Bender was Potemkin's ideal conquest, not costing Russia a single man. Success was infectious: Joseph congratulated Potemkin, but in an unpublished letter to Ligne he grasped Potemkin's true achievement: 'It's an art to besiege forts and take them by force ... but to make yourself master in this way is the greatest art of all.' It would be Potemkin's 'most beautiful glory'.62
The Grand Vizier would not have agreed: after Rymnik, the Sultan had him killed in Shumla, while the Seraskier of Bender was beheaded in Istanbuclass="underline" four months later, the British Ambassador noticed his head still rotting outside the Seraglio.63
'Well Matushka, did it come off according to my plan?',64 the euphoric Potemkin asked Catherine. Triumph made him playful, so he wrote her this ditty:
Nous avons pris neuf lan^ons Sans perdre un gar^on Et Bender avec trois Pashas Sans perdre un chat.6^
Serenissimus' reaction to Suvorov's victory at Rymnik could not have been
* Akkerman's massive fortress still stands.
f 'To his Highness Monseigneur Prince Potemkin: Representation of Ahmet Pasha Huhafiz of Bender. In rendering with deep respect the honours due to Your Highness, very generous, very firm, very gracious, ornamented of an elevated genius to devise and execute very great enterprises, whose authority is accompanied by the most dazzling dignity, Principal Minister, acclaimed with the very highest precedence and first representative of Her Imperial Highness, the Padishah of Russia, we represent... the pity for children and women brings us to accept... the proposition.'
ф 'We've taken nine launches, Without losing a boy, And Bender with three Pashas, Without losing a cat.' more generous: 'Really Matushka, he deserves your favour and the fighting was vital, I am thinking what to give him... Peter the Great granted Counts for nothing. How about giving him [a title] with the surname of "Rymniksky"?'66 Potemkin was proud that Russians had rescued Austrians, who had been on the verge of running away. He asked her to 'show grace to Suvorov' and 'shame the sponger-generals who aren't worth their salaries'.67
Catherine got the message. She gave Suvorov the title and a diamond- studded sword engraved 'Conqueror of the Grand Vizier'. Potemkin thanked her for Suvorov's reward (Joseph made him an imperial count too) and gave every soldier a rouble.68 When he sent all Suvorov's rewards - a 'whole wagon'69 of diamonds and the Cross of St George ist degree - he told the new Count, 'You would of course obtain equal glory and victories at any time; but not every chief would inform you about the rewards with pleasure as great as mine.' Once again, these two brilliant and overly emotional eccentrics outdid each other. 'I can hardly see the daylight for tears of joy!', declared Suvorov-Rymniksky. 'Long live Prince Grigory Alexandrovich ... He is an honest man, a kind man, a great man!'70
Potemkin was the hero of the hour, going from 'conquest to conquest', as Catherine told Ligne: he had now taken the entire Dniester and Bug and the land between them.71 'Те Deums' were sung in Petersburg; 101 cannons were fired. If power is an aphrodisiac, victory is love itself: Catherine wrote to him as if they were almost lovers again. 'Your present campaign is brilliant! I love you very, very much.'72 But they were still discussing how to react to Prussian pressure to undermine Russian gains against the Turks. She told him she was taking his advice about the Prussians: 'We are caressing the Prussians,' though it was not easy to tolerate their 'abuse'. She told him that Zubov had wanted to see Potemkin's art collection and apartments in the house on Millionaya, so Catherine took him on a tour and noticed that the decor was a bit shabby for a conquering hero. She had it redecorated, lavishing white damask on the bedroom and hanging his collection for him. She signed off: 'I love you with all my heart.'73
Meanwhile the Austrians, now in the sure hands of Loudon, had taken the Balkan Belgrade on 19 September, while Bucharest fell to Coburg. The 'Те Deums' for the two Belgrades (the other was Akkerman - Belgrade-on- Dniester) were sung in Petersburg simultaneously.
Victory accelerated a cult of the Prince as Mars. Catherine had cast a medallion of his profile to commemorate Ochakov. The sculptor, Shubin, was carving a bust.74 So she lectured Potemkin on stardom like the sensible mother of a famous son. 'Don't be too bumptious,' she wrote, 'but show the world the greatness of your soul.'75 Potemkin understood that 'everything good is given to me by God', but he was a little hurt. He threatened to retire to a bishopric.76 Catherine replied: 'A monastery will never be the home of a man whose name is trumpeted across Asia and Europe - it's too small for him.'77
In Vienna, where even Joseph was now popular, the Prince's name was cheered in the theatres and the women wore belts and rings emblazoned 'Potemkin'. He could not resist telling Catherine all about it and sent her Princess Esterhazy's 'Potemkin' ring. After her lecture, he was careful not to boast too much to the Empress, who was so like him in her love of glory: 'Since I am yours, then my successes too belong directly to you.'78
The ailing Kaiser urged Potemkin to make a peace rendered more desirable by 'the bad intentions of our joint enemies' - the Prussians.79 Surely now the Turks would be ready. Potemkin set up Court in Jassy, the Moldavian capital, to winter like a sultan, revel in his mistresses, build his towns, create his regiments - and negotiate peace with the Sublime Porte. Now he was emperor of all he surveyed. He lived in Turkish palaces; his Court was ever more exotic - Kabardian princes and Persian ambassadors; his girls, whether Russian or not, behaved like odalisques. The heat, the distances, the years away from Petersburg, changed the man. His enemies began to compare him to the semi-mythical seventh-century в с Assyrian tyrant, famed for his capricious extravagance, voluptuous decadence and martial victories - Sardanapalus.
THE DELICIOUS AND THE CRUEL: SARDANAPALUS
Now dreaming I a Sultan am I terrify the world by glances;
Gavrila Derzhavin, 'Ode to Princess Felitsa'
The despotism of vice
The weakness and the wickedness of luxury The negligence - the apathy - the evils Of sensual sloth produce ten thousand tyrants.
Lord Byron, Sardanapalus
'Be very careful with the Prince,' whispered Princess Ekaterina Dolgorukaya to her friend Countess Varvara Golovina when she arrived at the court of Serenissimus in Jassy, the capital of Moldavia. 'He is like a Sovereign here.'1 Potemkin's chosen capital, Jassy (now Ia§i in Rumania), could have been made for him. It was surrounded by three empires - Ottoman, Russian and Habsburg - prayed in three religions - Moslem, Orthodox and Jewish - and spoke three languages - Greek, Turkish and French. Its marketplaces, dominated by Jews, Greeks and Italians, offered 'all the merchandise of the Orient in abundance'.2 Its sophistication, which consoled Ligne in 1788 for the miseries of Ochakov, had 'enough of the oriental to have the piquant of Asia and enough civilization to add to it some European graces'.3
The rulers, the Hospodars or Princes, of Wallachia and Moldavia, the two Danubian Principalities, were Greeks from the Phanar District of Constantinople and some of them were descended from Byzantine emperors. These wealthy Phanariots bought their temporary thrones from the Ottoman Sultan. Their Orthodox-Islamic, Byzantine-Ottoman coronations in Istanbul were perhaps the only example of rulers crowned in a country which they did not rule.4 Once in Jassy or Bucharest, the hydrid Greek-Turkish Hospodars taxed their temporary realms to fill their coffers to cover the exorbitant price they had paid the Sultan for their thrones: 'a prince leaves Constantinople with three million piastres of debt and after four years ... returns with six million'.5 They lived like magnificent parodies of Ottoman-Byzantine emperors, surrounded by Phanariot courtiers - their prime minister was called the Grand Postelnik, their police chief the Grand Spatar and their chief justice the Grand Hetman. Often they might rule in both places, or the same one, several times.