What was Catherine 2 like as a person? Life story

The period of the reign of Catherine II is rightly called the “golden age” of the empire. This was the heyday of Russia's political and military power. At the same time, Catherine herself appears before us in a very contradictory light.

1. The reign of Catherine II (1762-1796) contributed to the growth of Russia in many areas. Treasury revenues increased from 16 to 68 million rubles, the size of the army almost doubled, and the number of battleships increased from 20 to 67, 144 new cities were built and 11 provinces were acquired, and the population increased from 30 to 44 million people.

2. From the first years of her stay in Russia, Sofia Augusta (in Orthodoxy, Catherine) demonstrated diligence in studying the Russian language, culture and history of the state. Her classes often lasted until late. The frosty air rushing in through the open window did not become a hindrance. In the end, the future empress fell ill with pneumonia. Her condition turned out to be so serious that her mother wanted to bring a Lutheran pastor. But Sofia wanted to see an Orthodox priest. This incident undoubtedly increased her popularity at the Russian court.

3. By 1782, Catherine II was ripe for a grandiose plan. She was seized by the idea of ​​dividing Turkish territories and creating the Greek - read Byzantine Empire with its capital in Constantinople. The plans also included the formation of the puppet state of Dacia, which would serve as a kind of buffer zone between Russia, the Greek Empire and Austria. The “Greek project” was not destined to live, however, this year brought reinforcements - Crimea was recaptured for Russia.

4. The Empress, being the author of a number of literary works in various genres, she was repeatedly awarded high marks for her work, in particular from Diderot and Voltaire. In the opinion of historians, the praise addressed to Catherine II expressed by French educators was poorly concealed flattery. The only thing they were counting on was financial support from Northern Semiramis. An annual “salary” of 1,000 livres, paid to Diderot from the Russian treasury, is the best reward for flattery. To be fair, it should be noted that Catherine herself was self-critical and denied herself the presence of a great creative mind.

5. Catherine’s dining table impressed with its sophistication and variety. On it one could see such exotic dishes as poulards with truffles, chiryata with olives, and gateau Compiègne. It is quite natural that the daily expenses for food for the empress cost up to 90 rubles (for example, the annual salary of a soldier was only 7 rubles).

However, contemporaries called the queen’s favorite dish boiled beef with pickles or sauerkraut. She washed down her lunch with currant water. Once visiting Mikhail Lomonosov, Ekaterina was invited to a table on which there was nothing but sour cabbage soup and porridge. She immediately reassured the owner, assuring him that this was her favorite food.

6. The domestic policy of Catherine II was distinguished by religious tolerance. During her reign, the persecution of Old Believers was stopped, and Catholic and Protestant churches were actively built. For promoting the popularization of Buddhism by the lamas of Buryatia, Catherine was considered one of the manifestations of White Tara.

It is known that the empress recognized the polygamy existing among Muslims as beneficial, which, according to her, contributed to population growth. When representatives of the Russian clergy complained to Catherine about the construction of a mosque in Kazan near Orthodox churches, she responded approximately as follows: “The Lord tolerates different faiths, which means their churches can stand next to each other.”

7. In 1791, Catherine II signed a decree prohibiting Jews from settling outside the Pale of Settlement. Despite the fact that the Empress was never suspected of bad attitude towards Jews, she was often accused of anti-Semitism. However, this decree was dictated by purely economic considerations - to prevent competition from Jewish businessmen, which could undermine the position of the Moscow merchants.

8. Catherine did not trust doctors, considering them mostly charlatans. She treated all illnesses with one proven remedy: when the empress was unwell, they opened her vein and released the “bad blood.” Bloodletting often had a positive effect and Catherine recovered. However, sometimes the empress listened to the recommendations of doctors - for example, she limited herself in food. So, on the advice of the English doctor Thomas Dimmesdale, she refused dinner to calm the headache.

9. Once, the historian Vasily Klyuchevsky said in one of his lectures that Catherine II read a lot and was an educated woman, but he noted in passing that the empress could not cope with the Russian language and made incredible mistakes. So, in a word consisting of three letters, she managed to make four mistakes - instead of “yet” she wrote “ischo”.

10. Catherine used to personally deal with controversial cases, where she tried to act as a fair and impartial judge. Once, in one of the churches, the empress met a landowner who was filing a complaint with the “queen of heaven” against her, the “queen of the earth.” The note placed in front of the icon spoke about the unfair decision of the Senate (approved by the empress herself), according to which the landowner’s estate was taken away.

It took Catherine three days to request the case and carefully study its details. The queen's verdict was this: the Senate made a mistake. Ekaterina personally apologized to the complainant. The landowner was not only returned the estate, but also presented with a valuable gift.

11. The period of the reign of Catherine II turned out to be very favorable for the aristocracy. During her reign, there were no high-profile resignations; none of those close to her were disgraced, much less executed. It is no coincidence that Catherine’s time went down in history as the “golden age” of the Russian nobility. However, researchers accuse Catherine of being excessively lenient towards officials who abused their power.

12. Brought up in the spirit of the ideas of the Enlightenment, Catherine was a staunch opponent of serfdom, believing that every person is born free. Her papers even preserved reflections on the abolition of serfdom. But things didn’t go further than paperwork. As historian Nikolai Pavlenko noted, under Catherine “serfdom developed in depth and breadth.”

It is estimated that during her entire reign, Catherine gave away more than 800 thousand serfs to landowners and nobles, thereby setting a kind of record. There is an explanation for this. The Empress had every reason to fear a noble rebellion or another coup d'etat.

13. During the war between England and its North American colonies, Catherine refused the kingdom military assistance. On the initiative of diplomat Nikita Panin, in 1780 the Empress issued a Declaration of Armed Neutrality, which was joined by most European countries. This step greatly contributed to the victory of the colonies and the early independence of the United States of America.

14. Catherine initially reacted to the Great French Revolution with a certain degree of sympathy, seeing it as a consequence of the unreasonable and despotic policies of the French monarchs. However, everything changed with the execution of Louis XVI. Now, Paris, embraced by freedom, is for her “a hellish heat” and “a den of robbers.” She could not help but see the danger of revolutionary revelry, both for Europe and for Russia itself.

15. Catherine’s time was the heyday of favoritism, which was very characteristic of Europe in the second half of the 18th century. Catherine's scholar Pyotr Bartenev attributed 23 novels to the Empress herself. If you believe the surviving correspondence, she was attracted to all her lovers by an “uncontrollable feeling.”

None of Catherine's favorites was allowed to resolve important political issues, with the exception of two - Grigory Potemkin and Pyotr Zavadovsky. Catherine usually lived with her favorites for no more than two or three years - problems got in the way longer: age difference, incompatibility of characters, or the queen’s strict daily routine. None of the favorites was disgraced; on the contrary, they were all generously rewarded with titles, money, and estates.

16. Shortly before her death, Catherine the Great composed an epitaph for her future tombstone, which became a kind of self-portrait of the ruler. Among other things, there are the following lines: “She easily forgave and did not hate anyone. She was forgiving, loved life, had a cheerful disposition, was a true Republican in her convictions and had a kind heart. She had friends. The work was easy for her. She liked social entertainment and the arts."

The conspiracy is revealed! We are dead! – with such an exclamation, Princess Vorontsova-Dashkova burst into Catherine’s bedroom and froze on the threshold. The Empress washed her lace cuffs in a tub.
- Empress, what are you doing?!
- Don't you see, I'm doing the laundry. What surprises you? I was not being prepared to be a Russian empress, but, God willing, to be the wife of some German prince. That’s why they taught us how to wash and cook.

The future empress of the vast Russian empire, Catherine the Great, was born not in a luxurious palace, but in an ordinary German house and received a bourgeois education: she was actually taught to clean and cook. Her father, Prince Christian Augustus, was the younger brother of the sovereign German prince, but due to a constant lack of money he was forced to hire a service. And Sophia-Augusta-Frederica-Emilia, as Catherine was called in childhood, despite her royal origins, played in the city square with the children of the burghers, received slaps from her mother for poorly polished cauldrons and respectfully kissed the hem of the dresses of the wives of rich townspeople if they entered the house. Catherine's mother, Joanna Elisabeth, was a powerful and riotous woman. It was even rumored that Catherine's real father was none other than Frederick the Great himself. It was he who proposed the candidacy of the young Princess Sophien as a wife to the Russian heir to the throne, Peter, when he heard a rumor that Empress Elizabeth Petrovna was looking for a bride for her nephew, to whom she intended to leave the throne.

So the little German princess came from the dirty city streets to the glittering gold Russian imperial palace. Having received the name Catherine in baptism, the future wife of the heir to the throne began studying with the best court teachers and fabulously succeeded not only in the Russian language, but also in the art of flirting. Having inherited an irrepressible sexual temperament from her mother, Catherine used her seduction at the Russian court. Even before the wedding, she flirted so openly with the court Don Juan Andrei Chernyshev that, in order to avoid rumors, Elizabeth was forced to send the poor count abroad.

As soon as Catherine turned sixteen, Elizaveta Petrovna hastened to marry the German princess to Peter, making it clear to her that her only duty was to give birth to an heir. After the wedding and a magnificent ball, the newlyweds were finally taken to the wedding chambers. But Catherine woke up just as she went to bed - a virgin. Peter remained as cold towards her as in wedding night, and for many months after. Some people look for the reasons for this attitude towards his wife in Peter’s infantility and dementia, others in his tragic love.
Peter fell in love with his maid of honor Natalya Lopukhina, whose mother was Elizabeth’s personal enemy. Lopukhina Sr. was Anna Ioannovna’s favorite lady of state and pleased the Empress in every possible way, humiliating her hated daughter-in-law, Tsarevna Elizabeth. A historical anecdote has been preserved. Balls were often held in the Lopukhins' house. Elizabeth was also invited there. One day Lopukhina bribed Elizabeth’s maids and offered them a sample of yellow brocade with silver, from which the princess sewed herself a dress for the ball.

When Elizabeth entered the living room, there was a burst of laughter. The walls, chairs, armchairs and sofas in the room were upholstered in the same yellow and silver brocade. The humiliated princess rushed out of the palace and sobbed for a long time in her bedroom.

When Peter asked his reigning aunt for permission to marry Lopukhina’s daughter, Elizabeth decided to take revenge. She accused Lopukhina of treason, and the court sentenced the unfortunate countess to death. Elizabeth, with her “great mercy,” commuted the punishment. Lopukhina Sr. was shamefully flogged on Trinity Square, her tongue was cut out and she was exiled to Siberia. After this tragic story with the mother of his beloved, Tsarevich Peter lost his mind. But Catherine did not strive to please her husband: she quickly found solace in the arms of the Swedish envoy Count Polenberg. Empress Elizabeth turned a blind eye to the young couple's relationship: she needed an heir, but Catherine still could not get pregnant.
Meanwhile, in the bed of the eighteen-year-old crown princess, one favorite replaced another: Kirill Razumovsky, Stanislav Poniatovsky, Zakhar

Chernyshev (brother of Andrei, exiled abroad), Lev Naryshkin and the Saltykov brothers, who knew a lot about love. Their mother, nee Golitsyna, was famous throughout St. Petersburg for drunkenness and debauchery in the soldiers' barracks - there were rumors that she had three hundred lovers among the empress's grenadiers.

After a few years of marriage, a miracle happened - Catherine became pregnant. Sergei Saltykov openly boasted that he was the father of the future heir, and was expelled from St. Petersburg. Later in Sweden, he spread terrible rumors about the debauchery of the Russian princess and assured that she herself hung on his neck, made appointments, and he allegedly deceived and did not come, which made Catherine suffer unspeakably.

Elizaveta Petrovna was so happy about the good news that she gave her pregnant daughter-in-law one hundred thousand rubles and a lot of jewelry. The poor German princess, who came to Russia with three dresses and half a dozen handkerchiefs, began to waste money in the Russian treasury. The born baby was named Pavel and was immediately taken away from the young mother. However, Catherine was not interested in her son and never loved him. It is still unknown who was Pavel’s real father - they name Zakhar Chernyshev, Lev Naryshkin, and other lovers of the crown princess. Among the guesses noted amazing fact: Pavel is unusually similar to his official father, Pyotr Fedorovich - history doesn’t joke...

After the death of Elizabeth, Peter III ascended the throne and declared that he would send Catherine to a monastery for her dissolute behavior, and that he would marry Elizaveta Vorontsova, his mistress. But by that time, with the help of her favorites, Catherine had woven a huge network around Peter. Chancellor Panin, Prince Baryatinsky, Catherine's lover Grigory Orlov and four of his brothers organized a conspiracy against the emperor. But then one of the conspirators got cold feet and decided to warn the emperor - Peter did not attach any significance to his words, for which he paid not only with the throne, but also with his life.
At the court of Catherine II of Russia, favoritism became new position, as at the court of Louis XIV in France, and bed careerists were recognized as people who served the fatherland and the throne. For their loving efforts they received

palaces and considerable financial resources from the Russian treasury. But Catherine was a passionate woman and could not live without a man. In her palace there was a special room with a huge bed. If necessary, a secret mechanism divided the bed into two parts by a wall - the favorite remained on the hidden half, and on the second the empress, not cooled down from love pleasures, received ambassadors and ministers.

Catherine had a weakness for huge, gigantic men with a sensual face. Potential lovers were introduced to the empress by Chancellor Panin and Countess Bruce, who was called the “assay lady” at court. Panin was Catherine's constant lover - he was smart, not demanding, not jealous. He came to the empress's bedroom no more than once a week, and in his free time in his harem, consisting of serf concubines - every day he acquired a new girl, and gave away the tired ones to friends or sold them. For Catherine, he chose tall soldiers who were not distinguished by intelligence, so as not to create rivals for himself. One day Panin and Countess Bruce recommended the handsome Potemkin.
Catherine was embarrassed by the fact that the lieutenant general only had one eye (the second one was once knocked out by Grigory Orlov in a fit of jealousy), but the countess convinced Catherine that Potemkin was going crazy with love for

to the empress. After a night of love, Catherine promoted Potemkin to lieutenant general, gave him a magnificent palace and a million rubles for its improvement. This is how bed careers were made overnight under Catherine. But the imperial gifts seemed not enough to Potemkin - one day at dinner he demanded that Catherine make him a member of the State Council. Catherine was horrified:
- But my friend, this is impossible!
- Wonderful! Then I go to the monastery. The role of your kept woman does not suit me!
Catherine began to cry and left the table. Potemkin did not come to the room of favorites. Catherine cried all night, and the next morning Potemkin was appointed senator.
Once Potemkin went to St. Petersburg for several days on business. But the empress could not be left alone for long. Once upon a time

In the Tsarskoye Selo Palace, Catherine woke up at night from the cold. It was winter, and all the wood in the fireplace burned out. She slept alone - Potemkin was on business in St. Petersburg. Not finding a servant behind the screen, Catherine went out into the corridor, along which the stoker was just walking with a bundle of firewood on his shoulders. The sight of this huge young Hercules, carrying firewood like a feather, took Catherine’s breath away.
-Who are you?
- Court stoker, Your Majesty!
- Why haven’t I seen you before? Light the fireplace in my bedroom.
The young man was delighted with such mercy from the empress and lit a huge fire in the fireplace. But Catherine remained dissatisfied:
- Don’t you understand how to warm the empress?
And the stoker finally understood. And the next morning he received an order granting him hereditary nobility, ten thousand peasants, an order never to return to St. Petersburg and change his surname to Teplov - in memory of how he warmed the empress.
In her old age, Catherine reached the point of complete debauchery. Hefty men were no longer enough for her - and she turned her passion to a young gypsy, given to her by Potemkin.

There were rumors at court about how the empress treated her maids and young peasant women. At the final exam at the Smolny Institute, the Empress drew attention to the beautiful graduate, who turned out to be the daughter of Suvorov.
- Give your daughter to me as a favorite.
Having heard about the adventures of the Empress, Suvorov replied:
- Mother, if I die for you, I will die, but I won’t give you my Suvorochka!
The angry empress sent the old man and his daughter to their estate, forbidding him to appear at court - which is what Suvorov needed.

In Potemkin's absence, Catherine had many lovers: Ambassador Bezborodko and his secretaries Zavadovsky and Mamonov, the midwife's nephew Zorich, guard officers Korsakov and Khvostov, and finally, the provincial youth Alexander Lanskoy.
Twenty-year-old Lansky was accidentally seen by Potemkin and introduced to the empress. The young man had an angelic appearance: huge blue eyes filled with sadness, blond curls, a light blush on his cheeks and coral lips. He would have looked like a girl if not for his enormous height and broad shoulders.

He accepted Catherine's attention as the care of a mother, and besides, he was too loyal to his state to refuse the empress anything. He was ashamed of his position as an imperial concubine, but over time he became attached to Catherine with all his heart. The Empress was touched by such reading love from an innocent young man who had never known women before her. Her aging heart was so jealous of Sashenka that Catherine locked her lover in several rooms, surrounding him with unheard-of luxury. The Empress awarded Lansky the title of count, vast lands, and tens of thousands of peasants. But the young man in love did not need ranks and wealth - he was probably the only favorite who loved the empress as a woman. And the Empress said to Potemkin:

My soul, I am going to marry Lansky.
- What did he do to deserve such an honor?
- He never cheated on me.
Potemkin lowered his eyes. He himself cheated on Catherine almost every day with different women.

A month later, Lanskoy fell ill in bed. And not a single court doctor could make an accurate diagnosis. Catherine knew that her lover was poisoned on behalf of Potemkin. Catherine wrote to her friend: “I, sobbing, have the misfortune to tell you that General Lansky is gone... and my room, which I loved so much before, has now turned into an empty cave.” After the death of her lover, the empress walked around the palace like a shadow. She abandoned all government affairs and did not receive anyone. It was so unlike her... Apparently, love, which she did not know in her youth, overtook her in old age. The only topic on which the empress kept up the conversation was about Alexander Lansky, the only place she visited was his grave. She spent many hours at Lansky's grave in anguish and tears. Potemkin was furious. Was he jealous - and of whom, of the dead man? In fits of anger, Potemkin circled like a kite among the guards officers. Finally, he chose Pyotr Ermolov, made him his adjutant and sent him to Catherine. His calculation was justified: Ermolov occupied the room of the favorites, which had been empty for almost six months. Still, Catherine was a woman, and the desire to love overpowered her grief over loss. Noticing that one of the ladies-in-waiting was secluded with Eromlov, Catherine ordered the soldiers to flog the aristocrat until she bled in the presence of the other eleven ladies-in-waiting - so as not to be disgraced. Ermolov was too stupid, arrogant and narcissistic, besides, he loved to play and often ran away from the empress to gaming houses and to prostitutes. His place was soon taken by another of Potemkin’s adjutants, Alexander Mamonov.

“Priceless Sasha” - that’s what the Empress of Mamon called him. But Sasha began to disappear somewhere more and more often. He was not there that ill-fated night when tired Catherine returned from the Council meeting. She waited for him half the night, but greeted him playfully:
- Where, my dear sir, have you disappeared?
“Mother Empress…” his tone and facial expression did not bode well. “You have always been kind to me, and I am frank with you.” I can no longer carry out my duties at Your Majesty's side.
Catherine's face changed:
- What’s the matter, are you joking?
- No, your Majesty. I fell in love with another and ask your gracious permission to marry her. Her name is Princess Shcherbatova.
What can an aging woman who has lost her former attractiveness answer when a young lover says that he fell in love with another, good and young one?
- I give you permission to get married. Moreover, I will arrange your wedding myself.
Lizanka Shcherbatova kissed the empress’s hands for her kindness. Catherine gave the newlyweds wedding rings with diamonds, three thousand souls of peasants, ten thousand rubles in gold. For some reason, the young bride was crying all the time under the aisle... Perhaps the empress forgave Count Mamonov’s betrayal, but the offended woman could not forgive her. Two weeks later, soldiers broke into the newlyweds' home. Mamonov was tied to a chair and gagged, and the soldiers abused the young countess, after which they whipped her until she was completely deformed. Lizanka miraculously survived. Count Mamonov took his sick wife abroad, never to return to Russia again.

Meanwhile, a new and final favorite reigned in the palace - twenty-four-year-old Platon Zubov. He inherited the room of favorites from his brother, Valerian Zubov, who was the empress’s lover for only a short time. Platon Zubov was arrogant, arrogant and loved only one thing in the world - money. Having received unlimited power, he mocked Tsarevich Paul, completely confident that he would not get the throne. Potemkin planned to kill his new favorite, but did not have time - he died. The Empress wept for a long time and inconsolably, gave her former favorite a magnificent funeral and ordered two monuments to be erected to him. During Catherine's reign, palaces and jewelry worth nine million rubles and forty thousand peasants passed from the Russian treasury into Potemkin's pocket.

Catherine herself died not at all like an emperor: in the outhouse. Has she experienced the love she longed for in her life? Hardly... True love is not bought for titles and palaces - Great Catherine never understood this.

Appearance. Character. Temperament

To tell the truth, I never considered myself extremely beautiful, but I was liked, and I think that was my strength.” This is how Catherine herself defines the nature of female attractiveness given to her by nature. Having heard enough throughout her life how she was compared with all the Cleopatras of the world, she, therefore, still did not recognize these comparisons as fair. Not because I didn’t know their prices. “Believe me,” she wrote to Grimm, “beauty is never superfluous, and I constantly attached enormous importance to it, although I myself was not very good.” But perhaps she was in the habit of talking about her beauty in a derogatory tone, doing so out of ignorance or modesty, or out of a special, subtle coquetry? The thought of this involuntarily comes to mind when you listen to the almost unanimous reviews of her contemporaries about her appearance. The image of the “Northern Semiramis” shone in the second half of the eighteenth century and, on the threshold of the nineteenth, passed into the traditions of posterity, not only as a wonderful embodiment of power, greatness and triumphant happiness, but also of charming femininity. In the eyes of everyone, or almost everyone, she was not only majestic, regal and formidable: she was at the same time charming and beautiful, even among the most famous beauties. She was a real queen, both by right of her genius and by right of beauty. Pallas And Venus victrix!

But, apparently, it was not Catherine who was mistaken, but precisely these contemporaries, who, when looking at the extraordinary empress, saw not her, but some magical creature created by their own imagination. The illusion and deception of the eye were so complete that almost no one noticed even the conspicuous, albeit insignificant in themselves, flaws in Catherine’s appearance. Thus, all the faces that introduced themselves to the empress speak of her tall stature, which elevated her above the crowd. Meanwhile, in reality, she was not only below average height, but rather short, and at the same time with a premature tendency to be overweight. However, even the color of her eyes gave rise to strange contradictions. According to some, they were brown, according to others, blue. Ruliere reconciled these two extreme opinions, depicting them in his description as brown with a bluish tint. Here is a verbatim portrait of Catherine, sketched by him approximately in the year of her accession to the throne. She was then thirty-three years old. We have no other such detailed description of her appearance from an earlier era. The portrait made by Poniatowski refers to a time only four or five years earlier, and, moreover, it was painted with the biased hand of a lover.

“Her figure,” writes Ruliere, “is graceful and noble, her gait is proud; her whole being and manners are full of grace. She has a regal appearance. All the features of her face speak of a strong will. She has a long neck and her face protrudes forward; this is especially noticeable in her profile of amazing beauty and the protrusion of her head, which she emphasizes with some diligence. Her forehead is wide and open, her nose is almost aquiline; lips are fresh, they are very decorated with teeth; the chin is somewhat large and almost double, although she is not full. Her hair is brown and unusually beautiful; dark eyebrows; the eyes are brown, beautiful, they shine with a bluish reflection; the complexion is extremely fresh. Pride is the true character of her face. There is also friendliness and kindness in him, but to discerning eyes they seem only to be the result of her extreme desire to please.”

Rulière was neither a lover nor an enthusiast. But let us now compare his portrait with another, drawn in pencil around the same time by the Russian artist Chemesov. There is a legend that this portrait was commissioned at the request of Potemkin, whom Catherine began to admire shortly after the July Revolution, and perhaps a little earlier. Catherine was very pleased with Chemesov’s work and appointed him secretary in her office. And yet, what an amazing empress he depicted, and how little she resembles what other artists, sculptors and note-writers draw for us, starting with Banner and Lampi and ending with Ruliere and the Prince de Ligne! Chemesov’s face, if you like, made Catherine look even pleasant and intelligent, but so unspiritualized; Let's face it: so bourgeois and ordinary. Maybe the reason for this is the costume - some kind of strange mourning attire with a bizarre headdress that covers the forehead to the eyebrows and rises from above in the form of bat wings. But the face itself is smiling and at the same time tough; his large and definitely masculine features nevertheless stand out very clearly even under this cap: this is some kind of German sutler dressed up as a nun, but not Cleopatra.

However, by portraying Catherine in this way, Chemesov turned out to be, perhaps, simply a traitor, and Catherine, recognizing herself in his portrait, showed only that complete misunderstanding of works of art, which she later sincerely admitted to Falcone? To some extent this is possible. However, what has survived is a snapshot from a drawing by a Russian artist: this is a portrait of Catherine, described a few years later by Richardson. The gaze and mind of this Englishman, apparently, did not succumb to either illusions or blindness. And here are the words in which he expresses his impressions:

“The Russian Empress is taller than average, proportionately built and graceful, although she tends to be overweight. She has a good complexion, and she also tries to decorate it with blush, following the example of all the women of her country. Her mouth is beautifully contoured; teeth - beautiful; V blue in her eyes there is an inquisitive expression: not so strong as to call her gaze inquisitorial, and not as unpleasant as that of a distrustful person. The facial features are regular and pleasant. The general impression is that she cannot be said to have a masculine face, but at the same time it cannot be called completely feminine.”

This is not written quite in the tone of Chemesov with his naive and almost brutal realism. But in both images there is still one common feature, which, it seems to us, was characteristic of Catherine’s face, put a special imprint on it and, from a plastic point of view, greatly reduced, if not completely killed, his charm: this is his masculine disposition, visible, however, in other portraits through the magical and flattering colors of artists with a less conscientious brush - even in the one that Voltaire liked so much and is still in Ferney. Meanwhile, Catherine always vigilantly watched how she was depicted on the canvas. When, in a portrait painted by Lampi shortly before her death, she found a wrinkle near her nose, which gave her, as it seemed to her, a stern expression, this aroused in her a hostile attitude towards both the portrait itself and the artist. And Lumpy was even famous for never telling too harsh truths to his models. He erased the wrinkle, and the empress - she was soon to be seventy years old - began to look like a young nymph. History is silent about whether she was satisfied this time.

“How did you imagine me? - Catherine asked the Prince de Ligne when he first arrived in St. Petersburg, “tall, dry, with eyes like stars, and in big figs?” This was in 1780. The Empress was then fifty-one years old. And this is how Prince de Ligne found her: “She’s still not bad,” he says in his “Notes.” - It is clear that she was previously more beautiful than pretty: the majesty of her forehead is softened by a pleasant look and smile, but this forehead gives her all away. You don’t have to be Lavater to read on it, as in an open book: genius, justice, courage, depth, evenness, meekness, calm and firmness. The width of this forehead also indicates great memory and imagination: there is enough room for everything. Her slightly sharp chin does not protrude too much forward, but is still marked by a sharp line, not devoid of nobility. As a result, the oval of her face is irregular, but she is probably extremely liked, because there is a lot of sincerity and fun in her smile. She had to have a fresh complexion and magnificent shoulders: they became, however, beautiful to the detriment of her waist, which was once thin as a thread: in Russia they get fat very quickly. She cares about her appearance, and if she didn’t pull her hair up so much, but let it down a little so that it framed her face, it would suit her incomparably more. You somehow don’t notice that she’s short.”

But these are again the words of an enthusiast. However, Count Segur, who, as a diplomat, considered himself more impartial, describes Catherine in almost the same terms. “Of her former beauty, the whiteness and freshness of her complexion have been preserved the longest,” he says. Caster explained in his own way this victory of Catherine over irreparable losses. According to him, “she was very blushing in recent years reign." But Catherine never agreed to admit this. In her letter to Grimm, written in 1783, we read, for example:

“Thank you for the jars of blush with which you wanted to decorate my face; but when I began to use them, I found that they were so dark that they gave me the appearance of a fury. Therefore, you will excuse me that, despite all my celebrity in the place where you are (Grimm was in Paris at that time) ... I cannot imitate or follow this wonderful fashion there.”

The most authoritative from an aesthetic point of view and, apparently, the most reliable of all is the description made by Mme Vigée-Lebrun, who, unfortunately, did not see Catherine in her best years. At the same time, she could not boast about the Empress’s treatment of her, which is also a guarantee of sincerity: Catherine did not agree to pose in front of her. Subsequently, m-me Vigée-Lebrun painted the empress with a brush from her memories. In her pen she describes her as follows: “First of all, I was terribly amazed to see that she was very short; I pictured her as unusually tall, as huge as her glory. She was very plump, but her face was still beautiful: her white raised hair served as a wonderful frame for it. On her wide and very high forehead lay the stamp of genius; Her eyes are kind and intelligent, her nose is completely Greek, the color of her lively face is fresh, and her whole face is very active... I said that she was short; but on the days of grand entrances, with her head held high, her eagle gaze, with that posture that comes from the habit of ruling, she was full of such greatness that she seemed to me the queen of the world. At one of the celebrations she wore three order ribbons, but her costume was simple and noble. It consisted of a muslin tunic embroidered with gold, with very wide sleeves, gathered in pleats in the middle, in oriental style. On top was a dolman made of red velvet with very short sleeves. The cap pinned to her white hair was decorated not with ribbons, but with diamonds of the rarest beauty.”

Catherine early learned to wear her head high when she was in public, and retained this habit throughout her life. Thanks to this, and also to the charm of grandeur surrounding her name, she seemed incomparably higher than she really was, so much so that she deceived even such a keen observer as Richardson. The art of mastering oneself and maintaining, no matter what, the regal appearance that Catherine possessed so perfectly, is, however, considered traditional at the Russian court. One Austrian court lady conveyed to us, for example, her impressions at the entrance of Emperor Nicholas to Vienna. When he entered the Burg in a brilliant uniform, in the radiance of manly beauty and grandeur, spread throughout his entire figure, slender, arrogant, head taller than all the princes, adjutants, chamberlains and officers, it seemed to her that she saw a demigod before her. She sat on one of the upper galleries and could not take her eyes off this beautiful vision. But suddenly it disappeared. The crowd of courtiers left; all the doors were closed. Members of the imperial family and members of the closest retinue were left alone. But the emperor? Where was he? He sat hunched over here, on the bench, bending his high figure, an expression of endless torment was visible on his face; he could not be recognized, he seemed half as tall, as if he had fallen from the height of his greatness into the abyss of human grief: the former demigod was now just a pitiful and unhappy man. This happened in 1860. Nikolai already felt the first attacks of the disease, which poisoned the end of his life and brought him to an early grave. Outside the crowd, he did not hide his suffering. But in public, with a heroic effort of will, he knew how to again become the magnificent emperor of the former, now past, days.

This is what Catherine, perhaps, did in the last years of her reign.

The Princess of Saxe-Coburg, who saw her for the first time in 1795, begins her story very unflatteringly for Catherine, saying that the old Empress’s face reminded her of a witch: that’s how she usually imagined them. But subsequently, the princess, apparently, somewhat changed her first impression: she also praises the “amazingly beautiful” complexion preserved by the empress, and finds her generally “the personification of a healthy and vigorous old age, although there is a lot of talk abroad about her illnesses.”

Catherine, meanwhile, never enjoyed particularly good health. She often suffered from headaches accompanied by colic, which did not stop her, however, from laughing at medicine and doctors until the last minute. Getting her to take some medicine was not easy. Once, when her doctor Rogerson managed to persuade her to swallow a few pills, he was so delighted that, forgetting himself, he patted her familiarly on the shoulder, exclaiming: “Bravo, bravo!” And she was not at all offended by him for this.

Beginning in 1772, Catherine could no longer read without glasses. Her hearing, generally very delicate, was also subject to strange suffering: her ears perceived sounds differently, not only in terms of strength, but also in tone itself. Probably as a result of this, she never understood music, no matter how hard she tried to love it. She was completely devoid of a sense of harmony.

They assured that sparks fell from the silk scarves that she tied around her head at night when they were cleaned. The same phenomenon seemed to repeat itself with the sheets. But all these fables only prove what an enormous influence even Catherine’s physical being had on the imagination of contemporaries who had just become acquainted with Franklin’s mysterious discoveries. Her moral character was such that it could only reinforce all these legends.

A great empress and a woman worthy of all possible respect, whom Catherine, however, never sought to be like, calling her ironically “Saint Theresa,” wrote in 1780:

“This winter, the Emperor hinted to me jokingly that he wanted to see the Russian Empress. You can imagine how unpleasant his intention is to me, firstly, because of the impression that this meeting will make on other powers, and because of the disgust and horror that such characters as the Russian Empress inspire in me.”

Meanwhile, it seems to us that Catherine became great precisely because of her character. He had his own shortcomings and even vices: according to his strength, they assumed the same enormous, if you like, monstrous proportions as he did. But in general he was a brilliant character and at times reached rare heights.

The “disgust and horror” with which Maria Theresa treated her did not, apparently, prevent the latter from entering into an alliance with the empress she so disliked and partitioning Poland hand in hand with her. Marie Antoinette, who shared her mother's hostile feelings, was in practice also ready to forget about them.

“Whatever I think about the Russian Empress,” she wrote in turn, “I would be extremely grateful to her if her policy ensured us peace.”

Thus, Catherine was a monster only in abstract terms. But even from this point of view, the opinion of Maria Theresa and Marie Antoinette seems to us too strict, so it is doubtful that the monster was capable of arousing universal worship during his lifetime and leaving such a lasting and valuable legacy for his offspring, as Catherine did. She was, undoubtedly, a very complex nature, almost impossible to study, which we now want to begin. And, as if she herself had a presentiment of the difficulties her future biographers would have to face, she, as if taking pity on them, outlined a path for them, placing milestones along it here and there: not to mention her “Notes”, in which psychology occupies quite a small part places, she also left us something like a short autobiography and a little experience of her own characterization. Here is the autobiography. It was preserved on a sheet of paper, on the reverse side of which, in some other, unfamiliar hand, was written the epitaph of “Sir Tom Andersen” - one of the Empress’s favorite dogs. And on the model of this funeral word dedicated to the creature she dearly loved, Catherine, in one of the fits of humor that so often happened to her, composed her own epitaph, “afraid,” she says (this was in the winter of 1778), “that she would die by the end of Maslenitsa, because I must attend eleven masquerades, not counting lunches and dinners.” We copy this epitaph verbatim:

“Here lies Catherine the Second, born in Stettin on April 21 (May 2), 1729. She arrived in Russia in 1744 to marry Peter III. At the age of fourteen she made a triple plan to please her husband, Elizabeth and the people. She left nothing out to achieve this goal. Eighteen years of melancholy and loneliness gave her the opportunity to read many books. Having reached the throne of Russia, she strove for the good and wanted to bring happiness, freedom and property to her subjects. She easily forgave and did not hate anyone. Indulgent, undemanding and cheerful by nature, with a republican soul and a kind heart, she had friends. The work was easy for her; she loved society and the arts.”

And here is a description made by her herself. It is contained in a letter to Senac de Meilan, written in May 1791.

“I never found that I had a creative mind; I met a lot of people who, without any envy, I recognized as much smarter than myself. It was always very easy to lead me, because in order to achieve this, it was only necessary to present to me incomparably better and more solid ideas than mine; then I became obedient, like a lamb. The reason for this lies in the passionate desire that never left me for the good of my state to be accomplished. I was fortunate to find good and true principles, thanks to which I achieved great success. I have had misfortunes that resulted from mistakes for which I was not responsible; they happened, perhaps, only because what I prescribed was not carried out exactly. Despite all my natural pliability, I knew how to be stubborn or firm, as you like, when it seemed necessary to me. I have never embarrassed anyone in my opinions, but on occasion I firmly held my own. I don’t like to argue, because, in my opinion, everyone always has their own opinion. However, I would not be able to speak intelligibly enough (fort haut). I never remember evil. Providence has placed me in such a position that I cannot be vindictive towards individuals, since I consider both sides unequal, if we judge in fairness. I generally love justice, but I find that strict justice is not justice, and that for human weakness simple justice is enough. In all cases, I preferred to apply humanity and condescension towards people rather than strict rules of morality, which, in my opinion, are often poorly understood. I was guided in this by my heart, which I consider soft and kind. When the old people preached severity to me, I confessed my weakness to them, bursting into tears, and some of them agreed with me, also shedding tears. I am by nature cheerful and sincere; but she lived too long among people not to know that there are bilious minds that cannot tolerate gaiety, and that no one can tolerate either truth or frankness.”

“Here is approximately my portrait,” Catherine wrote in the title of these lines. Very approximate, we think, and not because it lacks much, but precisely because of what is indicated in it. Thus, the inability to hold grudges, which Catherine ascribes to herself, having quarreled with Frederick so many times, as far as one can judge, only because of somewhat harsh remarks made to her by the philosopher king, is a character trait that is quite unexpected for her. Even Count Segur, in an era when he had not yet sinned with excessive severity towards the Russian Empress, who greeted him with exceptional courtesy, emphasizes a completely opposite trait in Catherine’s character.

“The Empress,” we read in one of his dispatches, “no doubt has many virtues: sound mind, brave soul, insightful mind and a very kind heart; but she is malleable, distrustful, impressionable, and her offended or flattered pride always influences her political views. Because of empty gossip about her at Versailles, because of coldness on the part of our court or on the part of the emperor, because of the slightest mistake that I myself can make, she is able to change her intentions: for example, she is hostile to the Prussian king , because he assumed she had diseases that she really didn’t have.”

As for truth and frankness, no matter how much Catherine loved them, she would probably have set a unique example in history if she had not betrayed them by talking about herself.

She was insincere towards herself even in a conversation with the Prince of Ligne, assuring him that if she had accidentally been a second lieutenant, she would never have risen to the rank of captain, because she would have died in the first skirmish. “Let me not believe it,” objected the prince, and he was right. One might think that, speaking with him, Catherine temporarily forgot her own history and did not understand the prevailing trait of her character. After all, if at times she knew how to be fearless, then she was always and above all ambitious. Everyone met in it distinctive features that outstanding breed of people, of whom modern history the most brilliant and unparalleled representative was Napoleon. She had, first of all, their arrogant mind, which did not tolerate contradictions well - no matter how hard she tried to convince others of the opposite - and did not allow any interference in her orders and actions. She once became very angry with one of her favorite ministers, Prince Vyazemsky, when he dared, without consulting her, to give the order that a performance be given at the court theater. "I don't want to be under anyone's care," she told him. Then she had their courage, sometimes almost insane, but always thoughtful, not stopping at any considerations and at the same time counting even on a simple chance and taking risks with cold determination. And finally, she had their self-confidence, without which success in anything is impossible, and that special ability not to doubt one’s own luck, without which people cannot be happy in their endeavors. But on all this lay the imprint of something feminine, giving Catherine’s character excessive impetuosity and dreaminess. When in 1770, during the war with the Turks, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army reported to her about the overwhelming superiority of the enemy forces, Catherine silenced him; Reminding him of the Romans, who never considered enemies, she expressed her firm conviction that the Turks would be defeated. And when this conviction, after some time, was actually justified and Rumyantsev obediently responded to her demand with a number of brilliant victories, the feeling of self-confidence that had previously been characteristic of her strengthened even more, and little by little it entered her flesh and blood. By the end of her reign, it had developed in her so strongly that she did not even allow the possibility of any defeat, misfortune or other betrayal of fate in relation to herself.

If I were Louis XVIII,” she wrote in 1796, “I would either not have left France at all, or I would have returned there long ago in spite of the elements, and my stay there or entry would depend only on me, and not on any some other human will."

It also seemed to her that if she were George III, they would not dare take America away from her.

She was supported, however, like all people of her generation, by a fatalistic faith, inexplicable and senseless, but nevertheless boundless, in something mysterious and omnipotent that controls the destinies of such chosen ones of Heaven as she. Talking to Diderot, she quite seriously gives him honestly that he would reign for thirty-six years. In 1789 she says: “I am now sixty years old, but I am sure that I will live more than twenty more.” And since her faith is very deep, it is combined in her with a calm, unshakable optimism, so self-confident and so persistent that at times she becomes as if deaf and blind. It was he who partly created her “steadfastness.” During the second Turkish war, which bore little resemblance to the first, for a long time it seemed that Catherine’s star was setting: failures followed one after another. But Catherine did not want to believe it. She pretended that neither she herself nor anyone else in the world knew about the defeat of the Russian army and its commander, whose name was now, unfortunately, no longer Rumyantsev, but Potemkin. But at the slightest failure of the Turks, as, for example, in October 1787 near Kinburn, she immediately served prayer services, fired cannon fire as a sign of victory and trumpeted throughout Europe about the glorious feat of the Russian troops. One might have thought that Kinburn was the second Battle of Chesme, that the Ottoman fleet was destroyed and the name of Potemkin was covered with immortal glory. She, however, wrote to him about this fight and did so, apparently, with complete conviction.

Without a doubt, such optimism was part of her political outlook, her manner of governing and her diplomatic cunning, which we will become even more familiar with later. She thus sought to impress all of Europe: Austria, which she wanted to lead, and France, from which she needed help, and even Turkey, which she tried to demoralize. For example, she instructed Count Segur to transmit such reports about Russian victories to the Versailles court that Count de Montmorin then had great difficulty convincing his envoy of the falsity of the information contained in them. In the same way, she fought against the despondency of Potemkin, who easily lost heart. But at the same time, her optimism was undoubtedly an integral feature of her character and impressed not only others, but also herself.

At times, when you follow this continuous self-praise, which filled her correspondence and conversations, especially often in moments of crisis, one might think that she suffered from delusions of grandeur. The Swedes are already standing near St. Petersburg, and she continues to sing of her victories over them. In July 1788, one of the enemy shots rang out so close that the streets of the capital were filled with smoke. But the next day, Catherine cheerfully jokes about this, congratulating herself on having also sniffed gunpowder; then she goes to the church, where a prayer service is served on the occasion of a more or less certain victory over the Turks, with the news of which Potemkin incidentally sends her a messenger, and, returning from the temple, she says that she saw such a crowd of people around the church that “this crowd was would be enough to kill the Swedes with stones collected from the pavements of St. Petersburg.” She is about to sign a decree ordering Vice Admiral von Desen to contact Admiral Greig, defeating the Swedes at Karlskrona. Admiral Greig must go to meet Dezen, defeating, in turn, once again the enemy fleet. But to this Mamonov, the official favorite of that time, objected to her that one could not be so firmly confident in the inevitable victory of both admirals. Until now, they have never defeated the Swedes in a single decisive battle. Catherine becomes very angry:

“I don’t like small things, but big enterprises; they will never fight according to such instructions,” she says.

But she still gives in to Mamonov and agrees not to send von Desen “an order to win,” although she cries with frustration. It seems to her that the admiral will not be able to do anything necessary now. And three weeks later, despite the fact that there are no changes in the position of the fighting parties, she pretends that the entire Swedish fleet, down to the last ship, has already perished in the waters of the Baltic Sea. She is no longer bothered by his close proximity. She says that it would be good to send the Russian fleet to the Archipelago. As for the Swedes, there is no need to worry about them anymore. They will destroy themselves. The Finnish army will rebel against them, if not now, then in the near future. It will be enough to show Gustav his place. And Catherine tries to take revenge on the Swedish king only by ridiculing his military exploits in the comic opera “Woe-Bogatyr Kosometovich,” which she begins to write, “not knowing, however, how to finish it.” But the Finnish army is not indignant, thus refusing to justify the trust of the empress; and after a series of alternating victories and defeats there finally comes the complete defeat of the Russian fleet at Svenksund (June 28, 1790); but in her letter to Potemkin, Catherine barely mentions him in two lines.

And that's how she always did it. In 1796, a few months before her death, she began, for example, this unhappy marriage of her granddaughter with the Swedish king: it was generally a curious story, the strange vicissitudes of which we will tell in more detail elsewhere. Everyone proves to her difficulties, obstacles, the almost impossibility of success; but, not paying attention to anything, not even bothering to arrange the matter properly, Catherine invites the king, and on the appointed day, having gathered the entire court and putting on a ceremonial dress, his royal majesty awaits his royal majesty in her palace for betrothal. But this time, happiness seemed tired of serving her: His Royal Majesty did not come! From this, Catherine probably died a few months later. The entire year of 1796, the end of which she was not destined to see, was, however, unhappy for her. But optimism did not leave her even here. In July, a fire destroyed part of the fleet. All the gunboats, lined up and armed with great difficulty, burned in the harbor of Vasilyevsky Island.

“Well then? – Catherine wrote the next day, “everything we really need will be built again this summer... and the port will only be cleared of rubbish.”

Catherine loved fame, considering it as if it belonged to her by right, but at the same time she loved to flaunt it.

“If this war continues,” she wrote in August 1771, “then my Tsarskoye Selo garden will soon resemble a bowling game, because with every brilliant victory I erect a monument in it... Behind the garden, in the forest, I want to build a temple in the memory of a real war, where all outstanding battles (and there are many of them: we already count 64 numbers) will be depicted on medallions in the form of very simple and short inscriptions in Russian, indicating the time of the battles and the persons who took part in them.”

Let us note in passing that in the list of victories compiled by her with her own hand, the Battle of Chesme was considered in two. The thirst for ambition was so strong in Catherine that she apparently saw double when she needed it.

Her ambition also made her very sensitive to flattery and, frankly, very vain. But she, of course, denied this and, at every opportunity, loved to show opposite feelings. The French architect Clérisso, who was famous in his time, a great artist and an honest, but apparently quarrelsome man, treated Emperor Joseph II very unfriendly when he visited him in Paris. “Do you know what an artist is? - he said to the emperor, among other pleasantries, refusing the orders that Joseph gave him, and which he did not like. – On the one hand, he has a pencil; on the other hand, he is offered 20,000 livres of annual income if he refuses this pencil. But he throws your 20,000 livres in your face and remains with the pencil, because the pencil gives him more happiness than all the treasures in the world.” Catherine, to whom Grimm told about this trick of Clerisso, was delighted with it. “I love,” she said, “when they speak like Clerisseau and the emperor... This at least teaches these gentlemen that not everyone speaks in only one way, and that not everyone likes to flatter.” Another time she forbade Grimm to call her Catherine the Great: "Because primo I don’t like nicknames at all; second my name is Catherine II, tertio I do not want to be found ill-named, like Louis XV; fourthly, I am neither big nor small in stature.”

But Grimm knew who he was dealing with, and subsequently only tried to change the form of his compliment. In 1780, the English envoy Harris, preparing for an important meeting with the Empress, decided to first consult with his favorite Potemkin. He had to convince Catherine to stand up for England in its conflict with France. “I can give you only one piece of advice,” replied the favorite, “flatter her. This is the only way to get anything from her, but with this you can get anything from her... Do not try to convince her with reasonable arguments: she will not listen to you. Appeal directly to her feelings and passions. Do not offer her either the treasures of England or her fleet: she does not need it. She only needs praise and compliments. Give her what she demands, and she will give you in return all the military forces of her state.”

Joseph II shared this opinion when he advised his mother to overcome her disgust for Catherine and bestow upon her the Order of the Golden Fleece, which she dreamed of: “It seems to me that I know Her Majesty well, and vanity is her only flaw,” he wrote. Count Segur thought the same thing: “It’s quite difficult to deceive the empress; she has a lot of tact, cunning and insight; but if you flatter her love of fame, you can completely confuse her entire policy.” But, without a doubt, it was very easy to return her to the true path again using the same means. And Count Segur always made extensive use of it. During Catherine’s famous trip to the Crimea, he, the Austrian Kobenzel, the Englishman Fitz-Herbert and the charming cosmopolitan Prince de Ligne vied with each other to flatter her from morning to evening. All their methods were good for this, and everything served as a pretext for them. Once the Empress was playing the game “les bouts-rim?s”, where they select poems to fit a given rhyme. FitzHerbert, surprisingly little gifted for poetic creativity, nevertheless composed the following verse, at the insistence of the Empress:

“Je chante les auteurs qui font des bouts-rim?s...”

Count Segur immediately finished the quatrain:

“Un peu plus fols, sans doute, ils seraient enterm?s;

Mais il faut respecter et ch?rir leur folie,

Quand ils chantent l’esprit, la gr?ce et le g?nie.”

And six months later, talking with Grimm about the death of Voltaire, Catherine wrote to him:

“Since he died, the first poet of France has undoubtedly been Count Segur. I don’t know anyone who would be equal to him at the moment.”

This was the reward for the quatrain. Catherine, however, sincerely believed what she said. She also believed all praise addressed to her. In this regard, there was no mistrust and no false shame in her. If she forbade Grimm to give her the name Great, in the depths of her soul, of course, she found that she had the same right to it as Louis XIV - but only for the pleasure of sending an epigram to Louis XV; she not only had nothing against being exalted, but allowed herself to be deified. In 1772, Falcone sent her a translation of a Latin quatrain, by the way, a very clumsy one, where she was compared in turn with Juno, Pallas and Venus - and the only thing she didn’t like about these verses was the inability of the translator. No matter how exaggerated the compliment, she accepted it favorably, but demanded only that it be clothed in an elegant form. When the French envoy Marquis Junier asked Vergennes in 1777 to have a laudatory article about the empress’s new legislative work published in the Gazette de France, he especially insisted that this article be written intelligently, “for,” he said, “We are very scrupulous...”

But at the same time, was Catherine, as would be natural to expect, painfully proud and touchy?

“The slightest taunt offended her vanity,” Count Segur responds to this in his Notes. “She was smart and therefore pretended to laugh at what was said to her, but it was clear that her laughter sounded insincere.” But, on the other hand, evidence has been preserved that is completely opposite to the words of Segur: in 1787, the famous Lavater chose the great empress as the subject of his observations. He examined her face and found her very ordinary, standing incomparably below Queen Christina. Catherine reacted to this quite indifferently. “I swear to you that I do not envy her at all,” she wrote to Grimm about this. And at the same time, she did not add a single bitter word to the unkind physiognomist, did not show the slightest desire to debunk his art. How can these two extreme opinions be reconciled? Here's how: this extraordinary woman, apparently, always sought to separate two special beings within herself: the empress and the woman. How she achieved this we do not know, but there is no doubt that she carried this dichotomy to strange differences and amazing subtleties. So, we can say that from a purely female point of view there was no coquetry in her and no pretensions at all. She spoke simply and naturally about her appearance and even about her intelligence. In a conversation with Count Segur, she once expressed to him the conviction that if she had not been an empress, the ladies of Paris would probably not have found much pleasure in her company and would not have invited her to their dinners. She never tried to hide her age, although the thought of old age was unpleasant to her. “A good gift this day brings me,” she wrote in response to an inappropriate reminder of her birthday, “another extra year!” Oh, if only empresses could always be fifteen years old!” Leaving aside her high position as an empress, she was ready to agree with Lavater, who recognized her as an ordinary woman. She even willingly admitted that this title of empress fell to her lot completely by accident. But, since this chance existed, she wanted her, as if reincarnated upon her accession to the throne, into a new being - no longer the daughter of the Princess of Zerbst, but Catherine, the autocrat of all Russia - to be given a special place among people, demanding for herself , for the sake of his greatness and splendor, all kinds of worship and not allowing any criticism. In her mind, the empress was inseparable from the empire, and she placed the empire unattainably high. Thus, her vanity was essentially only a consequence of her almost insanely exaggerated idea of ​​​​her greatness and power as an empress.

And no matter how erroneous this idea may be in itself, it was not Catherine’s weakness: on the contrary, it was her main strength. It was excessive, fantastic, and did not correspond to reality, but Catherine knew how to support it in front of others and ended up forcing the whole world to agree with it. It was, if you like, a deception, a mirage; but this mirage lasted thirty years! How did she achieve this? By what means?

By purely individual means, we think, which depended entirely on her character.

First of all, with his exceptional willpower.

“I’ll tell you,” she wrote to Grimm in 1774, “that I don’t have the shortcomings that you attribute to me, because I don’t have the virtues that you find in me: maybe I’m kind; Usually I am meek, but, due to my position, I must inevitably desire with terrible force what I desire - and that’s approximately all I’m worth.”

Let us note, however, that if, on the one hand, her will was in constant and stubborn tension, striving for “the good of the state to be accomplished,” as she put it, and striving for this with extraordinary strength, then, on the other hand, Catherine was in her desires the very inconstancy. Never stop wanting it benefits state in general, she with amazing ease and speed changed the idea of ​​​​what this good consisted of. In this respect, she was a woman to the core. In 1767, she devoted herself wholeheartedly to her “Order”, wanting to create new laws for Russia. It seems to her that this work, which we will later talk about and in which she unceremoniously robbed Montesquieu and Beccaria, should open a new era in the history of Russia. And therefore she passionately, ardently wishes so that the ideas of the “Order” find application in life more quickly. But here she encounters obstacles; she has to wait, make necessary and unexpected concessions. And then she immediately ceases to be interested in “Instruction”. In 1775 it is institution for the management of the provinces and writes about this to Grimm: “My last laws of November 7th contain two hundred and fifty pages in quarto, but I swear to you that I have never written anything equal to them and that in comparison with them Order to go to bed now seems like empty chatter to me.” She is eager to show this chef d’oevre to her correspondent as soon as possible. But not even a year has passed before she completely loses interest in this matter. In the end, Grimm never received the promised document, and when he insisted that she be so gracious and send it to him, Catherine grew impatient: “Why is he so persistent in trying to be given this very uninteresting thing to read? She may be good; maybe even beautiful, but extremely boring.” Catherine herself stopped thinking about her within a month.

In her relationships with people, she had the same unexpected, passionate hobbies, to which she devoted herself with absolutely exceptional ardor; but usually they were very quickly followed by complete disappointment and indifference. Most of the prominent people she called to Russia, including Diderot himself, had to experience this themselves.

Then, having spent twenty years of her reign decorating various country places and finding them alternately the most beautiful in the world, in 1786 she unexpectedly became delighted with one town neighboring St. Petersburg, which in no way justified her choice. But she immediately ordered the Russian architect Starov, a student of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, to build a palace here as soon as possible, and immediately wrote to Grimm: “All my dachas are just huts in comparison with Pella, which grows like a Phoenix from the ground.”

But, thanks to her great common sense and subtle and insightful mind, she subsequently understood this trait of her character.

“I only made the discovery two days ago,” she writes, “that I belong to the number of people who grab at everything without bringing anything to the end; Until now, of all that I have started, nothing has been finished.”

A year later she writes again:

“I don't have enough time to finish all this; this reminds me of my laws and regulations: everything is begun and nothing is finished; everything was done in fits and starts.”

But she still retains some illusions, because she adds:

“If I live two more years, then everything will be brought to complete perfection.”

But two years or more passed, and she became convinced that it was not lack of time that prevented her from completing all her affairs. “I have never been so clearly aware that I can only work in fits and starts,” admits Ekaterina with a tinge of sadness. At the same time, she adds that she considers herself “very stupid” and finds that Prince Potemkin had more ability to govern the state than she did.

Let us add that she would not be completely a woman if it did not happen to her at times not to be quite clearly aware of what exactly she wants, and sometimes not to understand at all what constitutes the object of her - and always very strong - desire. Regarding a certain Vanier, who served as Voltaire’s secretary, and whom she invited into her service for some reason, and then did not know what to do with him, she wrote to her souffre-douleur:

“Enough apologies on your part... and on mine also for the fact that I did not know exactly - in this case, as in many others - neither what I wanted nor what I did not want, and therefore I wrote about your desire and reluctance... You know, in addition to the department that you advise me to establish, I will open another one: about the “science of indecision” - I am more knowledgeable in it than one might think.”