444

REVOLUTION AT ST. PETERSBURG.

[Book VI. Catherine was, in many respects, the reverse of her husband. She possessed great talent and many accomplishments; while a certain geniality had, in spite of her profligacy, procured her friends and admirers, not only in Russia, but also in Germany and France. Instead of offending her future subjects by shocking their prejudices, she had striven to conciliate their good-will by conforming to them. She learnt their language, adopted their customs, and scrupulously adhered to all their religious observances.2 Secure of popularity, she laid the plot of that tragedy of lust and blood which recalls the worst days of the Roman Empire. Her chief instruments were the Princess Dashkoff, sister of Peter's mistress, and the five brothers Orloff. The princess, then only nineteen years of age, possessed a genius for intrigue equal to that of Catherine herself, whose frivolity and taste for French literature she shared. Gregory Orloff, one of the five brothers engaged in the conspiracy, was distinguished by his handsome person, and had long been Catherine's lover. Odard, a Piedmontese littérateur, contributed much to the success of the plot, which was also communicated to the Count Panin, subsequently Catherine's minister. But one of its most zealous supporters was Setschin, Archbishop of Nogvorod; who incited the multitude of popes or priests in his jurisdiction against the "profane" Emperor. The existence of the conspiracy was widely known; even Frederick II. had acquainted the Czar with it; but the careless Peter listened to no warnings. Fearful of discovery, Dashkoff and the Orloffs compelled Catherine to give the signal of execution. Peter was then living at Oranienbaum, Catherine at Petershof, two residences at some distance from St. Petersburg. Early in the morning of July 9th 1762, Catherine repaired to the capital, and caused the soldiers, who had been bribed, to take an oath of allegiance to her. The Senate followed the example of the soldiery in declaring Peter III. deposed, and recognising Catherine II. in his place; who was proclaimed in the principal church, by the Archbishop of Novgorod, sole Empress; while her son Paul was recognised only as her successor. Ignorant of all these events, Peter had gone in the morning to Peterhof to celebrate there the festival of Peter and Paul, and expecting to find his wife. When informed by a secret message of the proceedings in the capital, his presence of mind entirely forsook him. At length, by the advice

2 Frederick II. thus characterised Catherine to Count von Finkenstein soon after her accession: "The Empress has much wit, no religion, and the inclina

tions of her predecessor (Elizabeth), together with her religious hypocrisy." Preuss, B. ii. S. 328.

of Marshal Münnich, who, with one or two others, alone remained faithful to him, he embarked on board his yacht, and proceeded to Cronstadt, in the hope of securing that important fortress. But Catherine had anticipated him. The commandant and garrison, who had been gained by the Empress, threatened to fire on the yacht, which so alarmed Peter that he hid himself in the lowest hold of the vessel. Münnich now attempted to persuade him to sail to Revel, go on board a man-of-war, proceed to Pomerania, and place himself at the head of the army, which, as we have said, was preparing to invade Denmark. But Peter had not the courage requisite for such a step. He listened in preference to the advice of his suite, who recommended him to return to Oranienbaum and effect a reconciliation with Catherine. Here he wrote a cowardly and submissive letter to his wife, offering to divide with her the imperial power; and as it remained unanswered, he despatched a second, in which he threw himself wholly on her mercy, and begged permission to retire to Holstein. The bearer of the last, Ismailhoff, Peter's friend and confidant, was bribed by the promise of high honour and rewards to become the betrayer of his unfortunate master. Ismailhoff, on his return, arrested the Czar; and after persuading, or rather compelling, him to sign a degrading document, in which he declared his incompetence to govern, and which he signed only with the title of Duke of Holstein, brought him in his own custody to Peterhof.

Catherine entered St. Petersburg, July 11th, in a sort of triumph. Gregory Orloff rode by her side; and it was evident what functions were reserved for him. Apartments were assigned to him in all the imperial palaces. He was the first of twelve who successively held this post of favourite in the household of the Empress. But the tragedy was not yet complete. The chief criminals had gone too far to allow Peter to live. He was murdered at a country-house near Peterhof, by Alexis Orloff and some confederates, by whom he was strangled, after the failure of an attempt to poison him in some Burgundy (July 17th). It is to be hoped that Catherine was not privy to this last act; yet it is difficult to reconcile her ignorance of it with her refusal to allow her husband to retire to Holstein. When Alexis Orloff came to announce to her her husband's death, she was amusing a select circle with an entertaining anecdote. Alexis called her aside to relate the news, which she affected to deplore; and after giving, with great calmness, the necessary orders, she returned to her company, and resumed the anecdote exactly where she had broken off!

446

9

GOVERNMENT OF CATHERINE II.

[BOOK VI.

Catherine in her public announcement of Peter's decease, attributed it to hemorrhoidal colic; invited all faithful subjects to pray for the repose of his soul, and to regard his unexpected death as the effect of a Divine Providence, pointing out by its unfathomable decrees paths which it alone knew for the good of herself, her throne, and her country. The body of the Czar lay in state in the convent of Alexander Newski, where the people were admitted to view it. The throat, it was observed, was encircled with a much deeper cravat than the Czar had been accustomed to wear.3 In a hypocritical manifest, dated on the day of her husband's death, Catherine heaped every possible obloquy on his memory, and charged him with a design to murder herself, and deprive her son of the succession.

Apart from her private life, the administration of Catherine II., like that of Cæsar Borgia, was excellent. She introduced an admirable organisation both into the government and the army. Even in the Church she carried through many of those reforms the attempting which had proved her husband's ruin. Towards the end of the year 1762 the ukase of Peter III. was submitted to an ecclesiastical commission, the chief of whom were bribed; the rest were regarded as contemptible. They attempted, in revenge, to excite against the Empress the latent elements of discord. They sought to awaken public sympathy in favour of Ivan VI., the rightful heir of the Russian crown, who, dethroned in his very cradle, had now been more than twenty years a prisoner. Peter III., naturally kind-hearted, had visited that unfortunate prince in his wretched dungeon at Schlüsselburg, and had endeavoured in some degree to alleviate his misfortunes. The malcontent popes dispersed abroad a manifest said to have been drawn up during the last days of Peter III., in which that monarch, revealing the guilt of his wife, excluded her son, the Grand Prince Paul, from the succession. The popular discontent began to assume formidable dimensions; the soldiery were infected with it, and everything seemed to promise the outbreak of a fresh revolution. But Catherine was well served by her police. The soldiers of the guard were forbidden to assemble except at the special command

Old Field-Marshal Trubetskoi, on approaching the body, involuntarily exclaimed, "Fie, Peter Feodorowitsch, what a thick neckerchief have they given thee!" and, rushing up to the bier, was about to tear it away, when the sentinels drew him back. Hermann, B. v. S. 307.

See above, p. 364.

5 During this interview Peter directed the miserable prisoner to ask some favour. Ivan requested a little fresh air. He had once enjoyed that luxury through a broken window! He was now, of course, almost a confirmed idiot. Hermann, Gesch Russlands, B. v. S. 273.

of their officers; some of the most turbulent were arrested, and either punished with the knout or banished to Siberia; fear reduced the remainder to obedience. The secularisation of church property now proceeded without molestation. That measure was even assisted by the Archbishop of Novgorod, although he had delivered a bitter invective against the memory of Peter III. shortly after his death, the chief topic of which was the aggressions of that prince on the property of the Church. But Catherine had bought the time-serving prelate, and soon after she deposed him; in the just confidence that the contempt which he had incurred with his order would deprive him of all power to hurt her. It was in consequence of these disturbances, and some that followed in 1763, that Ivan VI. lost his life. Well-informed courtiers whispered that he must die; insecure on her still tottering throne, his name was a tower of strength to Catherine's enemies. In the summer of 1764 she undertook a journey to Riga, in order, it was suspected, to have an interview with her former favourite, Count Poniatowski; but more probably that she might escape, by her absence, the suspicion of being privy to Ivan's murder. Before her departure she gave a written order to the two officers who had the custody of Ivan to put him to death in case of any attempt to deliver him from prison. Such an attempt was actually made by Mirowitsch, a lieutenant of the regiment in garrison at Schlüsselburg, and the orders of Catherine were executed. Mirowitsch's motives for this act are enveloped in mystery; but the evidence seems to point to the conclusion that it had been concerted with the Court. He made no attempt to escape, went through his trial with the greatest composure, and was even observed to laugh upon the scaffold. The police had orders to delay the execution till a certain hour, and Mirowitsch confidently expected a reprieve; but his head fell while the smile was still playing on his lips. The death of the deluded tool was necessary to allay the suspicion excited by the enigmatical death of Ivan."

One of Catherine's first political acts after her accession was to assure Frederick V. of Denmark of her peaceful intentions, and to recall from Mecklenburg the Russian troops which Peter had kept in that duchy with the view of invading the Danish dependencies. Catherine's project of aggrandisement lay nearer home, and she prepared to reinstate Biron as Duke of Courland. After Biron's fall the duchy had long remained without a head, and was entirely governed by Russia. At length, in 1758, Charles, the third son of

6

• Hermann, B. v. S. 310 f.

7 Ibid. S. 647 ff.

448

DEATH OF AUGUSTUS III. OF POLAND.

[BOOK VI. Augustus III. of Poland, was invested with it through the influence of the Empress Elizabeth; but neither Peter III. nor Catherine recognised him. Charles defended himself six months against the Russian forces, but was then obliged to yield. Catherine's motive for deposing him was to bring Courland more directly under Russian influence; and she promised in return to mediate the evacuation of Saxony, still held by the Prussian troops. In vain Augustus represented that the matter belonged to the jurisdiction of the King and Republic of Poland; the presence of 15,000 Russian troops in Courland was an all-sufficing answer to this objection.

This proceeding was a mere prelude to that larger drama which Catherine was preparing to exhibit on the theatre of Poland itself. At the very commencement of her reign, the health of the Polish King, Augustus III., promising him but a short tenure of life, she had prepared to interfere in the affairs of that kingdom at the next election, and with that view had sent Count Kayserlingk as her ambassador to Warsaw. Augustus, who had not visited Poland after the Peace of Hubertsburg, died at Dresden, October 5th 1763. He was succeeded in the Saxon Electorate by his son, Frederick Christian, who, however, also died in the following December, leaving a minor son, Frederick Augustus, whose election to the Polish crown was out of the question. Meanwhile, since the death of Augustus III., Poland had fallen into a state of complete anarchy. Two factions contended for the mastery; on one side the Czartorinskis, Oginskis, and Poniatowskis, supported by Russia, on the other the Radzivills and Braniskis, who relied upon the influence of France. Catherine had resolved to place the Polish crown on the head of Count Stanislaus Poniatowski, one of her former lovers; a choice, however, not dictated by any recollections of that kind, but by the cool and politic advice of Count Panin, her minister for foreign affairs, who saw, in the weak and courtier-like character of Stanislaus, all those qualities which would render him the fitting tool of the interested designs of Russia. But as this plan was likely to be opposed by Austria and France, Catherine resolved to support the execution of it by a closer alliance with Prussia.

8

The conduct of Frederick II.

Count Poniatowski had formerly been Polish Ambassador to the Russian Court. One day in the summer of 1758, Peter detected him, in the disguise of a barber, in the garden of his wife at Oranienbaum. Peter caused him to be arrested, brought him before his courtiers and companions, and after abusing and ridiculing him,

at this juncture was most im

procured his dismissal to Poland. Frightened, however, by the anger of Catherine, the complaisant husband endeavoured to obtain his recall, but the Empress Eliza beth would not consent. Biographie Peters III., Th. i. S. 121, ap. Hermann, B. v. S. 154.