him by giving me this woman; I told him that.

To serve me as Argus is another matter; however, for this purpose it would have been necessary to choose a less stupid one, and, of course, for this position it was not enough to be evil and unwilling; Choglokova was considered extremely virtuous, because then she loved her husband to adoration; she married him for love; such a fine example as they paraded me should probably have convinced me to do the same. Let's see how it was done. This is what apparently hastened this event, I say "hastened", because, I think, from the very beginning, Count Bestuzhev always meant to surround us with his adherents; he would very much like to do the same with the associates of Her Imperial Majesty, but there it was more difficult.

The Grand Duke, on my arrival in Moscow, had in his chambers three lackeys, by the name of the Chernyshevs, all three were the sons of the grenadiers of the empress's company; these latter were lieutenants, in the rank which the Empress bestowed upon them as a reward for having elevated her to the throne. The eldest of the Chernyshevs was a cousin of the other two, who were brothers.

The Grand Duke was very fond of all three of them; they were the closest people to him, and, indeed, they were very helpful, all three were tall and slender, especially the eldest. The Grand Duke used the latter for all his errands and sent him to me several times a day. He trusted him when he didn't want to go to me. This man was very friendly and close with my valet Evreinov, and often I knew this way that otherwise I would have remained unknown to me. Both were really devoted to me in heart and soul, and often I obtained through them information that would be difficult for me to acquire otherwise, about a multitude of things. I don’t know why the elder Chernyshev once said to the Grand Duke, saying about me: “After all, she is not my bride, but yours.” These words amused the Grand Duke, who told me this, and from that moment His Imperial Highness was pleased to call me "his bride", and Andrei Chernyshev, talking about him with me, he called "your groom."

Andrei Chernyshev, in order to stop these jokes, suggested to His Imperial Highness, after our wedding, to call me "mother", and I began to call him "sonny", but since both me and the Grand Duke were constantly talking about this "son" , for the Grand Duke treasured him as the apple of his eye, and since I also loved him very much, my people became worried: some of them were out of jealousy, others were out of fear for the consequences that might come out of this both for them and for us.

Once, when there was a masquerade at the court, and I went into my room to change, my valet Timofey Yevreinov called me back and said that he and all my people were frightened by the danger that I, apparently for them, strive for. I asked him what it could be; he said to me: “You are only talking about Andrei Chernyshev and are busy with him.” “Well, then,” I said in innocence of my heart, “what a misfortune; this is my son; The Grand Duke loves him the same way, and more than I, and he is attached to us and is faithful to us. ”“ Yes, ”he answered 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 person is faithful to you and serves you, your people call love. " When he uttered this word, which did not even occur to me, I was struck by thunder - both by the opinion of my people, which I considered impudent, and by the state in which I was without even knowing it. He told me that he had advised his friend Andrei Chernyshev to say ill in order to stop these conversations; Chernyshev followed Evreinov's advice, and his illness lasted until about April. The Grand Duke was very busy with this man's illness and continued to tell me about him, not knowing anything about it.

Andrei Chernyshev reappeared in the Summer Palace; I could no longer see him without embarrassment. Meanwhile, the empress found it necessary to distribute the chamber-lackeys in a new way: they served in all the rooms in turn, and, therefore, Andrei Chernyshev, like the others.

The Grand Duke often gave concerts during the day; in them he himself played the violin. At one of these concerts, at which I usually got bored, I went to my room; this room opened onto the large hall of the Summer Palace, in which the ceiling was then painted and which was covered with forests. The empress was absent, Kruse went to her daughter, Siver; I didn't find a soul in my room. Out of boredom, I opened the hall door and saw Andrei Chernyshev at the opposite end; I made him a sign to come up; he approached the door; in truth, with great fear, I asked him: "Will the empress return soon?" He told me: "I cannot talk to you, they are making too much noise in the hall, let me into your room." I answered him: "This is something I will not do." He was then outside in front of the door, and I was outside the door, holding it half open and talking to him like that. An involuntary movement made me turn my head in the direction opposite to the door near which I was standing. I saw behind me, at the other door of my dressing room, the chamberlain of Count Divier, who said to me: "The Grand Duke asks Your Highness." I closed the hall door and returned with Divier to the room where the Grand Duke had a concert. I learned later that Count Divier was a kind of informer who was entrusted with this duty, like many around us.

The next day, then, on Sunday, the Grand Duke and I learned that all three Chernyshevs had been made lieutenants in the regiments located near Orenburg, and in the afternoon Choglokova was assigned to me.

A few days later we were ordered to prepare to accompany the Empress to Revel. At the same time, Choglokova came to tell me on behalf of Her Imperial Majesty that she frees me henceforth from visiting her lavatory and that when I need to tell her something, then - do it only through Choglokova. In fact, I was delighted with this order, which freed me from having to hang around the Empress's women; however, I did not often go there and saw Her Majesty very rarely: since I had an entrance to her, she showed herself to me only three or four times,

and as a rule all the women, little by little, one after the other, left the room when I entered it; in order not to be there alone, I also did not stay long. In June, the Empress went to Revel, and we accompanied her.

The Grand Duke and I rode in a four-seater carriage, Prince August and Choglokova rode with us. The way we traveled was both unpleasant and inconvenient. The postal houses, or stations, were occupied by the empress; as for us, they gave us tents or put us in services. I remember that once, during this journey, I was dressing near the oven, where bread had just been baked, and that another time, in the tent where they put my bed, there was half a foot of water when I entered it.

Moreover, since the Empress did not have any specific hour for food or rest, we were all exhausted, both gentlemen and servants. Finally, after ten or twelve days of driving, we arrived at the estate of Count Stenbock, 40 versts from Reval, from where the Empress set out with great solemnity, wishing to arrive in Ekaterinental in the afternoon; but I don’t know how it happened that we were driving until half past one in the morning. During the whole journey from Petersburg to Revel Choglokova bored us and was the despair of our carriage; to the slightest trifle that was expressed, she objected with the words: "Such a conversation would not be pleasing to Her Majesty," or: "This would not be approved by the Empress," sometimes she imposed such etiquette on the most innocent and indifferent things. As for me, I submitted to it and all the way I just slept in the carriage.

The next day of our arrival in Ekaterinental, our usual way of life resumed; this means that from morning to evening and until very late at night they played a rather large game in the front hall of the Empress, in the hall that divided the house and both floors of this building in half. Choglokova was a gambler - she advised me to play, like everyone else, at Pharaoh; usually all the Empress's favorites were there when they were not in the chambers of Her Imperial Majesty, or rather, at her headquarters, because she ordered to break a large and magnificent headquarters next to their rooms, which were on the first floor and were very small, as usual built by Peter I; he ordered to build this house and plant a garden. The prince and princess Repnins, who took part in the trip and already knew Choglokova's arrogant and devoid of common sense behavior on the road, advised me to talk about this with Countess Shuvalova and Izmailova, the Empress's most beloved ladies. These ladies did not like Choglokova, and they were already aware of what was happening; little Countess Shuvalova, who was the embodiment of talkativeness, did not wait for me to talk to her about this, but, sitting at the game next to me, she began this conversation herself, and since she had a very mocking tone, she exhibited all the behavior Choglokova in such a funny way that she became a universal laughing stock. She did more than that: she told the empress everything that had happened; Choglokova probably got it, because she significantly lowered her tone with me.

To tell the truth, I really needed it, as I was beginning to feel a great disposition for sadness. I felt completely alone. The Grand Duke was carried away for a short while in Revel by a certain Tsedersparr; he did not fail, according to his custom, to believe me at once. I felt frequent pains in my chest, and once in Ekaterinental I started to bleed, as a result of which I was given bloodletting.

In the afternoon Choglokova came into my room and found me in tears; being much softer, she asked me what was wrong with me, and suggested, on behalf of the empress, to dispel my hypochondria, as she said, to walk through the garden; on that day the Grand Duke was out hunting with the Chief Jägermeister Count Razumovsky. In addition, she gave me from Her Imperial Majesty three thousand rubles to play Pharaoh. The ladies noticed that I was short of money, and they told the Empress. I asked Choglokova to thank Her Imperial Majesty for her mercy to me and went with Choglokova for a walk in the garden to get some air. A few days after our arrival in Ekaterinental, the Grand Chancellor, Count Bestuzhev, accompanied by the imperial ambassador Baron Bretlach, arrived, and we learned from his greeting that both imperial courts had entered into an alliance by concluding a treaty. Then the Empress went to watch the fleet's maneuvers, but we saw nothing except cannon smoke; the day was extremely hot and the silence was complete.

Upon returning from these maneuvers, there was a ball in the empress's tents spread out on the terrace, dinner was served in the open air around the pool, where the fountain was supposed to be launched, but as soon as the empress sat down at the table, it rained, soaking the whole company, which rushed like hit the house and tents. So this holiday ended.

A few days later the Empress went to Rogerwick. The fleet was maneuvering there again, and again we saw only one smoke. From this journey we have all worked our legs extraordinarily. The soil of this place is rocky, covered with a thick layer of small cobblestone of such a property that if you stand a little in one place, your legs begin to bog down, and a small cobblestone will cover your feet. We camped here and had to walk from tent to tent and to ourselves on such ground for several days; my legs hurt for four whole months. The convicts who worked on the mole wore wooden shoes, and these did not last more than eighty days. The Imperial Ambassador followed the Empress to this port of Rogervik; he dined and dined with Her Imperial Majesty. Halfway between Rogervik and Revel, during dinner, an old woman of 130 years old who looked like a walking skeleton was brought to the empress. The Empress ordered to give her food from her table and money, and we continued on our way. Upon returning to Ekaterinental, Choglokova had the pleasure of meeting her husband, who had returned from his business trip to Vienna.

Many of the court carriages had already gone to Riga, where the empress wanted to go, but upon returning from Rogervik, she suddenly changed her mind. Many have racked their brains to guess the reason for this change; a few years later the reason was revealed. When Choglokov was passing through Riga, a Lutheran priest, madman or fanatic, handed him a letter or a note for the empress, in which he exhorted her not to undertake this journey, saying that she would be exposed to the greatest danger there, that people sent to kill her were placed there by the neighboring enemies of the empire and that kind of nonsense. This scripture was passed on to Her Imperial Majesty and discouraged her from going further; as for the priest, he was declared insane, but the trip did not take place. We returned, gradually moving during the day, from Reval to Petersburg; I had a very sore throat on this trip, as a result of which I lay there for several days; after that we went to Peterhof and from there went every week to Oranienbaum.

In early August, the Empress ordered to tell the Grand Duke and me that we should fast; we obeyed her will and immediately ordered Matins and all-night vigils to be served at our place and began going to Mass every day. On Friday, when it came to confession, the reason for the order given to us to fast was revealed. Simeon of Theodorsky, Bishop of Pskov, very much questioned both of us, each separately, about what happened between us and the Chernyshevs; but since nothing happened at all, he felt a little embarrassed when he was told with innocent innocence that there was not even a shadow of what they dared to suppose. In a conversation with me he burst out: "So where does this come from that the Empress was warned otherwise?" To this I told him that I knew nothing. I believe that our confessor communicated our confession to the confessor of the Empress, and this last confessed to Her Imperial Majesty, what was the matter, which, of course, could not harm us. We received communion on Saturday, and on Monday went to Oranienbaum for a week, while the empress went to Tsarskoe Selo. Arriving at Oranienbaum, the Grand Duke recruited his entire retinue; chamberlains, chamber-junkers, officials of his court, adjutants, Prince Repnin and even his son, chamber-lackeys, gardeners - all were given a musket on their shoulders; His Imperial Highness taught them every day, appointed guards; the corridor of the house served as their guardhouse, and they spent the day there; for dinner and supper, the gentlemen went upstairs, and in the evening they came to the hall in boots to dance; of the ladies there were only me, Choglokova, Princess Repnina, my three ladies-in-waiting and my maids - therefore, such a ball was very fluid and poorly organized: the men were exhausted and out of sorts from these constant military exercises, which did not please the courtiers ...

After the ball, they were allowed to go to bed with them. In general, I and all of us were disgusted with the boring life that we led in Oranienbaum, where there were five or six women who were left alone face to face from morning to evening, while the men, for their part, reluctantly practiced military art. I resorted to the books that I brought with me.

Ever since I was married, all I did was read; the first book I read after marriage was a novel titled "Tiran le blanc" and I read only novels for a year; but when they began to bore me, I accidentally attacked Madame de Sevigne's letters: this reading interested me very much. When I swallowed them, Voltaire's works came to my hand; after this reading I looked for books with great analysis.

We returned to Peterhof, and after two or three trips from Peterhof to Oranienbaum and back, where the time was still the same monotonous, we returned to Petersburg, to the Summer Palace. Towards the end of autumn, the empress moved to the Winter Palace, where she occupied the chambers in which we were housed last winter, and we were placed in those where the Grand Duke lived before his marriage. We liked these chambers very much, and indeed they were very comfortable; these were the rooms of the Empress Anna.

Every evening our entire courtyard gathered with us; here they played different games or there were concerts; twice a week there was a performance at the Bolshoi Theater, which was then opposite the Kazan Church. In a word, this winter was one of the Funniest and most successful in my life. We literally laughed and frolicked all day. Approximately in the middle of winter, the Empress ordered us to tell us to follow her to Tikhvin, where she was going. It was a pilgrimage ride; but the minute we were about to get into the sleigh, we learned that the trip had been postponed: they came to tell us on the sly that Chief Jägermeister Razumovsky had gout, and that the Empress did not want to go without him.

During this period of time, my Jewish valet, brushing my hair one morning, told me that by a very strange accident he discovered that Andrei Chernyshev and his brothers were in Rybachya Sloboda, under arrest at the empress's own dacha, inherited by her from her mother. This is how it opened. My valet rode in a sleigh with his wife and sister-in-law in the butter-house; brother-in-law stood on the heels. The sister-in-law's husband was the clerk of the Petersburg magistrate; this man had a sister who was married to the secretary of the secret office. They somehow went for a ride in Rybachy Sloboda and went to the empress, who manages this estate; argued about Easter, what day it falls on. The owner of the house told them that he would now resolve the dispute, that he should only send to the prisoners for the calendar, in which all the holidays and a calendar for several years could be found. A few minutes later the book was brought; Evreinov's brother-in-law grabbed it and the first thing he found, opening it, was the name of Andrei Chernyshev, written by himself along with the date of the day on which the Grand Duke presented him with the book; then he began to look for the feast of Easter. The dispute ended, the book was returned, and they returned to St. Petersburg, where Evreinov's brother-in-law told him in secret about his discovery. Evreinov persuasively asked me not to tell the Grand Duke about this, because it was absolutely impossible to rely on his modesty. I promised and kept my word.

Two or three weeks later, we actually went to Tikhvin. This trip lasted only five days; we drove on the way back and forth through Rybachya Sloboda and past the house where, as I knew, the Chernyshevs were; I tried to see them in the window, but I saw nothing. Prince Repnin did not participate in the trip; we were told that he had a stone disease; Choglokova's husband acted as Prince Repnin during this trip, which gave no one much pleasure; he was an arrogant and rude fool, everyone was terribly afraid of this man and his wife, and, speaking the truth, they were really evil people. However, there were means, as it turned out later, not only to lull these Argus, but even to appease them, but then these means were only being sought. One of the most reliable was to play Pharaoh with them: they were both gamblers, and very greedy; this weakness was discovered first of all, the rest - after.

That winter my maid of honor, Princess Gagarina, died of fever, before her wedding to the chamberlain Prince Golitsyn, who later married her younger sister. I felt sorry for her and during my illness I often visited, despite Choglokova's objections. The Empress summoned from Moscow to take her place her older sister, who later married Count Matyushkin.

Shortly before Lent, the Empress and I went to Gostilitsy for a feast to the Chief Jägermeister Count Razumovsky. There they danced and had fun in order, after which they returned to the city. A few days later, my father's death was announced to me, which made me very sad. I was given my fill to cry for a week; but after a week, Choglokova came to tell me that it was enough to cry, that the Empress was ordering me to stop, that my father was not a king. I answered her that it was true that he was not a king, but that he was my father; to this she objected that it was not fitting for the Grand Duchess to mourn any longer for her father, who was not a king. Finally, it was ordered that I would go out next Sunday and be in mourning for six weeks.

The first time I left the room, I met Count Santi, Master of Ceremonies for the Empress, in the hall of Her Imperial Majesty. I said a few small words to him and went my own way. A few days later Choglokova came to tell me that the empress had learned from Count Bestuzhev, to whom Santi had conveyed this in writing, that I had told him that I found it very strange that the ambassadors did not express their condolences to me on the death of my father; that the Empress finds this conversation with Count Santi very inappropriate, that I am too proud, that I must remember that my father was not a king, and that for this reason I could not and should not claim the condolences of the foreign envoys. I was terribly amazed when I heard Choglokova's words. I told her that if Count Santi said or wrote that I had told him anything similar to such a conversation, then he was an unworthy liar, that nothing of the kind had ever occurred to me, and that, therefore, I had not told him , nor to anyone else anything related to this issue. It was the absolute truth, because I took it as an unshakable rule not to pretend to anything and in any case, and in everything to conform to the will of the Empress and do as I was ordered. Apparently, the innocence with which I answered Choglokova convinced her; she told me that she would not fail to tell the Empress that I formally deny the words of Count Santi. And, indeed, she went to Her Imperial Majesty and came back to tell me that the Empress was very angry with Count Santi for such a lie, and that she ordered him to be reprimanded.

A few days later, Count Santi sent several persons to me in a row, among others Chamberlain Nikita Panin and Vice-Chancellor Vorontsov, to tell me that Count Bestuzhev forced him to lie, and that he was very sorry that he was in my disgrace through this. I told these gentlemen that a liar is a liar and will remain, no matter what reasons he has for lying, and that for fear that this gentleman would not drag me into his lies, I would not talk to him again; I kept my word and did not speak to him anymore. Here's what I think about this story.

Santi was Italian; he loved to negotiate and was very busy with his duties as chief master of ceremonies; I always talked to him, like everyone else; he may have thought that the expressions of condolences from the diplomatic corps might be appropriate, and one must assume from his disposition that he thought to please me by this; he went to Count Bestuzhev, the great chancellor, his superior, and told him that I had gone out for the first time, seemed to him very saddened by the death of my father, and perhaps added that the expressions of condolence that were not observed on this occasion could have increased my chagrin. Count Bestuzhev, always spiteful, rejoiced at the opportunity to humiliate me: he ordered Santi to immediately state in writing what he said or hinted to him and confirmed with my name, and ordered him to sign this protocol; Santi, afraid of his boss like fire, and especially fearful of losing his place, was not slow to sign this lie, instead of sacrificing his career. The Grand Chancellor sent this note to the Empress, who became angry, suggesting such claims on my part, and sent Choglokova to me, as mentioned above. But when the empress heard my answer, based on the real truth, it all came out that Mister Master of Ceremonies was left with a nose.

In the spring we moved to live in the Summer Palace, and from there to the dacha. Prince Repnin, under the pretext of poor health, received permission to retire to his house, and Choglokov continued to temporarily fulfill the duties of Prince Repnin. This change first affected the resignation from our court of the chamberlain Count Divier, who was sent as a brigadier to the army, and the chamberlain Villebois, who was sent there by the colonel at the suggestion of Choglokov, who glanced at them because the Grand Duke and I favored them ... Such dismissals have happened before, for example, in the person of Count Zakhar Chernyshev in 1745 at the request of his mother; nevertheless, these dismissals were viewed at court as a disgrace, and thus they were very sensitive to these persons. The Grand Duke and I were very upset by this resignation. Since Prince Augustus received everything he wanted, he was ordered to say on behalf of the Empress that he should leave. This was also the work of the Choglokovs, who at all costs wanted to retire the Grand Duke and me, in which they followed the instructions of Count Bestuzhev, whom everyone was suspicious of and who loved to sow and maintain discord everywhere, out of fear that they would rally against him. Despite this, all eyes converged on hatred for him, but he was indifferent, as long as they were afraid of him. During this summer, for lack of anything better, and because boredom was growing in our country and in our court, I most of all became addicted to horse riding; the rest of the time I read everything that came to hand. As for the Grand Duke, since the people whom he loved most were taken away from him, he chose new ones among the chamber-lackeys.

At the dacha, he made himself a pack of dogs and began to train them himself; when he got tired of tormenting them, he began to saw on the violin; he did not know a single note, but he had an excellent ear, and for him the beauty in music lay in the power and passion with which he extracted sounds from his instrument. Those who had to listen to him would often have eagerly shut their ears if they dared, because he tormented them terribly. This way of life continued both in the country and in the city. When we returned to the Summer Palace, Kruse, who continued to be recognized by everyone as Argus, became so kind that she very often agreed to deceive the Choglokovs, who became hated by everyone. She did more than that, namely, she delivered toys, dolls and other children's amusements to the Grand Duke, which he loved to the point of passion; during the day they were hidden in my bed and under it.

The Grand Duke went to bed first after supper, and as soon as we were in bed, Kruse locked the door with a key, and then the Grand Duke played until one or two in the morning; willy-nilly, I had to take part in this wonderful entertainment, just like Kruse. Often I laughed at this, but even more often it bothered and worried me, since the whole bed was covered and full of dolls and toys, sometimes very heavy. I do not know if Choglokova visited about these nocturnal amusements, but one day, around midnight, she knocked on our bedroom door; It was not immediately opened to her, because the Grand Duke, Kruse and I were in a hurry to hide and remove the toys from the bed, which was helped by the blanket, under which we put the toys.

When this was done, they opened the door, but Choglokova began to reprimand us terribly for making her wait, and told us that the empress would be very angry when she found out that we were not yet sleeping at such an hour, and left grumbling, but not making another discovery. When she left, the Grand Duke continued his own until he wanted to sleep. At the onset of autumn, we again moved to the chambers that we occupied earlier, after our wedding, in the Winter Palace. Here came a very strict prohibition from the empress through Choglokova, so that no one would dare to enter the chambers of the Grand Duke and mine without the special permission of the lord or mistress of the Choglokovs, and also an order for the ladies and gentlemen of our court to be in the hallway, not to cross the threshold of the room and only talk to us loudly; the same order was issued to the servants on pain of dismissal. The Grand Duke and I, remaining thus always alone with each other, both grumbled and exchanged thoughts about this kind of prison that none of us deserved.

To provide himself with more amusement in the winter, the Grand Duke ordered eight or ten hunting dogs out of the village and placed them behind a wooden partition that separated my bedroom alcove from the huge hallway at the back of our chambers. Since the alcove was only made of planks, the smell of the kennel penetrated to us, and we both had to sleep in this stench.

When I complained about this, he told me that there was no way to do otherwise; since the kennel was a big secret, I endured this inconvenience without revealing the secret of His Imperial Highness. On January 6, 1748, I contracted a violent fever with a rash. When the fever had passed, and since there was no entertainment during this buttermilk at court, the Grand Duke decided to arrange masquerades in my room; he made his and my servants and my women dress up and made them dance in my bedroom; he himself played the violin and danced too. This lasted until late at night; as for me, under the pretext of a headache or fatigue, I lay down on the canapé, but always dressed up, and I was bored to death by the absurdity of these masquerades, which amused him extremely.

With the onset of Lent, four more persons were removed from him; among them were three pages, whom he loved more than others. These layoffs upset him, but he did not take a step to stop them, or he took such unfortunate steps that he only increased the trouble. This winter we learned that Prince Repnin, no matter how sick he was, had to command a corps that was sent to Bohemia to help the Empress-Queen Maria Theresa. It was a uniform disfavor for Prince Repnin; he went there and never returned, because he died of grief in Bohemia. Princess Gagarina, my maid of honor, was the first to convey the message to me, despite all the prohibitions to bring to us the slightest word about what was happening in the city or at court. From this it is clear what such prohibitions mean, which are never strictly enforced, because too many people are busy breaking them. All those around us, down to the Choglokovs' closest relatives, tried to reduce the severity of the kind of political prison in which they tried to keep us. Even Choglokova's own brother, Count Gendrikov, often gave me useful and necessary information in passing, and others used it to deliver it to me, to which he always succumbed with the innocence of an honest and noble person; he laughed at the stupidity and rudeness of his sister and his son-in-law, and everyone felt good and confident with him, because he never betrayed or deceived; he was a straightforward man, but narrow-minded, ill-mannered and ignorant, however, firm and ingenuous.

During the same Lent, one day about noon, I went into the room where our gentlemen and ladies were; The Chogloks have not yet arrived; talking with both, I went to the door where the chamberlain Ovtsin was standing. He, lowering his voice, spoke about the boring life that we are leading, and said that at the same time we are blackened in the eyes of the empress; so, a few days ago Her Imperial Majesty said at the table that I am overburdened myself with debts, that everything I do is stupid, that at the same time I imagine that I am very smart, but that I alone think of myself that way, that I will not deceive anyone, and that my complete stupidity is recognized by everyone, and that therefore less attention should be paid to what the Grand Duke is doing than to what I am doing, and Ovtsyn added with tears in his eyes that he had received the Empress's order pass it on to me, but he asked me not to pretend that he told me that that was exactly her order. I told him about my stupidity that you cannot blame me for this, because everyone is the way God created him; as for debts, it is not surprising if I have them, because, with thirty thousand upkeep, my mother left me, when she left, sixty thousand rubles in debt to pay for it; that, in addition, Countess Rumyantseva involved me in a thousand expenses that she considered necessary; that Choglokova alone costs me seventeen thousand rubles this year, and that he himself knows what a hellish game must be played with them every day; that he can convey the answer to those from whom he received this commission; which, however, is very unpleasant for me to know that the empress is being aroused against me, towards whom I have never been disrespectful, disobedient or disrespectful, and that the more they watch me, the more they will be convinced of this.

I promised him to keep a secret and kept my word - I do not know if he conveyed what I said, but I think so, although I never heard any more talk about it and was careful not to resume the conversation, which was so little pleasant. In the last week of Lent, I got measles, I could not appear on Easter and received communion in my room on Saturday. During this illness, Choglokova, although pregnant in the last month, almost never left me and did everything she could to entertain me. At that time I had a little Kalmyk woman with me, whom I loved very much; this child got measles from me.

After Easter we moved to the Summer Palace and from there at the end of May on the Ascension went to Count Razumovsky in Gostilitsy; on the 23rd of the same month the empress sent the ambassador of the imperial court, Baron Bretlach, who was traveling to Vienna; he spent the evening in Gostilitsy and dined with the empress. This supper ended late at night, and after sunrise we returned to the house where we lived. This wooden house was located on a small hill and was adjacent to the katalny mountain. We liked the location of this house in the winter, when we were in Gostilitsy for the name day of the Chief Jägermeister, and, to please us, he put us in this house this time too; it was two-story; the upper floor consisted of a staircase, a hall and three small rooms; we slept in one, the Grand Duke dressed in another, and Kruse occupied the third, Choglokova, my maids of honor and maids were placed below.

After returning from supper, everyone went to bed. At about six o'clock in the morning, Guard Sergeant Levashov came from Oranienbaum to Choglokov to talk about the buildings that were being built there at that time; finding everyone asleep, he sat down near the sentry and heard a crackling that seemed suspicious to him; the sentry told him that this crack had been repeated several times since he had been on the clock. Levashov got up and ran around the house outside; he saw that large stone slabs were falling out from under the house; he ran to wake Choglokov and told him that the foundation of the house was sinking and that we must quickly try to get everyone who was in it out of the house. Choglokov put on a dressing gown and ran upstairs; the glass doors were locked; he broke the locks and went to the room where we slept; pulling back the curtain, he woke us up and ordered us to leave as soon as possible, because the foundation of the house was crumbling. The Grand Duke jumped out of bed, took his dressing gown and ran away. I told Choglokov that I was going after him, and he left; I got dressed hastily; dressing, I remembered that Kruse slept in the next room; I went to wake her up, she was sleeping very soundly, I managed to wake her up with some difficulty and explain to her that I had to leave the house.

I helped her to get dressed, and when she was ready, we crossed the threshold of the room and entered the hall, but as soon as we got there, everything began to shake, with a noise similar to that with which a ship descends from a shipyard. Kruse and I fell to the floor; at that moment Levashov entered through the door of the stairs opposite us. He lifted me off the floor and left the room; I accidentally glanced at the mountain; it was on a level with the second floor, but now, at least an arshin, higher than this second floor. Levashov, having walked with me to the stairs on which he came, did not find her anymore: it collapsed, but since several persons climbed onto the ruins, Levashov handed me over to the nearest one, this one to the other, and so, passing from hand to hand, I found myself at the bottom of the stairs, in the hallway, and from there I was carried out of the house onto the lawn. There was also the Grand Duke, in a dressing gown.

When I got out, I began to look at what was going on at the side of the house, and I saw that some of the faces came out bloody, while others were carried out; among the most seriously wounded was my maid of honor Princess Gagarina: she wanted to escape from the house, like the others, and when she walked across the room adjacent to her room, the collapsed stove fell on the screens, which knocked her over onto the bed in the room; several bricks fell on her head and severely wounded her, as well as the maid who was fleeing with her. On this lowest floor there was a small kitchen where several footmen slept, three of whom were killed by the collapsed stove. But that was nothing compared to what happened between the foundation of this house and the first floors. Sixteen workers who served at the rolling mountain slept there, and all were crushed by this collapsed structure. The reason for all this was that this house was built in the fall, in a hurry. The foundation was laid in four rows of limestone slabs; the architect ordered twelve beams to be installed on the first floor in the manner of the pillars in the hallway. He was supposed to go to Ukraine; leaving, he ordered the manager of Gostilitsy to prohibit touching these twelve beams until his return.

When the manager found out that we should live in this house, then, despite the architect's orders, he took the most urgent measures to break down these twelve beams, as they spoiled the canopy. When the thaw came, the whole building settled on four rows of limestone slabs, which began to slide in different directions, and the building itself crawled to the mound that delayed it.

I "got off with a few bruises and a great deal of fear, as a result of which I was bled. This general fear was so great that for more than four months every door that was closed with some force made us all shudder. When the first fear passed, that day the empress, who lived in another house, called us to her, and since she wanted to reduce the danger, everyone tried to find very little dangerous in this, and some did not even find anything dangerous; she did not like my fear very much, and she was angry with me for him; the Ober-Jägermeister cried and became desperate; he said that he would shoot himself with a pistol; probably they prevented him from doing this, because he did nothing of the kind, and the next day we returned to Petersburg, after several weeks of our stay in Summer Palace ...

1. Life and customs of the royal court in the second half of the 18th century 6

1.1 The inner life of the family of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna 6

1. 2. Household pictures from the personal life of Empress Catherine II. Favoritism 19

1. 3. The era of the reign of Catherine II - the era of enlightened absolutism 27

2. Life and customs of the royal court under Emperor Paul I 32

2.1 Barracks life of the family and entourage of Paul I 32

2. 2 Palace coup. The tragic death of Paul I 41

3. Life and customs of the royal court under Emperor Alexander I 44

3. 2 Life of Alexander I in the last years of his life during the period of reaction. Folk legends about the death of the emperor 47

Introduction

The period that begins after the death of Peter I in 1725 and lasts until 1762, i.e. before the accession of Catherine II, is traditionally called in historiography "the era of palace coups." Indeed, in the country for 37 years, 6 emperors were replaced, moreover, four were on the throne as a result of coups. The change of the reigning persons was accompanied by a fierce struggle between various groups of the court nobility.

Even the pre-revolutionary historian V.A. Myakotin developed the concept of this period. Its essence boiled down to the fact that:

1. 
   broad masses of the people did not take part in palace coups;
2. 
   at this time there was a steady increase in the economic and political role of the nobility;
3. 
   the reasons for the coups and stemmed from the entrenched positions of the nobles.

The immediate reason for the palace coups was the fact that the 1722 Charter of Succession to the throne referred the issue of successor to the throne for consideration by the "ruling sovereign".

From 1725 to 1727 Peter's "field wife" - Catherine I ruled, enthroned by the "new" nobility - those "nestlings of Petrov's nest" who were lifted by his will to the heights of political career and wealth.

A large role in its construction was played by a new force that first appeared on the foreground of Russian history - the guards, the Transfiguration and the Semenovites - the heirs of the amusing times of Peter. In fact, A. Menshikov became the ruler of the state.

Catherine's inglorious reign was, however, short-lived. After her death, twelve-year-old Peter II (1727-1730), the son of Tsarevich Alexei, who was executed by Peter, ended up on the Russian throne. The "old" nobility managed to gain the upper hand in the struggle, and the recognized head of the "new" nobility, Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, ended up in exile. In the state, everything was ruled by the princes Long-armed. Peter II was almost entirely absorbed in noisy amusements and pleasures. He was especially fond of hunting dogs. In January 1730, Peter II caught a cold while hunting, fell ill and died.

And again the Supreme Privy Council sits for a long time, decides who will be on the throne in Russia. It was decided to enthrone the daughter of Peter I's brother, Duchess of Courland Anna (1730-1740), daughter of Tsar John V. The infamous "Bironovism" began. Foreigners occupied the dominant position at the court. The first place belonged to the favorite of the empress Biron, who was officially only the chief chamberlain of the empress, but in fact concentrated all the levers of power in his hands.

The course of foreign policy was greatly influenced by the German Ostermann, and Minich was at the head of the Russian army. In an effort to attract the nobility to its side, the government carried out a series of measures that had a pronounced pro-nobility character.

Bribery and embezzlement flourished at court. An insane luxury was a characteristic feature of Anna Ioanovna's court. A huge amount was spent on the maintenance of the yard - 3 million rubles. gold, while for the maintenance of the Academy of Sciences, established in 1725, and the Admiralty Academy - 47 thousand rubles, and for the fight against epidemics only 16 thousand rubles. The empress herself was entertained with luxurious celebrations and amusements (like the famous “ice house” built in 1740 to celebrate the wedding of the court jester). In October 1740 Anna died.

On the Russian throne was the 3-month-old Ivan Antonovich, born of the marriage of the niece of the Empress Anna Leopoldovna of Mecklenburg with the Duke of Braunschweig. Behind the backs of the "Brunschweig family" loomed the figure of the powerful regent Biron. But Biron ruled for only 22 days. He was overthrown by Minich, who made the most "palace" of all palace coups. At night, his adjutant arrested Biron and sent him to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

But even Minich could not keep the power that had become so slippery. Osterman dismissed him by subtle intrigue. Osterman had power for about a year, and Anna Leopoldovna officially ruled. At this time, a new coup matured. It was headed by the daughter of Peter I - Elizabeth (1741-1761).

In November 1741, the coup took place. Elizabeth, with the support of a company of grenadiers of the Preobrazhensky regiment, came to the palace. The "Braunschweig family" (including Ivan Antonovich) was arrested and sent to the Shlisselburg fortress.

The fall of the German government and the accession to the throne of Elizabeth were greeted by Russian society with enthusiasm. Elizabeth was considered Russian to her heart and soul, and everyone who hated foreign affairs and stood for the Russian spirit found their idol in it.

It expected that Elizabeth's reign would bring an end to the period of temporary workers, terror and the struggle for power.

Elizaveta Petrovna spoke in favor of strengthening the traditions of Peter I.

1. Life and customs of the royal court in the second half of the 18th century

1.1 The inner life of the family of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna

Elizaveta was very pleasant in communication, bright, happy, graceful, and the empress who surrounded the empress unwittingly had to follow her example to By itself, this made it possible for the development of a higher Russian society, embarking on a path of European refinement. It is believed that before the Parisian standard was far off, however, compared with the Anninsky yard, the progression was remarkable and impressive. It’s true, and paying for it came at a price. It is known that Elizaveta had weaknesses that were not cheaply taken over by the government. Passion for outfits and going for your own beauty y the empress bordered on mania. Since the day she went to church, she has not worn two times the same dress. Dancing until the fall and putting on strong steam due to the premature fullness, the empress sometimes changed her dress three times during the same time.

In 1753 gody vo On Time pozhapa in odnom ee of mockovckix dvoptsov cgopelo 4000 platev, odnako pocle ee ee cmepti in gapdepobax THEIR octaloc esche 15,000, a kpome toro, large screen cyndyka shelkovyx chylok, tycyacha pap tyfel and bolee cotni kyckov fpantsyzckix matepy. Elizaveta waited for the arrival of the French ships in the St. Petersburg port and promised to immediately buy new products, which they could use, including those who were waiting for them. She loved white or light materials with embroidered gold or silver flowers.

The empress's headpiece also included a collection of men's suits. She inherited from her father a love for dressing in three months after her arrival in Moscow for the crown, she was able to find the perfect suit of all the cousins. As a result, two times a week passed maccaps, and Elizaveta appeared on them in a man's suit - just a fantastically cute, cool She had beautiful legs, at least she was assured of that. Assuming that the man's suit was not profitable for her female co-workers, she received the masked points, for which all the ladies should have been in the form of a fancy-style skirt

The Empress watched so that no one would dare to wear the clothes and fix the new façade, until they had had enough of her. Once one of the guests took it into his head to appear at the palace with a pose in a volocax, then, as the goddess, she had such a pose in hand. At the top of the ball Elizaveta made the guilty get up on her knees, ordered to give the scissors, cut a half-round potion together with a dozen of the wine and the wine, filled

Elizaveta was, in general, a woman's hateful, casual and, in spite of her laziness, energetic. She beat her maids and attendants on the cheeks and scolded at this in the most inappropriate manner. She also made it possible to turn her white hairs, which she covered in black. Now, all the court ladies were given an order to turn their heads. All of them were asked to replace their tweaks with free-flowing black spikes.

All this was counted in it with an extraordinary religiousness. Elizaveta spent many hours in the church, bending over, so that even sometimes she fell into a faint. Elizaveta was a strict observer of the fast, but she did not like fish, and in the daytime, she fed on cooking and quac, which greatly affected her health.

"Accs", introduced by Peter I, were abandoned by his closest successors. Elizaveta had aroused this usual order with others, but from the next meeting, where the atmosphere of the casino holiday was in the cold, one called Now French models and French grades have become the law.

After a government-sponsored revolution, another revolution was made: it was created by fashion merchants and dancers. In the Elizabethan era, the nobility gravitated towards entertainment and delightful pleasures. All types of elegance and beauty have received rapid development in the Russian two. The main work of Fykcy was put about 800 rubles, which at that time was a huge sum.

The Empress loved to walk well and knew only wine. Do not leave without attention and spiritual food. Already at the time of her coronation, Elizaveta wanted to build an opera theater in Moscow. The operative preferences were alternated with allegorical ballets and comics. In addition, foreign observers, and in particular the French, noting these news, complained that the abundance of the pock did not hide the essence of nothing. In the public meeting, due to the fact that there was little sleep, there was a little liveliness and vision, which some could let paytam be overwhelmed. Loving vecele, Elizaveta xotela chtoby ee okpyzhayuschie pazvlekali vecelym govopom, Nr beda was obmolvitcya would xotya odnim clovom pokoynikax o, o King ppycckom, Boltepe o, o kpacivyx zhenschinah, o naykax and vce bolsheyu chactyu octopozhno molchali.

Actually, and you can think of it by European standards in many ways remained a tinsel. There have not yet been any convenient palaces for living. In spite of their gold, they are more reminiscent of the pallets of the Gold Opda. They built them with incredible speed, literally in a few weeks, but at that they forgot about the comforts. The stairs were dark and narrow, the rooms small and damp. The halls were not heated. They drove away the noise, dirt and darkness. In the daily routine, there reigned indifference and frustration, neither the order of the door-to-door life, nor the room, nor the exits of the palace were set up only and quietly; As a result of an apparently alien air, which appeared in the palace for a visit, they took out all cops from the internal calms.

Yes, and the morals of the old Moscow courtyard have not completely gone into the past. The lady loved the sittings, the food songs, the sacred games. She ate two dozen pancakes with her buttercream. She went to the fatty Ukrainian cuisine - shcham, buzhenin, kylebyak and buckwheat. With this, she incurred a certain damage to her beauty - Elizabeth swam. At the same time, stoutness at that time was not considered a disadvantage in Russia. Many more than the tone of the waist, cherished the color of the face. Other excesses also eroded the empress's health. She used to sleep until dawn and fell asleep with more difficulty, only after that, as they started to cross the heels. She awaited about noon.

Having ascended the throne by means of a coup, Elizaveta Petrovna did not feel strongly enough on it. The secretary of the French embassy in St. Petersburg, Rulier testified that "she never relied on the safety of the crown she wears." The Empress did not forget about the lawful Russian Tsar John YI - the main reason for her fears, although she was not going to break her vow to save his life. To strengthen her own positions and put an end to the claims of the supporters of the Brunswick family, Elizaveta Petrovna already on November 28, 1741 hastened to proclaim the son of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp Karl Friedrich and Anna Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great Karl-Peter-Ulrich, the heir to the Russian throne.

On February 5, 1742, the 14-year-old prince of Kiel was brought to St. Petersburg, baptized according to the Orthodox rite, and has already been officially declared the heir to the Russian crown by Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich.

While still weak physically and morally in Holstein, Pyotr Fedorovich was brought up by the Chief Marshal Brumaire, who was more of a soldier than a teacher, "more a groom than a teacher" (according to S. Platonov). The young prince was taught a lot, but so ineptly that he received a complete disgust for the sciences: Latin, for example, bored him so much that later in St. Petersburg he forbade placing Latin books in his library.

To rectify the situation in St. Petersburg, experienced teachers were urgently assigned to the future emperor, and the duties of an educator Elizaveta Petrovna entrusted Academician Shtelin.

But all the efforts of the teacher did not give any positive results. Pyotr Fyodorovich spent his time playing with soldiers, taking his toy soldiers to parades and on guard; early on he became addicted to wine and German beer. To reason with the heir, Elizabeth decided to marry him.

Elizabeth chose for her nephew a person not so noble and wealthy - Princess Anhalt-Tserbskaya, born in 1729 and named after her grandmothers Sophia-Augusta-Frederica. On February 9, 1744, little princess Sophia-Frederica (future Empress Catherine II), together with her mother, arrived in Moscow at the Annenhof Palace, which in those days temporarily housed Elizabeth's court.

Elizabeth received them extremely cordially. Two teachers were assigned to Sofia. Sofia turned out to be brilliant. She eagerly studied Russian, Latin, read Tacitus, Voltaire, Diderot, observing, at the same time, court life. She diligently studied the rituals of the Russian Church, strictly kept fasting, prayed a lot and fervently, especially in public, even surpassing the desire of the devout Elizabeth, but terribly angry with Peter.

On June 28, at the church during her conversion to the Orthodox faith, she clearly pronounced her confession in pure Russian. What surprised everyone present. The Empress even shed tears and presented the convert with an agraph and a diamond fold worth several hundred thousand rubles.

Another task, which the young German woman was quite consciously solving at that time, was to please the Grand Duke Pyotr Fyodorovich, and Empress Elizabeth, and all Russian people.

Later, Catherine II recalled: “... I truly did not neglect anything to achieve this: obsequiousness, obedience, respect, desire to please, desire to do what should be done, sincere affection, everything on my part was constantly used from 1944 to 1761. . ”.

Having adopted Orthodoxy, the next day she was betrothed to the Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich. After that, she received the title of Grand Duchess and a new name - Ekaterina Alekseevna. Ekaterina Alekseevna herself was well aware that she needed not Peter (who, by the way, was her second cousin), but the imperial crown.

She later wrote about her condition before the wedding: "My heart did not bode well for me; ambition alone supported me."

In February 1745, Pyotr Fyodorovich turned 17, and on August 21 of the same year, the heir to the Russian throne married 16-year-old Catherine. The wedding took place in the capital. According to Russian custom, there was everything: the rich attire of the bride with precious jewelry, and the solemn service in the Kazan Church, and the ceremonial dinner in the gallery of the Winter Palace, and the magnificent ball.

Catherine's marriage can hardly be called unsuccessful or unhappy - it was for her, as a woman, humiliating and insulting. On the wedding night, Peter avoided marital duties, the following were the same. Later, Catherine testified: "... and in this situation the matter remained for nine years without the slightest change."

The relationship between the young spouses did not work out. Catherine finally understood that her husband would always be a stranger to her. And she thought about him now in a different way: “... I had a cruel thought for him in the very first days of my marriage. I said to myself: if you fall in love with this person, you will be the most unfortunate creature on earth ... this person hardly looks at you, he talks only about dolls and pays more attention to any other woman than to you; you are too proud to make a fuss about it, therefore ... think of yourself, madam. "

Catherine arrived in Russia with only 3 dresses and half a dozen shirts and the same number of handkerchiefs. Now she has healed with extraordinary luxury. Elizabeth presented her with a huge amount of money for her personal use, took away a luxurious apartment and appointed Princess Catherine a magnificent retinue of state ladies and chamberlains. The heiress to the throne has learned to waste Russian money, considering Russia and the Russian treasury to be her personal property.

Catherine instilled in Elizabeth strong fears with her ambition, she already in her early youth began to dream of seizing power. Elizabeth took action, she was afraid of Catherine's popularity. Catherine, with her intelligence and education, was a dangerous rival. Elizabeth was always afraid of a palace coup, like the one that was arranged by her. Catherine was surrounded by spies of purely Russian origin loyal to Elizabeth. But Catherine managed to buy their hearts, having learned from the lackeys the folk proverbs and expressions with which she so loved to flaunt.

The Empress very soon realized that she was in a hurry to declare Peter Fyodorovich heir to the throne. The behavior of her talentless nephew often irritated her. Not knowing how to get out of this awkward situation, she involuntarily transferred her dissatisfaction with the heir to the throne on his wife. She was accused of indifference to her husband, that she could not or did not want to influence him in a good way, to captivate him with her feminine charms. Finally, the empress demanded an heir from the young. And yet it was not foreseen.

It should not be forgotten that the life of the “young court” proceeded in front of the servants appointed by Elizabeth herself. And apparently, Ekaterina Alekseevna had reason to write: “... it seemed to me that she (Elizabeth) was always unhappy with me, as it happened very rarely that she did me the honor of entering into a conversation; however, although we lived in the same house, and our chambers were in contact both in the Winter and Summer palaces, we did not see her for months, and often more. We did not dare to appear in her chambers without a call, and we were almost never called. We were often scolded on behalf of Her Majesty for such trifles, about which one could not even suspect that they could anger the Empress. "

At the age of 18, Catherine has developed into a beautiful and physically strong woman. The flattery of many around her began to turn her head pleasantly. To give a release of young energy, she spent a lot of time hunting, boating and riding a horse dashingly. It was not difficult for her to spend the whole day in the saddle, while she sat equally beautifully and firmly in it both in English (as befits a noble aristocrat) and in Tatar (as is customary for real cavalrymen). Her body was well accustomed to the climate of St. Petersburg, and all of her now radiated health and female dignity, while deeply hiding her offended pride and her secret thoughts.

And the Grand Duke continued to play with dolls and deal with a detachment of Holstein soldiers, whom he specially summoned to Russia, thereby turning all Russians against him. He placed these Holsteins in Prussian uniform in a special camp in Oranienbaum, where he often disappeared himself, endlessly and without special need building up and setting up the guards. Family life was still of little interest to him.

Elizaveta Petrovna got tired of waiting for the Grand Duke to become a capable husband, and she found it possible to solve the problem of the heir without his participation. For this purpose, two young men were assigned to the court of the Grand Duchess - Sergei Saltykov and Lev Naryshkin.

Ekaterina Alekseevna gave birth to a son on September 20, 1754. He was named Paul and was forever taken away from his mother to the Empress's chambers. On the sixth day, the baby was christened, and the Grand Duchess was awarded a reward of 100 thousand rubles. It is interesting that at first Pyotr Fedorovich was not noted by the attention of the empress, since in reality he had nothing to do with the birth of a child. However, this put him in a ridiculous position at court and gave him a formal reason to express his sharp displeasure. Elizabeth very soon realized her mistake and retroactively ordered to give her nephew 100 thousand rubles too.

Baby Paul was shown to his mother only 15 days after birth. Then the empress took him back to her apartments, where she personally took care of him and where, according to Catherine, "there were many old ladies around him, who, with their stupid care, completely devoid of common sense, brought him incomparably more bodily and moral suffering than benefit" ...

Reading was one of Ekaterina Alekseevna's favorite pastimes - she always had a book with her. At first she was amused by light novels, but very soon she took up serious literature, And if you believe her "Notes", she had the intelligence and patience to overcome the nine-volume "History of Germany" Kappa and the multivolume "Baile's Dictionary", "The Lives of Famous Husbands" Plutarch and “The Life of Cicero”, “Letters of Madame de Seville” and “Annals of Tacitus”, works of Plato, Montesquieu and Voltaire. The historian S. F. Platonov, in particular, wrote about her: “The degree of her theoretical development and education reminds us of the strength of the practical development of Peter the Great. And they were both self-taught. "

Only in February 1755, Ekaterina Alekseevna overcame her hypochondria and for the first time after childbirth appeared in society. Pyotr Fedorovich by this time completely ceased to notice his wife. He matured and began to care for women, while showing a rather strange taste: he liked ugly and narrow-minded girls more.

In the hustle and bustle of court life, Catherine did not for a minute lose sight of her main goal, for the sake of which she came to Russia, for the sake of which she patiently endured insults, ridicule, and sometimes insults. This goal was the crown of the Russian Empire. Catherine quickly realized that her husband gave her a lot of chances to appear in the eyes of those around her as almost the only hope for salvation from his wild antics and folly. In any case, she persistently and consciously strove to be on good, if not on friendly terms, both with the most influential nobles of the Elizabethan court, and with hierarchs of the Orthodox Church, both with foreign diplomats, and with the objects of her own amorous hobbies. husband. A large circle of Russian adherents formed around her, among whom were not only officers of the Guards and middle-class nobles, but also influential nobles who stood close to the empress.

Towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, her nephew finally lost the respect of many around him and aroused the sharp discontent of the majority of Russians. Disagreements on Russian domestic and foreign policy with Elizaveta Petrovna led to the fact that their personal relationship became strained and even alienated. A narrow circle of courtiers even discussed the possibility of expelling the Grand Duke to Holstein with the announcement of his young son Paul as emperor.

Since 1757, Elizaveta began to undergo severe historical troubles. During the winter of 1760 -1761, Elizabeth was only at the big exit. Always awkward and general, she has now spent most of her time in her bedroom. Kpacota it quickly disintegrated, and it was more irritating to the patient. From the boredom of Elizaveta, I was addicted to strong filling.

On December 25, 1761, she died, and Peter Fedorovich ascended the throne under the name of Peter III. In his first manifesto, he promised "in everything to follow the footsteps of the wise sovereign, our grandfather Peter the Great."

From the very first weeks of his reign, Peter III paid special attention to strengthening order and discipline in the highest public places, himself setting an example.

The emperor usually got up at 7 o'clock in the morning, listened from 8 to 10 the reports of the dignitaries; at 11 o'clock he personally conducted a watch parade (divorce of the palace guard), before and after which he sometimes made trips to government offices or inspected industrial establishments. Although initially he decided to liquidate the Elizabethan Conference at the highest court, but then still ordered it "to leave on the same basis."

Particularly noteworthy is the attempt to give an unbiased characterization of Peter III of a man and statesman, undertaken in 1991 by A. S. Mylnikov, who published in the journal Voprosy istorii the article Peter III and the monograph Temptation by a Miracle: The Russian Prince, His Prototypes and self-styled doubles. " Without idealizing Pyotr Fedorovich, Mylnikov, however, notes that he was by no means a rude soldier: he loved Italian music and played the violin well, had a collection of violins; loved painting, books; kept a rich personal library and took care of its constant replenishment. The catalog of his numismatic cabinet has been preserved.

After becoming emperor, Peter traveled and walked around Petersburg alone, without security, visiting his former servants at home. He was characterized by such qualities as openness, kindness, observation, passion and wit in arguments, but also hot temper, anger, haste in action. He willingly communicated with ordinary people, soldiers.

Apparently, the feeling of duality of origin (Russian about his mother and German by his father) gave rise to a certain complex of double self-awareness in Pyotr Fedorovich. "Still, even if he felt himself to be largely a German," writes A. S. Mylnikov, "then he was a German in the Russian service."

As Catherine herself later admitted, she was offered a plan to overthrow Peter III soon after the death of Elizabeth. However, she refused to participate in the conspiracy until June 9. At a formal dinner on the occasion of the confirmation of the peace treaty with the Prussian king, the emperor publicly insulted Catherine. The Empress burst into tears. On the same evening, she was ordered to be arrested, which, however, was not executed at the request of one of Peter's uncles, the involuntary perpetrators of this scene. From that time on, Catherine began to listen more carefully to the suggestions of her friends.

In total, through the officers who participated in the conspiracy, Catherine could count on the support of about 10 thousand guardsmen. "One can think," writes S.F. Platonov, "that these high-ranking officials had their own plan of a coup and, dreaming of the accession of Pavel Petrovich, assimilated his mother Ekaterina Alekseevna only guardianship and regency until his majority.

On June 29, the day of the first-highest apostles Peter and Paul according to the Orthodox calendar, Peter Fedorovich, who had already been in Oranienbaum for several days, set his name day in Peterhof, where his wife was to be expected. But on the night of the 28th, a few hours before his arrival there, Catherine left for the capital. Relying on the guards regiments, she proclaimed herself an autocrat, and her husband deposed.

Peter III was taken by surprise by these events. Hour after hour he missed time and in the end he missed everything. On the morning of the 29th, troops loyal to the empress surrounded the Peterhof palace and the emperor, who was taken prisoner by his own wife, meekly signed a manifesto of abdication drawn up ahead of time by the Catherine nobles. King of Prussia Frederick II.

The deposed emperor was taken to Ropsha, to a suburban manor donated to him by Empress Elizabeth under the close supervision of the guards officers, and Catherine solemnly entered Petersburg the next day. Thus ended this revolution, which did not cost a single drop of blood, a real ladies' revolution.

But it cost a lot of wine: on the day of Catherine's entry into the capital, June 30, all drinking establishments were opened for the troops; the soldiers and the soldier women in a frenzied delight dragged and poured into the tubs, barrels, whatever came of it, vodka, beer, honey, champagne. Three years later, in the Senate, the case of the St. Petersburg wine merchants was still being carried out on their reward "for the grape drinks stolen by the soldiers and other people, when Her Majesty was safe on the imperial throne."

But this coup, which played out so cheerfully and amicably, had its own sad and unnecessary epilogue. In Ropsha, Peter was placed in one room, forbidden to let him out not only into the garden, but also on the terrace. The palace was surrounded by a guard guard. The guards treated the prisoner roughly; but the chief observer, Alexei Orlov, was kind to him, he occupied him, played cards with him, lent him money.

In the evening of the same July 6, Catherine received a note from A. Orlov, written with a frightened and hardly sober hand. There was only one thing to understand. On that day, Peter at the table argued with one of the interlocutors; Orlov and others rushed to separate them, but did it so awkwardly that the frail prisoner turned out to be dead. "We didn’t have time to separate him, but he was no longer; we ourselves do not remember what we did."

Catherine, according to her, was touched, even struck by this death. But, she wrote a month later, "we must go straight - no suspicion should fall on me." Following the solemn manifesto on July 6, another, from July 7, was read across the churches, announcing the death of the former emperor who fell into severe colic and inviting them to pray "without rancor" for the salvation of the soul of the deceased. He was brought directly to the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and there he was modestly buried next to the former ruler Anna Leopoldovna. The entire Senate asked Catherine not to be present at the burial.

1. 2. Household pictures from the personal life of Empress Catherine II. Favoritism

Receptions and celebrations on the occasion of the crowning of Ekaterina II are distinguished by greater elegance, not devoid of, however, a remarkable Asian colossus. By the time the empress left Moscow, there was such a disarray that the servant was ready to announce a withdrawal: for three days there was nothing.

The Lord will take with his small retinue, only twenty eight people, but for them to transport it is necessary sixty three equipment and three hundred and five ninety. Tsapevich departed separately with 27 equipment and 257 horses. These outfits provide their own building house on wheels. Six hundred thousand silver coins are carried in 120 oak barrels with iron shells for personal expenses of a gift, for dispensing to the sick and to the needy, extremes and extortion.

After coronation for several days, it goes to the reception of unlimited experiments. Ppixodyat, cklonyatcya down peped tponom gocydapyni ppedctaviteli rycckogo dvopyanctva and ppibaltiyckogo pytsapckogo socloviya, gvapdeyckie ofitsepy, depytaty aziatckix napodov, gpeki, apmyane, kalmyki, yaitskie and povolzhskie kazaki and cpedi nix ycheniki Tpoitskoy cemiapii in shityx zolotom belyx odezhdax and venkax of zelenyx lictev.

Then there are party celebrations, balls, mascots and popular festivities. In the ballet, the dancers are dancing, and the opketp is made up of doorways. The caterer is in a place from the pockoshi and the insane benefits that require these entertainment. As an indication, it has blocked the import of pearls and materials made of silk and cloth from silver into Russia.

The celebrations are held during the entire stay of the Empress in Moscow, from September 1762 to June 1763. In the meantime, the palace for the reception of the city is being added to St. Petersburg. The same is done with the palace in Tsapsky Selye. Everything here is beautiful, though and without a hard work.

Putting it away all in the mirrors and with golden cornices. The bedroom is surrounded by small columns, from the top to the bottom covered with massive silver, half-gray, half-lilac. The background behind the columns is covered with mirrored glass, and the ceiling is ripe. The same and in the work of the lady. Nothing is different from them and byyap. In these three rooms there is a lot of bronze and golden garlands on all the columns.

In the course of time, all grows. In 1778, on a holiday in honor of the birth of the elder, Paul will play a macao game at three tables. The winners have the right to take the diamond with a golden spoon from a cottle, standing in the middle of the table and a full diamond. They play for one and a half hours, and since the crank was only emptied by half, then the players divide between each of the remaining diamonds. Dinner at this celebration was served on the sidewalk, which was two million pounds sterling (about 20 million rubles).

But in general, with the two Ecatepines, the uncommon prosperity lives alongside poverty and prudent generosity with uncommon avarice. In 1791, at the time of the grand ball in the Peterhof palace, the main staircase was not celebrated.

Let's try to describe an ordinary day of the great empress. Winter 1786. The Empress lives in the Winter Palace and doesn’t take too much space in the first floor. In the first room there is a table with everything necessary for a secret.

This is followed by the selection, the windows which go out to the palace; Here, during the sober-time period, the lady takes intimate friends. From the yard there are two doors: one into the hall, called the billing, the other into the bedroom of the city. About her bed is a basket, with a pink satin mattress, on which a whole family of favorite English English lions sleep.

Catherine usually woke up at six in the morning. At the beginning of her reign, she dressed herself and heated the fireplace. Later, she was chewed on the mornings of the camera-jungfer Pepekysikhin. Ekaterina rinsed with warm water, rubbed her cheeks with ice and went to her cubicle. Here she was waiting for a weary, very strong coffee, to which the usual thick cream and biscuits were served. The empress sama ate a little, but half a dozen lionets, who always shared the breakfast with the cinnamon, consumed the saffron box and the cakes with the oven. Having finished with food, the son of the girl turned his dog out on a bed, and herself sat down for work and wrote for up to nine hours. The Empress often sniffs, especially when she writes. She has a favorite snuff-box, with which she almost never leaves; on the lid of the snuff-box there is a portrait of Peter I, as if a reminder that Catherine must continue the work of the great sovereign.

In nine, she was taken to the bedroom and received reporters. She wears a white satin hood with wide loose folds, a white speckled cap on her head.

The first to enter was the police officer. To clean the paper, given for the signature, the empress wore glasses. Then came the secret and started work with the documents. As is well known, the empress of the reader and wrote in three languages, but at this point there was a lot of syntactic and grammatical errors, and there was not a lot of fiction

The secretaries had to spell out all the empress’s drafts. But the classes with the secret were interrupted only by the visits of the generals, ministers and canons. So we lasted until lunch, which was usually an hour or two.

After letting go of the secret, Ekaterina went to a small house, where she makes a full toilet and does her hair. The catherine took off the hood and caps, and wrapped herself in an extremely simple, open and loose dress with double arms and wide headbands at a low level. In the days of the past, the empress did not wear any pride. In normal cases, the Ekaterina wore an expensive burgundy dress, so-called "Russian style", and, as a rule, was decorated with a corona. For the Parisian fashions, she didn’t enjoy and didn’t indulge in this great pleasure in her dressy dames.

Having finished the ticket, Ekaterina went to the official house, where they finished dressing her. This was the time of a small exit. Here were gathered grandchildren, a favorite and a few close friends. She was given chunks of ice, and she rubbed them openly on her cheeks. Then they covered it up with a small tulle cap, and the glow was over. The whole ceremony lasted for about 10 minutes.

Then everything was sent to the table. In the daytime, twenty people were invited to dinner. By right pyky admitted favorite. The dinner lasted about an hour and was very simple. Ekaterina has never bothered about the refinement of her table. Her favorite dish was boiled beef with pickled cucumbers. In the quality of the drink, she consumed a crimson mop. In the last years of life, according to the advice of the doctor, Ekaterin drank a glass of mader or rainwein. For dessert, they served fruit, according to the preference of apples and cherries. Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays, the Empress ate lean, and on these at the table there were only two or three guests.

After lunch, the restaurant had a few minutes of conversation with the invitees, then everything was spent. Ekaterina sat on the hoop - she embroidered very skillfully - and Betsky read it aloud. When he, having grown up, began to lose sight, she did not want to replace the ero by anyone and began to read herself, wearing glasses. Ekaterina was in the middle of all the bookish novelties of its time, and I read it all without plucking: from philosophical treatises and historical works to novels. She, of course, couldn’t take deeply all this great material and her erydition in many ways took over everything, and the knowledge in a nutshell, in general

The rest lasted about an hour. Then the empress was told about the arrival of the secretary: two times a week she picked up foreign mail with him and made notes on the fields. In other fixed days, she was served by persons in charge with reports or accusations.

At four o'clock, the empress's work day ended, and the time for rest and entertainment began. Along the long gallery, the Ekaterin passed from the Winter Palace to Hermitage. This was her favorite place to be. Her co-favored. She considered the new collections and placed them, played a game of billiards, and sometimes engrossed in cutting on a slope.

At six o'clock, the empress was transformed into the primeval times of the Hermitage, already filled with faces that could be accommodated. Gpaf Xopd in cvoix memyapax tak opicyval Epmitazh: "OH zanimaet tseloe kpylo impepatopckogo dvoptsa and coctoit of kaptinnoy galepei, dvyx bolshix komnat for kaptochnoy of ig.py and esche odnoy, Where yzhinayut nA dvyx ctolax" on cemeynomy ", a pyadom c these komnatami naxoditcya winter Arboretum , kpyty and xoposho ocveschenny Tam gylyayut cpedi depevev and mnogochiclennyx gopshkov c tsvetami Tam letayut and poyut paznoobpaznye birds glavnym obpazom kanapeyki Hagpevaetcya Arboretum podzemnymi pechami;... necmotpya nA cypovy klimat in nem vcegda tsapctvyet ppiyatnaya tempepatypa etot ctol ppelectny apaptament ctanovitcya esche. . lychshe From tsapyaschey zdec cvobody Bce chyvctvyyut cebya neppinyzhdenno: impepatpitsey izgnan otcyuda vcyaky etiket Tyt gylyayut, igpayut, poyut; date every delaet chto emy npavitcya Kaptinnaya galepeya izobilyet pepvoklaccnymi shedevpami Ekatepina medlenno obxodila goctinyyu, govopila neckolko miloctivyx clov and zatem cadilac za... She played with great effort and excitement.

The receptions in the Hermitage were large, medium and small. At the first, I invited all the knowledge and the whole diplomatic corpus. The points were replaced by the performances in which all the notables of that time were used. After the concerts and the Italian operas, they began to give Russian comics and dramas. They played French compositions and operas.

On the last meeting, the people were less. All other characteristics had little advantages. Their inheritors were only members of the imperial surname and a person, especially close to the empress, in total there were no more than twenty people. There were rules on the walls: it was forbidden, among other things, to stand in front of the guest, even if she would go to a guest and make a meal with him. Zappeschaloc be mpachnom pacpolozhenii dyxa, ockopblyat dpyg dpyga, govopit c kem bylo would verily no dypno. "Bcyakie of ig.py polzovalic nA etix cobpaniyax gpomadnym ycpexom. Ekatepina pepvoy ychactvovala to nix, vozbyzhdala vo vcex veceloct and pazpeshala vcyakie volnocti.

At ten o'clock the game was over, and the Catherine was removed to the interior. The supper was served only in good times, but then the Ekaterina was served at the table just for sight. When she returned to herself, she went to the bedroom, drank a large glass of boiled water, and lied in the bed.

"Her splendor dazzled, her friendliness attracted, her generosity bound" - wrote about Catherine II A. S. Pushkin. Indeed, luxury and grace were a characteristic feature of the era, which descendants began to call "Catherine's". The Empress was affectionate and easy to deal with courtiers and even servants, and in some cases she remembered that “bowing my back doesn’t hurt”. After the rudeness of the monarchs of the previous time, it all seemed surprising and even frightening. Catherine herself told me longingly: “When I enter the room, you might think that I’m a jellyfish head: everyone freezes, everyone takes a pompous look; I often shout ... against this custom, but you cannot stop them with a cry, and the more I get angry , the less they are at ease with me, so I have to resort to other means. "

She wrote contemptuously about the court manners of the times of Elizaveta Petrovna: “They were careful not to talk about art and science, because everyone was ignorant: one could bet that only half of the society could barely read, and I’m not very sure that a third could write".

Now at court, erudition and education were in value. In the houses of the capital's nobility, extensive libraries appeared, where the works of French classics took pride of place, and next to them were the works of Russian authors on the shelves.

Catherine, probably no less than Elizaveta Petrovna, loved balls, masquerades, entertainment, but at the same time was an active nature. "For Catherine, living from a young age meant working," wrote V.O. Klyuchevsky. Perhaps the only Russian monarch, she quite professionally owned a pen, and she herself tried her hand at drama, journalism and historical research. But, of course, the main "job" of the empress was the management of a vast empire, which she coquettishly called her "small farm". She constantly devoted a lot of time and effort to state affairs, not giving them at the mercy of either confidants or favorites.

By the time of Catherine's accession to the Russian throne, favoritism was no longer a novelty here: suffice it to recall Biron under Anna Ioanovna or Razumovsky under Elizaveta Petrovna. However, it was under Catherine that favoritism turned into a state institution in Russia (as in France under Louis XIV and Louis XV). The favorites, living with the empress, were recognized as people who served the fatherland, and were noticeable not only by their activity and power of influence, but even by whims and abuses.

Favoritism began from the day of Catherine's accession to the throne and ends only with her death. Historians count 15 favorites of Catherine during the period from 1753 to 1796. Many of them, especially at the end of the reign, were significantly (30 years or more) younger than the empress.

Was there a sensible deprivation in her endless losses? Apparently, no. Ekaterina is an exceptional woman, richly gifted mentally and physically, boldly overstepping all the difficult obstacles of her gender; it is used by unrestricted independence, self-sufficiency.

In her relation to favorites, there was not only one powerful urge of passion; not only due to the sensitivity of it moved from hand to hand. No, there was something different here. With all her energy, with all the hardness of her mind, with all her own perfection, the Ekaterina was all determined that all this is still not sufficient for performance; she feels the need for a man's mind, for a man's will, if only they were below her mind and will.

Her mind was not only excessive, crossed the common boundaries, but it was a powerful, self-motivated, suspicious of the established rules, but driving or driving the law of its own inclinations, will, even cappi. Ekaterina terribly wished for the inclusion of their favorites in the public affairs and asked them about it.

The English envoy Harris and Custer, a famous historian, even figured out what the favorites of Catherine II cost Russia. They received over 100 million rubles from her in cash. With the then Russian budget, which did not exceed 80 million a year, this was a huge amount. The value of the land belonging to the favorites was also enormous. In addition, the gifts included peasants, palaces, a lot of jewelry, dishes. In general, favoritism in Russia was considered a natural disaster that ruined the entire country and hindered its development.

The money that was supposed to go to the education of the people, the development of arts, crafts and industry, to open schools, went to the personal pleasures of the favorites and floated away into their bottomless pockets.

1. 3. The era of the reign of Catherine II - the era of enlightened absolutism

The reign of E. II is called the era of enlightened absolutism. The meaning of enlightened absolutism lies in the policy of following the ideas of the Enlightenment, expressed in carrying out reforms that destroyed some of the most outdated feudal institutions (and sometimes took a step towards bourgeois development). The idea of \u200b\u200ba state with an enlightened monarch capable of transforming social life on a new, reasonable basis became widespread in the 18th century.

The development and implementation of the beginnings of enlightened absolutism in Russia took on the character of an integral state-political reform, during which a new state and legal appearance of an absolute monarchy was formed. At the same time, social and legal policy was characterized by class delimitation: the nobility, the middle class and the peasantry.

Catherine imagined the tasks of the "enlightened monarch" as follows:

1. It is necessary to educate the nation, which must be governed.

2. It is necessary to introduce good order in the state, to support society and

make him obey the laws.

3. It is necessary to establish a good and accurate police force in the state.

4. It is necessary to promote the flourishing of the state and make it abundant.

5. It is necessary to make the state formidable in itself and inspiring respect for its neighbors. "

And this was not hypocrisy or a deliberate pose, advertising or ambition. Catherine really dreamed of a state capable of ensuring the well-being of its subjects. The belief in the omnipotence of the human mind, characteristic of the age of the Enlightenment, made the queen believe that all obstacles to this could be removed by adopting good laws.

Catherine II, striving to show herself to be the continuer of the work of Peter 1 and cherishing her foreign reputation, discovered an outward concern for the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, which was considered a Peter's brainchild and had connections with Western Europe. On October 6, 1766, a government decree was issued recognizing the "great disorder and complete decline" of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and announcing that the Empress was accepting her into her "own department" in order to bring her to a flourishing state. However, things did not go further than broadcast statements: no significant changes were made in the organization of the Academy, the Academy did not receive a new charter. A real measure for expanding scientific activity was only a significant replenishment of the academic staff.

Second half of the 18th century - the time of the formation of Russian landlord life. After the release of the nobles from compulsory public service, the estates become their place of permanent residence. Over the course of several decades, a rather dense network of country estates was created, usually located far from both capitals. A special "everyday culture" has developed in these estates.

“The easiest places to settle in the estates were those who, having large means and some taste, tried to use art to cover up the wrongness of their life situation. Moving away from the noise of the capital, a voluntary hermit somewhere in the wilderness of the Vladimir or even Saratov province, away from the main road, among his 20 thousand acres of land, erected a modest monastery of 100 rooms, surrounded by buildings of services with several hundred courtyard servants. All the muses of ancient Greece, with the assistance of home-grown serfs, artists, artists and actresses, were called to decorate and revive this corner of a secular hermit, privy councilor or retired captain of the guard.

Tapestries, wallpaper hand-painted by an idle rural master, portraits, watercolors, engravings, amazing works, scenes from ancient antiquity, an amphilade of 20 halls and a living room with a perspective closed at both ends by the colossal figure of Catherine II, embroidered with silks and with an unusually fresh selection of colors , in one of the charcoal back rooms, a row of large bookcases hung with dark green cloth with the words "Historia", "Phisique", "Politique", in the other - a home theater with three rows of chairs in the stalls, and next to a hall in two lights, from ceiling to floor, hung with portraits - a living history of the 18th century in faces, somewhere in the corner, especially from others, a typical figure carefully drawn on a canvas with smoldering coal eyes, a needle nose and a bent and pointed chin coming towards him - the famous figure of Voltaire, and at the top of the palace is a cozy cell, decorated with views of France, where under a yellow silk canopy rests the merry companion of the owner, mr Grammont, a selfless apostle ol reason, who left his native France to sow enlightenment among the Scythians of the Serdobsky district.

In the house, on the walls, the eyes did not find a place, not covered by science or art, there was no gap left through which street light or everyday prose could penetrate into this magic lantern.

What did the inhabitants of these graceful shelters do and how did they live? One of them, Catherine's nobleman and diplomat Prince A. B. Kurakin, a single father of 70 children, in front of the stairs of his village palace on Khopr, exhibited his program for the information of the guests, one of the points of which read: "The owner considers hospitality and hospitality the basis of mutual dormitories, consequently sees these as pleasant positions for themselves. "

So, they lived for friends and enjoyed their company, and in the intervals of solitude they admired, read, sang, wrote poetry - in a word, they worshiped art and decorated the hostel. “It was a cloying and licentious idyll of lordly sybarism, brought up by the carefree idleness of serf life” - so ironically, but very faithfully, V.O. Klyuchevsky will describe the life of Catherine's grandee away from the noise of the capital.

True, at the very end of the 18th century, the spirit of sentimentalism penetrates into the life of the Russian aristocracy. Inhabitants move from lush palaces to "seclusion houses", characterized by both modesty and architecture and interior decoration. Regular parks give way to landscaped gardens. But it was also a tribute to fashion.

As a result of the reforms of Catherine II, the social life of the nobles intensified. Congresses of the nobility, elections were accompanied by various celebrations, balls, masquerades. An additional reason has appeared for the frequent change of dress, the emergence of new types of it. They tried to dress richly and fashionably. Since 1779, the magazine Fashion Monthly Essay, or Library for Ladies' Dress began to publish fashion. The importance of uniforms has increased.

In 1782 a decree was issued, which regulated the colors of noble clothing by provinces, in accordance with the colors of the provincial coat of arms. In April 1784, the decree "On uniforms for noblemen and provincial officials" for the first time in the entire empire introduced a uniform for all who were "in charge of the nobility and citizenship." The decree provided not only a specific color, but also a specific cut of the uniform for each province.

Attempts have been made to regulate women's clothing. In the second half of the 18th century, a number of government decrees were issued, recommending that ladies observe "more simplicity and moderation in their dress." Ceremonial dresses were allowed to be decorated with lace no more than two vershoks (9 cm) wide, and they should be sewn only from Moscow gold or silver brocade. Elegant dresses were supposed to be sewn from domestic silk or cloth, and in color they had to correspond to men's provincial suits.

The party hostile to Bestuzhev held on to France, Sweden, which enjoyed its patronage, and the King of Prussia; the Marquis de la Chetardie was her soul, and the court, which came from Holstein, was matadors; they attracted Count Lestock, one of the main agents of the coup, who elevated the late Empress Elisabeth to the Russian throne. This latter enjoyed great confidence in her; he was her surgeon since the death of Catherine I, with whom he was, and rendered essential services to mother and daughter; he had no lack of intelligence, tricks, or sneakiness, but he was angry and black and nasty at heart. All these foreigners supported each other and put forward Count Mikhail Vorontsov, who also took part in the coup and accompanied Elizabeth on the night she ascended the throne. She forced him to marry the niece of Empress Catherine I, Countess Anna Karlovna Skavronskaya, who was raised with Empress Elisabeth and was very attached to her.

Count Alexander Rumyantsev, the father of the field marshal, joined this party, having signed a peace treaty with the Swedes in Abo, about which they did not really consult with Bestuzhev. They also counted on the Prosecutor General Prince Trubetskoy, on the whole Trubetskoy family and, consequently, on the Prince of Hesse-Homburg, who was married to the princess of this house. This prince of Hesse-Homburg, then highly respected, was nothing in itself, and his importance depended on the numerous relatives of his wife, whose father and mother were still alive; this latter was very heavy. The rest of the empress's confidants were then the Shuvalov family, who hesitated at every step, the Chief Jägermeister Razumovsky, who at that time was a recognized favorite, and one bishop. Count Bestuzhev knew how to benefit from them, but his main support was Baron Cherkasov, secretary of the Empress's Cabinet, who had previously served in the Cabinet of Peter I. He was a rude and stubborn man who demanded order and justice and observance of rules in every matter.

The rest of the courtiers stood on one side or the other, depending on their interests and everyday views. The Grand Duke seemed delighted at the arrival of my mother and mine.

Catherine II at the age of 16

I was in my fifteenth year; for the first ten days he was very busy with me; immediately and during this short period of time, I saw and understood that he did not really appreciate the people over which he was destined to reign, that he adhered to Lutheranism, did not like his entourage and was very childish. I was silent and listened, which earned his trust; I remember he told me, among other things, that what he liked most about me was that I was his second cousin, and that as a relative he could speak to me to his liking, after which he said that he was in love with one of the Empress's maids of honor, who was then removed from the court due to the misfortune of her mother, a certain Lopukhina, exiled to Siberia; that he would like to marry her, but that he resigns himself to the necessity of marrying me, because his aunt so desires.

I listened, blushing, to these kindred conversations, thanks to his early trust, but deep down I looked with amazement at his foolishness and lack of judgment about many things.

On the tenth day after my arrival in Moscow, one Saturday, the Empress left for the Trinity Monastery. The Grand Duke stayed with us in Moscow. I have already been given three teachers: one, Simeon Theodorsky, to instruct me in the Orthodox faith; another, Vasily Adadurov, for the Russian language, and Lange, a ballet master, for dancing. In order to make faster progress in Russian, I got out of bed at night and, while everyone was asleep, memorized the notebooks that Adadurov left me; since my room was warm and I hadn’t gotten used to the climate at all, I didn’t put on shoes - as I got out of bed, I studied.

On the thirteenth day, I grabbed pleurisy, from which I almost died. It opened with a chill, which I felt on Tuesday after the Empress left for the Trinity Monastery: the minute I dressed to go to dinner with my mother at the Grand Duke, I hardly received permission from my mother to go to bed. When she returned from lunch, she found me almost unconscious, in extreme heat and with unbearable pain in my side. She imagined that I would have smallpox: she sent for the doctors and wanted them to treat me accordingly; they argued that I needed to bleed; the mother never wanted to agree to this; she said that doctors let her brother in Russia die of smallpox by bleeding him, and that she did not want the same thing to happen to me.

The doctors and associates of the Grand Duke, who did not yet have smallpox, were sent to accurately report to the empress on the state of affairs, and I remained in bed, between my mother and the doctors, who were arguing among themselves. I was unconscious, in extreme heat and with pain in my side, which made me suffer terribly and utter moans for which my mother scolded me, wishing that I would patiently endure the pain.

Finally, on Saturday evening, at seven o'clock, that is, on the fifth day of my illness, the empress returned from the Trinity Monastery and right after leaving the carriage entered my room and found me unconscious. The Earl Lestock and the surgeon followed her; After listening to the opinion of the doctors, she sat down at the head of my bed and ordered me to bleed. The minute the blood gushed, I came to my senses and, opening my eyes, saw myself in the arms of the Empress, who was lifting me.

I stayed between life and death for twenty-seven days, during which I was bled sixteen times and sometimes four times a day. Mother was almost never allowed into my room anymore; she was still against these frequent bloodletting and said loudly that they would kill me; however, she was beginning to make sure that I would not have smallpox.

The Empress assigned Countess Rumyantseva and several other women to me, and it was clear that the mother's judgment was not trusted. Finally, the abscess, which was in my right side, burst, thanks to the efforts of the Portuguese doctor Sanchets; I spat it out with vomiting, and from that moment I came to myself; I immediately noticed that my mother’s behavior during my illness had hurt everyone’s opinion.

When she saw that I was very bad, she wanted a Lutheran priest to be invited to me; They say I was brought to my senses or took advantage of the moment when I came to myself to offer me this, and that I replied: “Why? Better send for Simeon of Theodorsky, I will gladly talk to him. " They brought him to me, and in front of everyone he talked to me in such a way that everyone was happy. This really raised me in the opinion of the empress and the entire court.

Another very insignificant circumstance still hurt the mother. Around Easter, one morning, my mother took it into her head to send a message to me with the maid to give her the blue and silver fabric that my father’s brother had given me before my departure to Russia, because I really liked it. I told her to tell her that she was free to take it, but that, really, I love her very much, because my uncle gave it to me, seeing that I liked her. Those around me, seeing that I was giving the matter reluctantly, and in view of the fact that I had been lying in bed for so long, being between life and death, and that I had felt better for only two days, began to talk among themselves that it was very unreasonable on the part of my mother cause the dying child the slightest displeasure and that instead of wanting to take this matter, she would do better without mentioning it at all.

Let's go tell this to the Empress, who immediately sent me several pieces of rich and luxurious cloth, and, by the way, one blue and silver; this hurt the mother in the eyes of the empress: she was accused of not having any tenderness for me at all, nor solicitude. I used to lie with my eyes closed during illness; they thought I was sleeping, and then Countess Rumyantseva and the women who were with me talked among themselves about what they had in their souls, and in this way I recognized a lot of things.

Catherine II

Happiness is not as blind as people imagine it to be. It is often the result of a long series of measures, correct and accurate, not noticed by the crowd and preceding the event. And in particular, the happiness of individuals is a consequence of their qualities, character and personal behavior. To make it more tangible, I will construct the following syllogism:

quality and character will be the big premise;

behavior - less;

happiness or unhappiness is the conclusion.

Here are two striking examples:

Catherine II,

Peter III's mother, the daughter of Peter I [i], died about two months after giving birth to him, from consumption, in the small town of Kiel, in Holstein, with grief that she had to live there, and even in such an unfortunate married. Karl Friedrich, Duke of Holstein, nephew of Charles XII, King of Sweden, father of Peter III, was a weak, unsightly, small, frail and poor prince (see Bergholz's Diary in Buching's Shop). He died in 1739 and left a son, who was about eleven years old, under the tutelage of his cousin Adolf-Friedrich, Bishop of Lubeck, Duke of Holstein, later King of Sweden, elected on the basis of preliminary peace clauses in Abo at the suggestion of Empress Elisabeth [v].

At the head of Peter III's tutors was chief marshal of his court, Brummer, a Swede by birth; subordinate to him were the chief chamberlain Bergholz, the author of the above "Diary", and four chamberlains; two of them - Adlerfeldt, author of The History of Karl XII, and Wachtmeister were Swedes, and the other two, Wolf and Mardefeld, were Holsteins. This prince was brought up in view of the Swedish throne at a court too large for the country in which he was, and divided into several parties, burning with hatred; of these, each wanted to master the mind of the prince she was supposed to educate, and therefore instilled in him the repugnance that all parties mutually harbored towards their opponents. The young prince from the bottom of his heart hated Brummer, who instilled in him fear, and accused him of excessive severity. He despised Bergholz, who was a friend and pleaser of Brummer, and did not love any of his entourage, because they embarrassed him.

From the age of ten, Peter III discovered a propensity for drunkenness. He was forced into excessive representation and was not let out of sight, day or night. Whom he loved most in childhood and in the first years of his stay in Russia were two old valets: one - Kramer, Livonian, the other - Rumberg, Swede. The latter was especially dear to him. He was a rather rude and tough man, one of the dragoons of Charles XII. Brummer, and therefore Bergholz, who looked at everything only through the eyes of Brummer, were devoted to the prince, guardian and ruler; everyone else was displeased with this prince and even more with his entourage. Having ascended the Russian throne, Empress Elisabeth sent Chamberlain Korf to Holstein to summon her nephew, whom the prince-ruler sent immediately, accompanied by Chief Marshal Brummer, Chief Chamberlain Bergholz and Chamberlain Duker, who was the first nephew.

Great was the joy of the Empress on the occasion of his arrival. A little later, she went to the coronation in Moscow. She decided to declare this prince her heir. But first of all he had to convert to the Orthodox faith. The enemies of Chief Marshal Brummer, namely, the great chancellor Count Bestuzhev [x] and the late Count Nikita Panin, who had been the Russian envoy to Sweden for a long time, claimed that they had in their hands convincing evidence that Brummer since he saw that The empress decided to declare her nephew the prospective heir to the throne, and made as much efforts to spoil the mind and heart of her pupil as she had previously cared to make him worthy of the Swedish crown. But I have always doubted this vileness and thought that the upbringing of Peter III turned out to be unsuccessful due to unfortunate circumstances. I will tell you what I saw and heard, and this will explain a lot.

I saw Peter III for the first time, when he was eleven years old, in Eitin, with his guardian, the Prince-Bishop of Lubeck. A few months after the death of Duke Karl-Friedrich, his father, the Prince-Bishop gathered the whole family in Eitin in 1739 to introduce his pet into it. My grandmother, the mother of the prince-bishop, and my mother, the sister of the same prince, came there from Hamburg with me. I was ten then. There were also Prince Augustus and Princess Anne, brother and sister of the guardian prince and ruler of Holstein. It was then that I heard from this family gathered together that the young duke was inclined towards drunkenness and that his entourage hardly prevented him from drinking at the table, that he was stubborn and quick-tempered, that he did not like those around him, and especially Brummer, which, however , he showed liveliness, but was weak and frail in build.