618-629.] Her poor child grew to manhood; and had tragic fortunes in this world; Danes again burglarious in that part, again robbing this poor Boy at discretion, so soon as Karl XII. became unfortunate; and refusing to restore (have not restored Schleswig at all [A.D. 1864, HAVE at last had to do it, under unexpected circumstances!]):--a grimly sad story to the now Peter, his only Child! This poor Duke at last died, 18th June, 1739, age thirty-nine; the now Peter then about 11,--who well remembers tragic Papa;tragic Mamma not, who died above ten years before. [Michaelis, ii.
617; Hubner, tt. 227, 229.]
"Czar Peter called the Great had evidently a pity for this unfortunate Duke, a hope in his just hopes; and pleaded, as did various others, and endeavored with the unjust Danes, mostly without effect. Did, however, give him one of his Daughters to wife;--the result of whom is this new Czar Peter, called the Third:
a Czar who is Sovereign of Holstein, and has claims of Sovereignty in Sweden, right of heirship in Schleswig, and of damages against Denmark, which are in litigation to this day. The Czarina CATIN, tenderly remembering her Sister, would hear of no Heir to Russia but this Peter. Peter, in virtue of his paternal affinities, was elected King of Sweden about the same time; but preferred Russia,--with an eye to his Danes, some think. For certain, did adopt the Russian Expectancy, the Greek religion so called; and was," in the way we saw long years ago, "married (or to all appearance married)to Catharina Alexiewna of Anhalt-Zerbst, born in Stettin;[Herr Preuss knows the house: "Now Dr. Lehmann's [at that time the Governor of Stettin's], in which also Czar Paul's second Spouse [Eugen of Wurtemberg a NEW Governor's Daughter], who is Mother of the Czars that follow, was born:" Preuss, ii. 310, 311.
Catharine, during her reign, was pious in a small way to the place of her cradle; sent her successive MEDALS &c. to Stettin, which still has them to show.] a Lady who became world-famous as Czarina of the Russias.
"Peter is an abstruse creature; has lived, all this while, with his Catharine an abstruse life, which would have gone altogether mad except for Catharine's superior sense. An awkward, ardent, but helpless kind of Peter, with vehement desires, with a dash of wild magnanimity even: but in such an inextricable element, amid such darkness, such provocations of unmanageable opulence, such impediments, imaginary and real,--dreadfully real to poor Peter,--as made him the unique of mankind in his time. He 'used to drill cats,' it is said, and to do the maddest-looking things (in his late buried-alive condition);--and fell partly, never quite, which was wonderful, into drinking, as the solution of his inextricabilities. Poor Peter: always, and now more than ever, the cynosure of vulturous vulpine neighbors, withal; which infinitely aggravated his otherwise bad case!--"For seven or eight years, there came no progeny, nor could come;about the eighth or ninth, there could, and did: the marvellous Czar Paul that was to be. Concerning whose exact paternity there are still calumnious assertions widely current; to this individual Editor much a matter of indifference, though on examining, his verdict is: 'Calumnies, to all appearance; mysteries which decent or decorous society refuses to speak of, and which indecent is pretty sure to make calumnies out of.' Czar Paul may be considered genealogically genuine, if that is much an object to him.
Poor Paul, does not he father himself, were there nothing more?
Only that Peter and this Cathariue could have begotten such a Paul.
Genealogically genuine enough, my poor Czar,--that needed to be garroted so very soon!
2. OF CATHARINE AND THE BOOKS UPON PETER AND HER. "Catharine too had an intricate time of it under the Catin; which was consoled to her only by a tolerably rapid succession of lovers, the best the ground yielded. In which department it is well known what a Thrice-Greatest she became: superior to any Charles II.; equal almost to an August the Strong! Of her loves now and henceforth, which are heartily uninteresting to me, I propose to say nothing farther;merely this, That in extent they probably rivalled the highest male sovereign figures (and are to be put in the same category with these, and damned as deep, or a little deeper);--and cost her, in gifts, in magnificent pensions to the EMERITI (for she did things always in a grandiose manner, quietly and yet inexorably dismissing the EMERITUS with stores of gold), the considerable sum of 20millions sterling, in the course of her long reign. One, or at most two, were off on pension, when Hanbury Williams brought Poniatowski for her, as we transiently saw. Poniatowski will be King of Poland in the course of events. ...
"Russia is not a publishing country; the Books about Catharine are few, and of little worth. TOOKE, an English Chaplain; CASTERA, an unknown French Hanger-on, who copies from Tooke, or Tooke from him:
these are to be read, as the bad-best, and will yield little satisfactory insight; Castera, in particular, a great deal of dubious backstairs gossip and street rumor, which are not delightful to a reader of sense. In fine, there has been published, in these very years, a FRAGMENT of early AUTOBIOGRAPHY by Catharine herself,--a credible and highly remarkable little Piece: worth all the others, if it is knowledge of Catharine you are seeking.
[<italic> Memoires de l'Imperatrice Catharine II., ecrits par elle-meme <end italic> (A. Herzen editing; London, 1859);--which we already cited, on occasion of Catharine's marriage.
Anonymous (Castera), <italic> Vie de Catharine II., Imperatrice de Russie <end italic> (a Paris, 1797; or reprinted, most of it, enough of it, A VARSOVIE, 1798) 2 tomes, 8vo. Tooke, <italic> Life of Catharine II. <end italic> (4th edition, London, 1800), 3 vols.
8vo; <italic> View of the Russian Empire during &c. <end italic>