Terrible tsarinas

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Machinations around the Throne him.

Frustrated once more in love, she wept, raged and pondered how to take her revenge. However, she quickly recognized that she was impotent to fight agains t the machinations of the High Council. And she could not even count on Peter to defend her interests anymore: he was far too absorbed by his own sentimental problems to deal with those of his aunt. According to the gossip, he had almost repudiated Katya when he learned that she had had clandestine meetings with another aspirant, a certain Count Millesimo, an attache at the German embassy in Russia. Frightened by the consequences of such a break-up, and under pressure to keep the tsar from balking, the Dolgorukys arranged for a discreet tete-a-tete between Katya and Peter, in a hunting lodge, hoping for a reconciliation. And that very evening, showing up just at the moment of the first caresses, the girl’s father declared the family’s honor to have been outraged and he demanded formal reparations. The strangest thing is that this crude subterfuge bore fruit. It is impossible to know whether the “culprit” thus surprised in flagrante delicto by an indignant pater familias finally gave in to his feelings for Katya, to fear of scandal, or simply to laziness.

In any event, on Catherine’s birthday, October 22, 1729, the Dolgorukys revealed to their guests that the girl had just been promised in marriage to the Tsar. On November 19, the Supreme Privy Council received the official announcement of the engagement and, on the 30th, a religious ceremony was held in Moscow at Lefortovo Palace, where Peter generally stayed during his brief stops in that city. The old tsarina Eudoxia agreed to come out of retirement to bless the young couple. All the dignitaries of the empire, all the foreign ambassadors were present in the room, awaiting the arrival of the bride-elect. Her brother Ivan, Peter’s former favorite, went to escort her from Golovin Palace, where she was staying with her mother. The procession traversed the city,