Terrible tsarinas

X

1750 was a difficult year. Pulled in every direction, by world events as well as family affairs, Elizabeth was at her wits’ ends.

Europe had fallen into a convulsion of competition and conflict, and the grand ducal couple was doing no better; neither drama seemed to have a clear plot or plan for the future.

Peter’s coarseness cropped up at every turn. His childish behavior, which should have improved with age, only grew more extreme. At the age of 22, he was still playing with dolls - directing his little band of Holstein soldiers dressed in Prussian uniforms in parades at Oranienbaum, and organizing mock military tribunals to condemn a foot soldier to be hanged. As for the games of love, he made less and less pretense of having any interest. He still boasted in front of Catherine about his alleged affairs, but he made very sure never to touch her. Was he afraid of her, or was she repulsive to him precisely because she was a woman and he was so ignorant about that kind of creature?

Frustrated and humiliated, night after night, she distracted herself with the many-volume French novels of Mlle. de Scudery,