The love story of Alexander II and Catherine Dolgoruky. Emperor's Secret
The Russian Emperor Alexander II and Princess Ekaterina Dolgoruky-Yuryevskaya ended in marriage. They had a son and a daughter. But their happiness was always interfered with from all sides - the royal relatives, the court mob and the revolutionaries-Narodnaya Volya.
Well-informed contemporaries said about the liberator-tsar: "Alexander II was a lady-lover, not a skirt-maker." The modern biographer of Alexander Nikolayevich, the historian Leonid Lyashenko, put it this way on this occasion: “I don’t know what the author of this aphorism meant, but it seems that something like the fact that “cases” and fleeting romances that could satisfy an ordinary skirt maker did not touch the emperor’s heart at all and did not give any peace to his soul. his feelings were attracted not so much by high romanticism or thrills, but by the desire to find true peace, a quiet and lasting family hearth.
The first youthful love overtook the heir to the Russian throne at the age of 15. The reaction of the parents was instantaneous - the mother's maid of honor, Natalya Borozdina, immediately married a diplomat and, together with her husband, drove off to England. Three years later, the young man began to look at a distant relative of the poet-hussar Denis Davydov.
This time, Alexander Romanov himself was sent on a long four-year trip around Europe, however, not at all because of Sophia, but because of Olga. Sofya Davydova's feeling for the Tsarevich remained platonic, but thanks to ladies' fiction, it found a noticeable response in the souls of her contemporaries and remained in the history of literature.
For the first time, in an adult way, the heir fell in love when he turned 20 years old. And again in the maid of honor of the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna in the beautiful Olga Kalinovskaya. This relationship seemed to parents much more dangerous than the previous ones, both in terms of the strength of passion and state considerations. Not only was the maid of honor not of royal blood, she also professed the Catholic faith. This "explosive mixture" has already flown under the arches of the Winter Palace - Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, brother of Nicholas I, married the Polish Countess Lovich.
Nikolai Pavlovich wrote to his wife about his son: "Sasha is not serious enough, he is prone to various pleasures, despite my advice and reproaches." I wonder what the naughty son thought, listening to his father's instructions. It was no secret to anyone that next to the royal chambers lived the maid of honor Varenka Nelidova, a secret mistress and mother of the emperor's illegitimate children. During the reign of Nikolai Pavlovich, rather free morals reigned not only in secular St. Petersburg, but also in much more patriarchal Moscow.
In "Notes of a choreographer" A.P. Glushkovsky mentions the arrival in Russia "from the Persian Shah with an apology in the case of the death of Griboyedov" Prince Khozrev-Mirza: "He lived in Moscow (prince - Note ed.) is quite luxurious; not having thought to take with him a harem, the first most necessary need of a Muslim, he brought here a new one of fairly decent women.
It was then that the European tour of the eldest son of Emperor Nicholas I began, which lasted from 1836 to 1840. On this journey, the heir to the throne was accompanied by his mentors, the poet Zhukovsky and the infantry general Kavelin.
A young man suffering from separation from his beloved was introduced to the daughter of the Grand Duke Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt, who was to become the wife of the future Russian Tsar. Alexander, mindful of the duty of the monarch, himself wrote a letter to his father about the possibility of marriage with a pretty German princess. In European courts, rumors about the illegal origin of Princess Maximilian-Wilhelmina-Augusta-Sophia-Maria, whose parents had separated long before her birth, had long been exaggerated. The Duke's master of the horse, Baron de Grancy, was called the father of the princess.
The Empress Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was horrified by such a marriage, but Nikolai Pavlovich, having studied the reports of the educators, once and for all forbade discussing this delicate topic. In Russia, no one uttered a peep, especially in the dwarf German countries. A few talkative ones were found among the French and the British - the "gendarme of Europe" was feared and respected.
The plans were almost violated by the young Queen of Great Britain Victoria, who turned Alexander's head and herself fell under the spell of the Russian Grand Duke. However, the heir to the Russian throne could not become a British prince consort. The islanders were also not happy with the choice of their 20-year-old queen and hastily removed her to Windsor Castle.
State interests prevailed over the feelings of young people. Alexander Nikolaevich married a Darmstadt princess, who in Russia became Maria Alexandrovna. Even before marriage, tuberculosis began to progress in her, which turned into a fatal disease in the dank Petersburg climate. Finally brought to the grave of her husband's betrayal, frequent attempts on his life and especially the death of their eldest son Nikolai. The marriage of Maria Alexandrovna with Alexander Nikolaevich was more of an agreement on cooperation, and not a family union.
The last and true love of Alexander II was Princess Catherine Dolgorukaya. The Tsar, who was 41 years old, first met the 13-year-old Katenka in 1859. The sovereign arrived in the vicinity of Poltava for military maneuvers and accepted the invitation of the prince and princess Dolgoruky to visit their estate Teplovka. The Dolgoruky family descended from the Rurikovichs.
The father of the future passion and morganatic wife of the Russian emperor was a retired captain of the guard Mikhail Dolgoruky, and his mother was Vera Vishnevskaya, the richest Ukrainian landowner. But by the time the sovereign arrived, their economy was on the verge of collapse. The last refuge of the family - the Teplovka estate - was laid down and re-mortgaged. Alexander II contributed to the admission of four Dolgoruky sons to St. Petersburg military educational institutions, and two sisters to the Smolny Institute.
In the spring of 1865, according to tradition, the emperor visited the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens and during lunch he saw Catherine and Maria Dolgoruky. Contemporaries noted "the sovereign's extraordinary weakness for women", it is not surprising that an 18-year-old college girl with amazingly delicate skin and luxurious light brown hair won the heart of the emperor. With the help of the former Smolyanka Varvara Shebeko, whose services the sovereign had resorted to more than once in resolving issues of a delicate nature, he managed to incognito visit the sick Katya in the institute's hospital.
Since Dolgoruky's continued stay in Smolny interfered with meetings with the tsar, Shebeko staged her departure "for family reasons." As a palliative measure, the resourceful bawd proposed supposedly random meetings between Dolgoruky and the sovereign in the Summer Garden. In the future, so that the people of St. Petersburg would whisper less "the sovereign skips his demoiselle", these rendezvous were transferred to the alleys of the parks of Kamensky, Elaginsky, Krestovsky islands of the capital. For some time, the lovers saw each other at the apartment of Katya's brother Mikhail, but he greatly surprised the emperor when, fearing public condemnation, he refused them such a small thing. Dolgoruky himself, as we remember, ended up in the city of Petrov thanks to the efforts of the sovereign.
In June 1866, another anniversary of the wedding of Nicholas I and Alexandra Feodorovna was celebrated in Peterhof. Three versts from the main Peterhof Palace in the Belvedere Castle guests settled down, among whom was Katya Dolgorukaya. It was there that a non-platonic love took place between her and the emperor.
After that, the sovereign said: "Today, alas, I am not free, but at the first opportunity I will marry you, henceforth I consider you my wife before God, and I will never leave you." Subsequent events confirmed the emperor's words.
In St. Petersburg society, they learned about the "fall" of Ekaterina Dolgoruky almost the next morning. Secular lions and especially lionesses in their fantasies surpassed any peasant and woman's conjectures. Beau monde gossiped that the "demoiselle", who was depraved from an early age, danced naked in front of the sovereign and, in general, was "ready to give herself to everyone" for diamonds. Ekaterina Mikhailovna was forced to leave for a short time in Italy. Aunt Vava (as the younger Dolgoruky called Shebeko) meanwhile decided that the sovereign would not be bored, put his younger sister Dolgoruky in his bed. Alexander II talked with Maria for an hour and gave her a parting wallet with gold pieces. From now on, for him there was no one but Katya.
In June 1867, Napoleon III invited Alexander II to visit the Paris World Exhibition. Ekaterina Mikhailovna immediately left for the French capital to meet her beloved. Their meetings were regularly recorded by local police. They did not peek through the keyhole, given that the couple did not particularly resort to conspiracy. In Paris, after the unsuccessful uprising of 1867, many Poles-insurgents settled, and the French authorities feared for the safety of the Russian Tsar. But the sea was knee-deep in love. Perhaps it was at this time that Alexander told his lawful wife about his mistress.
If the wife of the emperor and his children preferred not to take dirty linen out of the hut and did not utter a single voice or sigh in public, then the ladies of the court excelled in gossip and gossip. To retell this nonsense and vileness is not to respect yourself. No matter how you treat the events of the autumn of 1917 - as the Great October Revolution or the October Revolution, she did away with this court "rabble". The real panic among the relatives of Alexander II began only when the emperor granted Dolgoruky and their joint children (George and Olga) the title of the Most Serene Princes of Yuryevsky.
This name reminded everyone of one of the ancestors of the Romanovs, the boyar of the early 16th century Yuri Zakharyin, as well as the famous Rurikovich Yuri Dolgoruky. But there was a practical moment - the tsar did not want that after his death, his children with Katya, if the Dolgoruky family abandoned them, would turn out to be bastards. Both children in the decree are officially recognized as his children. Vague hints reached a narrow circle of relatives that, on the personal order of the sovereign, active searches were being made in the archives for documents with details of the coronation of Peter the Great's second wife, Ekaterina Alekseevna. Hungry for historical analogies, people said that the first Romanov, Mikhail Fedorovich, was also married to Dolgoruky. But that Maria Dolgorukaya did not live long and left no offspring.
The panic reached its peak when the relatives learned that on July 6, 1880, a wedding ceremony took place in a small room on the lower floor of the Grand Palace at the modest altar of the camp church. And although the law was not written for kings, the emperor did not tease the geese from high society. Neither guard soldiers with officers, nor palace servants knew about the wedding. The ceremony was attended by the Minister of the Court Count Adlerberg, Adjutant Generals Ryleev and Baranov, the sister of the bride Maria and Mademoiselle Shebeko. Crowned by Protopresbyter Xenophon Nikolsky. The groom was dressed in a blue hussar uniform, the bride in a simple light dress.
Family happiness was short-lived. On March 1, 1881, the Narodnaya Volya threw a bomb under the tsar's feet. With the money bequeathed by her husband, Princess Yuryevskaya and her children went to Nice, where she died in 1922.
Who would be interested in some princess Dolgorukova (you never know there were princesses in Rus'?), if not for the great love that intertwined her fate with the life of Emperor Alexander II? Not a favorite who would have twisted the Sovereign as she wanted, Ekaterina Mikhailovna became his only love, created a family for him, which he dearly loved and protected.
First meeting
Princess E. M. Dolgorukova was born in 1847 in the Poltava region. There, in the estate of her parents, when she was not yet twelve years old, she first saw the emperor. Moreover, he honored the girl with a walk and a long conversation.
And a forty-year-old adult did not get bored in the company of a child, but he was entertained by the simplicity of communication. Later, two years later, having learned about the disastrous financial situation of Prince Dolgorukov, he helped ensure that both sons of the prince received military education, and appointed both princesses in
Second meeting
Ekaterina Mikhailovna, Princess Dolgorukova, while studying at Smolny, received a good education. At the institute for noble maidens, they taught languages, secular manners, housekeeping, music, dancing, drawing, and very little time was devoted to history, geography, and literature. On the eve of Easter 1865, the emperor visited Smolny, and when the seventeen-year-old princess was introduced to him, he remembered her, oddly enough, but even more strange that he did not forget her in the future.
And the girl was in the prime of her youthful and innocent beauty.
Third meeting
After graduating from the Institute for Noble Maidens, Ekaterina Mikhailovna lived in the house of her brother Mikhail. She loved to walk in the Summer Garden and dream that she would meet Alexander II in it. And her dream came true. They met by chance, and the emperor uttered a lot of compliments to her. She, of course, was embarrassed, but from that time on they began to take walks together. And there it was close to the words of love. While the novel developed platonically, Ekaterina Mikhailovna more and more deeply comprehended her position and flatly refused to get married: every single young people seemed uninteresting to her.
And the girl decided her own fate. She wanted to make a lonely man happy, like the Emperor.
Family of Alexander II
And at home she was a cold and dry person. Alexander Nikolaevich did not have a family warm hearth. Everything was strictly regulated. He had not a wife, but the Empress, not children - but the Grand Dukes. Etiquette was strictly observed in the family, and liberties were not allowed. A terrible case with the eldest son, Tsarevich Nicholas, dying of tuberculosis in Nice. The time of daytime sleep has changed for the patient, and Maria Fedorovna stopped visiting him, since during his wakefulness she had walks according to the schedule. Did such a family need a middle-aged man who wants warmth? The death of the heir, with whom he was close, was a huge blow to the emperor.
secret family
Open and challenging public opinion, which later developed not in her favor, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova surrounded the aging, but still full of strength and ideas, Sovereign with warmth and affection. When their relationship began, she was eighteen, and her lover was thirty years older.
But nothing, except for the need to hide from others, overshadowed their relationship. Maria Feodorovna, sick with tuberculosis, did not get up, and the entire Romanov family expressed an extremely negative attitude towards the young woman, especially the heir, Tsarevich Alexander. He himself had a very strong and friendly family, and he refused to accept and understand his father's behavior. He expressed his dislike so clearly that Alexander II sent his wife, for whom he considered Catherine Dolgoruky, first to Naples and then to Paris. It was in Paris in 1867 that their meetings continued. But not a single step of the emperor went unnoticed. He was watched by Their extensive correspondence, full of genuine passion, has survived to this day. Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova was an ardent lover and did not skimp on tender words. All this, apparently, was not enough for Alexander Nikolayevich in his frozen and shackled official family.
Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova and Alexander 2nd
The one whom the Sovereign immediately promised to make his married wife at the first opportunity had to show feminine patience and wisdom. She humbly waited for this happy day for her for fourteen years. During this time, she and Alexander had four children, but one of the sons, Boris, died as an infant. The rest grew up, and the daughters got married, and the son George became a military man, but died at the age of forty-one, having outlived his crowned father for many years.
Morganatic wedding
The Empress had not yet died when Alexander Nikolaevich moved his family to the Winter Palace and settled directly above the chambers of Maria Feodorovna. There were whispers in the palace. When Maria Feodorovna died in 1880, even before the end of official mourning, less than three months later, a modest, almost secret wedding took place. And five months later, Ekaterina Mikhailovna was granted the title of the Most Serene Princess Yuryevskaya, their children also began to bear this surname. Alexander Nikolayevich was distinguished by fearlessness, but he was afraid of attempts on his life, because he did not know how this would affect the Yuryevsky family. More than 3 million rubles were assigned to the name of the princess and her children, and five months later he was killed by the Narodnaya Volya. His last breath was taken by the completely heartbroken Ekaterina Mikhailovna.
Existence in Nice
At the villa, the Most Serene Princess lived with memories. She kept all the clothes of a loved one down to her dressing gown, wrote a book of memoirs and died in 1922, forty-one years after the death of her beloved husband and lover. At the age of 33, she lost her husband, and for the rest of her life she was faithful to his memory.
This concludes the description of the life that Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova led. Her biography is both happy and bitter at the same time.
ABOUT
personal life of Emperor Alexander II went a lot of gossip.
The most difficult thing was to hide the connection of the emperor with Princess Alexandra Dolgoruky, a twenty-year-old beauty, a distant relative of Ekaterina Mikhailovna. But none of his novels lasted as long as with a new passion.
There was an attempt to avoid a scandal and cool down the feelings .... relatives took Katenka to Naples. But the forced separation only added fuel to the fire of inflamed passion. They could no longer live without each other. They established a stormy correspondence - they exchanged letters almost daily.
An extensive correspondence between the sovereign and the princess has been preserved, showing their sincere passionate affection for each other. Many of the letters are extremely frank. To denote their intimacy, Catherine and Alexander invented a special French word bingerle (benjerle).
And six months later, the long-awaited meeting took place in Paris! Alexander II arrived here at the invitation of Napoleon III to visit the World Exhibition. He spent all his free time with the "soul-Katya". In the shady garden of the Elysee Palace, he made another flattering confession for her: “Since I fell in love with you, other women ceased to exist for me ... During the whole year when you pushed me away, and also during the time that you spent in Naples, I did not approach a single woman.
Ekaterina Mikhailovna had her own, as she called it, "the key to happiness." With them, she opened the treasured door to a secluded room on the ground floor of the Winter Palace. From here, along a secret staircase leading to the inner apartments, Dolgorukaya climbed to the second floor and found herself in the arms of her royal lover.
Dolgoruky, Ekaterina. Emperor's own drawing.
After ten years of love affair, the princess moved to the Winter Palace, occupying small rooms directly above the empress's chambers. Maria Alexandrovna often heard the screams and running of children over her head. At the same time, the empress changed dramatically in her face, but with an effort of will she still suppressed the pain that pierced her. In 1878, Princess Dolgorukaya gave birth here, in Zimny, to her second daughter, Catherine.
She gave birth to four children from Alexander II:
George (1872-1913);
Olga (1873-1925) - married to Georg-Nicholas von Merenberg (1871-1948), son of Natalia Pushkina;
Boris (1876) - died in infancy;
Ekaterina (1878-1959) - married to S. P. Obolensky.
The new love of the emperor aggravated the illness of his wife, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, who was hard to realize that her place was taken by the young and flourishing Dolgoruky.
By the way, this connection was especially sharply condemned by the son of the emperor, Tsarevich Alexander III.
Maria Alexandrovna died in 1880, and after barely waiting 40 days, the emperor entered into a morganatic marriage with his beloved, giving her the title of Most Serene Princess Yuryevskaya.
The secret wedding took place on July 6 in the chapel of the Grand Palace of Tsarskoye Selo.
Many courtiers dissuaded the emperor from this unequal marriage, including the minister, Count Alexander Adlerberg. Alexander Nikolaevich remained adamant. “Then Adlerberg had a tete-a-tete meeting with Ekaterina Mikhailovna, with whom he spoke for the first time in his life,” writes historian A. N. Bokhanov. - The minister tried to prove to the bride the danger, the perniciousness of the future, but quickly came to the conclusion that he could convince the “tree” with the same success.
The princess invariably answered all the arguments and arguments with the phrase: “The sovereign will be happy and calm only when he marries me.” At the moment of the “dispute”, the door to the room opened slightly, and the autocrat timidly asked if it was possible to enter. In response, Ekaterina Mikhailovna nervously shouted: “No, not yet!” In such a tone, according to Adlerberg's observations, decent people do not talk "even with a lackey," and the emperor shuddered, changed his face and meekly closed the door. This shocked the courtier. The count was broken, confused, and when the sovereign once again asked him to become the best man, he agreed with complete resignation.
On the day of the funeral, Ekaterina Mikhailovna cut off her luxurious braids, which Alexander loved so much, and placed them in the coffin, in the hands of her deceased husband. Princess Yuryevskaya left St. Petersburg and Russia with her children, taking with her Alexander's bloody shirt, which he had been wearing on the day of his death. The beautiful Yuryevskaya did not marry again, remaining faithful to her husband until her last days.
She sometimes came to St. Petersburg. On one of her visits, she announced that as soon as her daughters grew up and began to go out into the world, she would return to St. Petersburg and begin to give balls. Alexander III uttered only one short phrase in response: “If I were you,” he said, “instead of giving balls, I would lock myself in a monastery” ...
Ekaterina Mikhailovna died at the age of seventy-five in Nice in February 1922...
(C) Nosik B.N. Russian secrets of Paris and other places on the Internet.
Often, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorugova is perceived negatively. "Favorite", "Lover", "Stolen", "Broke the family" ... But if you take a closer look at the broken family, you begin to understand that there was no need to break anything there - everything had already crumbled for so long, even before Katya Dolgorukova appeared at court.
In his youth, Alexander II was passionately in love with Olga Kalinovskaya, the maid of honor of the court, a Polish woman, a Catholic. Olga was very quickly married, and Alexander was sent to Europe to meet foreign princesses and look for a future wife. There he chose the 15-year-old princess of Hesse-Darmstadt. A young creature with huge eyes and childish curls aroused in the Tsarevich a desire to protect and care. Since he didn’t meet anyone more spectacular then, he decided to marry Maria. “My only desire is to find a worthy girlfriend who would decorate my family hearth and bring the highest happiness on earth - the happiness of a spouse and father.” he will write to his parents. The origin of Mary was rather vague, but officially the duke recognized her as his daughter, because she was still considered a princess. And yet, Alexander Nikolayevich miscalculated ... At the age of 15, it is still very difficult to guess what a person’s character will be like later. Fifteen-year-old Marie, having arrived in St. Petersburg, charmed everyone. At first, the Tsarevich himself seemed to be in love and absolutely happy. But gradually relations in the family began to deteriorate: Alexander did not deny himself the pleasure of flirting with the ladies-in-waiting, Maria became a slave to etiquette and rules. Childish spontaneity and gaiety completely disappeared, the Empress turned into a dry and strict German Frau, and the Sovereign did not perceive such women, he needed something completely different.
P.N. writes very well about this. Krasnov in the novel "The Tsaricide": "There was no rest in the family. There was not a wife - but the Empress, not children, but the Heir Tsarevich and the Grand Dukes. There was the same strict etiquette of the Imperial Family.
Over the years, the Sovereign was drawn to a calm, not palace, but home hearth. This hearth was created for him in 1868 by a young girl, Princess Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukaya.
The emperor was fifty years old. Dolgoruky - seventeen when they met. The girl "with gazelle eyes" managed to captivate the Sovereign with her simplicity of treatment, sometimes reaching rudeness, and he fell in love with her with a strong, last love.
S.D. writes about the same. Sheremetev: “I saw her more than once at large court balls: slender, thin, all studded with diamonds, with her hair in small curls, she showed herself as if reluctantly, was kind, spoke smart speeches, peered intently and with a penetrating look; always restrained, she rather kept back than said too much. She seemed to be performing a boring duty, and when she spoke, one could think that she wanted to say: “You see, I am talking to you because it is customary that it is a duty, but I don’t care about you; I have an inner life available to the elect, everything else is service, duty, boredom "... It seems to me that Sovereign Alexander Nikolayevich was stuffy with her."
Empress Maria Alexandrovna
This case is also noteworthy: in 1867 in Nice, where Tsarevich Nikolai was dying, she could not visit her dying son for a whole week only because the time of Nikolai’s afternoon nap changed and began to coincide with the time of her walk. But Maria Alexandrovna could not postpone the walk to another time ... When Maria Alexandrovna was asked why it was impossible to take walks at another time, she replied: "It's inconvenient for me."
And against the background of all this, Ekaterina Dolgorukova appears in the life of the Sovereign. Is it possible to blame her for the collapse of the family? I don't think so.
Katenka's father was a retired captain of the guard Mikhail Dolgoruky, and his mother was Vera Vishnevskaya, one of the richest Ukrainian landowners. True, by the end of the 50s of the XIX century, the wealth of the Dolgoruky family was already in the past. Once upon a time, the Emperor came to the Poltava estate of Dolgoruky for a visit after the next maneuvers.
Katenka was then a little over ten, but she remembered very well this big, stately man with a magnificent mustache and an affectionate look. He was sitting on the veranda after dinner, and she ran past. He called out to her, asking who she was, and she answered gravely:
— I am Ekaterina Mikhailovna.
- What are you looking for here? asked Alexander Nikolaevich.
“I want to see the emperor,” the girl admitted, a little embarrassed.
This story greatly amused the Emperor. He decided to help the impoverished noble family and ordered that the Dolgorukovs' daughters, Ekaterina and Maria, be admitted to the most prestigious women's educational institution of that time - the Smolny Institute.
So, Katya and her younger sister Maria were placed in the Smolny Institute. Already there, the girls stood out for their beauty. The older sister was a girl of average height, with a graceful figure, amazingly delicate skin and luxurious light brown hair. Her face seemed to be carved from ivory, and she also had amazingly expressive light eyes and a beautifully contoured mouth. Katyusha did not really like it in Smolny, the only thing that brightened up her stay there was the frequent visits of the Emperor.
“Despite all the cares of the headmistress, I was never able to get used to life outside the family, surrounded by strangers, I began to get sick more often. The emperor, having learned about our arrival in Smolny, came to visit me like a father; I was so happy to see him, his visits gave me courage. When I was sick, he visited me in the infirmary. I addressed him as a guardian angel, knowing that he would not refuse me in his patronage. So, one day, when the food was especially bad, and I was suffering from hunger, not knowing whom to turn to, I complained to him, and from that day on he ordered me to be fed at the headmistress's table and to serve me what I wanted. He sent me sweets, and I cannot describe the adoration that I felt for him. Finally, my imprisonment was over, I left the institute. "
Having only 16 and a half years. Still a child, I completely lost the object of my affection, and only a year later, by a lucky chance, I met the emperor on December 24, 1865 in the Summer Garden. At first he did not recognize me... This day became memorable for us, because without saying anything to each other and perhaps not understanding it yet, our meetings determined our life.
I must add that my parents at that time did everything to entertain me, took me out into the world, their goal was to marry me off. But every ball doubled my sadness; secular amusements were contrary to my character, I loved solitude and serious reading. One young man tried very hard to please me, but the idea of marriage, no matter who, without love, seemed disgusting to me, and he retreated before my coldness.
Catherine writes about the emerging feeling in her Notes, which she published in her declining years, living in Nice:
“That day (the day of the assassination) I was in the Summer Garden, the emperor spoke to me as usual, asked when I was going to visit my sister in Smolny, and when I said that I would go there that evening, that she was waiting for me, he noticed that he would come there only to see me. lattice gate, and I went out through a small gate near the canal.
Upon leaving, I learned that the emperor was shot at when leaving the garden. This news shocked me so much that I fell ill, I cried so much, the thought that such an angel of kindness had enemies who wanted him dead tormented me. This day tied me even more strongly to him; I thought only of him and wanted to express my joy and gratitude to God that he was saved from such a death. I was sure he had the same need to see me. Despite the unrest and the affairs with which he was busy during the day, he arrived at the institute soon after me. This meeting was the best proof that we love each other.
When I returned home, I cried for a very long time, I was so touched to see him happy from meeting me, and after much thought I decided that my heart belongs to him and I am not able to connect my existence with anyone else. The next day I announced to my parents that I would rather die than get married. There were endless scenes and questions, but I felt an unprecedented determination to fight all those who tried to marry me, and I realized that this force supporting me was love. From that moment on, I made the decision to give up everything, the social pleasures so desired by young persons of my age, and devote my whole life to the happiness of the One I loved.
I had the good fortune to see him again on July 1st. He was on horseback and I will never forget his joy at the meeting. That day we were alone for the first time and decided not to hide what overwhelmed us, happy from the opportunity to love each other. I announced to him that I was giving up everything to devote myself to loving him, and that I could no longer fight this feeling. God is the witness of the innocence of our meeting, which has become a true rest for us, who have forgotten the whole world for the sake of the feelings inspired by God. How pure was the conversation during the hours we spent together. And I, who had not yet known life, an innocent soul, did not understand that another man in such circumstances could take advantage of my innocence, but He behaved with me with the honesty and nobility of a man who loves and respects a woman, treated me like a sacred object, without any other feeling - this is so noble and wonderful!
In 1866, another anniversary of the wedding of Nicholas I and Alexandra Feodorovna was celebrated in Peterhof. Three versts from the main Peterhof Palace there was a small Belvedere castle, the chambers of which were provided to the guests of the holiday. Catherine Dolgoruky was brought here to spend the night, and here she gave herself to the emperor for the first time. That same night he told her:
- Now, alas, I am not free, but at the first opportunity I will marry you, because from now on I consider you my wife before God, and I will never leave you.
Note that Alexander could “become free” only after the death of his legal wife, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, who was already often ill at that time. So his oath, which he would definitely keep, sounded somehow creepy.
About this event, Catherine wrote:
“On August 26 we had a memorable day. He swore to me before the image that he is bound to me forever and his only dream is to marry me if he ever becomes free. He demanded the same oath from me, which I gladly swore." From that day on, we met every day, crazy with happiness, to love and understand each other completely. He swore to me before the image that he was devoted to me forever and that his only dream was to marry me if ever he was free; he made me swear what I did with joy…"
If initially the meetings were secret, then over time everyone, including Maria Alexandrovna, learned about the new favorite of the Tsar.
According to Countess A. A. Tolstoy, at court everyone at first took the emperor’s new novel for another hobby. In her Notes of a Lady-in-Waiting, she writes:
“I didn’t take into account that his advanced age increased the danger, but most of all I didn’t take into account the fact that the girl he turned his eyes on was a completely different breed than those with whom he was fond of before ... Although everyone saw the emergence of a new hobby, they were not at all worried, even those closest to the emperor did not assume a serious turn of affairs. On the contrary, everyone was very far from suspecting that he was capable of a real love affair; a romance brewing in secret. They only saw what was happening before our eyes - walks with frequent, as if by chance meetings, looking at each other in theater boxes, etc., etc. They said that the princess was pursuing the emperor, but no one knew yet that they saw each other not only in public, but also in other places - by the way, with her brother, Prince Mikhail Dolgoruky, who was married to an Italian.
When Princess Dolgorukaya, looking around in embarrassment and bashfully covering her face, began to regularly appear at the emperor's, the courtiers, initiated into the secrets of the royal chambers, began to whisper. Rumors quickly reached the princess's relatives, and they hurried to take her to Naples. However, already in June 1867, Alexander arrived in the capital of France. Upon learning of this, Catherine rushed there, and the French police, vigilantly monitoring the safety of the Russian distinguished guest, began to carefully record his daily secret meetings, informing their monarch about them. Now again nothing could interfere with their love. They met in the Elysee Palace, where Alexander settled and where there were also many secret stairs and rooms. Catherine herself lived in a modest hotel, and in the evenings through a secret gate on Gabriel Street and Marigny Avenue she came to her lover. She was happy and wrote: “How feverishly we waited for this moment of happiness after five months of torment. At last the happy day came, and we hurried into each other's arms."
After that, the Sovereign did not want to remain without his Katya for so long.
“My parents announced that they had decided not to return to Russia - it was too severe a blow for me ... I immediately telegraphed him, asking what I should do, and received a categorical answer: in this case, to return alone, and as for my device, he will take care. I hurried to my parents and declared that I was leaving tomorrow, that I wished them happiness, but I myself would rather die than lead this wandering existence. They understood everything, and at the sight of my energy they went with me. The emperor was shocked by my painful condition, but the state of mind helped me ... The hours that we spent together always seemed too short to us, but the happiness of sharing joy and happiness was our life.
The firstborn of this love was born in April 1872, it was a boy, he was named George. The following year, the tsar's daughter, Olga, was born. The increase in the number of illegitimate offspring worried the royal family even more, but Alexander Nikolayevich each time fell into terrible anger at the slightest hint of the need to break this connection. Soon a third child was born to Princess Dolgoruky - daughter Ekaterina.
It just so happened that Catherine Dolgorukaya, for the sake of her love for the emperor, forever ruined her reputation, sacrificed not only life in the world with her inherent entertainment, but also a normal family life in general. When they had a son and two daughters, she had a new sadness: her children were illegitimate "bastards." Alexander II was very proud of his son, he said with a laugh that this child had more than half of Russian blood, and this is such a rarity for the Romanov family ...
“Alexander was doomed to loneliness. And, probably, it is no coincidence that the only person with whom he tried to share this loneliness, with whom he was free and frank to the end, was Katya Dolgorukaya - stupid, extremely far from understanding state affairs, but infinitely loving and devoted; Alexander II undoubtedly perceived it as a part of himself.
Some contemporaries argued that the emperor looks at the world through the eyes of Dolgoruky, speaks in her words. But it seems that things were much more complicated. Alexander II needed a person who could listen to him, a person alive and empathizing with him. And Ekaterina Dolgorukaya, who loved him, gradually entered into the essence of many matters that worried the sovereign, listened to him, asked questions, and expressed her opinion. She became his interlocutor, adviser, his inner voice. If in some ways the emperor repeated the thoughts of Catherine, then these were his own thoughts, heard by her.
In addition, Dolgorukaya lived in seclusion (the whole family, except for her sister, turned away from her), which means that behind her back was not an influential clan of greedy intriguing relatives and cunning court dignitaries. Catherine never asked the emperor for anything, but she insulated his uniforms, followed his medicines, felt sorry for him and sincerely admired him. And he could be sure that there was no self-interest behind it.
Over the years, Alexander and Catherine became closer and were equally necessary to each other. “Alexander Nikolaevich managed to create a delightful lover from an inexperienced girl. She belonged to him entirely. She gave him her soul, mind, imagination, will, feelings. They talked tirelessly to each other about their love."
The ambiguous-false position ended with the death of Maria Alexandrovna. The Empress died quietly in the Winter Palace, in her own apartments, on the night of June 2-3, 1880.
The emperor immediately introduced Ekaterina Mikhailovna into the circle of relatives. Now they are no longer hiding.
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich recalls: “The old master of ceremonies himself was visibly embarrassed when, on the Sunday evening following our arrival, members of the Imperial family gathered in the Winter Palace at the dining table to meet Princess Yuryevskaya.
- His Majesty and Most Serene Princess Yuryevskaya!
My mother looked away, Tsesarevna Maria Feodorovna looked down...
The emperor quickly entered, leading a beautiful young woman by the arm. He nodded cheerfully to my father and cast a searching glance over the mighty figure of the Heir.
Fully counting on the complete loyalty of his brother (our father), he had no illusions about the view of the Heir to this second marriage of his. Princess Yuryevskaya graciously responded to the polite bows of the Grand Duchesses and Princes and sat next to the Emperor in the chair of the late Empress. Full of curiosity, I did not lower my eyes from Princess Yuryevskaya.
I liked the expression of her sad face and the radiant glow coming from her blond hair. It was clear that she was worried. She often addressed the Emperor, and he soothingly stroked her hand. She, of course, would have managed to win the hearts of all the men, but the women were watching them, and her every attempt to take part in the general conversation was met with polite, cold silence. I felt sorry for her and could not understand why she was treated with contempt because she fell in love with a handsome, cheerful, kind man, who, unfortunately for her, was the Emperor of All Russia?
Long life together did not diminish their mutual adoration. At sixty-four, Emperor Alexander II behaved with her like an eighteen-year-old boy. He whispered words of encouragement into her little ear. He asked if she liked wine. He agreed with everything she said. He looked at all of us with a friendly smile, as if inviting us to rejoice in his happiness, joking with me and my brothers, terribly pleased that we obviously liked the princess.
The wedding ceremony took place on July 6, 1880 in a small room on the ground floor of the Grand Tsarskoye Selo Palace near the modest altar of the camp church. The strictest measures were taken to ensure that none of the guard soldiers or officers, not a single palace servant suspected what was happening. One might think that it was some kind of shameful act, but, most likely, Alexander II made sure that his relatives did not try to disrupt the event.
The emperor was dressed in a blue hussar uniform, the bride in a simple light dress. They were crowned by the Archpriest of the Church of the Winter Palace Xenophon Nikolsky, and the ceremony was attended by Count A. V. Adlerberg, Adjutant General A. M. Ryleev and E. T. Baranov, the sister of the bride Maria Mikhailovna and the inescapable Mademoiselle Shebeko. All of them were later subjected to a kind of ostracism from the so-called "big world".
She was thirty-two, he was sixty-two. Their relationship had lasted for many years, and the emperor, having married Catherine, nevertheless fulfilled his oath that he once gave her: to marry her at the first opportunity, for he forever considered her his wife before God.
On the day of the wedding, he said:
“For fourteen years I have been waiting for this day and I am afraid of my own happiness. If only God would not deprive me of it too soon ...
A few hours later, he issued a secret decree, announcing what had happened and prescribing to his wife the title and surname of the Most Serene Princess Yuryevskaya. The same surname was given to their children, as well as those who may be born later.
After the wedding, the newlyweds left for the Crimea. Their honeymoon lasted from August to November.
S.D. wrote about this stay in Crimea. Sheremetev: “Quite unexpectedly, we were the cause of a major family clash. The sovereign had long desired rapprochement between his children and the children of the Tsarevich, especially for his daughter, and hinted that joint walks in the carriage would be very desirable. not to come to the Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna ... They play together and go for a ride. The Sovereign meets them ... He changed in face. Then an explanation follows, with whom Xenia Alexandrovna was skating ... etc., in a word, there was a stormy explanation, and the princess was brought to tears ... After that it was already impossible to avoid fulfilling the will of the Sovereign ...
Children of Alexander II and Princess Yurievskaya
How many times did I find the princess in great agitation: her eyes were filled with tears ... She was not shy in expressing her indignation and was only surprised at the patience and calmness of the prince. “Il ne voit rien… quand on lui parle il dit qu’il n’a rien on.” Makovsky at that time was making a portrait of Princess Yuryevskaya; I had to go and admire them. The Tsesarevna drew attention to the hands of Princess Yuryevskaya, that they were very ugly, and asked the Tsarevich, isn't it, how bad the hands are. He replies that he did not see or notice anything. I remember once the princess came out of the Tsar's office all in tears. I followed her home. She could not hide her excitement and indignation. On the table I see the book "Mme du Barry". I paid attention to her. She says that there is nothing to read, and that we have DuBarry on our faces. After one explanation, the Sovereign was so angry that he shouted to the princess that if she did not want to listen to him like a father-in-law, “alors je vous l’ordonne comme Soverain.” Princess Yuryevskaya did not stop inciting the Sovereign. By chance I came across her children; I saw how her son "Goga" rushed to hug the Tsarevich, rather unnaturally. We can say that the family life of the royal family was a whole hell. The Tsarevich came up with a hunt for Chatyrdagi, where he went with the Tsar's wife for a few days to the Kosmodemyansky Monastery in order to be further from Livadia.
Upon returning to the capital, Ekaterina Mikhailovna settled in the imperial apartments, and Alexander II deposited more than three million rubles in gold into her bank account. The emperor seemed to be perfectly happy...
But happiness was short-lived. There was a fatal explosion on the Ekaterininsky Canal. Torn apart by the explosion, but still alive, the emperor was brought to the Winter Palace. Every minute people came in - doctors, members of the imperial family. Catherine ran in half-dressed and threw herself on her husband's body, covering his hands with kisses and shouting:
Sasha, Sasha!
She grabbed a first aid kit with medicines and began to wash her husband's wounds, rubbed her temples with ether and even helped surgeons stop the bleeding.
With a cloudy gaze from pain, Alexander looked at those around him. His lips moved, but there was no sound. Eyes closed, head tilted helplessly. Catherine took his last breath. It was at four thirty-five in the afternoon...
When the life physician, the famous doctor S. P. Botkin, announced the death of the emperor, the princess fell as if knocked down. Wearing a pink and white dressing gown soaked in her husband's blood, she was carried out of the room unconscious. God did not heed the fears of Alexander II - his happiness turned out to be so short. But fourteen years of love could not be crossed out by anyone.
On the eve of the transfer of the remains of Alexander II from the Winter Palace to the Peter and Paul Cathedral, Catherine Dolgorukaya cut off her beautiful hair and put it in the hands of her husband with a wreath. Completely heartbroken, she climbed the steps of the hearse, knelt down and clung to the body of the innocently killed. The emperor's face was hidden under a red veil, but she abruptly tore it off and began to cover her mutilated forehead and cheeks with long kisses, after which, staggering, she left the room.
In Nice, Catherine settled in a villa on the boulevard de Bouchage, which she named "Villa Georges" in honor of her first-born son, who never ascended the Russian throne.
S.Yu. Nechaev "Russian Nice"
P.N. Krasnov "Regicides"
Women are (and were) not only in Russian villages, but also in cities and even in palaces. They know how (and knew how) not only to stop galloping horses and enter burning huts, but also to be loving and loved, faithful and selfless. It is customary to paint the Russian imperial family in black and white, depending on the political commitment of those who write about it. But from a human point of view, the members of the imperial family were ordinary people with their own weaknesses and virtues.
This story is about Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova, the favorite of Emperor Alexander II, later his second, morganatic wife.
Princess Ekaterina Dolgorukova was born in Volyn Province, Russian Empire. The father of the princess, the captain of the guards, Prince Mikhail Mikhailovich Dolgorukov, a participant in the Russian-Swedish war, the great-great-grandson of Alexei Grigoryevich Dolgorukov, known for his closeness to Peter II. An alcoholic, a fighter, a person with absolutely no brakes, and also extremely cruel. For any offense, he beat the servants, both male and female, to the blood, and tore the ears of the yard boys.
Mom - Vera Gavrilovna Vishnevskaya, sister of the Decembrist Fyodor Gavrilovich Vishnevsky.
Paternal grandmother - Sophia, daughter of Admiral Osip Deribas, founder of the city of Odessa, granddaughter of Ivan Betsky, president of the Imperial Academy of Arts under Catherine II.
Osip Mikhailovich Deribas (Jose de Ribas, Spanish nobleman by birth)
The first time Katya Dolgorukova and Alexander II met when Katya was 9 years old (Alexander is 18 years older). Alexander II then visited Prince Dolgorukov in his estate near Poltava during military exercises organized in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava. Alexander saw a girl in the garden, who was walking in the hope of seeing the king. He asked her to show him the garden, and when he left, of course, he forgot about her, but Katya secretly sighed about him, he was her first, still childhood love.
Alexander in his youth
Soon, Prince Dolgorukov went bankrupt and died, leaving a widow with a bunch of debts and six children. Alexander took the children under his care and placed the Dolgorukov brothers in the St. Petersburg military institutions, and the sisters in the Smolny Institute.
Once on Palm Sunday, the tsar visited the Smolny Institute, where he was introduced to the 17-year-old Princess Dolgorukova, whom he remembered as a big-eyed girl in the garden of her father's estate.
After some time, he ran into her again in the Summer Garden, where the king took his daily walks.
“The emperor asked me if I was going to visit my younger sister in Smolny,” Katya recalled. I told him that I would be there in the evening. He replied that he would meet me there.
When Alexander, after a walk, got into a carriage with his nephew and niece, Karakozov ran up to him and shot him almost point-blank, but the artisan standing next to him mechanically hit Karakozov on the arm, and the bullet flew past.
Alexander attributed his luck to the meeting with Katya, and in the evening he met with her, as promised, at the Smolny Institute.
Katya Dolgorukova
But Katya did not give up for almost six months. 10 years later, Alexander wrote in his letter to Katya: "I met you near Mon Plaisir, and you, under the pretext of giving me your portrait, offered to meet later."
They met in the palace, which Alexander I and Nicholas I used to meet with their mistresses. There the fortress fell.
“I will never forget what happened in the Mirror Room, when we first kissed on the lips,” the emperor wrote to Katya. - You asked me to turn away when you took off your crinoline, I was so surprised when I turned around and saw you without pantaloons ... that's when I ran into my treasure ... I would give anything to plunge into it ... we attacked each other like wild cats ...
Katya was grateful to Alexander for the careful and delicate attitude towards her that first time.
“He behaved towards me with the honesty and nobility of a man who loves and respects a woman as a sacred object,” Katya later recalled. - It was a passion inspired by God. Therefore, Katya decided to "dedicate her life to the love of Sasha."
Alexander swore to Katya that as soon as he became free, he would marry her, and he considered the day when they became close "the happiest day in my life and the beginning of a honeymoon that never stopped."
The romance of the tsar and the young princess, of course, did not go unnoticed by the courtiers. But at first he was not taken seriously, Alexander was a well-known womanizer, in addition, he always firmly suppressed any gossip about his intimate life. The wife looked through her fingers at her husband's intrigues. Alexander's novels flared up and faded, and this one will pass.
Empress Maria Alexandrovna (nee Princess Maximilian Wilhelmina Augusta Sophia Maria of Hesse-Darmstadt)
But soon those close to the emperor realized that Katya Dolgorukova was not just another affair. She followed the king wherever he went. She lived near where he lived. She settled in modest hotels abroad when the emperor traveled to Europe. Alexander appointed Katya as a lady-in-waiting to the Empress, and Katya shone at balls and receptions. Katya was modest and withdrawn, did not like noisy society, but went to balls because "Sasha loved to watch her dance."
Katya Dolgorukova
In St. Petersburg, Alexander rented a house for Katya, they called it "our nest". When they were not together, they wrote erotic letters to each other. They used the French word bingerle for the word sex. Alexander wrote to Katya about his erotic fantasies: "I am lying on the sofa motionless, like a log, and you are climbing on top ... I see you before my eyes, and you are without panties..."
Katya's drawing in one of Alexander's letters
Alexander's doctors tried to limit his sex with Katya, reminding him that the load was too big for him. He could love Katya four times a day "on four pieces of furniture, in four rooms."
Katya also wrote to him: "if you think that we are overworking, let's rest for a few days", but after a few hours she sent a note with the words "I want you this evening", and in the morning again "I slept restlessly, everything in me is trembling, I can't wait for 4.45".
From such an intense sexual life, Katya began to feel unwell, and Alexander sent the best doctors to her, worrying about her health. The doctor advised her to have children. And in 1872, Katya gave birth to a son, George. Later, Alexander sent his beloved Katya with doctors to the Crimea, then to Nice. The sick empress realized that her husband was truly in love with his mistress. She resigned herself to this, but did not forgive her husband. After all, once Alexander loved her, and even went against his mother, who opposed his marriage because of rumors that the duke's chamberlain was the true father of the princess, but his love quickly passed. Mary bore him eight children. She was in poor health, and she never reproached him with favorites, but it was hard for her to see her husband's love for another.
Alexander II with Maria Alexandrovna and son, future Emperor Alexander III
At 60, Alexander was still crazy about Katya. "I'm still at the mercy of the memory of our bingerle last night," he wrote to her.
A year later, an attempt was made on the king again, this time on Palace Square. Alexander was able to escape from the shooter.
“This is the third time when God miraculously saved me from death,” Alexander wrote to Katya. - God saved me for you!
Worried that a terrorist attack could also be committed against Katya, Alexander moved her with the children to the Winter Palace and settled on the third floor. His dying wife lived on another floor. The king dreamed of being with Katya.
- I dream of waking up in the morning, so that you are in bed next to me in our sun-drenched room, beautiful, with your eyes closed ...
In the same year, terrorists blew up a train from Crimea to St. Petersburg. Alexander just by chance was not in it. He changed his plans at the last minute.
A year later, Khalturin, a member of the Narodnaya Volya movement, set off an explosion in the basement where he lived. Above this room was a guardroom, and above - a dining room, in which Alexander II was going to dine. The Prince of Hesse, brother of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, was expected for dinner, but his train was half an hour late. The explosion found the emperor, who was meeting the prince, in the Small Field Marshal's Hall, far from the dining room. First of all, Alexander rushed to the apartments of his mistress. “Katya, Katya!” he shouted, and only after making sure that everything was in order with her, he went downstairs. 11 soldiers on guard that day were killed, all were heroes of the recently ended Russian-Turkish war. "I cried," the king wrote.
During the Russian-Turkish war, Katya and Alexander had to be apart, but they wrote letters to each other daily, and it was in separation that Alexander became even more attached to Katya. He realized that he could not live without her, and she sacrificed honor and a normal family life for him. Katya was the Tsar's mistress for 14 years.
When the empress died, Alexander wrote: "My God, forgive me my sins ... I will do everything for Katya, but not against national interests."
Alexander married Katya 40 days after the death of his first wife. The marriage was official, but morganatic. Katya became the wife of the king, but was not the empress. Katya did not aspire to this. She had a huge influence on Alexander, but she never took advantage of her position. She did not need power, she needed Alexander himself. The only thing in which Katya supported Alexander politically was in his desire to give Russia a liberal constitution.
On the day of the wedding, a decree was signed on the new name of Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgoruky - the Most Serene Princess Yuryevskaya. The same surname was given to their children, endowed with legal rights, - however, without the right to inherit the throne. A few months later, Alexander deposited more than three million gold rubles in the state bank in the name of the princess and her children, thus providing them financially forever.
Alexander II with his second wife Princess Yuryevskaya and children
Alexander had two favorite activities that always calmed him: writing in a diary and climbing under Katya's skirt.
March 1, 1881, like every Sunday, Alexander gathered for a military divorce in the Mikhailovsky Manege. Katya asked him not to go. But the tsar could not cancel the trip, besides, he was going to approve the constitutional project. When the tsar was returning home, Nikolai Rysakov threw a bomb under his carriage. The king remained unharmed, only the back of the carriage was damaged. The Tsar crossed himself and examined the damage when another young man, Grinevitsky, threw a bomb at Alexander's feet. Amidst the snow and debris, "epaulettes, sabers and bloody pieces of human flesh could be seen," said one witness.
“Take me to the palace to die,” whispered the mortally wounded Alexander.
In the palace, Katya kissed the bloody body of her husband and called him by name. When Alexander died, Katya fell on him in a negligee stained with his blood.
Alexander II went down in history as a reformer and liberator.
B. N. Chicherin said about Alexander II as follows:
“History will pronounce a truthful verdict on Alexander II, not concealing his weaknesses, but rightly appreciating his high qualities ... He was called upon to fulfill one of the most difficult tasks that an autocratic ruler can imagine: to renew to the very foundations the vast state entrusted to his control, to abolish the centuries-old state order, established on slavery, and replace it with citizenship and freedom, to establish a court in a country that from a century did not know what justice is, to reorganize the entire administration to establish freedom of the press with unlimited power, to bring to life new forces everywhere and to consolidate them by legal order, to put on its feet a oppressed and degraded society and give it the opportunity to move in the open. History hardly provides another example of such a revolution. And he accomplished what was entrusted to him from above conscientiously and wisely, to the best of his abilities and means. "
And Katya was just a woman whom he loved, and who loved him.
Shortly after the death of Alexander II, his son, Emperor Alexander III, fulfilling the will of his father, transferred the house belonging to Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich to the full ownership of Princess E. M. Yuryevskaya for 600 thousand rubles, and also assigned her maintenance of 100 thousand rubles a year.
photo from internet
This palace is located on Gagarinskaya Street in St. Petersburg and is called the Small Marble Palace.
Inside the palace was striking in its splendor. The golden drawing room was in the style of Louis XIV, and in the White Hall in the Renaissance style there were picturesque plafonds of the 16th century of the Bologna School. The walls and ceiling of this hall, as described by contemporaries, "were decorated with luxurious stucco work ... the parquet was inlaid with precious small pieces of wood and a lot of mother-of-pearl."
There were living rooms in the style of Louis XIV and XV, the Ladies' Study in the style of Louis XVI. Luxurious Large Study - a copy from the study of Emperor Charles V in Bruges, Saxon porcelain living room, Tapestry room, billiard room, richly decorated with walnut panels, Pink boudoir in the spirit of Pompadour, Elizabethan Hall. Almost every room is a stylization of a particular era. The main staircase was hung with numerous mirrors and lined with vases, marble and bronze statues of Antinous, Flora, Indian and Chinese sculptures.
Princess Yuryevskaya was not involved in the reconstruction of the palace. With her, only the purpose of the rooms, their furnishings changed, and she even set up a small museum in memory of her beloved wife.
In the bedroom, located next to the Golden Living Room, there was an ebony dessert table, on which was placed the inscription: "The Emperor Alexander II at the mirror, where he combed his hair until March 1, 1881", an ebony bed, at the head of which there was a bronze plaque: "The last night of life was spent until March 1, 1881."
There were many photographs, icons, paintings, engravings, portraits of Alexander II and children in the palace.
portrait of Alexander II by K. Makovsky
In 1913, while already in Nice, the princess sold the palace, along with all the furnishings, to the daughter of the chamber junker E. P. Leonard for 1,200,000 rubles in cash. She took only items related to the memory of her husband and personal letters.
During the revolution in the Small Marble Palace it was the same as in the painting by Pavel Ryzhenko "Ipatiev House. Execution"
Restored interior of the palace
Katya survived her husband by 41 years. She lived the rest of her life in Paris and on the French Riviera, where Alexander dreamed of living with her as a private individual. Princess Yuryevskaya died in 1922 at the age of 74.
