Free Great Catherine by 1943- Carolly Erickson Page B

her imperial crown and mantle of state, walked ahead of the betrothal couple across the square and into the cathedral, past ranks of guardsmen who held back the crowds. Elizabeth walked under a massive silver canopy held by eight officers, but when she entered the church she abandoned this formality to take Catherine and Peter by the hand and lead them onto a velvet-covered dais in the middle of the sanctuary. There the Archbishop of Novgorod presided over the long, intricate betrothal ceremony, while the choir sang and the worshipful onlookers knelt and stood and knelt again. After four hours the empress handed Peter and Catherine their jewelled betrothal rings, which they exchanged, and stood by while Catherine was addressed for the first time by her new title of grand duchess.
    The rest of the afternoon and evening was devoted to public rejoicing. Bells rang, cannon were fired time and time again, all normal life stopped while the city was swept into celebration. The empress held a dinner to which everyone of rank was invited, and afterwards a lavish ball. Catherine, much admired and congratulated, did her best to smile at everyone and be gracious. Now that she was grand duchess she had to become accustomed to being treated with elaborate deference. No one except the empress and Peter dared to sit in her presence, or to enter or leave a room ahead of her. People bowed or knelt and murmured 'Your Imperial Highness" when addressing her, and stepped aside with a bow to let her pass.
    That Catherine was, after the empress herself, the highest ranking woman at the court was a fact not lost on Johanna, who suddenly had to kneel and kiss her daughter's hand like everyone else. What respect she had commanded as Catherine's mother now evaporated, for Catherine no longer needed her, she was a titled lady in her own right. Johanna was merely the Princess of

    son
    Anhalt-Zerbst, a lowly German aristocrat lost in the sea of aristocratic ladies in the grand duchess's entourage. She could not walk near her daughter in the betrothal procession, but had to keep to the rear with the other women of low rank. At the wedding dinner she was informed that she could not sit with the other women present, but would have to find a humbler and lower seat. She protested—as did the British ambassador, who also felt insulted by the place assigned to him—and in the end the two of them dined together, at a special table off to the side, in exile from the festivities.
    Johanna was humiliated, and at the same time thwarted. She had come to Russia on an important mission, to advance the interests of Prussia and Prussia's allies at the Russian court and to undermine the anti-Prussian policies of the Chancellor Bestuzhev. But she had failed dismally. Only four weeks earlier she had discovered just how formidable an enemy the chancellor could be.
    Bestuzhev had been keeping himself informed of all Johanna's activities ever since her arrival in Russia, and, through his spies, had intercepted the dispatches of the French ambassador Chetar-die and had read there full details of Johanna's intrigues. The dispatches quoted the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst saying many unflattering and critical things about the empress, and revealed a pattern of hypocrisy and political machination in her behavior. Gathering his evidence carefully, Bestuzhev presented it to Elizabeth, then stood back and waited for the explosion.
    Furious that this German woman whom she had enriched and honored and treated like a close relative had shown her such disloyalty, Elizabeth was so enraged at Johanna that she threatened to call off the betrothal and send both Johanna and Catherine back home. She ordered Johanna brought before her and shouted at her accusingly, reducing the frightened Johanna to tears. For two hours the empress stormed and the princess suffered, doing her best to plead her case and beg for forgiveness. Too late Johanna realized that her clumsy and transparent maneuvering had