Terrible Tsarinas she had so often refused. From now on, Europe would be divided into two camps: Russia, Austria and Spain on one side; France, England, Holland and Prussia on the other… Certainly, the lines might shift and influences might be felt across the borders, but, overall, in Catherine’s eyes, the map was now drawn for the years to come.
Amidst all this diplomatic intrigue, her advisers clashed, making proposals and counter-proposals, haggling, arguing and reconciling. Since joining the Supreme Privy Council, Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein had distinguished himself by the boldness of his demands. His need to regain possession of the territories that once belonged to his family had turned into an obsession. He viewed all the history of the globe through that of the tiny duchy that he claimed was still his prerogative. Aggravated by his continual claims, Catherine finally made an official request to the King of Denmark to return Schleswig to her son-in-law, the Grand Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. Encountering a categorical refusal on behalf of the Danish sovereign, Frederick IV, she called upon the friendship of Austria and obtained its support for the gadfly Charles Frederick’s claims to that parcel of land that, so recently, had been part of his heritage and that he so shamefully had been deprived of by the treaties of Stockholm and Frederiksborg. England then weighed in, making this imbroglio all the more delicate.
The more vexing these knotty foreign affairs issues became, the more the tsarina resorted to her favorite solace, drink. But, far from relieving her torment, the excesses at the table began to undermine her health. She stayed up partying until nine o’clock in the morning and collapsed, drunk dead, on her bed, in the arms of a partner whom she hardly recognized. The reverberations of this disorderly existence dismayed her entourage. The courtiers began to murmur among themselves, predicting the destruction of the