an unsettling discussion. Secluded in her apartments in the Win-
ter Palace, she had difficulty speaking and even putting together
her thoughts. Behind her back, it was whispered that Her Maj-
esty’s premature senility was the price to be paid for her excesses
< 27 >
in food, drink and lovemaking. Johann Lefort, Saxony’s top diplo-
mat in St. Petersburg, wrote to his government on March 8, 1727,
in picturesque and suggestive French: “The Tsarina apparently is
suffering a severe attack of swelling of the legs, all the way up to
the groin, which cannot bode well; this [ailment] is considered to
be of bacchic origins.”4 Despite of the doctor’s warnings, Cath-
erine’s son-in-law baited her with questions regarding her inten-
tions. But she was unable to answer him, nor even to understand
him. On April 27, 1729, she complained of a painful pressure in
the chest. Her eyes were wild, and she became delirious. Having
taken a cold look at her, Charles Frederick called in Tolstoy:
“If she passes away without having dictated her will, we are
lost! Can’t we persuade her to designate her daughter, immedi-
ately?”
“If we have not already done so, it is too late now!”5 the other
answered.
The empress’s friends and family members watched for 48
hours, waiting for her to draw her last breath. Her daughters and
Peter Sapieha were at the bedside. She would hardly regain con-
sciousness when the blackouts returned, longer each time and
more profound. Menshikov was kept current, hour by hour, on
the state of the tsarina. He convoked the Supreme Privy Council
and set about drafting a testamentary proclamation that the Em-
press would only have to sign, a mere little bit of scribble, before
dying. Under the authority of the Serene Prince, the members of
this restricted assembly agreed on a text stipulating that, accord-
ing to the express will of Her Majesty, the tsarevich Peter Alex-
eyevich, still a minor and promised in marriage to Miss Maria
Menshikov, would, at the proper time, succeed the Empress Cath-
erine I and would be assisted, until he came of age, by the Su-
preme Privy Council instituted by her. If he should die without
posterity, the document specified, the crown would redound to
< 28 >
his aunt Anna Petrovna and to her heirs; then to his other aunt,
Elizabeth Petrovna, and to any heirs she might have. The two
aunts would be members of the aforementioned Supreme Privy
Council until the day their imperial nephew reached the age of 17.
The formula conceived by Menshikov would give him the upper
hand, through his daughter, the future tsarina, in managing the
country’s destiny.
This indirect confiscation of power galled Tolstoy and his
usual collaborators, including Buturlin and the Portuguese adven-
turer Devier. They tried to respond, but Menshikov foiled their
maneuver and counteracted by accusing them of the crime of lese-
majesty. His paid spies gave him a positive report: the majority of
Tolstoy’s buddies were engaged in the plot. Under torture, the
Portuguese Devier admitted to everything he was asked (the tor-
turer must have handled the knout with considerable dexterity).
He and his accomplices had publicly scorned the grief of Her Maj-
esty’ daughters and had participated in clandestine meetings with
the intention of upsetting the monarchical order. In the name of
the failing Empress, Menshikov had Tolstoy arrested; he was shut
up in the Solovetsky Monastery, on an island in the White Sea;
Devier was dispatched to Siberia; as for the others, they were sim-
ply sent back to their lands and told to stay there. Duke Charles
Frederick of Holstein was not officially charged but, out of pru-
dence and pride, he and his wife Anna, so wrongfully swindled,
removed to their estate at Yekaterinhof.
The young couple had hardly left the capital when they were
recalled: the tsarina had taken a turn for the worse. Decency and
tradition required that her daughters attend her. Both came at a
run to witness her final moments. After long suffering, she died
on May 6, 1727, between 9:00 and 10:00 in the evening. At Men-
shikov’s orders, two regiments of the Guard immediately encir-
cled the Winter Palace to prevent any hostile demonstration. But
< 29 >
nobody thought of protesting. Nor of crying, for that matter.
Catherine’s reign, which had lasted only two years and two
months, left the majority of her subjects indifferent or perplexed.
Should one regret or be pleased at her demise?
On May 8, 1727, Grand Duke Peter Alexeyevich was pro-
claimed emperor. The Secretary of the imperial cabinet, Makarov,
announced the event to the courtiers and the dignitaries assem-
bled at the palace. The terms of the proclamation, concocted with
diabolic skill under Menshikov’s leadership, linked the concept of
choosing the sovereign (instituted by Peter the Great) with that
of heredity, in conformity with the Muscovite tradition.
