There was a story, told years later, that Potemkin lost his temper with the Empress, told her to dismiss Zavadovsky, stormed through their apartments, almost attacked them and then tossed a candlestick at Catherine.4 This sounds like one of Potemkin's tantrums, but we cannot know what provoked it. Potemkin may have decided that Zavadovsky was a bore; it may also have had something to do with his friendship with Potemkin's critics like Simon Vorontsov. Zavadovsky certainly had a mean-minded, parochial streak that was utterly alien to Serenissimus - and it may have irritated Catherine herself.
The diplomats noticed Zavadovsky's plight. Even in mid-1776, when he had only just been unveiled, as it were, Corberon was wondering 'the name of the new favourite ... because they say Zavadovsky is well on the decline'. The diplomatic business of analysing Catherine's favouritism was always an inexact mixture of Kremlinology and 'tabloid-style' gossip - a question of reading bluffs and double-bluffs. As the Frenchman put it, 'they base his disgrace on his promotion'.
Within a year, though, an upset Catherine noticed his misery too. In May 1777, she wrote to Zavadovsky: 'Prince Or[lov] told me that you want to go. I agree to it... After dinner ... I can meet with you.' They had a painful chat which Catherine, of course, reported in detail to Potemkin: 'I ... asked him, did he have something to say to me or not? He told me about it,' and she let him choose an intermediary, like a cross between a literary agent and a divorce lawyer, to negotiate his terms of dismissal. 'He chose Count Kirill Razumovsky ... through tears ... Bye, bye dear,' she added to Potemkin. 'Enjoy the books!' She had obviously sent him a present for his growing library. Once Razumovsky had negotiated Zavadovsky's retreat, Catherine gave him 'three or four thousand souls ... plus 50,000 roubles this year and 30,000 in future years with a silver service for sixteen...'.
This took an emotional toll on Catherine. 'I'm suffering in heart and soul,' she told Potemkin.5 She was always generous to her lovers but, as we shall see, she gave far less to Zavadovsky than to anyone else except Vassilchikov. There was truth in the canard of Masson, the Swiss tutor: 'Catherine was indulgent in love but implacable in politics.'6
Zavadovsky was distraught. Catherine assumed the tone of a Norland nanny and told him to calm himself by translating Tacitus - a therapy unique to the age of neo-Classicism. Then, inevitably, she consoled the unhappy man by adding that, in order that Prince Potemkin 'be friendly with you as before, it is not difficult to make the effort... your minds will share the same feeling about me and therefore become closer to one another'. There can be little doubt that the prospect of having to win over Potemkin can only have made Zavadovsky's wounds even more raw. He was heartbroken: 'Amid hope, amid passion full of feelings, my fortunate lot has been broken like the wind, like a dream which one cannot halt: [her] love for me has vanished.' On 8 June, Zavadovsky retreated bitterly to the Ukraine. 'Prince Potemkin', said the new British envoy, Sir James Harris, 'is now again at the highest pitch.'7 It goes without saying that Catherine, who could not be 'without love for an hour',8 had already found someone else.
On Saturday, 27 May 1777, the Empress arrived at Potemkin's new estate of Ozerki, outside Petersburg. When they sat down for dinner, there was a cannon salute to welcome her. Potemkin always entertained opulently. There were thirty-five guests, the top courtiers, the Prince's nieces Alexandra and Ekaterina Engelhardt, his cousins Pavel and Mikhail Potemkin - and, at the very bottom of the list, Major of the Hussars Semyon Gavrilovich Zorich, a swarthy, curly-haired and athletic Serb aged thirty-one. It was his first appearance at an official reception, yet it seems that Catherine had already met him. Zorich, a handsome daredevil already known as 'Adonis' by the ladies at Court and as a 'vrai sauvage' by everyone else, was something of a war hero. Potemkin remembered him from the army. Zorich had been captured by the Turks. Prisoners were often decapitated in the exuberance of the moment, but noblemen were preserved for ransom - so Zorich loudly proclaimed himself a count and survived.
On his return, this ambitious rogue wrote to Potemkin and was appointed to his entourage. Potemkin's aides-de-camp were obviously introduced to Court - and the Empress noticed him. Within a few days, Zorich was the new official favourite and his life changed instantly. He was the first of Catherine's succession of so-called favourites or mignons who took the role as an official appointment. While raving about Zorich's looks and calling him 'Sima' or 'Senyusha', Catherine was missing her Potemkin. 'Give Senyusha the attached letters,' she asked her consort. 'It's so dull without you.'9 Just as modest Zavadovsky was an antidote to the ebullient Potemkin, so the excitable Serb was a relief after the moping Zavadovsky. The latter heard about the emergence of Zorich and rushed back to Petersburg, staying with his friends, the Vorontsovs.
Zavadovsky suffered like 'a stricken stag' - and the Court treated him like one. He was told to behave himself. The Empress 'respected' him but suggested that he restrain himself 'in order to extinguish the alarm.'10 What alarm? The Empress's perhaps. But surely also the hypochondriacal, nailbiting Potemkin. In any case, Zavadovsky learned that, since he was not going to be reinstated, the courtiers no longer paid him much attention. He went back to his work. One warms to Zavadovsky for his diligent state service and his romantic pain, but he also spent the next twenty years moaning to his friends about Potemkin's omnipotence and extravagance. He remained devoted to Catherine and did not marry for another ten years. And when he built his palace at Ekaterinodar (Catherine's Gift) - with its 250 rooms, porcelain stones, malachite fireplaces, full library - its centrepiece was a lifesize statue of Catherine.11 But he was not a typical favourite because, while the Empress never gave him independent political power as she did to Potemkin, he enjoyed a distinguished career under Catherine and afterwards.[26]
Catherine was in love with Zorich. Potemkin was happy with his former adjutant and gave him a plume of diamonds for his hat and a superb cane.12 Catherine, who was to work so hard to make her favourites respect Potemkin, wrote: 'My dear Prince, I have received the plume, given it to Sima and Sima wears it, thanks to you.' Since the vain King Gustavus III of Sweden was on a visit, she laughingly compared the two dandies.13 Zorich, who liked to strut around in the finest clothes, resembled nothing so much as a finely feathered fighting cock, but the vrai sauvage was soon out of his depth. He also suffered from the addiction of the age: gambling. Once Catherine had recovered from her early delight in his looks and vigour, she realized he was a liability. It was not the gambling that mattered - the Empress played daily and Potemkin all night - but his inability to understand his position vis-a-vis the Prince.14
Within a few months, everyone knew he would have to be dismissed and the diplomats were once again trying to guess the next lover. 'There is a Persian candidate in case of Monsieur de Zorich's resignation,' wrote Sir James Harris as early as 2 February 1778. But Zorich swaggered around, announcing in a loud voice that, if he was dismissed, he was 'resolved to call his successor to account' - in other words to challenge him to a duel. This muscular braggadocio would really bring Catherine's court into contempt. Far from delaying his fall, as he no doubt thought, this was precisely the sort of behaviour that made it inevitable. 'By God,' he threatened, 'I'll cut the ears of whoever takes my place.' Soon Harris thought he had spotted another candidate for favourite. Like all the diplomats, Sir James believed that it was 'probable that Potemkin will be commissioned to look out for a fresh minion and I have heard ... that he already has picked on one Acharov - a Lieutenant of Police in Moscow, middle-aged, well made, more of a Hercules than Apollo.'15