But Elizabeth didn’t care a fig about him. Her charming cranium held no thoughts beyond the next romp. Sure of her power over men, she threw herself at one after another for casual idylls and liaisons. After seducing Alexander Buturlin, she went after Ivan Dolgoruky, the Tsar’s designated “sweetie.” Was she excited by the idea of charming a partner whose homosexual preferences were well-known? Her sister, Anna Petrovna, retired in Holstein, had just brought a son10 into the world, whereas Elizabeth, at the age of 19, was still unmarried; she was far more concerned, however, with weaving her nefarious intrigue with the darling Ivan.
She was stimulated by the adventure, as if she were trying to prove the superiority of her sex in all forms of perversity in love.
Probably she thought it less banal, and thus more interesting, to take a man from another man than to steal him from a woman.
During the festivities held in Kiel by Anna Petrovna and the Grand Duke Charles Frederick to celebrate the birth of their child, the tsar opened the ball with Elizabeth. After dancing with her gallantly, under the charmed gaze of the assembly, he withdrew to the next room, according to his custom, with his drinking buddies. Having knocked back a few glasses, he noted that Ivan, his usual companion at such events, was not at his side. Surprised, he walked back and saw him dancing, breathlessly, in the middle of the ballroom with Elizabeth. She looked so excited, face
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Machinations around the Throne to face with this cavalier who was devouring her with his eyes, that Peter lost his temper and went back to get drunk. But which one was he really jealous over? Ivan or Elizabeth?
Aunt and nephew were only reconciled after Easter. Forsaking Dolgoruky for once, Peter took Elizabeth along on an extended shooting party. The expedition was expected to last several months. A 500-person retinue accompanied the couple.
Wild fowl as well as large game were the quarries. When the time came to track a wolf, a fox or a bear, valets in silver-trimmed green livery did the job. They would attack the animal with rifles and spears, under the interested eyes of the Masters. After a perusal of the hunting spectacle, a banquet would be held in the open air, followed by a visit to the merchants who came from far and wide to display their fabrics, embroideries, miraculous ointments and costume jewelry.
A piece of alarming news caught Peter and Elizabeth by surprise in the midst of all this revelry: Natalya, Peter’s sister, took sick; she was spitting blood. Was she going to die? But no, she recovered; instead, Elizabeth’s sister in Kiel, Anna Petrovna, Duchess of Holstein, gave her close relatives more serious concern.
She had caught cold while watching the fireworks during her churching. Pneumonia, the doctors declared; and in a few days, she was gone. The poor thing was only 20 years old; and she left an orphaned son, Charles Ulrich, just two weeks old. Everyone around Peter was dismayed. He alone expressed no regret at her passing. Some wondered whether he was still capable of human feeling. Was it the excessive indulgence in forbidden pleasures that had desiccated his heart?
When the body of his aunt, of whom he used to be so fond, was brought back to St. Petersburg, he didn’t bother to go to the burial. And he didn’t even cancel the ball that was habitually given at the palace at that time. A few months later, in November
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Terrible Tsarinas 1728, it was his sister Natalya’s turn - her consumption, which had been thought to be under control, abruptly took a turn for the worse. Although Peter was, as it happened, off hunting and fooling around in the countryside, he resigned himself to a return to St. Petersburg in order to be at the patient’s bedside for her final moments. He impatiently listened to Ostermann’s and Natalya’s friends lamentations, and their praise of the virtues of this princess “who was an angel.” As soon as she died, December 3, 1728, he rushed off again for the domain of Gorenky, where the Dolgorukys were preparing another of their formidable shooting parties for him. This time, he did invite Elizabeth to accompany him.
Without exactly being tired of the young woman’s attentions and coquetry, he felt the need for a change in personnel among his playmates. To justify his fickleness, people said that it was normal for a healthy man to enjoy a succession of relationships more than dreary fidelity.
At the palace, at Gorenky, a happy surprise awaited him.
Alexis, the head of the Dolgoruky clan and a skilful organizer of hunts for his guest, introduced Peter to a new breed of game: the prince’s three daughters, all fresh, available and tempting, with an air of provocative virginity. The eldest, Catherine (Katya to close friends), was breathtakingly beautiful, with ebony hair, eyes of black flame and a soft, matte skin that flushed pink with the least emotion. Bold of temperament, she was a full participant in everything from stag hunt to banquet and toasts; she was clever at parlor games and graceful at the impromptu dances that were put on after hours of riding through the countryside. Observers agreed in predicting that Ivan would soon be supplanted by his sister, the delightful Katya, in the heart of the inconstant tsar. Either way, the Dolgoruky family was ahead.
However, in St. Petersburg, the rivals of the Dolgoruky coalition feared that this passing fancy, the reverberations of which
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Machinations around the Throne were already being heard, might lead to marriage. Such a union would end up making the tsar totally subservient to his in-laws and would close the door on the other members of the Supreme Privy Council. Peter seemed to be so smitten by his Katya that he had hardly returned to St. Petersburg when he decided to leave again. If he bothered to stop in the capital at all, it was only to round out his hunting gear. Having bought 200 hunting hounds and 400 greyhounds, he headed back to Gorenky. But, back where he’d enjoyed such great exploits in the field, he no longer seemed very sure how much fun he was having. He was bored, counting the hares, foxes and wolves that he had killed in the course of the day. One evening, citing the three bears listed in his hunting record, somebody complimented him for this latest prowess. With a sarcastic smile, he replied: “I did better than take three bears; I’m taking with me four two-footed animals.” His interlocutor recognized that as an unkind allusion to prince Alexis Dolgoruky and his three daughters. Such mockery, in public, made people suppose that, after the initial combustion, perhaps the tsar no longer burned so intensely for Katya and that he might be on the verge of abandoning her.
Ostermann, an astute strategist, followed the ups and downs of this unpredictable couple from afar, through the gossip and rumor mills of the court. Now he set about preparing a counteroffensive. Her grief at the death of her sister Anna having run its course, Elizabeth was again available. Admittedly, her thoughts often turned toward that baby, her nephew, deprived of tenderness and growing up at a distance, practically becoming a stranger. She wondered, from time to time, whether she should not draw him back in, nearer to her. And then the events of the day would distract her from these thoughts, so worthy of a guardian. It was even said that after a mystical crisis, she was experiencing such a new zest for life that she had fallen under the spell
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Terrible Tsarinas of the charming heir of a great family, the very seductive Count Simon Naryshkin. This magnificent and refined gentleman was of the same age as she, and his assiduous pursuit, over hill and dale, like an indefatigable barbet spaniel, showed how much they both enjoyed their tete-a-tetes. When she withdrew to her estate at Ismailovo, she invited him over. There, they enjoyed the healthy and simple joys of the countryside. What could be pleasanter than playing in the country with palaces and flocks of servants in the background? Every day they went to collect nuts, pick flowers, and hunt for mushrooms, speaking with a paternal kindness to the serfs on the estate, taking an interest in the health of the animals grazing in the meadows or ruminating in the cattle sheds.