That she was, in the narrow sense of the word, flagrantly immoral no one questions. We may recall that Europe at large was still very far from the standard of these matters which adorns our generation. Paris under Louis XV, or the Directorate, or even Napoleon; London under the Georges; even Rome under the Popes of the period would not pass modern scrutiny. Russia was a little more mediæval than the others, and Catherine inherited a court in which an Empress of advanced years and conspicuous piety had given an example of wild debauch. To a woman of Catherine’s views and strong personality there would seem to be no reason for restraint; and she observed none.
We have seen her early lovers, and I do not intend to examine the lengthy gallery with any minuteness. Gregory Orloff, an indolent and very sensuous Adonis, enjoyed her extravagant favour until 1772. His three brothers and he cost her, in those few years, about nine million dollars. In 1772 she sent Orloff on a mission to the Turks, and during his absence another mere sensualist, Vassiltchikoff, earned her favour. Gregory heard it, and covered the two thousand miles which separated him from St. Petersburg with a speed that beat all records. He was directed to retire to his provincial estate, and from there he bombarded the palace with entreaties. Catherine hardly attended to imperial business for several months. At length she definitely discharged Orloff with an annual income of 75,000 dollars, a present of 10,000 peasants, and the right to use the imperial palaces and horses when he willed.
Vassiltchikoff made way in 1774 to the famous Patiomkin, a different type of man from any of the others. He was in his thirty-fifth year and, as we saw, he had ability. Her letters to him show the nearest approach to tender feeling that we ever find in Catherine, except in her relations with her grandchildren and her dogs. Patiomkin was of an age to take his position philosophically when his two years of intimate relationship were over, and he remained her favourite minister. From first to last it is calculated that he cost her about twenty-five million dollars.
After Patiomkin there was a period of what one is almost tempted to call promiscuity. Man after man was lodged for a brief period in the luxurious chambers near Catherine’s room, and any handsome young officer felt that promotion lay within his power. Stories are told of ambitious young men persistently mistaking their rooms and of Catherine maternally sending them home for correction. No young soldier of athletic build and fair face knew when he would be drafted to the well-known suite, and find a preliminary present of 50,000 dollars in gold in his cabinet. For the closer details of his initiation I must refer the reader to Waliszewski’s “Roman d’une Impératrice.” In 1780 Lanskoi seemed to have taken firmer root, but he died in Catherine’s arms in the same year. Jermoloff succeeded him, and in 1792, when Catherine was sixty-three years old, she adopted her last and strangest lover, Plato Zuboff, a handsome youth of twenty-two. On this series of mere ministers to her pleasure Catherine spent a sum which is estimated at more than forty million dollars. That was a national scandal and entirely unworthy of her character.