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Catherine’s Reign: A Flash of Flamboyance his aunt Anna Petrovna and to her heirs; then to his other aunt, Elizabeth Petrovna, and to any heirs she might have. The two aunts would be members of the aforementioned Supreme Privy Council until the day their imperial nephew reached the age of 17.
The formula conceived by Menshikov would give him the upper hand, through his daughter, the future tsarina, in managing the country’s destiny.
This indirect confiscation of power galled Tolstoy and his usual collaborators, including Buturlin and the Portuguese adventurer Devier. They tried to respond, but Menshikov foiled their maneuver and counteracted by accusing them of the crime of lesemajesty. His paid spies gave him a positive report: the majority of Tolstoy’s buddies were engaged in the plot. Under torture, the Portuguese Devier admitted to everything he was asked (the torturer must have handled the knout with considerable dexterity).
He and his accomplices had publicly scorned the grief of Her Majesty’ daughters and had participated in clandestine meetings with the intention of upsetting the monarchical order. In the name of the failing Empress, Menshikov had Tolstoy arrested; he was shut up in the Solovetsky Monastery, on an island in the White Sea;
Devier was dispatched to Siberia; as for the others, they were simply sent back to their lands and told to stay there. Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein was not officially charged but, out of prudence and pride, he and his wife Anna, so wrongfully swindled, removed to their estate at Yekaterinhof.
The young couple had hardly left the capital when they were recalled: the tsarina had taken a turn for the worse. Decency and tradition required that her daughters attend her. Both came at a run to witness her final moments. After long suffering, she died on May 6, 1727, between 9:00 and 10:00 in the evening. At Menshikov’s orders, two regiments of the Guard immediately encircled the Winter Palace to prevent any hostile demonstration. But
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Terrible Tsarinas nobody thought of protesting. Nor of crying, for that matter.
Catherine’s reign, which had lasted only two years and two months, left the majority of her subjects indifferent or perplexed.
Should one regret or be pleased at her demise?
On May 8, 1727, Grand Duke Peter Alexeyevich was proclaimed emperor. The Secretary of the imperial cabinet, Makarov, announced the event to the courtiers and the dignitaries assembled at the palace. The terms of the proclamation, concocted with diabolic skill under Menshikov’s leadership, linked the concept of choosing the sovereign (instituted by Peter the Great) with that of heredity, in conformity with the Muscovite tradition.
“According to the will of Her Majesty, the late Empress,” Makarov read in a solemn voice, “a new emperor has been chosen, in the person of an heir6 to the throne: His Highness the Grand Duke Peter Alexeyevich.” Listening to this proclamation, Menshikov exulted internally. His success was a miracle. Not only was his daughter virtually empress of Russia, but the Supreme Privy Council, which would exercise the role of regent until the majority of Peter II (who was as yet just 12 years old), was still entirely in his hands, as Serene Prince. That left him a good five years to bring the country to heel. He had no adversaries anymore; only subjects.
Apparently, it was no longer necessary to be a Romanov in order to rule.
Ready to make any necessary compromise with the new power, Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein promised to keep quiet provided that, the moment Peter II reached the fateful age of 17, Anna and Elizabeth would receive two million rubles to be divided, as compensation. Moreover, Menshikov, who was having a good day, assured him that he would make every effort to support Charles Frederick’s claims, as he was still stuck on the idea of retrieving his hereditary lands and would even like - why not? - to exercise his rights to the crown of Sweden. It was clear, now,
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Catherine’s Reign: A Flash of Flamboyance to the Duke of Holstein, that his presence in St. Petersburg was only a step on the road toward the conquest of Stockholm - as though, in his eyes, the throne of the late King Charles XII was more prestigious than that of the one who had defeated him, the late Peter the Great.
This raging ambition was no surprise to Menshikov. Wasn’t it due to a similar eagerness that he himself had arrived at a position that had been beyond his dreams back when he was only one of the tsar’s companions in battles, banquets and beds? Where would he stop, in his rise to honors and fortune? At the moment when his future son-in-law was being proclaimed sovereign autocrat of all the Russias, under the name of Peter II, he began to think that his own reign might perhaps be just beginning.
Terrible Tsarinas
Footnotes
1.
Cited in Waliszewski: L’Heritage de Pierre le Grand [The Heritage of Peter the Great].
2. Hermann: Geschichte des Russichen Staats, quoted by Waliszewski, op. cit.
3. The duke of Bourbon succeeded Duke Philippe of Orleans as Regent, after the latter’s death in 1723.
4. Reported by Hermann, op. cit., and quoted by Waliszewski op. cit.
5. Remarks quoted by Daria Olivier: Elizabeth I, Imperatrice de Russie.
Among all those who could have laid claim to the throne, the one who was least well-prepared for this frightening honor was the one who had just been given it. None of the candidates to succeed Catherine I had had a childhood so bereft of affection and guidance as the new tsar, Peter II. He never knew his mother, Charlotte of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, who died bringing him into the world, and he was only three years old when his father, the Tsarevich Alexis, succumbed under torture. Doubly orphaned, he was raised by governesses who were nothing but vulgar maidservants in the palace and by German and Hungarian tutors of little knowledge and little heart. He soon turned inward and exhibited, as soon as he reached the age of reason, a proud, aggressive and cynical nature. Always inclined to find fault and to rebel, the only person for whom he felt any tenderness was his sister Natalya, who was fourteen months older than he; he appreciated her vivacious temperament.
Out of atavism, no doubt, and in spite of his youth, he liked to get drunk and enjoyed the basest of jokes; he was astonished
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III
Terrible Tsarinas that the young lady enjoyed reading, serious conversations and studying foreign languages. She spoke German and French as fluently as Russian. What was she doing with all that twaddle?
Wasn’t it the role of a woman, by the age of 15 or 16, to enjoy herself, entertain others and seduce every worthy man who passes by? Peter teased her about her excessive application and she tried to discipline him by cajoling him with a softness to which he was not accustomed. What a pity that she was not prettier! But maybe it was better that way? What lessons might he not have given in to if, in addition to her sparkling spirit, she had had a desirable physique? Just as she was, she helped him to bear with his situation as a false sovereign whom everyone honored and whom nobody obeyed. Since his advent, Menshikov had relegated him to the rank of imperial figurehead. True, to mark his supremacy, he had arranged that at state dinners Menshikov should be seated to his left, whereas Natalya was to his right; and certainly, it was he who, installed upon a throne between his two aunts, Anna and Elizabeth, chaired the meetings of the Supreme Privy Council; true, he was soon to marry Menshikov’s daughter, and Menshikov, once he became his father-in-law, would no doubt hand over the reins of power. But at present the young Peter was aware that he was only the shadow of an emperor, a caricature of Peter the Great, a masquerade-Majesty subjected to the will of the producer of the brilliant Russian spectacle. No matter what he was doing, Peter had to give in to the wishes of Menshikov, who had foreseen all and arranged all in his own way.