Joseph invited the diplomats to trot around Sebastopol to discuss the enigma of Potemkin in private. The ability of this exotic eccentric to achieve so much confounded the Emperor. Potemkin was all the more 'extraordinary for his genius for activity', he told Nassau. 'In spite of his bizarreness', Joseph declared to Segur, 'that unique man' was not only 'useful but necessary' to control a barbaric people like the Russians. Joseph yearned to find some fault, so he suggested to Nassau, who had commanded at sea, that the ships were surely not ready to sail. 'They are ready and entirely armed,' replied the paladin. Joseph for once had to admit defeat: 'The truth is that it is necessary to be here to believe what I see.'29
Nassau and Ligne rode off, escorted by Cossacks and Tartars, to inspect Partheniza and Massandra, the estates given to them by the Prince. Partheniza, Ligne's property, was supposedly the site of the Temple of Diana, where Iphigenia was sacrificed. Ligne was so moved that he wrote a poem to Potemkin. The guests visited the ruins of the ancient city of Khersoneses. Serenissimus headed for the hills for a day taking Nassau up to relax at an estate so fine he called it 'Tempted'.30
2-5
THE AMAZONS
Assemblage etonnant des dons de la nature Qui joignez la genie a Tame le plus pure Delicat et sensible a la voix de Phonneur Tendre, compatissant, et rempli de candeur Aimable, gai, distrait, pensif et penseur sombre De ton charmant, ce dernier trait est l'ombre Apprends-moi par quel art, tout se trouve en ta tete?
The Prince de Ligne's poem to Prince Potemkin, written on the Crimean journey
A regiment of Amazons rode out to meet the Kaiser when he pushed ahead to inspect Balaclava. Joseph was astonished by this trick of Potemkinian showmanship. The Prince's Greek, or 'Albanian', military colony there already sported a neo-Classical costume - breastplates and cloaks, along with modern pistols. These Amazons were 200 female' Albanese', all 'pretty women', according to Ligne, wearing skirts of crimson velvet, bordered with gold lace and fringe, green velvet jackets, also bordered with gold, white gauze turbans, spangles and white ostrich feathers. They were armed to the teeth 'with muskets, bayonets and lances, Amazonian breastplates and long hair gracefully platted'. This caprice originated in a discussion between Catherine and Potemkin, in Petersburg before the trip, about the similarities between modern and Classical Greeks. He praised the courage of his Greeks and their wives. Catherine, no feminist, doubted the wives were much use. The Prince resolved to prove her wrong. [76]
The awkward Kaiser so admired this vision that he rewarded the beautiful nineteen-year-old Amazon commander, Elena Sardanova, wife of a captain, with a most unimperial kiss on the lips. Then he galloped back to meet the
Empress. She encountered Potemkin's Amazons on her next stop at the Greek village of Kadykovka as she processed down an avenue of laurels, oranges and lemons. Potemkin told her that the Amazons would like to demonstrate their shooting prowess. Catherine, probably secretly bored with military demonstrations, refused. Instead, she embraced Sardanova, gave her a diamond ring worth 1,800 roubles, and 10,000 roubles for her troop.1
The Amazons joined Catherine's escort of Tartars, Cossacks and Albanians for the rest of the trip. As the imperial procession trundled along the fecund, mountainous south-eastern shore of the Crimea, its most paradaisical countryside, where they passed Potemkin's vineyards, it must have been quite a sight. The aura of success about the 'Road to Byzantium' allowed the two Caesars to relax. Joseph even admitted that Potemkin kept him waiting in his anteroom like an ordinary courtier but said he could not help but forgive that extraordinary man - quite a departure for a petulant Habsburg.1
Bouncing along in their carriage, Catherine and Joseph discussed the sort of things that heads of state have in common. Ligne sat in a royal sandwich between them, drifting off to sleep, only to wake up hearing one say, 'I have thirty million subjects, only counting the male population,' while the other admitted to only twenty million. One asked the other: 'Has anyone ever tried to assassinate you?' They discussed their alliance. 'What the deuce shall we do with Constantinople?', Joseph asked Catherine.3
At Kaffa, the old slave port refounded by Potemkin as Theodosia, Serenissimus played one of his tricks on Segur. As the party climbed into the carriages that morning, Segur bumped into an exquisite young girl in Circassian dress. The colour drained from his face: she was the precise image of his wife. 'I thought for a moment Madame de Segur had come from France to meet me. Imagination moves fast in the land of marvels.' The girl disappeared. A beaming Potemkin took her place. 'Isn't the resemblance perfect then?', he asked Segur, adding that he had seen the wife's portrait in his tent.
'Complete and unbelievable,' replied the stunned husband.
'Well, batushka,' said Potemkin, 'this young Circassian girl belongs to a man who will let me dispose of her and, as soon as you reach St Petersburg, I will give her to you.'
Segur tried to refuse because his wife might not appreciate this expression of affection. Potemkin was hurt and accused Segur of false delicacy. So Segur promised to accept another present,[77] whatever it might be.4 The party climbed into the rolling, green hills of the interior to view Potemkin's gardens, dairies, flocks of sheep and goats, and his pink 'Tartar' Palace at Karasubazaar.f
This, according to an Englishwoman visiting a decade later, was 'one of those fairy palaces' that arose 'as if by magic by the secret arrangement of Potemkin, to surprise and charm'.5
They found an English island here. Capability Brown would have recognized the English gardens - 'clumps of majestic trees, a most extensive lawn', leading to 'woods which make a delightful pleasure ground laid out by our countryman Gould', and there was Henderson's English dairy. Potemkin's idyll was incomplete without a full English tea too. Henderson's 'nieces', who had travelled out with Jeremy Bentham, caught Ligne's experienced eye: 'Two heavenly creatures dressed in white' came out, sat the travellers down at a table covered in flowers 'on which they placed butter and cream. It reminded me of breakfast in English novels.' There were barracks and soldiers to inspect for Joseph, but he was completely uncharmed. 'We had to go through mountain roads,' he grumbled to Field-Marshal Lacey, 'just to make us see a billy-goat, an Angora sheep and a sort of English garden.'6
Potemkin laid on a feu d'artifice that impressed even these firework-weary dignitaries. In the midst of a banquet, 20,000 big rockets exploded and 55,000 burning pots crowned the mountains twice with the initials of the Empress, while the English gardens were illuminated as if it was daylight. Joseph said he had never seen anything more awesome and could only marvel at the power of Potemkin, and therefore the Russian state, to do exactly what he wished, regardless of cost: 'We in Germany or France would never have dared undertake what is being done here ... Here human life and effort count for nothing ... The master orders, the slave obeys.'7
When they were back again in Bakhchisaray, Tartar women again occupied the minds of the worldly courtiers. Ligne, younger at fifty than when he was thirty, could no longer restrain his curiosity. 'What's the use of going through an immense garden when one is forbidden to examine the flowers? Before I leave the Crimea, I must at least see a Tartar woman without her veil.' So he asked Segur: 'Will you accompany me?' Ligne and Segur set off into the woods. They came upon three damsels washing, with their veils on the ground beside them. 'But alas,' recalled Segur, none was pretty. Quite the contrary. 'Mon Dieu!', exclaimed Ligne. 'Mahomet was quite right to order them to cover their faces.' The women ran away screaming. The peepers were pursued by Tartars shrieking curses and throwing stones.