Frederick William disliked Hanover, although both his wife and his mother were Hanoverian princesses. When Bernstorff accused the Russians of wishing to occupy Lubeck, Hamburg and Wismar, Frederick William stood by Peter. "The Tsar has given his word
that he will take nothing for himself from the empire," the Prussian King pointed out. "Besides, part of his cavalry is marching toward Poland, and it would be impossible for him to take those three cities without artillery which he does not possess." To a report from his own minister, Ilgen, on the Hanoverian insinuations, the King replied, "Tomfoolery! I shall refuse and sit fast by brother Peter." Not surprisingly in view of Frederick William's attitude, the Tsar's meeting with the King went well. As tokens of friendship, the two monarchs exchanged gifts: Peter promised more Russian giants for the Potsdam Grenadiers, while Frederick William presented the Tsar with a yacht and a priceless amber cabinet.
It was winter in Northern Europe. Darkness came early, the air had a chilling edge, the roads were hardening into ruts. Soon, snow would cover everything. Catherine was in advanced pregnancy and the long journey back to St. Petersburg would not be easy. Peter decided, accordingly, not to return to Russia for the winter, but to travel farther westward and pass the coldest months in Amsterdam, which he had not seen for eighteen years. Leaving Catherine to follow more slowly, he traveled through Hamburg, Bremen, Amersfoort and Utrecht, arriving in Amsterdam on December 6. Even on these relatively well-traveled roads, conditions were primitive. Peter wrote to warn Catherine:
What I have written before I now confirm, not to come by the way which I came, for it is indescribably bad. Do not bring many ' people, for life in Holland has become very expensive. As to the church singers, if they have not already started, half of them will be enough. Leave the rest in Mecklenburg. All who are with me here sympathize with you about your journey. If you can endure it, you had better stay where you are, for the bad roads may be dangerous to you. However, do as you please, and for God's sake do not think that I do not want you to come, for you know yourself how much I wish it, and it is better for you to come than to be lonely and sad. Still, I could not desist from writing and I know that you will not endure being left alone.
Catherine started, but after a difficult journey she was forced to halt at Wesel, near the Dutch frontier. Here, on January 2, 1717, she gave birth to a son, whom they had agreed should be called Paul. The Tsar, who was once again lying in bed with a six-week bout of fever, wrote to her enthusiastically:
I received yesterday your delightful letter in which you say that the Lord God has blessed us by giving us another recruit ... for which praise be to him and unforgetting thanks. It delighted me doubly, first about the newborn child, and that the Lord God has freed you from your pains, from which also I became better. Ever since Christmas I have not been able to sit up as long as yesterday. As soon as possible, I will immediately come to you.
The following day, Peter received a shock: His son was dead and his wife was very weak. Peter, who had already sent couriers to Russia to announce the birth, tried to be helpful to Catherine.
I received your letter about what I knew before, the unexpected occurrence which has changed joy to grief. What answer can I give except that of the long-suffering Job? The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord. I beg you to reflect on it in this way; I do as far as I can. My illness, thank God, lessens from hour to hour, and I hope to soon go out of the house. It is now nothing but irritation. Otherwise, I praise God I am well, and should long ago have gone to you if 1 could have gone by water, but I fear the shaking up of land traveling. Besides, I am waiting for an answer from the English King, who is expected here in these days.
Although Peter tried to cast off his unhappiness at losing a son and thought for the moment that he was getting better, little Paul's death seemed to aggravate his fever and he remained in bed for another month. Catherine found him there when she arrived in Amsterdam. Because of this illness, Peter did not meet the stolid Hanoverian who had become England's King. When George I passed through Holland to board his ship for England, Peter sent Tolstoy and Kurakin to call on him, but the Russian envoys were not received. Later, George I apologized, saying that he had been already on board the ship and had had to sail with the tide.
When he began to feel better, Peter enjoyed his stay in Holland. Catherine was with him, and he devoted himself to revisiting and showing her the places where he had been happy as a young man. He returned to Zaandam with Catherine and saw again the East India Company wharf where he had built a frigate. He journeyed to Utrecht, the Hague, Leyden and Rotterdam. And in the spring, if his plans worked out, he would at last visit Paris and see the city renowned throughout the world for its culture, its elegant society and its architectural splendor.
49
"THE KING IS A MIGHTY MAN
The France which Peter proposed to visit in 1717 was like a vast, intricately complex system of orbiting spheres whose sun, once the source of warmth, life and meaning for the whole, was now extinct. On September 1, 1715, Louis XIV, the Sun King, died at the age of seventy-six, after a reign which had lasted seventy-two years. For thirty-five of those years, Louis' reign had run parallel to that of Peter, the other great monarch of the time. But Louis and Peter were of different generations, and as Peter's influence and Russia's power had grown, the Sun King's glory had begun to fade.
Louis' last years were blighted by domestic tragedy; his only surviving legitimate child, his heir, the colorless Grand Dauphin, who was terrified of his father, died in 1711. The new Dauphin, the dead man's son and the King's grandson, was the Due de Bourgogne, a handsome, charming, intelligent young man who embodied France's hopes for the future. His beautiful wife, Marie Adelaide of Savoy, was almost more brilliant than he. Brought as a child bride to Versailles, she grew up in the presence of the aging King, who doted on her. It was said that of all the women he had ever loved, he never loved any as much as his grandson's bride. Suddenly, in 1712, both the new Dauphin and his gay young wife were gone, dead of measles within a week of each other, he at thirty, she at twenty-seven. Their eldest son, Louis' great-grandson, became the next Dauphin. Within a few days, he died of the same disease.
There remained to the seventy-five-year-old King only one great-grandson, a pink-cheeked child of two, the last surviving infant in the direct line. He, too, had measles, but he survived the disease because his governess locked the doors and would not permit the doctors to touch him with their bleedings and emetics. This new little Dauphin remained miraculously alive and lived to rule France for fifty-nine years as Louis XV. On his deathbed, Louis XIV called for his great-grandson and heir who by then was five. Face to face, these two Bourbons who between them ruled
France for 131 years regarded each other. Then the Sun King said, "My child, you will one day be a great king. Do not imitate me in my taste for war. Always relate your actions to God and make your subjects honor Him. It breaks my heart to leave them in such a state."