Terrible tsarinas

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VI

Terrible Tsarinas Besides, Russian and foreign observers alike noted that the regent’s renewed passion for Lynar by no means diminished the ardor that she continued to feel for her close friend Julie Mengden.

That she was able to appreciate the traditional pleasure of the relationship between an woman and a man as much as the ambiguous savor of a relationship with a partner of her own sex was all to her honor, in the opinion of the libertines, for such eclecticism is evidence of both broadmindedness and a generous temperament.

An indolent daydreamer, she would spend long hours lying in bed. She would get up late, trail around in her private chambers, scantily dressed and hair barely done, reading novels that she would drop halfway through, and making the sign of the cross twenty times over before the many icons that she had placed on her walls - the zeal of a convert. She insisted that love and recreation were the only raisons d’etre of a woman of her age.

This casual behavior did not bother her entourage, neither her husband nor his ministers. A regent who was more concerned about the goings on in her bedroom than in her State suited them very well. Admittedly, from time to time, in his wounded pride Anthony Ulrich would make a show of being the indignant husband, but his tantrums were so artificial and so brief that Anna Leopoldovna only laughed at him. These fake marital scenes even encouraged her to intensify her dissipation, as a way of teasing him.

However, while continuing his ass iduous attentions to her, Lynar was not indifferent to the remonstrances of the Marquis of Botta, Austrian ambassador to St. Petersburg. According to that diplomat, a fine specialist in public and private affairs, the regent’s lover was making a mistake to persevere in an adulterous liaison that was likely to turn against him several of the high-ranking persons in Russia and in his own government in Saxony. He suggested a cynical and adroit solution that would satisfy everyone.