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Updated: June 6, 2025
For two years Catharine and Mentchikof, whose life had begun in the hovel, and who were now virtually together on the throne, were the unquestioned autocrats of Russia. Catharine had no genius for government, and left the control of affairs to her minister, who was to all intents and purposes sovereign of Russia.
As for her first husband, she sent him sums of money until 1705, when he was killed in battle. It was a common fate of prisoners of war then to be sold as slaves to the Turks, but the beauty of Catharine saved her from this. After some vicissitudes, she fell into the hands of Mentchikof, at whose quarters she was seen by the czar.
In 1704 he was given the rank of general, and was the first to defeat the Swedes in a pitched battle. At the czar's request he was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire. As Prince Mentchikof the new grandee loomed high. His house in Moscow was magnificent, his banquets were gorgeous with gold and silver plate, and the ambassadors of the powers of Europe figured among his guests.
He is saved by a woman, and a great woman, even Catherine his wife, who originally was a poor peasant girl in Livonia, and who after various adventures became the wife of a young Swedish officer killed at the battle of Marienburg, and then the mistress of Prince Mentchikof, and then of Peter himself, who at length married her, "an incident," says Voltaire, "which fortune and merit never before produced in the annals of the world," She suggested negotiation, when Peter was in the very jaws of destruction, and which nobody had thought of.
Two of the robbers in high places were executed, but the others were let off with fines and a castigation with Peter's walking-stick, which he was in the habit of using freely on high and low alike. As for Mentchikof, he was incorrigible.
She could neither read nor write, and, like Mentchikof, never learned those arts. She was, however, handsome and attractive, delicate and well formed, and of a most excellent temper, being never known to be out of humor, while she was obliging and civil to all, and after her exaltation took good care of the family of her benefactor Gluck.
Mentchikof was no match for the astute Englishman, who for some time controlled the Turkish government, and who baffled all the schemes of Nicholas.
The disgraced favorite survived his exile but two years, dying of apoplexy in 1729. Four months afterwards the new czar followed in death the man he had disgraced. The other instance of a rise from low to high estate was that of the empress herself, whose career was very closely related to that of Mentchikof.
He did away with the long coat reaching to the heels, something like that which ladies wear in rainy days; and the drawers not unlike petticoats; and the long, bushy beards. He found more difficulty in making this reform than in taking Azof, although aided by Mentchikof, his favorite, fellow-traveller, and prime minister.
Prince Mentchikof, who commanded the Russians, beheld with astonishment the defeat of the troops he had posted in positions believed to be secure from capture by assault. The genius of Lord Raglan, of Saint-Arnaud, of General Bosquet, of Sir Colin Campbell, of Canrobert, of Sir de Lacy Evans, of Sir George Brown, had carried the day.
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