Memoirs of the Empress Catherine II. by Empress of Russia Catherine II

Author:Empress of Russia Catherine II [Catherine, Empress of Russia II]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, New Age, Religion & Spirituality, History, Fiction & Literature
ISBN: 9781465611512
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Published: 2021-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

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1753.

Here we lodged in a wing built of wood, constructed only this autumn, and in such a way that the water ran down the wainscoting, and all the apartments were exceedingly damp. This wing consisted of two ranges of apartments, each having five or six large rooms, of which those looking to the street were for me, and those on the other side for the Grand Duke. In the one intended for my toilet, my maids and ladies of the bedchamber were lodged, together with their servants; so that there were seventeen girls and women lodged in one room, which had, it is true, three large windows, but no other outlet than my bed-room, through which, for every kind of purpose, they were obliged to pass, a thing neither pleasant for them nor for me. We were obliged to put up with this inconvenience, of which I have never seen the like. Besides, the room in which they took their meals was one of my ante-chambers. I was ill when I arrived. To remedy this inconvenience, I had some very large screens placed in my bed-room, by means of which I divided it into three; but this was scarcely of any use, for the doors were opening and shutting continually, as was unavoidable. At last, on the tenth day, the Empress came to see me, and observing the continual passing to and fro, she went into the other chamber, and said to my women, “I will have a different outlet made for you than through the sleeping-room of the Grand Duchess.” But what did she do? She ordered a partition to be made, which took away one of the windows of a room in which, even before this, seventeen persons could hardly exist. Here, then, was the chamber made smaller in order to gain a passage; the window was opened towards the street, a flight of steps was led up to it, and thus my women were obliged to pass and repass along the street. Under their window, necessaries were placed for them; in going to dinner, they must again pass along the street. In a word, this arrangement was worthless, and I cannot tell how it was that these seventeen women, thus huddled up and crowded together, did not catch a putrid fever; and all this, too, close to my bed-room, which, in consequence, was so filled with vermin of every kind that I could not sleep. At last, Madame Tchoglokoff, having recovered after her accouchement, arrived at Moscow, as did, some days later, Serge Soltikoff. As Moscow is very large, and people much dispersed in it, he availed himself of this locality, so favourable to the purpose, to conceal the decrease of his attentions, feigned or real, at court. To tell the truth, I was grieved at this; however, he gave me such good and specious reasons for it, that as soon as I had seen him and spoken to him, my annoyance on the subject vanished.

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