Catherine was turning sixty. She remained publicly majestic, privately simple and playful. 'I saw her once or twice a week for ten years,' wrote Masson, 'every time with renewed admiration.' Her modesty with her staff was admirable: Countess Golovina recalled how she and her fellow maids- of-honour were happily eating dinner when they noted that the 'beautiful' hand of the servant who handed them their plates wore a 'superb solitaire ring'. They looked up to find it was the Empress herself. She took care with her appearance, keeping her good skin and fine hands. Her now white hair was carefully dressed - but she was exceedingly fat; her legs were often so swollen that they 'lost their shape'. Her architects, including Cameron at Tsarskoe Selo, and nobles whose houses she visited, gradually installed pentes douces to make it easier for her to enter buildings. Her voice was hoarse, her nose may have become more 'utterly Greek' or aquiline, she was cursed with wind and indigestion, and she had probably lost some of her teeth. She was older,[97] and time exaggerated both her affectionate nature and her emotional neediness.30
The Empress wrote Mamonov a letter generously offering to release him and arrange his happiness by marrying him to one of the richest heiresses in Russia. His reply devastated her. He confessed he had been in love with Princess Daria Shcherbatova, a maid-of-honour, for a 'year and a half and asked to marry her. Catherine gasped and then collapsed at this shameless betrayal of her trust and feelings. Mamonov rushed after her, threw himself at her feet and revealed everything. Catherine's friend Anna Naryshkina shouted at the favourite. Deeply wounded but always decent to her lovers, Catherine agreed that he could marry Shcherbatova.
At first, she concealed this crisis from Potemkin, probably out of embarrassment and to see if a relationship developed with a new young person close to her. But on 29 June she told her staff she was going to write to Potemkin at Olviopol. By the time it reached him, she had supervised Mamonov's marriage on 1 July: the groom received 2,250 peasants and 100,000 roubles. Catherine wept at the wedding. 'I've never been a tyrant to anybody,' she told Potemkin sadly, 'and I hate compulsion - is it possible you didn't know me to such an extent, and that the generosity of my character disappeared from your mind, and you considered me a wretched egotist? You would have healed me by telling me the truth.' She remembered Potemkin's warnings - 'Matushka, spit on him' - which she had ignored. 'But if you knew about his love, why didn't you tell me about it frankly?'31
Serenissimus replied: 'When I heard last year he was sending her fruits from the table, I understood it at once but I had no exact evidence to cite in front of you, Matushka. However, I hinted. I felt sorry for you, my foster- mother, and his rudeness and feigned illnesses were even more intolerable.' Potemkin despised Mamonov's 'blend of indifference and egotism ... Narcissus to an extreme degree', advising her to make the ingrate envoy to Switzerland.32 Instead Count and Countess Mamonov were sent to Moscow to stew in their own juices.
'A sacred place', Zavadovsky rightly said, 'is never empty for long.'33 Catherine had already found Mamonov's replacement but she wanted to settle herself before telling Potemkin. Even in her first letter, Potemkin's eye must have been drawn to the reference to a young man she nicknamed 'le Noiraud' - 'Blackie' - with whom Catherine was getting acquainted. As early as three days after Mamonov's declaration, Catherine started to see more of Blackie: her valet and secretary both suspected an affair was developing.34 He was a protege of Anna Naryshkina and Count Nikolai Saltykov, head of the Grand Duke Paul's household and a critic of Potemkin. As the entire court knew that Mamonov was in love with Shcherbatova, they lost no time in pushing Blackie towards the Empress, because they knew that Potemkin would intervene if they waited. The Prince could not choose Catherine's lovers but he liked to ensure they were not hostile. There is no doubt that Blackie's backers intended to undermine Potemkin, knowing that war prevented him from returning as he had after Lanskoy's death. In June 1789, this ailing Empress, tormented with war and dyspepsia, was far more likely to take what she was offered than at any other time in her life. Perhaps her happiness became more important than her dignity.
Blackie was Platon Alexandrovich Zubov, Catherine's last favourite. He was probably the handsomest of all. Aged twenty-two, Zubov was muscular yet frail, pretty and dark - hence Catherine's nickname for him - but his expression was brittle, vain, cold. His frequent illnesses suited Catherine's maternal instincts. He had been at Court since the age of eleven - Catherine had paid for him to study abroad. This popinjay was clever in a shallow and silly way, but he was neither imaginative nor curious, nor able, merely greedy and ambitious. None of this mattered in a favourite. Potemkin helped her run the Empire and fight the war. Zubov was her companion and pupil in her work for the Empire. 'I'm doing quite well by the state,' she said disingenuously, 'by educating young men.'35
Zubov's ascension to greatness followed a familiar rhythm: the Court noticed the youngster offer his arm to Catherine in the evening. He wore a new uniform with a large feather in the hat. After her card game, he was summoned to accompany Catherine to her apartments and took possession of the favourite's rooms, where he possibly found a cash present. The day after that, the antechamber of the 'new idol' was filled with petitioners.36 On 3 July, Zubov was promoted to colonel in the Horse-Guards and adjutant- general, and significantly he gave a 2,000 rouble watch to his sponsor Nar- yshkina. Zubov's patrons already feared Potemkin's reaction and warned him to show respect to 'His Highness'.37
Catherine fell in love.38 She was almost swelling with admiration for Blackie. 'We love this child who is really very interesting,' she declared, protesting too much. Her joy had the mawkishness of an old woman in the throes of a sexual infatuation with a youth almost forty years younger, as she told Potemkin: 'I am fat and merry, come back to life like a fly in summer.'39 Ordering some French books for Zubov, she even made a ponderous but unusually risque joke to her secretary. One of the books was called Lucine without commerce - a letter in which it is demonstrated that a woman can give birth without commerce with a man. Catherine laughed: 'That's a revelation, and in ancient times, Mars, Jupiter and the other gods provided the excuse.'40 But she nervously waited for the Prince of Taurida's reaction.
'Your peace of mind is most necessary,' he wrote cautiously, 'and for me it's dearer than anything,' but he did not expect any political harm since 'your mercy is with me.'41 But Potemkin did not pass judgement on her choice of Zubov. Catherine could not quite bring herself to mention the youngster by name to Potemkin, but she could not resist raving about his prettiness: 'Blackie has very beautiful eyes.' She restated their secret partnership: 'You are right when you write that you have my mercy and there are no circumstances to harm you ... Your villains will have no success with me.' In return, she begged for Potemkin's approval of her new love: 'Comfort me, caress us.'41
Soon she was making Zubov write flattering letters to her consort, to recreate their 'family': 'Here I enclose for you an admiring letter from the most innocent soul ... who has a good heart and a sweet way of thinking.' She added hopefully: 'Think what a fatal situation it would be for my health without this man. Adieu топ ami, be nice to us.'43 When he was 'nice', the Empress actually thanked him for his approvaclass="underline" 'It is a great satisfaction for me, my friend, that you are pleased with me and little Blackie ... I hope he doesn't become spoilt.'44 That was too much to hope. Zubov spent hours in front of the mirror having his hair curled. He arrogantly let his pet monkey pull the wigs off venerable petitioners. 'Potemkin was indebted to his elevation almost solely to himself,' recalled Masson, who knew both men. 'Zubov owed his to the infirmities of Catherine.'45