Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna was the beloved sister of Alexander I. The clever and beautiful woman dreamed of becoming Catherine III: she dreamed of the imperial crown. She was having an affair with Bagration, Napoleon and the English Prince William asked her hands. The amazing fate of the Grand Duchess, which ended in a real tragedy.
There is no female emptiness in her
Ekaterina Pavlovna was named after her great grandmother. True, the empress herself was not happy with the birth of another girl - she wanted a grandson. Nevertheless, Catherine II took up the education of her granddaughter, who from an early age was distinguished by a sharp mind and curiosity. She loved reading, studying languages, painting and doing mathematics. The girl also spoke excellent Russian, which in those days was a rarity among noble persons. Perhaps it was from her grandmother that she inherited a sharp and critical mind, courage and, as many noted, a rather masculine character. They wrote about the girl: "There is no female emptiness in her, no religious sentimentality, she has a special power of thinking." And her ability to stay in the saddle, according to the courtiers, could be envied by men.
Ekaterina Pavlovna, 1790s, portrait of Levitsky.
My child, my friend, my friend, the beauty of my days
After the assassination of Paul I, Alexander I ascended the throne, and the Dowager Empress spent almost all of her time in Pavlovsk with her children. After two unsuccessful marriages of the senior princesses, who were given away very young, and they died during childbirth, the empress was in no hurry to part with Catherine. She wrote: “Now the joy and tranquility of my life depends on the presence of Kato (as she called her daughter). She is my child, my friend, my friend, the beauty of my days. " The girl grew up a real beauty. “Dark-haired, with dark blue eyes, white, and soon spoke. Everyone loved her very much for her courteous disposition."
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Princess for marriage
In her youth, the dark-haired beauty had romance with famous people. First, she laid eyes on Mikhail Petrovich Dolgorukov, a representative of one of the most eminent families and a close friend of the emperor. The brother was not opposed to marrying his sister for a friend, but he died during the Russian-Swedish war. The princess was not upset for long: she started an affair with Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration. The general was in love with the young princess, he spent two summers in Pavlovsk as commandant in order to spend more time with his beloved. The couple conducted a lively correspondence, and Catherine herself admitted that some of the letters were of a very intimate nature - if they were made public, it would cost the princess her reputation.
And everything would be fine, but the forty-year-old handsome general was married. True, his wife went to Europe for treatment and did not live with her husband, but such an affair still did not please the Dowager Empress. She began to look for a suitable party for her beloved daughter. The princess was pretty and well-bred, so she was considered an enviable bride. True, with the first two suitors, picked up by my mother - the Prince of Bavaria and the Prince of Württemberg - nothing happened.
But soon the princess had much more brilliant prospects. The Empress decided to marry Catherine off to the Austrian Emperor Franz, who by that time was a widow. The girl was dizzy with the opportunity to receive the imperial crown, especially since she did not have to count on her own throne. Mother sent Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin to arrange a question with the wedding. Emperor Alexander, however, did not approve of such an idea and spoke very unflatteringly about the personality of Franz. But Catherine was not going to give up: “You say that he is forty years old - the trouble is not great. You say that this is a pitiful husband for me - I agree. But it seems to me that the reigning persons, in my opinion, are divided into two categories - people are decent, but limited; smart but disgusting. It seems that it is not difficult to make a choice: the former, of course, are preferable … I perfectly understandthat I will not find in him Adonis, but just a decent person; this is enough for family happiness. But having arrived in Vienna, Kurakin was also not delighted with the groom. So Ekaterina Pavlovna never became an Austrian empress.
Soon, it seemed, a suitable party appeared on the horizon: Napoleon himself wooed the princess. In 1808, at the meeting of the sovereigns in Erfurt, Prince Talleyrand, on behalf of the French ruler, proposed to Alexander I to marry his sister and thereby strengthen ties between Russia and France. But the Russian emperor did not like this idea, and the mother-empress was not eager to marry her beloved daughter for a "French upstart." Catherine herself said that it would be better to become the wife of a stoker at Tsarskoye Selo than this Corsican.
First marriage: idyll and tragedy
In the meantime, the girl was already 19 years old, it was impossible to delay marriage. Finally she was betrothed to a cousin, the Prince of Oldenburg. The young groom liked the princess, although he did not have a brilliant appearance, moreover, he was in the Russian service, and the girl did not need to leave the family. Soon the couple settled in Tver, where the prince received the post of governor. The marriage was truly harmonious: both worked a lot, studied languages and literature, arranged receptions, Catherine was engaged in charity work. But the idyll did not last long: during the war, the duke contracted typhus and died. Ekaterina Pavlovna was left a widow with two children.
Ekaterina Pavlovna, 1816−1819, portrait of Fleishman.
The princess grieved at the loss of her husband: she renounced all claims to the throne for herself and her children, lived modestly, but fell ill and went to Europe for treatment. In England she was met by Prince William of Clarensky, who wanted to offer the widow her hand and heart. But she refused and went to Britain on a diplomatic mission from her brother. After the fall of Paris, Alexander himself arrived in England, accompanied by Prince William of Württemberg. Catherine started an affair with him despite the fact that the prince was already married. But in parallel, the widow looked closely at the Austrian Crown Duke Karl Wilhelm. The possibility of obtaining the Austrian crown still fascinated the princess. It was said that she dreamed of becoming Catherine III, replacing her brother who had fallen into mysticism on the throne.
Second marriage: power struggle and death
Catherine never married the Duke, but in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna she was "appointed" as the bride of the Prince of Wütmberg, who had already divorced by that time. The marriage, it would seem, was successful: in public, the spouses looked like an ideal couple, in fact, they were united by a thirst for power, but Wilhelm could not cope with the character of his wife. "I have never met a woman who would be so obsessed with the need to move, act, play a role and outshine others … she was gifted with strong feelings …" - wrote about her contemporaries.
Ekaterina Pavlovna, after 1815, unknown artist /
At the age of 29, Catherine wrote a will, which surprised her loved ones. It was rumored that she was afraid of a new birth: the previous ones were not easy for her. But a year later she died unexpectedly. The exact cause of death of the Grand Duchess was never found: it was said that she found her husband with another woman and died of a cerebral hemorrhage. She could catch a cold and die from a complication or an erysipelas. Unofficial sources said that the princess caught a cold after catching a cold while pursuing her husband with his young mistress. After the death of Catherine, relatives did not hide their grief, and almost all residents of Stuttgart came to see her off. On the death of the princess, Zhukovsky wrote an elegy beginning with the lines: "You flew away, heavenly visitor."
Ekaterina Astafieva