Free The Memoirs of Catherine the Great by Catherine the Great Page B

this piece was profoundly reflective and that in 1757 I could not find a word to add to it, nor in thirteen years had I made any discovery about myself that I had not already known at age fifteen. [61]
    This description is similar to her self-portrait in an undated one-page fragment that still exists. It begins with her birth, parents, governess, and education, and breaks off with the following sentences: “I was instructed in the Lutheran religion, I was horribly curious, quite stubborn, and most ingratiating, I had a good heart, I was very sensitive, I cried easily, I was extremely fickle. I never liked dolls, but quite liked any kind of exercise, there was no boy more daring than I, I was proud to be that and often I hid my fear, shame produced this impulse, I was quite secretive” (473).
    In her later memoirs, Catherine incorporates such portraits of herself and others into her narrative. She draws out the central characteristics that motivate an individual’s actions, what in the eighteenth century were called the springs of behavior, or one’s character. Catherine here subscribes to the universalizing ideals of the Enlightenment, with its key words of “qualities,” “character,” and “mind” (
esprit
). Given her idea of human nature as unchanging, at age twenty-eight Catherine can claim to have understood herself fully at age fifteen. This is an Aristotelian notion of the individual who does not change with time and experience, but only reveals herself to be more thoroughly what she has always been. Education could significantly shape, but not change, someone’s nature. This view of human psychology differs significantly from post-Freudian notions, which posit fundamental, erupting, conflicting forces that can be traced back to childhood and continually evolve. In Catherine’s model, a child is in essence already a small adult. Thus in part, Catherine could start over each time she wrote a new memoir because as she understood herself, each memoir was the same portrait, only more so, no matter which particular incidents she chose to recount.
    Catherine’s first sustained autobiographical narrative, like her subsequent memoirs, is a political or court memoir. She includes information about Russia that a foreigner might not know, and thus most likely she wrote it for Hanbury-Williams, who arrived at court in June 1755 and left in June 1757; their letters indicate that she trusted him with personal information. Court memoirs revolve around access to the ruler. At the end of this memoir, she explains to Hanbury-Williams: “You will perhaps find it necessary to criticize me, since seeing myself so badly treated, I never spoke with the Empress personally to justify myself against the thousand calumnies, lies, etc. etc. Know then that a thousand thousand times, I have asked to speak with her alone but she has never wanted to consent to it” (467). All the memoirs recount whatever Catherine or Elizabeth say to each other, their meals together, gestures toward each other, presents (including their value) to each other, who notices their contact, and the greatest honor, time alone with Elizabeth. 104 Illnesses provide opportunities to show one’s affection and esteem. They exchange compliments—Catherine praising Elizabeth’s impressive appearance, Elizabeth commending Catherine’s religious observance and her Russian. Access was also reflected in physical proximity to the ruler, hence the importance of the relative location of Peter’s, Catherine’s, and her mother’s apartments in Elizabeth’s palaces. For example, Catherine is never closer to Elizabeth’s rooms than when she gives birth, a reflection of the importance of the event, though as Catherine learns, much to her chagrin, not of her own importance. Catherine’s eye for detail not only makes for vivid storytelling, but these details are the heart and soul of court memoirs, representing the language of favor and disfavor at court. Once the