Chapter XIII: Letter 8: Be a man, stop and make answer? (3)

Towards the end of December 1761, there was a rumour that Elizabeth was very ill.

Princess Dashkov was lying in bed with a very bad cold when the news reached her. The thought of Catherine’s danger struck her; she could no more lie still in bed with it than with the thought of her husband’s illness; and so, wrapped in a fur coat, on the frosty night of the 20th of December, she set off for the wooden palace on the Moika, where the royal family lived at that time. Not wishing to be seen, she left the carriage at a little distance from the Palace, and walked towards the little entrance at the side of the Grand Duchess’s apartments, though she did not know the way to them. Fortunately she met Katerina Ivanovna, the Grand Duchess’s maid; the latter said that the Grand Duchess was in bed; but Princess Dashkov insisted on being announced, saying that she absolutely must see her at once. The maid, knowing her and her devotion to the Grand Duchess, obeyed. Catherine, who knew the Princess Dashkov was seriously ill, and so would not have come out at night in the frost without specially important reasons, ordered her to be shown up.

At first she showered reproaches on the princess for not taking care of herself, and, seeing that she was cold, said to her: ‘Dear princess, first of all you must get warm; come, get into my bed’; and only after tucking her up, she asked her at last what was the matter.

‘In the present position of affairs,’ said Princess Dashkov, ‘when the Empress has only a few days, perhaps a few hours, to live, you must, without loss of time, take measures against the danger with which you are threatened and steps to avert it. For God’s sake, trust me; I will show you that I am worthy of your trust. If you have any definite plan, make use of me, dispose of me, I am at your service.’

Catherine burst into tears and, pressing her friend’s hand to her heart, said: ‘I assure you that I have no plan whatever; there is nothing I can do, and I imagine that all that is left me is to await the course of events with fortitude. I resign myself to the will of God, and rest all my hopes on Him alone.’

‘In that case your friends must act for you. As for me, I feel I have strength and energy enough to carry them all with me; and believe me, there is no sacrifice which would hinder me.’

‘For God’s sake,’ Catherine interrupted, ‘do not expose yourself to danger in the hope of resisting evil which seems really inevitable. If you ruin yourself for my sake, you will only add an everlasting grief to my unhappy lot.’

‘All that I can tell you is that I will not take a step which could possibly involve you, or put you in danger. Whatever happens, may it come upon me, and, if my blind devotion to you leads me to the scaffold, you shall never be its victim.’

Catherine would have protested, but Princess Dashkov[52] interrupting her, took her hand, pressed it to her lips, and, saying that she was afraid to continue the conversation, asked leave to withdraw. Deeply touched, they remained for some minutes in each other’s arms, then the princess cautiously went out, leaving Catherine in great agitation.

We must add to this affecting scene that Catherine had all the same deceived the princess; she had not entrusted her fate to God alone, but also to Grigory Orlov, with whom she had thought out her plan, and Orlov was already secretly trying to enlist the co-operation of the officers.

At Christmas the Empress died. Petersburg received the news gloomily; and Princess Dashkov herself saw the Semyonovsky and Izmailovsky regiments march sullenly past her house with muffled murmurs.

Peter III., proclaimed Emperor, paid no regard to decorum; the drinking bouts went on. A few days after Elizabeth’s death he visited the father of Princess Dashkov, and through her sister announced his displeasure at not seeing her at court. There was no escaping it; she went. Peter III., dropping his voice, began telling her that she would end by drawing upon herself his anger, and might very bitterly repent of it later on, ‘because there may easily come a time when Romanovna’ (that was what he called his mistress) ‘will be in _that woman’s_ place.’

Princess Dashkov made a show of not understanding, and hurriedly took her place at Peter III.’s favourite game. In this game (_campis_) each player has several counters; the player who keeps one till the last wins the game. Every one put down ten imperials, which, considering Princess Dashkov’s income at that time, was not a trifling sum for her, particularly as, when Peter III. lost, he used to take a counter out of his pocket and lay it on the pool, so that he almost always won. As soon as the game was over, the Tsar proposed a second; she refused. He pestered her so much to play that, taking advantage of her ‘position as spoilt child,’ she told him that she was not rich enough to lose for certain, that if His Majesty played like other people she would, at any rate, have a chance of winning. Peter III. responded with his ‘usual buffooneries,’ and the princess made her bows and withdrew.

As she walked through the suite of rooms filled with courtiers and persons of various grades, she felt as though she were at a masquerade, there was no one she could recognise. She could not help laughing when she saw Prince Trubetskoy, who was seventy, for the first time in his life dressed up in a military uniform, standing at attention, in high boots with spurs, all ready, in fact, for the most desperate battle. ‘The pitiful little old man,’ she adds, ‘pretending to be ill and suffering, as beggars do, lay in bed while Elizabeth was dying; he felt a little better when Peter III. was proclaimed, and, learning that everything had gone off well, he leapt up at once, armed himself from head to foot, and showed himself like a hero in the Izmailovsky regiment to which he was attached.’

Apropos of uniforms, the fatal passion for them was handed down from Peter III. to Paul, from Paul to all his children, to all the generals, staff and higher officers; Panin, who supervised the education of Paul, complained that Peter III. was never present at his examinations. The Holstein princes, his uncles, persuaded Peter to attend one at least; he was very much pleased, and promoted Panin to be a general in the infantry. To perceive the full absurdity of this, one must picture the pale, sickly figure of Panin, who liked to be correctly dressed and scrupulously groomed, and was rather like a courtier of the days of Louis XIV. Panin detested Peter III.’s barrack-room tone, he hated uniforms and all that nonsense. When Melgunov brought him the joyful tidings that he was a general, Panin would have fled to Switzerland and lived there in preference to wearing the uniform. News of this reached Peter III.; he transferred him to the corresponding civilian grade. He never got over his surprise at Panin. ‘Why,’ he used to say, ‘I always thought Panin was a sensible man!’

While Peter III. was dressing his courtiers up as heroes, the usual funeral ceremonies were taking place. The Empress did not leave her rooms, and only appeared at the requiem service. Peter III., too, only rarely showed himself, and then always behaved improperly, whispering with the ladies, laughing with his adjutants, mocking at the clergy, scolding the officers, and even the common soldiers, over buttons or some such trifle. ‘The new Emperor,’ the English ambassador, Keith, said to Prince Golitsyn, ‘is beginning his reign imprudently; if he goes on like this he will come to be despised by his people and afterwards to be hated by them.’

Peter III. did everything as though on purpose to arouse this hatred. One evening, when Princess Dashkov was present, the Tsar was holding forth, as his habit was, on the subject of his respect for Frederick II., and suddenly turning to the Secretary of State, Volkov, who had been Chief Secretary of the Privy Council under Elizabeth, he asked him whether he remembered how they used to laugh over the perpetual failure of the secret instructions sent to the army in the field. Volkov, who together with Peter, then Grand Duke, had communicated to the Prussian King all the army orders, and so stultified them, was so taken aback by Peter III.’s words that he almost fainted. But the Tsar went on, jocosely describing how in time of war they had betrayed to the enemy the country in which he was heir to the throne.

At the conclusion of the peace with the Prussian King, in which he shamefully yielded everything that had been won by Russian blood, there was no end to the delight and rejoicing. There was festivity after festivity. Among others Peter III. gave a great dinner, to which all the ambassadors and members of the three first grades were invited. After dinner the Tsar proposed three toasts, which were drunk to the firing of cannon—to the health of the Imperial Family, to the health of the Prussian King, to the permanence of the peace that had been concluded.

When the Empress drank the toast to the Imperial Family, Peter III. sent his adjutant, Gudovitch, who was standing by his chair, to ask her why she did not stand up. Catherine answered that since the Imperial Family consisted only of her husband, her son, and herself, she had not supposed that it would be His Majesty’s pleasure that she should stand up. When Gudovitch repeated her answer, the Tsar bade him go back and tell the Empress that she was ‘a fool,’ and ought to know that his uncles, the Holstein princes, belonged to the Imperial Family too. This was not enough; afraid that Gudovitch would soften his rudeness, he repeated what he had said across the table, so that the greater number of the guests heard it. For the first minute the Empress could not refrain from shedding tears, but, anxious to end the scandal as quickly as possible, she turned to the _kammerherr_, Strogonov, who was standing behind her chair, and begged him to begin some conversation. Strogonov, who was himself deeply shocked, began babbling something with a show of liveliness. As he went out of the palace, he received the command to go to his country estate, and not to leave it without permission.

This incident was exceedingly prejudicial to Peter III. Every one pitied the unfortunate woman, who had been grossly insulted by a drunken boor. Princess Dashkov was naturally bound to take advantage of this state of public feeling. She became a desperate conspirator, persuading, sounding, enlisting sympathisers, and at the same time she went to balls and danced to avoid arousing suspicion. Prince Dashkov, insulted by Peter III., made him some answer on parade. The princess, afraid of the consequences, succeeded in procuring him a commission to Constantinople, and gave him the advice to ‘make haste slowly’ with it. Having sent him off, she surrounded herself with officers who put the fullest confidence in their eighteen-year-old leader.

There were other people about Peter III. who were dissatisfied, but owing to their age and position took no part in the conspiracy; they were glad to take advantage of a change, but the risk of losing their heads on the scaffold was too much for a Razumovsky or a Panin. The real conspirators were Princess Dashkov with her officers, and Orlov with his adherents.

Of Razumovsky Princess Dashkov says: ‘He loves his country as much as the apathetic man can love anything. Sunk in the bog of wealth, surrounded by marks of respect, well received at the new court, and liked by the officers, he has dropped into indifference and grown sluggish.’

Panin was a statesman and looked further ahead than the rest; his aim was to proclaim Paul Tsar and Catherine Regent. So doing he hoped to curtail the power of the Autocracy. Moreover, he thought to attain his object by legal means through the Senate.

All this was far from being approved by Princess Dashkov. Moreover, the dissatisfaction and murmuring among the soldiers were growing. The disgraceful peace, on the one hand, and the insane war with Denmark which with no serious object Peter III. wanted to wage over Holstein, exasperated men’s minds. This war became an insane obsession with him; even Frederick II. tried by letter to persuade him to defer it.

It is said that the young conspiratress used peculiarly eloquent weapons to induce stubborn Panin to co-operate with her party. Panin was so attracted by her intelligence, her energy, and, above all, her beauty, that, old as he was, he fell passionately in love with her. Princess Dashkov rejected his love with mirth, but finding no other means of persuading him she made up her mind to bribe him with herself. After this Panin was in her hands. It is only just to say that in two passages of her memoirs she denies this rumour with indignation.[53]

Although the conspirators could reckon on Razumovsky and Panin, and, what was more, on the Archbishop of Novgorod, and although a number of officers adhered to the conspiracy, they had no definite plan of action. Though at one in a common object, they could not agree on the steps to be taken; Princess Dashkov, devoured by burning energy, was angry with their deliberateness, did not know what to do, and at last went off to her summer villa at Krasny Kabak. This summer villa was the first possession she had entirely of her own: she at once set to work rebuilding, digging ditches, laying out gardens. ‘In spite,’ she said, ‘of the affection I had for that first bit of ground which was my own, I did not want to give it my name, as I wished to dedicate it to the name of the saint on whose day success crowns our great enterprise.’ ‘Make haste and give a name to my villa,’ she writes to the Empress, when laid up with a fever, which she had caught through riding up to her waist in a bog. Catherine could make nothing of it, and thought that her friend was delirious.

But it was Peter III. who was really delirious; while Princess Dashkov was planting acacias and clearing paths, he was moving rapidly on his downward path; one folly succeeded another, one unseemly vulgarity was followed by another twice as unseemly. Keith’s prophecy was coming true: public feeling was passing from contempt into hatred.

The Austrian persecution of the Greek Church in Serbia had driven many Serbs to appeal to the Empress Elizabeth, begging her to assign them lands in the south of Russia. In addition to lands, Elizabeth ordered a considerable sum of money to be given them for the expenses of their moving and resettlement. One of their agents, Horvat, a wily, intriguing fellow, took possession of the lands and money and, instead of carrying out the conditions on which the land was given, began to dispose of the emigrants as though they were his serfs. The Serbs presented a complaint, Elizabeth ordered an enquiry, but before it was over she died. Horvat, hearing of her death, went to Petersburg and began by giving two thousand gold pieces to each of the three persons who were in closest relations with Peter III.—L. Naryshkin, who was something in the way of a court buffoon, General Melgunov, and the Prosecutor-General Glyebov. The two latter went to the Tsar and told him straight out of the bribe. Peter III. was much pleased at their openness, he praised them for it, and added that if they would give him half he would go himself to the Senate and command them to decide the case in favour of Horvat. They divided the spoils, the Tsar kept his word, and for two thousand gold pieces lost hundreds of thousands of new settlers; seeing that their comrades had been cheated by the Government, those who had not yet started did not venture to move.

When the case was over, Peter III. heard that Naryshkin had concealed his bribe, and, to punish him for this lack of friendly confidence, took the whole sum from him. And for a long time afterwards he used to tease Naryshkin by asking him what he was doing with Horvat’s gold pieces.

Here is another charming anecdote of Peter III. One day the Tsar returned home with Razumovsky after parade, much pleased with the Izmailovsky regiment; suddenly he heard a noise a little way off; his favourite negro was fighting with the fencing-master. At first Peter III. was delighted with the spectacle, but all at once he pulled a solemn face and said: ‘Narcisse exists no longer for us.’ Razumovsky, who could make nothing of it, asked what had so suddenly distressed His Majesty. ‘Why, don’t you see,’ he cried, ‘that I cannot keep a man about me who has fought with a fencing-master? he is disgraced, disgraced for ever.’ Razumovsky, pretending to enter into these deep considerations, observed that the negro’s honour might be restored by passing him under the flag of the regiment. This idea delighted Peter III.; he at once called the negro, bade him pass under the flag, and, feeling this was not quite sufficient, ordered that he should be scratched with the lance of the flag that he might wash out his offence with his own blood. The poor negro almost died of fright, the generals and the officers could hardly restrain their indignation and laughter. Only Peter III. performed the whole ritual of the negro’s purification with perfect solemnity throughout.

And this buffoon was Tsar!... But not for long!

On the evening of the 27th of June Grigory Orlov came to Princess Dashkov to tell her that Captain Passek, one of the most desperate conspirators, was arrested. Orlov found Panin with her; to lose time, to procrastinate, was now impossible. Only the lymphatic, slow, and cautious Panin counselled waiting till the morrow, and first finding out how and why Passek was arrested. This did not please Orlov or her. The former said that he would go to find out about Passek. Princess Dashkov asked Panin to leave her, pretending that she was excessively tired. As soon as Panin had driven off, she threw on a man’s grey overcoat and set off on foot to see Roslavlev, one of the conspirators.

Not far from home she met a man on horseback galloping full speed. Although she had never seen Orlov’s brothers, she guessed that it was one of them; when she reached him, she called his name. He pulled up the horse, and she made herself known to him. ‘I was coming to you,’ he said. ‘Passek has been seized as a political criminal. There are four sentries at the doors and two at the window. My brother has gone to Panin, and I have been to Roslavlev.’

‘Is Roslavlev much alarmed?’

‘He is indeed.’

‘Send word to our men, Roslavlev, Lasunsky, Tchertkov, and Bredihin to gather at once to the Izmailovsky regiment, and to make ready to receive the Empress. Then say that I advise your brother or you to ride as fast as you can to Peterhof for the Empress; tell her that I have a carriage ready, tell her that I beseech her not to delay, but to drive full speed to Petersburg.’

On the previous evening Princess Dashkov, who had heard from Passek of the great discontent of the soldiers, and was afraid that something might happen, had by way of precaution written to the wife of Catherine’s _kammerdiener_, Shkurin, telling her to send a carriage with four post-horses to her husband at Peterhof, and to bid him await her in his yard. Panin laughed at this unnecessary fuss, supposing that the _coup d’état_ was not so imminent; events proved how necessary Princess Dashkov’s precautions were.

On parting from Orlov, she returned home. In the evening a tailor was to have brought her a man’s dress, but did not bring it, and she was not free enough dressed as a woman. To avoid rousing suspicion, she dismissed her maid and went to bed; but half an hour had not passed before she heard a knock at the outer door. It was the youngest Orlov, who had been sent by his elder brothers to ask her whether it was not too soon to disturb the Empress; Princess Dashkov was beside herself, and showered reproaches upon him and all his brothers: ‘As though it were a question,’ she said, ‘of disturbing the Empress; better bring her unconscious, fainting, to Petersburg than expose her to imprisonment or to sharing the scaffold with us. Tell your brothers that some one must go this very minute to Peterhof.’

The young man agreed with her.

Then followed agonising hours of solitude and suspense; she trembled for her Catherine, and pictured her pale, worn out, in prison, going to be beheaded, and all ‘through our fault.’ Exhausted and feverish, she waited for news from Peterhof. At four o’clock it came: the Empress had gone to Petersburg.

How Alexey Orlov went in the night to the pavilion to where Catherine was calmly asleep; how, though, like Princess Dashkov, she did not know the younger Orlov by sight, she instantly determined to set off in the carriage that was waiting for her at Shkurin’s; how Orlov sat on the box-seat as coachman, and knocked the horses up by his driving, so that the Empress was obliged to walk with her maid; how they afterwards met an empty cart; how Orlov hired it, and brought Catherine to Petersburg in democratic style—all that is well known.

The soldiers of the Izmailovsky regiment received Catherine with enthusiasm; they were told that Peter III. had tried that night to kill her and her son. With shouts and uproar the soldiers escorted her from the barracks to the Winter Palace, proclaiming her the reigning Empress as they passed through the streets; they met with no hindrance of any kind. The people flocked in crowds to the Palace, the leading noblemen gathered together in the Cathedral, and the Archbishop, surrounded by clergy, awaited the new sovereign with holy water.

When, after terrific efforts, Princess Dashkov succeeded in reaching Catherine, they rushed into each other’s arms, and could only say: ‘Well, thank God, thank God!’ Then Catherine told her how they had driven from Peterhof, then they fell to embracing each other again. ‘I do not know,’ writes Princess Dashkov, ‘whether a mortal has ever been happier than I was at that minute!’

‘And,’ she adds, ‘when I think by what extraordinarily small means this revolution was effected, with no thought-out plan, by men who were not agreed among themselves, who had different aims in view, and were not in the least alike either in breeding or character, it is clear to me that the finger of Providence was in it.’

The revolution, of course, was essential, but if the finger of Providence was so directly concerned in it, then the divine hands were far from being clean on that day.

After they had kissed each other to their hearts’ content, Princess Dashkov noticed that the Empress was wearing the Catherine and not the Andrew ribbon; she ran at once to Panin, took off his ribbon, put it on the Empress, and put the Catherine ribbon and star in her pocket.

The Empress expressed a desire to put herself at the head of the troops and to march to Peterhof. At the same time she ordered the princess to accompany her. The Empress took a uniform from Captain Talyzin, Princess Dashkov one from Sergeant Pushkin. Both uniforms were of the old Preobrazhensky pattern. As soon as the Empress had arrived in Petersburg, the soldiers had, of their own initiative, cast off their new uniforms and put on their old ones.

While Princess Dashkov was changing her dress, Catherine was presiding over an Extraordinary Council, consisting of the highest dignitaries and senators who happened to be on the spot. The sentinels stationed at the doors admitted to it a young officer with a bold carriage and reckless air. No one but the Empress recognised him as Princess Dashkov; she went up to Catherine and said that the guard was very inefficient, that they would perhaps admit Peter III. himself if he should suddenly appear (how little even she knew the buffoon!); the guard was immediately strengthened; meanwhile, the Empress, who was dictating a manifesto to Tyeplov, broke off to tell the members of the Council who this young officer was who had come up _sans façon_, and begun whispering to her. All the senators stood up to greet her. ‘I blushed to my ears at this honour,’ says the charming sergeant, ‘and indeed I was rather embarrassed by it.

‘Then, after taking the necessary measures to ensure the tranquillity of the capital, we mounted our horses, and on the road to Peterhof reviewed ten thousand men, who cheered the Empress with enthusiasm.’

At Krasny Kabak the insurrectionary army halted: the men, who had been on their legs for twelve hours, needed a rest. Catherine and Princess Dashkov, who had not slept at all the last few nights, were much exhausted. The princess took an overcoat from Colonel Kar, spread it over the solitary sofa in the little room they had taken at the inn, and stationed sentries; then she and Catherine stretched themselves on the sofa, not taking off their uniforms, but firmly resolved to get a little sleep; they could not sleep, however, but spent the whole time talking, making plans, and entirely forgetting the danger they were in.

There is no denying that there is something extraordinarily fascinating in this daring exploit of two women, who changed the destinies of an empire, in this revolution wrought by a handsome, clever woman, surrounded by young men in love with her, and with the leading figure among them a beauty of eighteen on horseback in the Preobrazhensky regiment, with a sabre in her hand.

The unlucky Peter was meanwhile driving from Oranienbaum to Peterhof, and from Peterhof to Oranienbaum, unable to think what to do or to decide upon anything. He looked for Catherine through all the rooms of the pavilion, behind doors and cupboards, as though she were playing ‘hide-and-seek’ with him, and, not without complacency, repeated to ‘Romanovna’: ‘There, you see I was right; I was sure she would do something; I always said that woman was capable of anything.’

The old champion, Minih, still stood by him, all Russia and part of Petersburg was still not against him, but he had already lost his head entirely. Displaying incredible cowardice at Cronstadt, he bade the Imperial yacht sail not to the fleet, but back to Oranienbaum; the ladies were afraid of sickness and the sea, he was afraid of everything. It was a calm moonlight night; the pitiful Tsar hid in the cabin with his courtiers, while the two heroes, Minih and Gudovitch, sat in gloomy brooding on deck, with shame and anger and sorrow in their hearts; they saw that there is no saving people against their will. At four o’clock in the morning they reached Oranienbaum again, and crestfallen stealthily returned to the Palace. Peter sat down to write a letter to Catherine.

At the same time two fiery steeds were being saddled, one for Catherine, the other for Princess Dashkov, and again, full of gaiety and energy, they were at the head of their soldiers, who set off on the march at five o’clock, and halted to rest at the Troitsky Monastery. Then Peter’s envoys began appearing one after another, bringing proposals each more foolish than the last; he abdicated from the throne, begged leave to go to Holstein, and owned himself to blame and unfit to rule. Catherine insisted on his unconditional surrender to avert greater troubles, and promised in return to arrange his life as comfortably as possible in whichever he preferred of the palaces away from the town.

Catherine’s troops calmly occupied Peterhof; Orlov, who had ridden on to reconnoitre, had found no one there. The Holsteiners, who were about Peter in Oranienbaum and were devoted to him, were ready to die for him, but he told them to make no defence; he meant to flee, ordered a horse to be brought, but did not mount it; instead, he got into a carriage with Romanovna and Gudovitch, and mournfully went to surrender to his guilty wife. He was led secretly into a remote room of the Palace. Gudovitch, who even then behaved with extraordinary dignity, was arrested, together with Romanovna; Peter was given food and drink, and taken to Ropsha in the escort of Alexey Orlov, Passek, Baryatinsky, and Baskakov. He selected Ropsha himself; it had belonged to him when he was Grand Duke. Other authorities state, however, that he did not go to Ropsha at all, but was on the estate of Razumovsky.

Princess Dashkov saw his letters to Catherine. In one he speaks of his abdication, in another of the persons he would like to keep about him, and enumerates everything he needed for his daily life, making special mention of a store of Burgundy and tobacco. He asked further, it is said, for a violin, a Bible, and various novels, adding that he meant to become a philosopher.

On the evening of the day when Peterhof was taken, Princess Dashkov, coming back from the Princess of Holstein’s to the Empress’s apartments, came upon Orlov, who was lying at full length on a sofa in one of the Empress’s inner rooms. He apologised for doing so, alleging that he had hurt his foot. He was opening a big envelope; Princess Dashkov had seen such envelopes in the hands of her uncle, the Vice-Chancellor; they were used for the most important affairs of state communicated from the Privy Council to the Tsar.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, with amazement.

‘The Empress told me to.’

‘Impossible,’ she answered. ‘You have no official status for doing it.’

At that moment word was brought that the soldiers had broken into the cellars, and were drinking Hungarian wine in their helmets, taking it for mead. Orlov did not stir. Princess Dashkov at once went downstairs, assumed a threatening air, and with her thin girlish voice restored discipline. Pleased with her success, she distributed among them all the money she had on her; then, turning her purse inside out, told them that her means were less than her goodwill, but that on their return to Petersburg they should have leave to drink at the Government’s expense; after this she went back.

Beside the sofa on which Orlov was lying she found a table laid for three. The Empress came in, took her seat, and invited the princess to sit down. All this so impressed the latter that she could not conceal her emotion. The Empress noticed it, and asked her what was the matter.

‘Nothing,’ she answered; ‘most likely I am tired from sleepless nights and excitement.’

Catherine, wishing to draw the princess into being civil to Orlov, told her that in spite of her urgent wishes he was giving up military service, and begged the princess to help her to dissuade him. ‘I shall be charged,’ she said, ‘with horrible ingratitude if he leaves the army.’ But Princess Dashkov, mortified by her discovery, answered that Her Majesty had so many means of rewarding his services that she had no need to constrain him.

‘It was only then,’ she adds, ‘that I was convinced there was _une liaison_ between them.’

It has been thought that she was mortified at this through jealousy, and it is not a mistake. Only, she was not jealous on Orlov’s account; she never liked and never respected either him or his brothers; she was jealous over the Empress; she liked neither the choice nor the tone; moreover, her dreams of exclusive confidence, of romantic friendship, of all-powerful influence, paled and vanished at her discovery. And as a fact, from that evening she had a rival and an enemy; she felt that the very day after the _coup d’état_.

Crazy Peter’s saying about the orange skin began coming true with extraordinary rapidity. The very day after ascending the throne the Empress began appraising and rewarding Princess Dashkov’s services, she began to be grateful—that is, ceased to be her friend.

After her triumphal entry into Petersburg, Princess Dashkov went away to see her father, her uncle, and, most of all, to have a look at her little one. It must not be forgotten that our Preobrazhensky sergeant had a little daughter Nastya, whom she passionately loved, and with whom she longed to play, after having played enough with the Tsar’s crown. Her father’s house was full of soldiers, stationed there partly for his protection, and partly because ‘Romanovna’ had been brought to his house. Vadkovsky sent to ask the officer on duty whether all the guard was needed; Princess Dashkov, speaking to him in French, told the officer that half of the soldiers were not needed, and that she was dismissing them.

When she went back to the Palace, Catherine received her with a look of displeasure; the officer of the guard was present and was talking to Orlov. The Empress reprimanded Princess Dashkov for acting on her own initiative, and even observed that she had spoken French before the soldiers. The princess, deeply wounded, listened to the reprimand, made no reply, and, to change the conversation, gave Catherine the ribbon and the order which she had put in her pocket the day before.

‘Not so fast, not so fast,’ said the Empress. ‘I had to reprimand you for your impetuosity—you had no right to dismiss the soldiers on your own authority; but I must also reward you for your services.’ With this she put around her neck the ribbon that had been restored.

Instead of kneeling down before the Empress, as is done on such occasions, Princess Dashkov said to her sorrowfully: ‘Your Majesty, forgive me for what I want to say; the time is coming when truth must be banished from your presence; before it comes, I beg you to take back that order: as a decoration I cannot sufficiently value it; if it is a reward—however great it might be, it could not reward my services, they cannot be paid by anything, for they were not to be bought.’

‘But,’ said the Empress, embracing her, and leaving the ribbon, ‘friendship has its claims; surely I am not deprived of them now?’

Princess Dashkov, pleased again, kissed her hand, and the spirits of a girl of eighteen got the upper hand; half a century later she does not forget to add with pleasure: ‘Fancy me in a uniform, with a spur on one high boot, looking like a boy of fifteen, with the red Catherine ribbon across my shoulder.’ The new cavalier galloped back again to Nastya, to show herself to the baby, to be present at her supper, and at last undressing flung herself into bed; but this time, too, sleep fled from her fretted nerves, or terrified her with dreams: the amazing scenes of the preceding days, which she had not merely lived through, but had partly brought about, passed incessantly before her imagination.

The Empress herself did not deny the important share Princess Dashkov had taken in the revolution of the 28th of June; on the contrary, when the wily old Bestuzhev was presented to her, she said to him: ‘Who could have imagined that the daughter of Roman Vorontsov would have helped me to ascend the throne!’

The news of the murder of Peter filled Princess Dashkov with horror and aversion; she was so distressed and revolted by this stain on the ‘revolution which has not cost one drop of blood,’ that she could not bring herself to go next day to the Palace. She omits in her memoirs all the details of the revolting proceeding, in which three officers, one of whom was of gigantic stature, were at work for half an hour stifling with a napkin the poisoned prisoner, as though they could not wait for a quarter of an hour. She assumed that Catherine did not know beforehand of Alexey Orlov’s design;[54] it is more probable that she simply had no idea of the connivance of Catherine, who could carefully conceal her wishes. Not only Panin and the other conspirators knew nothing of her intrigue with Grigory Orlov, but, as we have just seen, Princess Dashkov had not suspected it.

Catherine perceived what was in the latter’s heart, and when she saw her began to speak with horror of what had happened.

‘Yes, your Majesty,’ answered Princess Dashkov, ‘this death has come too quickly and too soon for your fame and for mine.’

As she walked through the drawing-room, she said in a loud voice before every one that, of course, Alexey Orlov would spare her his acquaintance. For over twenty-five years they did not bow nor say a word to each other.

It is very possible that Catherine had not given instructions to murder Peter. Alexander went further: he positively insisted that they should not _kill_ Paul, when he sent a gang of the rebel nobles to him. We know from Shakespeare how these orders are given by a glance, a hint, a silence. Why did Catherine entrust the care of the pusillanimous Peter to his worst enemies? Passek and Baskakov had meant to kill him several days before the 27th of June, and did not she know that? And why were the murderers so shamelessly rewarded?

Princess Dashkov quotes in Catherine’s defence a letter from Orlov, written immediately after the murder, which the Empress showed her. This letter, she says, bore unmistakable traces of uneasiness, distress, consternation, and tipsiness. It was preserved by the Empress in a special case, together with other important documents. After her death Paul ordered Prince Bezborodka to go through these papers in his presence; when they got to this letter, Paul read it aloud to the Tsarina in the presence of Madame Nelidov.[55] Then he ordered Rastoptchin to read it aloud to the Grand Dukes.

I have heard what the letter contained from a trustworthy man who had read it himself; it was in this style: ‘Little Mother, Empress, how am I to tell you what we have done! such a misfortune has happened! We came to see your husband, and were drinking with him; you know what he is like when he is drunk; word followed word. He so insulted us that we came to blows. All of a minute he dropped dead. What is to be done? Take our heads if you like, or, merciful Little Mother, think that what is done cannot be undone, and overlook our offence.’[56]

Princess Dashkov, carried away by her love for Catherine, believed, or professed to believe, that Mirovitch,[57] too, acted without her knowledge; and the worst, most disgraceful and loathsome story of her whole reign, the abduction by Alexey Orlov and De Ribasse of Princess Tarakanov,[58] she does not mention at all.

It was, among other things, because she believed and wanted to believe in the ideal Catherine that she could not maintain herself in favour. And she would have been a splendid minister. Though indisputably gifted with political insight, she had besides her enthusiastic temperament two great defects which hindered her from making a career: she could not be silent, her tongue was sharp and biting, and it spared no one except Catherine; moreover, she was too proud, and she could not, and would not, conceal her antipathies—in short, she could not ‘abase her personality,’ as the Moscow Old Believers express it.

As a matter of fact, a friendship between Catherine and Princess Dashkov was impossible. Catherine wanted not only to be sovereign by the Imperial power, but to rule over every one in the world by her genius and her beauty; she wanted to attract the attention of all to herself alone; she had an insatiable desire to please. She was still in the full flower of her beauty, but she was thirty. She could probably have borne to have about her a weak woman, lost in the radiance of her glory and adoring her, not very handsome and not very clever. But she could not endure at her side the vigorous Princess Dashkov, who spoke of _her own fame_, with her wit, her fire, and her nineteen years.

She withdrew herself from her with the rapidity of truly royal ingratitude. In Moscow, after the Coronation, the old sinner Bestuzhev proposed writing an address to the Empress, and begging her, in the name of all her subjects, to take another husband. Grigory Orlov, who had already been created a prince of the Empire, dreamed of being Tsar. This roused the indignation of all decent people. Chancellor Vorontsov asked for an audience, and warned Catherine, on the supposition that she did not know what was being done. Catherine was surprised, and wanted to reprimand Bestuzhev.

Hitrov, one of the devoted conspirators of the 27th of June, loudly declared that he would sooner kill Orlov, or go to the scaffold, than acknowledge him Emperor. It need hardly be said that Princess Dashkov’s voice, too, was heard in the general murmur of displeasure; her words were carried to Catherine. Suddenly one evening, Tyeplov, the secretary of the Empress, came to Prince Dashkov and demanded to see him. The Empress had written him the following note: ‘I sincerely desire not to be compelled to consign to oblivion the services of the Princess Dashkov on account of her imprudent behaviour. Tell her to remember this next time she permits herself an indiscreet freedom of language amounting to threats.’

Princess Dashkov did not answer a word to this letter; she held herself aloof, and after the death of her husband in 1768 asked leave to visit foreign lands. ‘I might very well go without question,’ she said (probably never dreaming that in another eighty years a stupid law would almost completely deprive Russians of the right of crossing the frontier, and still less, that the Government would force every traveller to pay ransom), ‘but my position as a lady of the court lays upon me the obligation to ask the sanction of the Most High.’

Receiving no answer, she went to Petersburg, and at her first reception asked Catherine to allow her to go abroad for the sake of her children’s health.

‘I am very sorry,’ answered Catherine, ‘that such a distressing cause obliges you to go. But, of course, Princess, you are perfectly free to make what arrangements you like.’

Where was the time when they had lain in one bed, under one quilt, and had wept and embraced each other, or, lying on Colonel Kar’s overcoat, had dreamed for a whole night of political reforms?

Abroad Princess Dashkov revived, and became again the same proud, indefatigable, indomitable, active woman, interested in every one and throwing herself into everything.

On the wall in the hotel at Dantzig there hung a big picture representing some battle between Prussians and Russians, in which, of course, the Russians were being beaten. In the foreground there was a group of our soldiers on their knees before the Prussians begging for mercy. Princess Dashkov could not stand this. She induced two Russians to creep by night into the room, with oil-paints and brushes, locked the door, and set to work with her companions to repaint the uniforms, so that by the morning the Prussians were on their knees begging the Russians to spare them. When she had finished the picture, she sent for post-horses, and before the hotel-keeper had grasped the situation, she was racing along the road to Berlin, laughing at the thought of his amazement.

In Hanover she went to the Opera alone with Mlle. Kamensky. They were so unlike the worthy German women that the Prince of Mecklenburg, who was the chief authority in the town, sent to find out who they were. His adjutant went unceremoniously into the box in which there were also two German ladies, and asked our Russians whether they were not foreigners. Princess Dashkov said ‘Yes.’

‘His Highness,’ added the adjutant, ‘wishes to know with whom I have the honour of speaking.’

‘Our name,’ answered Princess Dashkov, ‘can be of no interest either to you or to the Duke; as women we have the right not to say who we are, and not to answer your question.’

The adjutant went away in confusion. The German ladies, who had from the first felt involuntary respect for our ladies, gazed at them with awe when they heard Princess Dashkov’s valiant answer. Seeing that the Germans took them for very great ladies, Princess Dashkov, turning courteously to them, said that though she would not answer the Prince’s impudent question, she had no reason to conceal from them her identity. ‘I am an opera-singer, and my friend is a dancer; we are both out of a job, and on the look-out for a good engagement.’ The German ladies opened their eyes wide, blushed to their ears, and not only abandoned their polite attentions, but tried so far as the size of the box permitted to sit with their backs turned on them.

In Paris Princess Dashkov was surrounded by all the celebrities and made friends with all of them except Rousseau; him she would not go to see on account of his hypocritical humility and affected originality. Diderot, on the other hand, became an intimate friend, spent whole evenings _tête-à-tête_ with her, and discussed everything under the sun with her. Princess Dashkov proved to him that serfdom was not so bad as was supposed, trapped him into contradictory statements, and the susceptible Diderot was ready to agree with her instantly.

A servant came in and announced that Madame Necker[59] and Madame Geoffrin[60] had arrived. ‘Don’t receive them!’ cried Diderot, without asking Princess Dashkov’s wishes; ‘say that she is not at home.’

‘There is not a better woman in the world than Madame Geoffrin, but she is the greatest gossip in Paris; I positively won’t have her talking all sorts of nonsense about you before she has time to know you properly. I won’t have blasphemy against my idol.’ And Princess Dashkov sent word that she was unwell.

Rulhière,[61] who was writing about Russia and the year 1762, also urgently wished to see her. Diderot would not have him received either: he wanted to keep Princess Dashkov to himself.

In London Princess Dashkov made the acquaintance of Paoli, but she did not like his ‘Italian grimaces,’ which were unbecoming in a great man. In Geneva she visited Voltaire and marvelled at him, though she could not help laughing with some doctor over the way Voltaire lost his temper at losing a game of draughts, and at the killing faces he made. The doctor, observing that it was not only Voltaire who could make such faces, bade his dog lift up his head, and Princess Dashkov could not control her laughter at the extraordinary resemblance. From Geneva she went to Spa; there she made great friends with Mrs. Hamilton[62] and, when she parted from her, romantically swore to come again in five years to see her, if they did not meet before, and, what was even more romantic, actually came.

The feeling of the most ardent, most active affection was almost the strongest emotion in this proud and strong-willed woman. Deeply wounded by Catherine’s treatment of her,[63] she looked prematurely old. Diderot says that she looked nearly forty, though she was at that time twenty-seven. Whether she loved any man after her husband’s death, or was beloved by one, is not to be seen from her Memoirs; but it may be said for certain that no man played a significant part in her life. After Catherine she attached herself, with all the ardour of a hungry heart, to Mrs. Hamilton. And in her old age an infinitely tender motherly affection brought warmth into her life; I am speaking of Miss Wilmot, who edited her Memoirs.

From Spa she went back to Moscow to the house of her sister, Madame Polyansky; this sister, with her humble, prosaic name, was no other than the notorious ‘Romanovna,’ who, if she had not been Madame Polyansky, might easily have been Empress of all the Russias.

The clouds which had overcast Princess Dashkov’s sky were beginning to clear away. The influence of the Orlovs had waned. The Empress, hearing of her arrival, sent her sixty thousand roubles to buy an estate.

But the princess was utterly unable to get on with the favourites, and there was no real intimacy between her and the court. Now she began to be deeply absorbed in the education of her son; an ardent admirer of England and English institutions, she made up her mind to go with her son to Edinburgh. Moreover, she saw that she was completely superfluous in the Winter Palace.

While she was preparing for this journey she betrothed her daughter to Shtcherbinin. On the way to the estate of the young man’s brother, to which she was going with the whole party, a servant fell off the box, and three sledges passed over him; he was badly hurt and stunned; he had to be bled, but how? Princess Dashkov had with her a case of surgical instruments bought in London; she took out a lancet, but no one would undertake to use it; the injured man lay unaided until, overcoming an intense feeling of disgust, she opened his vein, and after successfully performing the operation, almost sank into a swoon herself.

In Edinburgh she was soon surrounded by the leading celebrities, Robertson, Blair, Adam Smith, Fergusson. She wrote long letters to Robertson, and explained to him in detail her plan of education; she wanted her son, who was at that time fourteen, to complete his studies in two years and a half, and then, after making a tour of the whole of Europe, to go into the Service.

Robertson presumed that he would need four years; the mother thought that was too much. She wrote out in detail what her son knew already, and what he must know.

‘_Languages_:

Latin.—The initial difficulties are overcome.

English.—The prince has a very good understanding of prose,
and to some extent of verse.

German.—He understands it perfectly.

French.—He knows like his mother tongue.

‘_Literature_: He is familiar with the best classical works.
His taste is more formed than is common at his age. He has an
excessive tendency to be critical, which is perhaps his only
defect.

‘_Mathematics_: A very important branch of study. He has been
fairly successful in the solution of advanced problems, but I
should like him to go further in algebra.

‘_Civil and Military Architecture_: I want him to make a
particular study of these subjects.

‘_History and Political Institutions_: He has a knowledge of
general history, and particularly of Germany, England, and
France, but he ought to go through a course of history more in
detail; he can study it at home with a tutor.

‘Now this is what I want him to study: 1. Logic and the
Philosophy of Reasoning. 2. Experimental Physics. 3. A little
Chemistry. 4. Philosophy and Natural History. 5. Natural Law,
International Law, public and private Law in its application to
the legal systems of European nations. 6. Ethics. 7. Politics.’

This extensive programme she divides into five sessions, and then, as always, carries it out exactly. Her son passed his M.A. examination in 1779; it is commonly said that she exhausted him, and, certainly, he never did anything; moreover, he died very young, but whether his education is to blame for that it is hard to say.

After the examination Princess Dashkov went at once to Ireland, queened it in Dublin society, and composed church music, which was sung in the Chapel of Magdalen in the presence of a vast concourse of people, ‘desirous,’ as she expresses it, ‘of hearing how the bears of the North compose.’ Probably it was a successful experiment, for later on she was busy negotiating with David Garrick for the performance on the stage of her musical works. She was also writing long instructions to her son in the style of the counsels of Polonius concerning the conduct of his travels....

From England she went to Holland; in Haarlem she went to see a doctor of her acquaintance, and there met Prince Orlov, by now married and out of favour. The same day Orlov came to call on her, and just at dinner-time. His visit was to Princess Dashkov ‘as unexpected as it was disagreeable.’

‘I have come to you not as an enemy, but as a friend and ally,’ said Orlov, sitting down in a low chair. Then followed a silence on both sides. He looked intently at young Dashkov, and observed: ‘Your son is enrolled in the Cuirassiers, and I am in command of a regiment of the Horse Guards; if you like, I will ask the Empress to transfer him to my regiment; that will give him promotion.’