What became of the bridegroom is not certainly known. He was doubtless called suddenly to his post when the alarm was given of the enemy's approach, and a great many different stories were told in respect to what afterward befell him. One thing is certain, and that is, that his young bride never saw him again.[3]
Catharine, when she found herself separated from her husband and shut up a helpless prisoner with a crowd of other wretched and despairing captives, was overwhelmed with grief at the sad reverse of fortune that had befallen her. She had good reason not only to mourn for the happiness which she had lost, but also to experience very anxious and gloomy forebodings in respect to what was before her, for the main object of the Russians in making prisoners of the young and beautiful women which they found in the towns that they conquered, was to send them to Turkey, and to sell them there as slaves.
Catharine was, however, destined to escape this dreadful fate. One of the Russian generals, in looking over the prisoners, was struck with her appearance, and with the singular expression of grief and despair which her countenance displayed. He called her to him and asked her some questions; and he was more impressed by the intelligence and good sense which her answers evinced than he had been by the beauty of her countenance. He bid her quiet her fears, promising that he would himself take care of her. He immediately ordered some trusty men to take her to his tent, where there were some women who would take charge of and protect her.
These women were employed in various domestic occupations in the service of the general. Catharine began at once to interest herself in these employments, and to do all in her power to assist in them; and at length, as one of the writers who gives an account of these transactions goes on to say, "the general, finding Catharine very proper to manage his household affairs, gave her a sort of authority and inspection over these women and over the rest of the domestics, by whom she soon came to be very much beloved by her manner of using them when she instructed them in their duty. The general said himself that he never had been so well served as since Catharine had been with him.
"It happened one day that Prince Menzikoff, who was the general's commanding officer and patron, saw Catharine, and, observing something very extraordinary in her air and behavior, asked the general who she was and in what condition she served him. The general related to him her story, taking care, at the same time, to do justice to the merit of Catharine. The prince said that he was himself very ill served, and had occasion for just such a person about him. The general replied that he was under too great obligations to his highness the prince to refuse him any thing that he asked. He immediately called Catharine into his presence, and told her that that was Prince Menzikoff, and that he had occasion for a servant like herself, and that he was able to be a much better friend to her than he himself could be, and that he had too much kindness for her to prevent her receiving such a piece of honor and good fortune.
"Catharine answered only with a profound courtesy, which showed, if not her consent to the change proposed, at least her conviction that it was not then in her power to refuse the offer that was made to her. In short, Prince Menzikoff took her with him, or she went to him the same day."
Catharine remained in the service of the prince for a year or two, and was then transferred from the household of the prince to that of the Czar almost precisely in the same way in which she had been resigned to the prince by the general. The Czar saw her one day while he was at dinner with the prince, and he was so much pleased with her appearance, and with the account which the prince gave him of her character and history, that he wished to have her himself; and, however reluctant the prince may have been to lose her, he knew very well that there was no alternative for him but to give his consent. So Catharine was transferred to the household of the Czar.
She soon acquired a great ascendency over the Czar, and in process of time she was privately married to him. This private marriage took place in 1707. For several years afterward the marriage was not publicly acknowledged; but still Catharine's position was well understood, and her power at court, as well as her personal influence over her husband, increased continually.
Catharine sometimes accompanied the emperor in his military campaigns, and at one time was the means, it is thought, of saving him from very imminent danger. It was in the year 1711. The Czar was at that time at war with the Turks, and he had advanced into the Turkish territory with a small, but very compact and well-organized army. The Turks sent out a large force to meet him, and at length, after various marchings and manoeuvrings, the Czar found himself surrounded by a Turkish force three times as large as his own. The Russians fortified their camp, and the Turks attacked them. The latter attempted for two or three successive days to force the Russian lines, but without success, and at length the grand vizier, who was in command of the Turkish troops, finding that he could not force his enemy to quit their intrenchments, determined to starve them out; so he invested the place closely on all sides. The Czar now gave himself up for lost, for he had only a very small stock of provisions, and there seemed no possible way of escape from the snare in which he found himself involved. Catharine was with her husband in the camp at this time, having had the courage to accompany him in the expedition, notwithstanding its extremely dangerous character, and the story is that she was the means of extricating him from his hazardous position by dextrously bribing the vizier.
The way in which she managed the affair was this. She arranged it with the emperor that he was to propose terms of peace to the vizier, by which, on certain conditions, he was to be allowed to retire with his army. Catharine then secretly made up a very valuable present for the vizier, consisting of jewels, costly decorations, and other such valuables belonging to herself, which, as was customary in those times, she had brought with her on the expedition, and also a large sum of money. This present she contrived to send to the vizier at the same time with the proposals of peace made by the emperor. The vizier was extremely pleased with the present, and he at once agreed to the conditions of peace, and thus the Czar and all his army escaped the destruction which threatened them.
The vizier was afterward called to account for having thus let off his enemies so easily when he had them so completely in his power; but he defended himself as well as he could by saying that the terms on which he had made the treaty were as good as could be obtained in any way, adding, hypocritically, that "God commands us to pardon our enemies when they ask us to do so, and humble themselves before us."
In the mean time, years passed away, and the emperor and Catharine lived very happily together, though the connection which subsisted between them, while it was universally known, was not openly or publicly recognized. In process of time they had two or three children, and this, together with the unassuming but yet faithful and efficient manner in which Catharine devoted herself to her duties as wife and mother, strengthened the bond which bound her to the Czar, and at length, in the year 1712, Peter determined to place her before the world in the position to which he had already privately and unofficially raised her, by a new and public marriage.
It was not pretended, however, that the Czar was to be married to Catharine now for the first time, but the celebration was to be in honor of the nuptials long before performed. Accordingly, in the invitations that were sent out, the expression used to denote the occasion on which the company was to be convened was "to celebrate his majesty's old wedding." The place where the ceremony was to be performed was St. Petersburg, for this was now many years after St. Petersburg had been built.