Catherine the Great & Potemkin by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Author:Simon Sebag Montefiore [Montefiore, Simon Sebag]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

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Meanwhile, on 28 July 1785, Jeremy Bentham set out from Brighton, bearing Shelburne’s wordly advice: ‘get into no intrigues to serve either England or Russia, not even with a handsome lady’.58 He met up with Logan Henderson and the two lissom Miss Kirtlands at Paris and travelled on via Nice and Florence (where he spotted a ‘poor old gentleman’ at the opera – the Young Pretender). The group sailed from Leghorn to Constantinople. Thence Jeremy sent Henderson and the two Miss Kirtlands by sea to the Crimea. He made his own way overland: after a dramatic journey with the sister of the Hospodar of Moldavia and twenty horsemen, he reached Krichev in February 1786.59 It was a joyous reunion: the Bentham brothers had not seen each other for five and a half years.

Once the party was complete, the Belorussian village seemed to turn into a Tower of Babel of quarrelling, drinking and wife-swapping. The recruits were as ragged a crew as could be expected, and few were quite what they claimed: Samuel tried to control this ‘Newcastle mob – hirelings from that rabble town’.60

Jeremy confessed to Samuel that Henderson’s milkmaid ‘nieces’, who had so impressed him with their femininity and knowledge, were neither cheese-makers nor any relation to the gardener: they were apparently troilists. Henderson did not turn out successfully. Potemkin settled the gardener and the two milking ‘nieces’ in the Tartar house near Karasubazaar. The sentimental Prince remembered his recovery from fever there in August 1783 and bought it. However, he soon learned that Henderson was a ‘shameless impostor’ who had not even ‘planted a single blade of grass and Mamzel [one of the girls] has not made a single cheese’.61

Roebuck, another recruit, travelled with his ‘soi-disant wife’, who turned out to be a thorough slattern. She offered ‘her services to either of the Newcastle men’, wishing to be rid of her ruffian husband.62 Samuel managed to pass her on to Prince Dashkov: these Russian Anglophiles were grateful for a gardener’s wench – if she came from the land of Shakespeare. Samuel suspected ‘the very quarrelsome’ Roebuck of stealing diamonds at Riga – he was ‘not the most honest’. When Potemkin summoned Samuel, Jeremy was left in charge, which led to more bad behaviour. Dr Debraw, the bee sexologist, proved an utter nuisance. He stalked into Jeremy’s study ‘with a countenance of a man out of Bedlam’ and demanded a pass to leave. This stew of crooks even stole Samuel’s money to pay off their debts.63 There were rebellions against the Benthams led by Benson the general factotum, who again ‘like a man let loose from Bedlam’ abused Jeremy, who had never seen him before in his life.64 Then ‘the termagant cook–housekeeper’ joined ‘the male seducers’ by luring ‘old Benson’ to her bed.65 The word ‘Bedlam’ appeared with ominous and appropriate frequency in the Benthams’ letters.

Despite the capers of these expatriates, the Benthams achieved an immense amount, both literary and mercantile: ‘The day has an abundance more hours in it at Krichev or rather at our cottage three miles off where I now live,’ wrote Jeremy.

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