Every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed. No attempt has been made to correct or normalize thespelling of non-English words. Some typographical errors have been corrected;a list follows the text. PART I.:1744. (etext transcriber's note) |
MEMOIRS
OF THE
EMPRESS CATHERINE II.
WRITTEN BY HERSELF.
WITH A PREFACE BY A. HÉRZEN.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
346 & 348 BROADWAY.
M.DCCC.LIX.
PREFACE.
SOME hours after the death of the Empress Catherine, her son, theEmperor Paul, ordered Count Rostoptchine to put the seals upon herpapers. He was himself present at the arrangement of these papers. Amongthem was found the celebrated letter of Alexis Orloff,[1] in which, in acynical tone and with a drunken hand, he announced to the Empress theassassination of her husband Peter III. There was also a manuscript,written entirely by the hand of Catherine herself, and enclosed in asealed envelope, bearing this inscription:—“To his Imperial Highness,the Cesarewitch and Grand Duke Paul, my beloved son.” Under thisenvelope was the manuscript of the Memoirs which we now publish.
The manuscript terminates abruptly towards the close of the year 1759.It is said that there were with it some detached notes, which would haveserved as materials for its continuation. Some persons affirm that Paulthrew these into the fire; but nothing certain is known upon this point.Paul kept his mother’s manuscript a great secret, and never entrustedit to any one but the friend of his childhood Prince AlexanderKourakine. The Prince took a copy of it. Some twenty years after thedeath of Paul, Alexander Tourgeneff and Prince Michael Worontzoffobtained copies from the transcript of Kourakine. The Emperor Nicholashaving heard of this, gave orders to the Secret Police to seize all thecopies. Amongst them was one written at Odessa, by the hand of thecelebrated poet Pouschkine. A complete stop was now put to the furthercirculation of the Memoirs.
The Emperor Nicholas had the original brought to him by the Count D.Bloudoff, read it, sealed it with the great seal of state, and orderedit to be kept in the imperial archives, among the most secret documents.
To these details, which I extract from a notice communicated to me, Iought to add that the first person who spoke to me on the subject wasConstantine Arsenieff, the p