Eighteenth-Century Libertinism in a Time of Change: Representations of Catherine the Great

Eighteenth-Century Libertinism in a Time of Change: Representations of Catherine the Great

Ruth Dawson
University of Hawaii
dawson@hawaii.edu

Perhaps the most famous libertine woman of the eighteenth-century was the German princess who had taken the throne of Russia: Catherine the Great. For geographical, political, and protonationalistic reasons (both Catherine and her royal husband Peter III, grandson of Peter the Great, grew up in Germany), Catherineís German contemporaries were fascinated with the Tsarina; they circulated numerous visual images of her and wrote about her extensively. The German book market was further saturated with translations of accounts from other European languages. My purpose is to demonstrate how swiftly rumors about Catherineís extramarital sexual behavior came into circulation in Germany, which rumors were especially widespread, and how these stories were recycled into two novels, Miranda, K–niginn im Norden, Geliebte Pansalvins (1798), by Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht, and Der G¸nstling (1809), by Caroline Auguste Fischer. I will argue that because (hetero)sexuality was an urgently advocated arena of action for rulers, discourse on ruler sexuality was legitimized. Furthermore, during an era when libertinism was considered and represented to be a widespread practice in the highest levels of society, extramarital sexuality among aristocrats and royals elicited no shock or surprise (as Miranda shows). But the French Revolution gave a powerful boost to moralistic middle-class notions of family and womanhood and led to the condemnation of libertine aristocrats, including Catherine (evident in Der G¸nstling). Both positions ignited the public imagination surrounding Catherine IIís sexuality during her lifetime (as I will also show with cartoons from the period), after her death, and until today.

In Love as Passion, Niklas Luhmann claims flatly that, ìIn eighteenth-century Germany any interest in sexuality was still rejected out of handî (115). Mistaken though I consider this judgment to be, to discuss the representations of a powerful womanís sexuality in her day, Luhmannís analysis of the codes of love and extra-marital passion, the importance of immoderateness, and the separation of love and marriage can be quite helpful.

Luhmann attempted an analysis of passionate love not as a human emotion, thus not in anthropological terms, but as a codified medium of communication. Drawing on evolutionary theory, he argues that a set of feelings, ideas, and behaviors such as romantic love at the beginning of the nineteenth century cannot just appear because it is needed but rather that already existing separate parts are reassembled, reinterpreted, and revalued to produce this new ìgeneralized symbolic medium of communication.î[1] He argues that the signs, behaviors, and language of passionate love developed in the seventeenth century among the aristocracy. His claim is that this code was needed to distinguish the kind of relationship that occurred in extramarital affairs from the kind that occurred within marriage. In the seventeenth century, he believes, womenís greater freedom and rights made it more possible for a married aristocratic man to seek a sexual relationship with a married aristocratic woman. But to persuade her to participate, the lover needed a new discourse (created from a set of pre-existing elements that had developed in the Middle Ages and Renaissance) and, since the woman was already married to someone else, it had to be a discourse that sounded persuasive but did not promise marriage. In short, this particular discourse of sexuality developed explicitly to accommodate extramarital relations. These relations required the lover to immerse himself immoderately in the world view of the beloved and to suspend certain of his own judgments and preference for as long as the affair lasted, the ultimate goal being sexual intercourse. Both the conflicting positions of the lover and the beloved and the decline in desire that followed satiety meant that such affairs did not endure. Although the code of passionate love included a promise of eternal love, this was understood to be nothing more than a metaphor for temporarily intense feelings. ì[T]he concept of passion . . . afforded one the opportunity to conduct oneself in affairs of the heart free of social and moral responsibilityî (60). All of this was clearly articulated in novels, which Luhmann considers the key technology for circulating this code.

In the eighteenth century, matters changed somewhat. An alternative form of close personal relationship developed, friendship. As the logic of marriage choice changed during the century and as cultural hegemony shifted away from the aristocracy at the end of the century, there was then a choice between grounding marriages in friendship or grounding marriages in passionate love. When passionate love won, it had to in turn be significantly reinterpreted and redirected to accommodate its institutionalization in marriage.

While there are a number of points in Luhmannís account that I find questionable (notably his slide from ungendered roles of lover and beloved to men and women, and his assumption that the promise of marriage would have been a persuasive tool at a time when, he says, the kind of love found within marriage was quite different from the intense, individualistic love that was arising in the changed cultural and intellectual framework of the 17th century), I nonetheless find it extremely useful. The description of the qualitative difference in the aristocracy between marital love (to the extent that it occurred) and extramarital love is important for understanding how an eighteenth-century audience understood the sexual affairs of their rulers; that the freedom of the aristocratic woman to entertain lovers is naturalized in novels helps explain the not titillating routineness of many references to womenís roles in these affairs; the enormous change in valence of passionate love for the educated middle class, from an expected but disapproved option of the aristocracy to the foundation of marriage, helps to explain the shift in attitude from tolerance to vilification in representations of Catherine, a shift embedded of course in the larger attack by the French Revolution on royalty and aristocracy. Although Luhmann never explains precisely what elements of the seventeenth-century pattern he sees as libertine, his account of the code of intimacy involves the assertion that players were knowledgeable about the code, which seems to me a key ingredient in libertinism, especially before the Marquis de Sade. The broad availability of the code as disseminated in novels also meant that no one who responded to the code needed to be pitied for their lack of awareness; to the extent that in this sense there could be no victims, libertinism could be broadly accepted as a game. This of course does not mean that novels donít construct many scenarios in which the targeted girl is naÔve, but such novels themselves give foreknowledge to their readers. If the naÔve girl is unknowing and not able to recognize sexual feelings in herself or others, the libertine is knowledgeable about sex, alert to sexual possibilities, experimental in attitude and thus highly inconstant, all tactical protestations of eternal love to the contrary. The libertine goal of sensual pleasure is enhanced by the joy of the game for its own sake. But the role of libertine was not available to everyone.

Before she performed it, Catherine II, the former minor German princess from insignificant Anhalt-Zerbst, played through all the other key permutations of the sexual roles of eighteenth-century royalty. She performed the parts of virginal bride, faithful wife, alarmed and endangered barren woman (spending nine years after marriage without progeny), at long last mother of the heir and simultaneously accused unfaithful wife, and then legitimate wife with an semi-legitimate rival in the form of her husbandís openly acknowledged mistress, who was also a woman at the court. All of this was played out in public, and many of the parts were commonplaces of eighteenth-century stories of royalty. Before examining representations of the non-marital roles that came later, I want to begin with a preliminary examination of how the sexual relationship of Peter III and Catherine was depicted in the German-speaking world.

This was expected to be the conventional ruling family marriage. The sexuality of queens and crown princesses is inherently of public interest: without heterosexual activity on their part, dynasties change branches or die off completely. When Sophie Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst, changed religions, changed her name (to Catherine Alexievna), and in 1745 at age fifteen married her sixteen-year-old cousin Peter, the celebration in St. Petersburg was enormous. It was repeated on a tiny scale in Zerbst, where a local employee of the court wrote a short musical masque as part of the festivities. In this performance, love and virtue speak about the fortunate couple. Love proclaims the following wish:

Die keusche Brunst, so Ihre Brust entz¸ckt,
Vermehre sich vom Tag zu Tage,
Daþ Sie viel Liebes-Fr¸chte trage! (R–llig)

This interest in reproductively successful, marital sexuality does not exclude desire but is limited by chastity. Thus the nexus of sexual activity and reproduction is complicated by the importance that patriarchal societies, such as European monarchies, place on the identity and exclusivity of the womanís male sexual partner.

For nine years after the royal wedding this wish for an heir remained unfulfilled. At last, in 1754, Catherine gave birth to a young prince (who eventually succeeded her to the throne and whose birth was celebrated in Germany with various publications[2]) and in 1757 to a princess (who survived only 15 months). In 1762, five years later, when Peter at last acceded to the throne, one of the German prayers printed for the new Tsar contained the hope for more children: ìHiern”chst tragen wir Dir, barmherziger Vater in unserm Gebet vor, Ihro Kaiserliche Majest”t, unsere Allergn”digste Kayserin und Grosse Frau Catharina Alexiewna. Bekr–ne sie mit geist- und leiblichem Segen, zu Deiner Ehre und des Reiches Wohlfahrtî (Bilbassoff 14-15). This wish suggests a functioning marital relationship between Peter and Catherine, which was the officially propagated story. One of Catherineís especially favorable biographers after her death put the results of the hopes and prayers succinctly: ìMehr Kinder sind aus dieser Ehe nicht entsprossenî (Biester 20).

Six months later, when Catherine overthrew Peter, the pleasant image of a contented royal couple was deliberately and explicitly overthrown as well. In the official manifesto explaining the causes of the coup, Catherineís side lists, among other things, Peterís dismaying conduct of military affairs, his moves against the orthodox church, and his failure to acknowledge Paul as legitimate heir. A Danish poem addressed to Peter and published in German within a few years of the coup recounts this claim succinctly:

23.
Cathrinens Sohn, Paul Petrowitz,
Nicht werth, um einstens deinen Sitz,
Als Kaiser, zu begl¸cken.
Paul wird ein un”cht Kind genannt;
Du wolltst ihn in ein fremdes Land
Mit seiner Mutter schicken.

24.
Allein, Sie war dir viel zu schlau,
Die von der Welt geliebte Frau,
Ob du Sie gleich nicht liebtest.
Sie hielt f¸r r¸hmlicher, daþ du
Am Norderpol, bey guter Ruh,
Im Zobelfang dich ¸btest.

25.
Ein Wort, und so viel braucht es nur,
Ein Wort, das dir beym Trunk entfuhr,
H–rt Einer auf der Lauer.
Jetzt oder nie! Die Rache winkt,
Die Lunte brennt, die Mine springt,
Und Peter sitzt im Bauer. (Fortgesetzte, 36)

It seems possible that the official version of the marriage had long been accompanied by an unofficial version that ostensibly originated with Peter III himself, the rumor that Paul was not his son. I have so far found no printed text before the coup that contains this allegation, but one of the texts published just a few months after Catherine came to power seems to suggest that knowledge of the charge was commonplace: ìMan weis die bittern und falschen Vorw¸rfe, die Peter seiner treuen Gemalin machte, als sie den jetzigen unm¸ndigen Groþf¸rsten Paul Petrowitz zur Welt gebahr.ì(H–rschelmann 153). This claim is especially interesting because H–rschelmann wrote it from the provincial village of Grossenrudstedt where he lived. If, as he seems to suggest, he had heard these rumors there, then they must have achieved wide dissemination.[3] But even if the rumor had not spread widely outside Russia when Paul was born, it was readable between the lines when Peter III acceded to the throne in January 1762: In announcing his accession he should have reconfirmed Paul as crown prince. The fact that Peterís manifesto makes no mention of Paul or of any successor was understood to mean that he disclaimed his purported son.

All of the early separate accounts of the coup that Catherine led against her husband and many but not all of the accounts in newspapers give that event a justification that hinges on the allegations of Paulís illegitimacy and hence on the allegation that Catherine engaged in extramarital sexual behavior: ÑEs hatte nemlich der Ruþische Kayser, den gef”hrlichen Anschlag gefaþet, seine Gemahlin zu repudiren, seinen Sohn pro illegitimo zu erkl”ren, beyde in verschiedene Kl–ster einsperren zulassen, seine Maitresse, eine Tochter des Groþcantzlers, Grafen von Woranzow –ffentlich zu heyrathen, und in seinen gantzen Reich die Protestantische Religion einzuf¸hrenì (Wahrhaffte 70).[4] This list of elementsórepudiation of Catherine, disinhertance of Paul, marriage with Woronzowóbecomes a kind of mantra in subsequent accounts of the coup. A biography of Peter that appeared within a few months of his death elaborated on it slightly: ìDer vornehmste Umstand aber war wohl dieser, daþ der Kaiser seinen Prinzen f¸r illegitim erkl”ren, sich von seiner Gemahlin, mit der er nie in vollkommner Einigkeit gelebt, scheiden, selbige mit dem Prinzen in ein Kloster verstoþen, oder gar um das Leben bringen lassen, sich aber mit einer jungen Gr”fin von Woronzow, einer Niece des Kanzlers und Tochter des Senators von Woronzow trauenlassen wollenî (Will 38-39). The charge of infidelity is a typical indication of the aristocratic libertine.[5]

The possibility that Peter knew he was not Paulís father because he was finding sexual satisfaction elsewhere would have been a readily available hypothesis and not shocking to the reading public. While the effort to guarantee royal paternity was rigid and limiting for a queen or crown princess, her mate could be much freer. He could be a libertine, although not without risking at least occasional disapproval. During the entire period of Catherineís marriage and for twelve years after the coup, Louis XV was performing the royal version of libertinism in France quite unmistakably. In Peterís case, the first reports of extramarital behavior that I have found occur during the coup, which took place six months after he took the throne, and refer frequently and usually without comment to his affair with the Countess Woronzow. One of the early accounts however, an account that was also reprinted in other volumes, connects Peterís affair with his drunkenness. This is raised within a long list of rhetorical questions asking what the Russian people should think about various ill-advised actions of the tsar:

Was sollte es denken, da es sah, daþ unser Kaiser Tag und Nacht bey der Tafel zubrachte; daþ er gemeiniglich vor jedermanns Augen betrunken erschien; daþ er der Kaiserin mit der ”uþersten Verachtung begegnete; daþ er seine Maitresse durch gewisse Kennzeichen des Ranges und Vorzugs, welche bisher einzig und allein Prinzeþinnen zugestanden worden waren, Ihr gleich setzte; ja daþ er es endlich gar so weit trieb, daþ er sich die Kaiserin durch den Tod oder die Ehescheidung vom Halse schaffen, und so gleich bey dem Antritte seiner Regierung den Groþf¸rsten von der Thronfolge ausschlieþen wollte, indem er in seinem ersten Manifest an den Stellen, da es sich geh–ret h”tte, von der Thronfolge etwas zu gedenken, diese Sache g”nzlich mit Stillschweigen ¸bergieng? (Will 59)[6]

This was something different from the behavior of the king of France, who in 1745 had established Madame de Pompadour as his maitresse en titre but never challenged the retention of the queen or the succession of her sons. But sometimes the argument is made that Russian practices were different and Peter had the right to dispose of as many wives as he wished: ìwenn er endlich sogar mehr als eine Gemahlin verstossen, nur blos um seinen Einf”llen ein Gen¸ge zu thun, so h”tte er noch nichts gethan, was nicht schon vor ihm geschehen w”re, und wozu ein unumschr”nkter Beherrscher Ruþlands nicht berechtiget ist.î This is followed by footnote citing the example of Peter the Great:

Es wird genug seyn, nur das Beyspiel seines Groþvaters, Peters des Groþen zum Beweiþ dessen anzuf¸hren, was hier behauptet wird. Dieser Herr verstieþ seine erste Gemahlin, die Eudoria Feodorowna Lapuchin, blos weil deren Anverwandte sich zu viel herausnahmen, und sich dann und wann den Absichten des Kaysers zu wiedersetzen unterstanden. Sie ward nach Susdal verwiesen, von wannen sie erst 32. Jahr nachher wieder zur¸ckberufen worden. (Marche-Schwann, 1765 edition, 201)

(The motivation attributed to Peter the Great here helps to explain the advantage that later tsars saw in marriages to insignificant German princesses.)

Married aristocratic women who were expected to produce legitimate heirs were generally excluded from libertinism until they had borne at least one son, and married queens were expected to maintain the semblance of fidelity permanently (example: Maria Theresia). But once Catherine came to the throne, she was an unmarried ruling queen. Now another Catherine could come into cautious public circulation, Catherine as libertine woman, as ìa creature of the rococo, of an age enamored of materialist philosophy and comfortable with sensual pleasure, especially ëvariedí pleasure. She owes little to the notions of sexual difference, of which Rousseau was the best-known spokesman. She knows nothing of womanís supposedly inherent modesty and cares little for her role in the family. . . She belongs to the passions, . . . knows no shame or guiltî (Norberg 223). This would be quite different from the Catherine described two years after the coup in a much reprinted volume of ìRussian Anecdotesî:

Es geb¸hret mir nicht, dar¸ber Richter zu seyn, ob der Kayser Ursach gehabt habe, die Treue seiner Gemahlin in Zweifel zu ziehen. Ich kan Ihnen im geringsten nicht bergen, daþ niemand in Ruþland ist, der es billigt, daþ dieser Prinz davon so dreist gesprochen, und daþ er sich oft solcher Ausdr¸cke bediene, die ihm keine Ehre machen. Niemand w¸rde jemals an solch verhaþte Sachen gedacht haben, wenn er selbst nicht zuerst dazu Gelegenheit gegeben h”tte; und niemand hat jemals geglaubt, daþ die Kayserin solcher Ausschweifungen f”hig sey. Ist es nicht f¸r diese F¸rstin und f¸r die ganze Nation schmerzhaft, daþ der einzige Erbe des Throns, der allen seinen Unterthanen lieb und werth ist, durch seinen eigenen Vater f¸r einen Bastart erkl”ret wird? (Marche-Schwann 29-30)

Many readers in 1764, knowing about Orlovís open status as Catherineís favorite, probably read the claims of Catherineís virtue in this passage as ironical. The criticism in the passage is leveled especially against Peter; although the Catherineís alleged behavior is described as ìdespicableî ìverhasstî and designated as ìAusschweifungen.î Not surprisingly, given that Peter was dead and Catherine was not, it is not her behavior but his rumors that are especially condemned.

The difference between the chaste consort proclaimed in the pre-coup years and the later libertine queen is so great that it is as if Catherine underwent a public sex change occurring halfway through her life. Louise de Keralio, in her denunciation of French female rulers entitled Les Crimes des reines de France, wrote: ìA woman for whom all is possible is capable of anything; when a woman becomes queen, she changes her sexî (Maza 82). Catherineís seizure of the throne completely transformed her sexual options. She had produced an heir. Now she could conduct herself in public in a manner corresponding to that of her deceased husband and many other (male) monarchs of her day and before: she could be a public libertine. In his much translated and often reprinted biography, Masson noted about the private circle into which Catherine withdrew in the evenings: ìin diesem kleinen Cirkel feierte die nordische Cybele ihre geheimsten Mysterien.î At this point Masson alludes to pornographic literature, especially the widely circulated novel ThÈrËse philosophe (1748), to replace the descriptions he omits: ÑAusf¸hrliche Nachrichten dar¸ber geh–ren in ein undecenteres Buch, wie dieses ist; der Verfasser hat eine Menge Noten verbrannt, die alles Interessante, was ¸ber diese geheimen Zusammenk¸nfte ruchbar wurde, enthielten. Der Leser verliert nichts dabei, denn es existeren obsc–ne B¸cher genug, und wer diese kennt, mag gewiþ glauben, daþ Catharina eben so sehr Philosophin war, als Therese!ì (Masson 210). The libertine queen was quickly associated with pornographic and semi-pornographic representations.

Recent work on eighteenth-century pornography has stressed the philosophical and political elements of such literature during the Ancien Regime and, in France, the decline of those aspects once the French Revolution made it no longer necessary to use pornography for coded attacks on the aristocracy. Massonís book was originally published in 1800 in France before being translated into many other European languages, including German the same year. The first German biographies of the Tsarina after her death in 1796 continued in the laudatory mode that had been common during her lifetime, albeit with greater openness about Catherineís series of ìfavorites.î But literature in the genre of the secret court memoir was appearing in France and being promptly translated into German. The earliest example was the long delayed publication of Rulhiereís Geschichte der russischen Revolution which occurred in three French editions, two English ones, one Danish translation, and two German versions, all in 1797 (Bilbassoff 2:4). Rulhiere had originally written his text in 1768 and read it in numerous salons, so that its contents would have received considerable informal circulation in the upper ranks of French society; presumably much of the material spread from there also to Germany. Catherineís backers in France worked vigorously to prevent publication of the book and eventually saw to it that the work did not go into print until after her death.

Rulhiereís little volume, which was probably short enough (138 pages) to be read aloud in one long sitting, contains all the familiar items but often with much more detail. His is a tale of incessant court intrigue. So for example he explains not only the specific dynastic concerns that made Elizabeth, the reigning tsarina, anxious for Catherine to have a baby but he adds that when Elizabeth was persuaded Peter would be unable to impregnate Catherine, she sent the Grand Chancellor to counsel the crown princess to accept a substitute, and Rulhiere names the man, Soltikof, as well as the fact that he was sent out of the country as soon as it was clear that Catherine was pregnant (27). Rulhiere puts this information in the context of a depiction of Russian society and the Russian court as debauched and licentious. He asserts that Elisabeth chose her own numerous lovers from every level of society, including the slaves (28), but that, once Paul was born, Elisabeth prevented Catherine from pursuing any of the new affairs that the crown princess started. Rulhiere depicts the English ambassador as helping Catherine circumvent this ban by deliberately introducing and recommending to her a young Polish count in his entourage, Poniatowski. He continues, ìNach einer geheimen Zusammenkunft mit ihm, bey der sich die Groþf¸rstin verkleidet einfand, ¸bersch¸ttete sie diesen jungen Ausl”nder mit allem Glanz ihrer Huldì (31). He offers a vivid scene in which the Grandduke happens onto Catherine and Poniatowski and has the Pole arrested. Catherine persuades him to drop the matter by promising to show Peterís mistress the forms of respect that she had previously denied her. When some time later Poniatowski had to leave Russia after all, the veil of her sadness hid ìeinige tr–stende kleinere Liebesspieleî (39). Salacious as the descriptions of Catherine are, they are almost matched by the stories of Peter, including a tale about Peter as tsar standing guard (seemingly one of his favorite activities) outside the door of the room where he has organized an orgy for the Prussian ambassador: ìEr wollte, daþ . . . dieser Gesandte alle jungen Hofdamen haben sollteî (57). Peter is demeaned by showing him substituting playing guard for being sexual active himself and he is rendered despicable by being depicted serving as whoremonger to a representative of the Prussian crown.

In an epistolary dedication of his account to the Countess of Egmont Rulhiere says that he has adopted her taste in deciding how to write his text:

. . . jene so nat¸rliche und so gl¸ckliche Munterkeit, die Sie beynahe nie verl”þt, [riþ] mich so ganz hin, daþ ich in die Schilderung einer h–chst tragischen Begebenheit auch alle, zuweilen comischen Umst”nde einmischte, in wie fern sie auf die Sitten der ruþischen Nation Bezug hatten . . . . Die –fteren Fragen, mit denen Sie beyde mich unterbrachen, dienten meiner Erz”hlung gleichsam zum Leitfaden, und sie n–thigten mich, ¸ber die wichtigern und ernsthaftern Schilderungen Scherz und unbefangene Laune zu streuen. Von dieser Art ist wirklich meine Historie, in der ich nach Ihrem Verlangen selbst den Geist und Ton beybehalte, womit das Gespr”ch meine Erz”hlung belebte. . . . Keineswegs aber vertragen sich mit einem m”nnlichen ernsthaften Style weder der loose eitle R”nkegeist, der das Spiel in Bewegung gesetzt hat, noch die Z¸gellosigkeit der ruþischen Sitten, oder die Kindereyen, durch die sich der Kaiser Peter III. zu Grunde richteteì (vii-ix).

This explanation is dated 1768. Five years later, Rulhiere composed an afterword, again in the form of a letter to the same countess. Here he defends himself against various charges about the tone and accuracy of his account, he reports further on the efforts of others to suppress his story, and he identifies knowledgeable people who, after hearing him read his manuscript, corroborated his account. One of the specific passages that he defends concerned ìdie verd”chtigen Verbindungen des Grafen Poniatouski,î acknowledging that this material seems to be in the tradition of Petronius Arbiter, a friend of Neroís who just before he died composed a scurrilous catalog of the emperorís sexual perversions:

ich gestehí es, . . . dieser . . . scheint weniger dem Tacitus, als dem Petron, abgeborgt. Sie selbst, Madame haben diesen Scherz verdammt; indesen wagí ichís, ihn auch gegen Sie zu rechtfertigen. Indem ich diesen jungen Polen auftretten lieþ, konnte ich, um die Erz”hlung eines galanten Ebentheuers zu veredeln, und die Aufmerksamkeit der Leser im Gange zu erhalten, zum voraus nicht unbemerkt lassen, daþ hier der Minnesold eine Krone seyn w¸rde. Aber diese Thronerh–hung, zu welcher der Graf Poniatouski wirklich gelangt ist, h”tte von ihm eine allzuhohe Idee erweckt, und im Fortgange der Erz”hlung f¸r ihn selbst zu viel Theilnehmung eingefl–þt. Eben darum bediente ich mich der Vortheil des vertraulichen Styls, den ich gew”hlt habe, und erlaubte mir bey dieser Gelegenheit ein Spottwort. Auf solche Weise setzte ich zu gleicher Zeit, als ich auf die ganze Wichtigkeit dieser Geschichte aufmerksam machte, den Ritter selbst wieder in seine urspr¸ngliche Mittelm”þigkeit herab. (144-145)

What ìjoke,î what sarcasm had Rulhiere let fall about Poniatowski? He introduces the man in connection with the English ambassador: ÑIn Polen hatte n”mlich der Graf Poniatouski mit diesem Gesandten die engste Verbindung geschlossen; ein so inniges Verh”ltniþ, daþ, da der eine sehr sch–n, und der andere ganz sittenlos war, man sich dar¸ber aufhieltî (30). The hint of a ìsodomiteî relationship between the count and the ambassador and the subsequent choice of the beautiful man as the crown princessís lover indicates libertine experimentalism and is clearly included for its ability to titillate an audience (ìdie Aufmerksamkeit der Leser im Gange zu erhaltenî), as well as its effect of distancing readers from Poniatowski, who at the time of the afterword was King of Poland. While the countess Egmont perhaps appreciated not being made responsible for Rulhiereís decision to include this particular passage, Rulhiere underscored its salaciousness with the reference to Petronius.

After the Poniatowski episodes and a considerable description of Catherineís performance of the patient but wounded wife tolerating her husbandís mistress and his picadillos, Rulhiere discusses both her third important lover, whom he names as ìOrlov, der sch–nste Mann in [sic] Nordenî (61), and the resulting pregnancy, ìdie sie niemals –ffentlich bekannt werden lieþî (70). (This, like most of the information in Rulhiere, is widely considered by historians to be accurate.)

This kind of material was circulating in salons at a time when Catherine was gaining widespread admiration as an enlightened ruler; by nurturing relationships with important intellectuals in what we today call ìWestern Europe,î especially France, by buying great works of art, she was offsetting previous questions about her fidelity while crown princess, images of her as usurper, and questions about Peterís sudden death while under arrest within two weeks of the coup. By 1768 Catherine had also started military involvements in both Turkey and, under the pretext of preserving the right of part of the population to practice the Russian Orthodox form of Christianity, in Poland. It is this intervention in Poland, which perhaps provided the first setting for a sexual image of Catherine, a 1770 engraving of ìFather Paul and the Blue-Eyed Nun of St. Catherineî (illus.1). I suspect the image may have been produced in Germany.[7] The print depicts a woman, supposedly a nun, looking into the distance beyond the frame of the picture and standing in front of and very close to a monk, whose left hand is on her bodice close to her partially exposed breasts. Behind the woman is a prayer niche with a Madonna figure in an ill-informed version of an icon; the figure has on her head a crown like the Russian coronation crown in which Catherine was sometimes depicted and wears a gown that is vaguely Russian; she also carries a similarly dressed baby. The monk, bearded and tonsured and seated in a chair, leers lasciviously at the nunís breasts, which are at his eye level. Behind him on a pedestal is a statue of another monk with a pig at his feet.[8] The right side of the print, depicting the monk and monk statue, is somewhat dark and shadowy. The left side with the two female images is well lit.

There are three reasons to suspect that this is a coded representation of Catherine II, both of which depend on the notion that a political-erotic image of the Russian empress would in many places need to be rather heavily coded if it were to get past the censor. The first indicator is of course the Russian elements of the Madonna icon. The second is the small crown like hair decoration the ìnunî is wearing, quite similar to the crown in which the newly anointed tsarina was most frequently shown in the numerous admiring engravings of her that appeared after the coup (illus. 2). The third is of course the name of Catherine in the printís title, which claims to be about a ìnun of St. Catherineî although there is nothing nun-like in the low-cut dress the woman is wearing and nowhere in the picture do any of the iconographical markers of St. Catherine appear, particularly the wheel and the sword.[9]

Peter Wagner reads this image as an example of anti-church erotica satirizing the licentiousness of priests and monks (Wagner does not comment on the fact that the woman is supposedly a nun). I see the print in the context of Catherine IIís willingness to change religions in order to marry into the Romanov line, tolerating the demands of the church as long as this helps her with her larger purposes (suggested by her gaze into the distance); in other words, she is willing to make herself available to the church if that helps her in other respects; similarly she is willing to represent herself as a champion of the Russian Orthodox church if this gives her a pretext to meddle in Poland when she wishes. At the same time the expression on the womanís face suggests that she is quite open to pleasure, and the crosses she wears and holds merely emphasize the display of her breasts. Of course any reference in 1770 to Catherine II as a nun or a virgin (referred to in the inscription under the icon) would have been satirical.

As time went by and Catherine became involved in more controversial activities, such as dividing Poland and conducting bloody wars against the Ottoman Empire, more satirical images of her were produced in which sexuality is part of the visual code of the critique.[10] In a number of instances multiple versions of the same basic caricature appeared in several languages (illus. 3 and illus. 4). In ìDer K–nigskuchenî (illus. 3) depicting the division of Poland there is a subtle sexual reference: Catherine is in conversation with her former lover Poniatowski, now the king of Poland; his undone hair flows loosely down his back, a transference of conventional sexual imagery from the sexually undone woman to here the sexually and politically undone man. Such details were probably only readable to those who already knew the reports of Catherineís affair with Poniatowskióinformation that Rulhiereís readings had put into at least limited circulation and which had obviously reached the engraving artist. Poniatowski holds onto his slipping crown, which he had received when Catherine forced him on the Poles as their king; on the right side, Friedrich II and Joseph II converse together, Friedrich with his sword drawn. There is another much less pointed version of this caricature; this milder version appears in several variants, probably because engravers who copied designs from one another allowed minor deviations to creep into the marginal areas of the print (illus. 4 and illus. 5). Here Poniatowski looks at the map instead of toward Catherine and points heavenward instead of grasping his crown; also, here a wig replaces the loose hair of the Polish king evident in the other (I suspect original) version.

Once the French Revolution erupted, a barrage of caricatures of Catherine that suddenly edged much closer to the lewd began to appear, but most were published in England (a ìgolden ageî of caricature was underway there), [11] some in France, and none that I have found in Germany. This does not mean that none were made in Germany, but perhaps that the closer one got to Russia the more effectively the materials could be suppressed; and during the Revolution it was of course far more dangerous in Germany to satirize monarchs of any country than it was in France. Evidence that lewd political cartoons were being made outside of France and Britain can be found in Massonís detailed description of a Polish caricature of which I have found no other traceóand notice that he indicates there were other such cartoons too:

Unter den satyrischen Kupfern, die in Pohlen auf die Kaiserin von Ruþland gestochen wurden, ist besonders eines merkw¸rdig, betitelt: Catharinens Mahlzeit. Die Kaiserin sitzt allein an der Tafel. Von der einen Seite bieten ihr einige Cosacken noch blutige Glieder von Schweden, Pohlen und T¸rken dar, die sie eben ermordet haben. Auf der andern Seite liegt eine Reihe von jungen, nackten M”nnern, neben einander, wie Tonnen in einem Weinkeller, und ein altes Weib zieht durch eine handgreifliche Operation aus diesen lebendigen F”ssern einen Saft, den sie in einen Pokal auffaþt, und der Kaiserin zu trinken hinreicht. Unter dieser sch”ndlichen Carricatur stehen ihrer w¸rdige Verse, die man mit ein wenig Decenz nicht anders, als so ¸bersetzen kann: Weil du so sehr die M”nner liebst, so esse ihr Fleisch, und trinke ihr reinstes Blut! (Masson 161ó62)

This is an image of extreme debauchery and depravity, with the multiple young men being objectified for the satisfaction of the empress with a reputation for sexual voracity (ìWeil du so sehr die M”nner liebstî.) The image of a powerful woman being sexually ìservicedî by troops of men, especially guards or soldiers, is both a legacy of classical images (Messalina) and a bizarre reversal of the far more common reality of wartime rapes of women.

Lynn Hunt, examining the relation of pornography to the French Revolution and analyzing especially the political element of pornographic depictions of Marie Antoinette, considers that such representations make vivid ìthe irrationalities of the ancien rÈgime moral systemî (330) and suggest ìthe feminization of both the aristocracy and monarchyî (329). Bawdy representations also bring the targeted woman down to the level of a common prostitute. Coded and uncoded pornographic and semi-pornographic depictions of Catherine consistently invoke anxieties about a woman in power and the power of women, represented by sexuality and female sexual appetite. And depictions of Catherine as a powerful woman tended to slide into Catherine as a lascivious woman. Even so decorous a posthumous account of her as the one by Seume says:

Es ist kein Geheimniss, dass die Kaiserin in der Physik der Liebe etwas leidenschaftlich war: sie verletzte dadurch niemandes Rechte; und warum sollte der strengere Moralist nicht Verzeihung f¸r sie haben, da sie selbst f¸r so viele Schwachheiten anderer so viel Nachsicht hatte, und immer in den Gr”nzen des Wohlstandes und der weiblichen Sittsamkeit blieb. Alle, welche lange und viel in der Gesellschaft der Kaiserin gewesen sind, betheuern, dass sie in Gespr”ch und Betragen nie eine sittsamere Frau gesehen haben. Es entstand aber dennoch aus dem Favoritenwesen und der excessiven G¸te der Monarchin sehr oft Aufwand, der nicht in ihrem Karakter lag . . . . Allzu grosse G¸te in Belohnungen und allzu grosse Nachsicht in Bestrafungen werden vielleicht nicht ohne Ursache der Kaiserin zur Last gelegt. Hundert tausende wurden wiederholt weggeschenkt, und doch nicht immer an M”nner, die von dem Staate eine solche Belohnung zu erwarten Recht hatten . . . . (Seume 141-42)

Passionate and extravagant but in other respects well-behaved is the pattern Seume tries to describe; he cannot deny the passion since it is ìno secret.î He tries to resist the strict (bourgeois) moralist not by endorsing aristocratic libertinism but by arguing that this may have been expensive but was not a harmful weakness. And since Catherine had practiced leniency, the critic should as well. Seume attempts to package Catherineís weakness in the ìPhysik der Liebeî as regrettable but not of profound importance.

In other contexts, many German contemporaries of Catherineís evidently savored the salacious details. Lichtenberg wrote to one of his correspondents: ìSchreiben Sie mir ja die Anecdote von der Kayserin und dem Trompeter; nennen Sie erstere Base Meichel und den andern . . . Mundst¸ck so verstehts kein Mensch, als Sie und ich, allenfalls auf ein besonderes groses Blatt so verbrenne ich es. Bitte, bitteì (Lichtenberg 3: 35). The passage suggests both the informal dissemination of sexual stories about the empress and the necessity of taking precautions in writing such material in Germany during Catherineís lifetime. Even after her death, the coding continued.

Within thirteen years of Catherineís death two novels about her appeared. In one she is called Miranda, Queen of the North, and in the other, although mostly referred to simply as ìsheî the character is named Iwanova. The Miranda novel (1798) is by a man, Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht, writing less than two years after Catherineís death; the Iwanova novel, Der G¸nstling, is by a woman, Caroline Auguste Fischer, writing eleven years later, in 1809. Albrecht had already a novel about Potemkin in which Catherine also figures, [12] and later he wrote several more centering on other male figures in Catherineís life.

Miranda depends for its account of Catherine overwhelmingly on Rulhiereís version of the coup and his stories of the grandduchessís lovers; after the Rulhiere chronology, which takes up more than three quarters of the book, the years of Catherineís reign are treated swiftly so that the novel ends with the empressís (natural) death. What makes this book interesting is not its indebtedness to Rulhiere, however, but Albrechtís use of material that Rulhiere alluded to but left undeveloped. This includes conversations between bourgeois members of the crowd cheering the self-proclaimed new empress, palace guards discussing their class-based relation to the grandduchess, and episodes in which a stranger poses ethical questions to a Russian Orthodox priest about Catherineís ascent to power and her reign. Furthermore an invented secondary plot about a young German officer who is tricked into believing Catherine loves him and has married him lands the character in Siberia, where he conducts long discussions with a Russian statesman also in exile there. The result is a novel with many crosscurrents, some critical, some admiring.

Albrecht depicts men at court as sexually attracted to Miranda, who is witty, confident, ambitious, and lustful:

K–nigin Miranda hatte von jeher viel Empf”nglichkeit f¸r die Liebe und diese schien mit ihrer Gr–þe zuzunehmen. . . . Zadro war nicht der einzige mehr, der im Wonnegenuþe der ¸bergroþen k–niglichen Reize schwelgen durfte. Miranda war eine Freundin von Gesellschaft; vorz¸glich liebte sie gewisse, mit z”rtlichen Scherzen und Liebkosungen verbundene Spiele. Um diese ihre Neigung zu befriedigen, hatte sie einen Cirkel errichtet, der eigentlich aus Vertrauten von beyderley Geschlecht bestand, zu welchem aber doch auch bisweilen Andere durch die Vorsprache eines Eingeweihten den Zutritt erhielten. Von diesen m”nnlichen Vertrauten gelangten bisweilen manche auch zu einem geheimen Rendezvous mit der K–nigin, in welchem das auch von andern genossen wurde, wozu sich bisher nur Zadro berechtigt glaubte. Da auch nicht so leicht ein Fremder zu jenem vertrauten Gesellschaftszirkel Zutritt erhielt, der sich nicht ausser einer bl¸henden Jugend auch durch eine vortheilhafte Bildung auszeichnete; so fand Miranda auch dadurch Gelegenheit, sich den Genuþ liebevoller Umarmungen durch die beliebte Ver”nderung zu erh–hen und mit neuen Reizen zu vermehren. (Albrecht 306-07)

The lubricious story of Catherineís intimate circle that had so aroused Massonís imagination is here repeated without the allusion to Therese but with the same pornographic or semi-pornographic hints.

This sexualized but not censorious inside view of the empress is juxtaposed with a distinctly critical outside view, for example:

Sie wuþte nun ihrem Thron einen Glanz zu verschaffen, der Tausende blendete und zur staunenden Bewunderung einer Gr–þe hinriþ, die freilich vor dem hellersehenden Auge mehr in einem t”uschenden Schimmer als in Wirklichkeit bestand. Bey alle dem Anschein einer weisen, th”tigen Selbstregierung, die unerm¸det auf die steigende Vervollkommnung der Staatsverfassung und des Wohlstandes der Unterthanen hinwirkte, entstand doch an Mirandens Hofe sehr bald der ¸ppigste asiatische Luxus, und die so th”tig scheinende K–nigin brachte bey weitem die mehreste Zeit bey der Toilette, an der Tafel und bey Vergn¸gungen zu. (Albrecht 305-06)

Although Albrecht is sometimes labeled a Jacobin and some of the criticisms of Catherine in the novel seem to support that designation, none of his overt criticisms attack her sexual behavior, except as a distraction from the task of ruling. Many scenes are far more obviously written for their titillating effect, albeit with the accompanying implication of the monarch as no better than the bawdiest of women.

In a scene set early in Mirandaís marriage, while she still goes by the name Auguste (reminiscent of Catherineís original German name) and before a fertile lover had been found for her, Miranda/Auguste and another woman watch the guards practicing their formations in the palace square:

Auguste. Welchen w¸rden Sie sich von diesen w”hlen?

Gr”fin Gr¸nhof. . . Die Wahl w¸rde hier schwer. (naiv) Um wegen der Wahl nicht lange verlegen zu seyn, m¸þte man wohl das ganze Regiment lieben.

Auguste (lacht laut und umarmt die Gr”fin) Allerliebst, wirklich allerliebst! Ein besserer Ausweg w”re nicht zu treffen. (Albrecht 82-83)

Albrect depicts a frankly sexual woman. Passing moralizing sexual judgment on the libertine queen is left to Caroline Auguste Fischer.

Fischerís Der G¸nstling presents an early nineteenth-century image of Catherine. This novel is in the form of letters by the statesman Alexander addressed to his ambitious and corrupted relatives. Whereas J.F.E. Albrecht had several times narrated his story using letters by a female confidante of Mirandaís, Fischer relies overwhelmingly on the perspective of a man, a male paragon of virtue, a man who from the start is fearful of Iwanovaís attention. Indeed the first sixth of the book reads like a novel of workplace sexual harassment: Alexander is trying to do his important work, but his boss keeps making passes at him. Finally he has to tell the boss he is not interested, because he does not love her and cannot be forced to love her. She is furious. Immediately thereafter, Alexander becomes the guardian of an innocent and beautiful fifteen-year-old girl and promptly begins to fall in love. Everything about his love for Maria is validated as reasonable, positive, and virtuous. (Contrasting with Mariaís virginal name is Iwanova, Eva nova, new Eve, a name laden with connotations of danger and evil.) At exactly the same time, Iwanova takes as her lover a handsome and innocent young man, R. Everything about this relationship is contaminated: R. is dumb, stupidly revels in his pathetic status, and is the pawn of courtiers; for Iwanova he is only a stand-in for Alexander, and at the same time she uses him in an effort to make Alexander jealous. Before long however her majesty (her position is not explicitly labeled) gets bored with the young man. This boredom is sure proof that Iwanovaís feelings for R. were not love, for by the time Fischer is writing the understanding of love has changed: ìloveî includes sexual passion, but it belongs with marriage, and it lasts for life. Iwanovaís series of affairs demonstrates that her emotions do not meet the new standard. Alexander comments as though to Iwanova: ìUngl¸ckliche! auf deinem einsamen Throne flehtest du um Liebe, und sie wurde dir versagt. Der ungeheure Schmerz drohte dich zu vernichten, und du fliehest in die Arme der Wollust. Ach! das scheinbare Leben hast du gerettet, das wahre geopfert. Warnend ist mir dein Beyspiel!î (50). While Iwanova is calculating, promiscuous, and carnal, Maria loves purely, innocently, without know the code and certainly without asking for love. She thinks her spontaneous hugs for her guardian are because he is her ìfatherî; she has no words for her feelings and no awareness of his love for her. Only by naively recounting a dream that she does not understand is she able to communicate to Alexander her love for him: ìEs ist ein unaufh–rliches Eins seyn mit dem Geliebten, eine Allwissenheit seiner Gedanken und Empfindungen, ja sogar ein Ausschlieþen Alles zu dieser Liebe nicht Geh–rigen.ì Now love slides suddenly into marriage, which however cannot be perfect largely because, as Alexander explains a few lines later, of the other duties that men have, ìDiese vollkommenste Ehe ist dem Menschen ein nie zu erreichendes Idealì (Fischer 139).

Iwanovaís obsessive fixation on Alexander is repeatedly contrasted with Mariaís love for him and with Alexanderís love for Maria; the excessiveness and immoderateness that had previously been indexical for passionate love are now reinterpreted not-love. Iwanovaís activeness in the role of lover is contrasted with the passivity of Alexander in that role. Because he is convinced that the beloved has to return love of her own free will, he does almost nothing to ward off rivals and does not woo Maria. Iwanova in contrast tries everything to influence Alexander, including secretly giving him aphrodisiacs, which make him violently ill. When Alexander finally insists that he will no longer help Iwanova rule her empire if she does not allow him to marry Maria, she appears to acquiesce but then poisons their wedding bed and they dieóand thereby have an untainted, unworldly marriage after all. Iwanovaís obsession with Alexander has turned her into a murderous monster; Alexander sees her emotions as lust; Maria identifies them as hate. The libertine woman is now the target of demonization, and the young, ìpure,î asexual Maria is her idealized counterpart. Fischerís novel is seemingly ready to concede to Iwanova a male role as ruler, but Iwanovaís control of her passions declines throughout the novel until its cruel end. And yet of the three main characters in the Fischerís novel it is Iwanova who survives. Fischer does not kill her.

It has been suggested that one of the consequences of the Clinton-Lewenski scandal of 1998-99 was ìthe necessary admission that the American President has a bodyî (Leonardo 9). In the eighteenth century it was not a surprise to discover that kings and queens had bodies: their sexuality was part of their jobs. American presidents come into office as the result of a kind of birth-without-a-woman, by election. Kings come into office because of their birth, because of who their mother and (ostensible) father are, and their own duty is to procreate, especially to have sons, in turn. When Catherine underwent her midlife sex change and began to indulge in kingly sexual behavior she initially had the permission of rank, though not of gender. As long as Catherine reigned, she could appropriate to herself the body of the king with all its privileges, including surpressing most criticism of her sexual behavior without needing to hide her dalliances. Then times changed. Criticism came from two opposing camps, from the self-righteous bourgeoisie, eager to assert its moral superiority to the aristocracy by assailing the licentiousness of the upper classes, and from male monarchs angry at having to share their exalted rank with women and in some cases incensed that the queens and empresses who came before them had delayed their arrival on the throne. After Catherineís death the powerful woman could be sexually demonized, the unmotherly, unchaste aristocratic woman could be villified. What better punishment of an overtly sexually active, self-directed woman than to invent the story of the horse? This story even today is apparently circulated mostly orally, despite the fact that the societies where it exists are all societies of the written word. The assertion that Catherineís excessive sexuality, carried to the extreme of bestiality, had killed her, demonstrates the neatness and economy of a fable and uses the readily available stuff of eighteenth-century pornographic prints. Catherine the ìGreatî could be transformed from the most powerful woman of her century into the most ignominious. Under the guise of a ìjoke,î a much better known one than Rulhiereís about Poniatowski, the libertine woman would be crushed to death again and again for centuries.

Works Cited

[Albrecht, Johann Friedrich Ernst.] Miranda, K–niginn im Norden. Geliebte Pansalvins. Germanien (Erfurt): Hennings, 1798.

{Albrecht, Johann Friedrich Ernst.] Pansalvin, F¸rst der Finsterniss, und seine Geliebte. So gut wie geschehen. Germanien, 1794.

Alexander, John T. Catherine the Great: Life and Legend. New York: Oxford, 1989.

Appelgreen, Gottfried Ludolf , and Friedrich Wilhelm Appelgreen. Augustissimi principis Pauli, Petr f., magni ducis Russiae reliqua cunas ea qua par est pietate venerantur... G–ttingen, 1754.

Biester, Johann Erich. Abriss des Lebens und der Regierung Kaiserin Katharina II. von Russland. 3 Faltbl., 1 Titelbild. 8" ed. Berlin: Nicolai, 1797.

Carretta, Vincent. ìëPetticoats in Powerí: Catherine the Great in British Political Cartoons.î 1650-1850 1 (1994), 23-81.

Denkw¸rdigkeiten der Lebens- und Staats-Geschichte des ohnl”ngst verstorbenen ungl¸cklichen Czaars Peter des Dritten, aus glaubw¸rdigen Nachrichten und richtigen Urkunden in der K¸rze verfasst. Danzig, 1762.

Fischer, Caroline Auguste. Der G¸nstling. Fr¸he Frauenliteratur in Deutschland. Ed. Anita Runge. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1988, rpt.

Fortgesetzte russische Anekdoten oder Zweyter Theil. Aus dem Englischen ¸bersetzt, 1766.

Fuchs, Eduard. Geschichte der erotischen Kunst. 2 vols, 1908-1926.

H–rschelmann, Friedrich Ludewig Anton. Friedrich Ludew. Ant. H–rschelmanns pragmatische Geschichte der merkw¸rdigen Staatsver”nderungen im ruþischen Reiche von dem Ableben Peters des grossen an bis auf den Regierungs-Antrit der ietzregierenden Kaiserin Catharina II. Aus sichern Quellen und authentischen Nachrichten mit unparteiischer Feder vorgetragen auch mit n–tigen Beweisen best”tigt. Vol. 1. 1 vols. Erfurt: J.J. F. Straube, 1763.

Hunt, Lynn. ìPornography and the French Revolution.î The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the origins of modernity, 1500-1800. Ed. Lynn Hunt. New York: Zone Books, 1993.

Leonardo, Micaela di. ìAn affair to remember.î Womenís Review of Books 18: 12 (September 2001), p. 8-9.

Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph. 1785-1792. Briefwechsel. ed. Ulrich Joost and Albrecht Sch–ne ed. Vol. 3. M¸nchen: C.H.Beck, 1990.

Luhmann, Niklas. Love as Passion: The Codification of intimacy. Stanford, CA: Standford UP, 1998.

Marche-Schwann, C. F. S. de la. Russische Anekdoten von der Regierung und Tod Peters des Dritten; imgleichen von der Erhebung und Regierung Catherinen der Andern. Ferner von dem Tode des Kaisers Iwan, welchem zum Anhange beygef¸gt die Lebens-Geschichte Catherinen der Ersten. (Petersburg), 1764.

Maza, Sarah. ìThe Diamond Necklace Affair Revisited (1785-1786): The Case of the Missing Queen.î Eroticism and the Body Politic. Ed. Lynn Hunt. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1991. 63-89.

Norberg, Kathryn. ìThe libertine whore: Prostitution in French pornography from Margot to Juliette.î The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the origins of modernity, 1500-1800. Ed. Lynn Hunt. New York: Zone Books, 1993. 225-252.

Richter, C. E. Das Lob und Danck-Fest vor die H–chstbegl¸ckte Entbindung I. K. Hoheit der Gross-F¸rstin aller Reussen Catharina Alexiewna mit einem Gross-F¸rsten. Petersburg, 1754.

R–llig, J. G. Als die erfreuliche Botschaft von der Verm”hlung des Herrn Peters Feodorowiz wie auch der Frau Catharina Alexiena bekannt und Derselben hohe Feyer an dem Hochf¸rstlichen Anhalt-Zerbstischen Hofe begangen wurde, wolte seine Pflicht in Drama und Musica an den Tag legen J. G. R–llig. Zerbst, 1746.

Seume, Johann Gottfried. Ueber das Leben und den Charakter der Kaiserin von Rusland Katharina II. Mit Freym¸thigkeit und Unpartheylichkeit. Altona [vielm. Leipzig], 1797.

Wagner, Peter. Eros Revived: Erotica of the Enlightenment in England and America. London: Secker & Warburg, 1988.

Wahrhaffte Nachricht von der am 9ten Julii 1762 in Petersburg vorgefallenen Revolution, 1762.

Will, Georg Andreas. Merkw¸rdige Lebensgeschichte Peter des Dritten, Kaisers und Selbsthalters aller Russen, nebst einer Erl”uterung zweyer, bereits seltener M¸nzen welche dieser Herr hat pr”gen lassen. Frankfurt und Leipzig, 1762.

[1] Luhmann 18-33.

[2] See Appelgreen and Richter.

[3] Exactly how illicit news of this kind may have reached the populace of Germany is hard to trace. Peter had many retainers from Holstein (where he was the Duke), with whom he drank and talked; they may have repeated some of his comments within informal communication networks that reached back to Germany. Also Peter III treated the Prussian ambassador as a friend and thus gave Friedrich II extensive information about his activities and his thoughts, and Peter III corresponded directly with Friedrich even before becoming tsar. Some of the many other foreigners, German, French, Dutch, English and others, working in St. Petersburg, may have spread rumors that Peter was disclaiming Paul. Or some of the German courts that had representatives in St. Petersburg perhaps heard this rumor from their diplomats, and it then spread from the courts to a broader public.

[4] This claim is repeated almost exactly in one of the first biographies of Peter III, Denkw¸rdigkeiten der Lebens und StaatsGeschichte des ohnl”ngst verstorbenen ungl¸cklichen Czaars Peter des Dritten, 70.

[5] The claim in the Grossenrudstedt volume that Peter himself was the source of the rumor, a claim also repeated elsewhere later, implied many things. It suggests that Peter and Catherine were either not having sexual relations at the time of Paulís conception or that for some reason Peter knew he was impotent, and of course it asserts that Catherine was having sexual relations with someone else. The claim that, although the reigning tsarina Elisabeth endorsed the child, Peter disclaimed it might also be considered a forewarning that Paulís future as crown prince would not be secure once Peter came to the throne and that Catherineís future as Peterís wife and hence as consort tsarina might also be in jeopardy. While the notion of Peter as the source of this rumor implies a certain recklessness and perhaps naivite on his part (weaknesses that fit well with other depictions of his behavior, especially later), it also can be seen as among the best possible attributions a rumormonger could devise for this particular claim.

[6] Will contains a translation of a pamphlet originally entitled Lettre de Petersburg and published in Frankfurt in 1762 (Bilbasoff 17).

[7] I have only found a copy of this engraving late in the process of writing this paper. It is reprinted in Wagnerís Eros revived, p. 80; unfortunately the source of the picture is not the original print but instead an early 20th-century book: Eduard Fuchs, Geschichte der erotischen Kunst. Since many of Wagnerís sources may be German or French but all of the captions are given only in English, I think it is quite possible that some of the materials are not English, although at this point I cannot prove that. I hope to have established more about this print before the WiG conference convenes.

[8] I would be grateful for any help in understanding the iconography of this combination of monk and pig and for assistance in tracing the reference to ìFather Paulî in the title of the print.

[9] Catherineís eyes were described as ìhazel, and extremely fascinating. The reflexes of light give them a bluish tintî (Alexander 7).

[10] One of the issues I am still trying to trace is the question of to what extent Western Europeans kept track of Catherineís lovers by means of newspapers and magazines. In other words, were there ways of referring to Orlov, Vasilíchikov, Potemkin and their successors that signalled their status to readers of the time? I have not yet figured that out and will probably need more time scavanging through newspapers to do so.

Commentators of her day offered various explanations for the openness of Catherineís love affairs. While some cited Russian culture to explain it, and some acknowledged that such open affairs were commonplace among many other rulers, Rulhiere in his account of the coup gave a tactical explanation. Rulhiere depicts the English ambassador as giving Catherine the following advice:

Sanftmuth sey nur die Tugend leidender Schlachtopfer. . . . Da die meisten Sterblichen schwach sind. . . so unterliegen sie immer den Menschen von entschlossenem Muthe. Wenn Sie also den Zwang ablegen; wenn Sie laut diejenigen nennen, die Sie mit Ihrer G¸te beehren: wenn Sie zu verstehen geben, daþ Sie jede Kr”nkung derselben f¸r pers–nliche Beleidigung gengen Sie selbst halten, so wird es Ihnen leicht seyn, nach ihrem eigenen Willen zu leben. (30)

The cultural setting that tolerated libertinism and made this kind of advice possible (advice that Catherine probably did not need) meant that, once she came to power, she conducted love affairs openly before the ever watchful eyes of the court; this markedly distinguished her eighteenth-century situation from that of twentieth-century American Presidents.

[11] For a rich and well illustrated analysis of British satirical images of Catherine see Carretta.

[12] I have not seen the Potemkin novel, entitled Pansalvin, F¸rst der Finsterniss, und seine Geliebte, by Albrecht