Bed of an Empress by Leopald Sacher-Masoch - Chapter 01 - Part 01

1965 Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Masochistic

SHE RULED AN EMPIRE FROM HER BOUDOIR...

The notorious story of Catherine the Great, the beautiful young Russian empress who was a victim to her own desires and stopped at nothing to satisfy them.

NOT EVEN THE GREEKS HAD A WORD FOR IT…

until Leopold Sacher-Masoch (The Author of Venus in Furs) came along and gave Masochism its name.

A NERO IN HOOP PETTICOATS

Chapter 01 - Part One

"A FRESH CONSPIRACY of the guards has been discovered!”

Such was Orloff's morning greeting to the Czarina Catherine II. on May 23, 165.

She sprang out of bed and seized her favorite by the gold embroidered collar of his uniform.

"Have you arrested them, Gregory?" she exclaimed angrily.

"They are in your hands, Catherine."

The Empress nodded and showed her beautiful teeth as she gave a pleased smile; then she threw a thin dressing gown trimmed with Flemish lace over her, rang the bell violently and summoned her trusted adherents. Without heeding Orloff, she went up and down her bedroom in long strides with her arms crossed over her breast. In a few minutes Princess Daschkow, Count Panin, Privy Councillor Teglow and Lieutenant General Wegmare were assembled in her room.

The last to come was Madame de Mellin; that beautiful Amazon, who was colonel of the Tobolsk regiment, appearing in a green military overcoat, her little three-cornered hat put coquettishly on to her head, with a riding whip in her hand. The Empress turned to her first. "Mount your horse, dear Mellin," she exclaimed in great excitement, "have ball cartridges distributed amongst your soldiers, and bring the regiment here to release the guards. Make haste!"

The handsome colonel saluted and went rustling out of the Empress's bedroom.

"Another conspiracy among the guards," Catherine continued: "will there never be an end to rebellion against me? What do those men want, who throw themselves under my wheels like the mad Hindus do under the wheels of the carriage of their goddess? I must crush them, and yet I do not want bloodshed. For two and twenty years no scaffold has been erected in my capital, but now I will make an example!

Count Panin, hasten to the guards' barracks and talk to those deluded men, and you, Teglow, summon the Senate. General Wegmare, you will occupy the streets leading to the palace with your troops, and you, Orloff, will plant your artillery in the square."

With these words she pointed to the window, and they bowed low, and hastened to execute the orders of the absolute ruler of Russia.

Soon afterwards, a deputation of the guards who were on duty in the palace asked for an audience, and though Catherine grew pale, she curtly and proudly gave the order for their admittance; and the deputation, which consisted of two officers, two non-commissioned officers and two privates, came in and stood in a row before her.

Slowly the Empress walked past them and looked at each of them keenly, and then she remained standing at her dressing table, with her hands resting on it behind her. "Who chose you?"

"Our regiment."

"For what object?"

"We demand justice for our comrades."

"You are begging for mercy."

"No, for justice."

"Justice they shall receive," the Empress cried, growing red with anger, "and you also! If there is another conspiracy, I will have your regiments decimated."

"If you are bold enough to do it!" a young officer, who was the soldiers' spokesman, cried.

"It remains to be seen what I can do. Adieu! " And Catherine turned her back upon them and went to the window.

"Go!"

The guards did not move. "Go!" she said to them imperiously.

"We will not go! Release our men!' they all cried tumultuously at once. "Release them!" the young officer said, seizing Catherine's arm roughly, but Princess Daschkow pulled him back. At the same instant, the drums of the Tobolsk regiment were heard, and Madame de Mellin's white plume was seen shining in the street.

"I shall not release them," Catherine replied coldly, “but the insurgents will meet with condign punishment. And now, as regards you yourselves. Anyone who intercedes for rebels is himself a rebel." She quickly stepped up to the young officer and took his sword out of its sheath. "You are my prisoner; and you," she said majestically to the others, "surrender voluntarily, for you are in my power."

The butt-ends of muskets rattled on the floor. and Madame de Mellin appeared at the door; her soldiers had occupied every exit, and in silence and with drooping heads, the spokesmen of the guards allowed themselves to be arrested and taken away. Soon drums were heard on all sides. and Orloff's artillery and Wegmare's soldiers followed closely on Madame de Mellin; the populace swayed backward and forward without any settled plan and more curious than excited, whilst the guards surrendered and begged for mercy for the guilty men through Panin. The meeting was at an end.

"I will make an example," Catherine said. "I gave my word that I would do so." At the same time she pulled up her lace sleeve and looked at the mark which the rough hand of the young insurgent had left on her full arm. "I intend to see their heads fall."

"For this once do not gratify your appetite," Orloff replied; "you dare not venture to do so. A public execution may expose us to terrible dangers."

"Are we too weak?"

“We are, as long as Prince Ivan is alive," Parrin replied.

"The guards were told that he was the rightful Czar."

"Who told them so?"

"The priests, who mistrust you, and whom you have insulted by your reforms."

"Is that any reason why those mutineers should go unpunished?" Princess Daschkow asked.

"They must die," the Empress cried with flashing eyes; "let them be imprisoned in the casements without light, food or drink, and let them rot there."

As she went with furious steps up and down the apartment, the beautiful woman showed her adherents her voluptuous bosom which was heaving with anger, as pitilessly as she uttered the death sentence on her enemies.

"Call the troops together in the palace and the barracks, and let them remain under arms until evening, and I will show myself on horseback to the people. Now, however, I must go and dress," she added, with a roguish smile.

"Au re voir ."

They were alone, Catherine the Great, as Voltaire had christened the Czarina, and Catherine the Little, as the Court in joke called the Princess Daschkow.

The Empress was in the full bloom of her beauty, was of middle height and of most perfect proportions, and although too full for the hooped petticoat, yet she was modeled for the pedestal of a goddess of antiquity, and the carelessness of her negligee lace attire, showed now the smallest feet, then the prettiest hands and again, the most magnificent bust.

If she was a mistress in the art of dissimulation, her head proclaimed her to be a great woman, who was born to rule.

In her face there was a certain simple worship of, and a sun-like delight in, herself. Her high, noble forehead, her large, bright, blue eyes, her boldly marked angry eyebrows and her fine nose and distended nostrils, her little mouth with the sweetest, rather thick lips, which was almost too small for kisses, her strikingly developed, firm, round chin, her neck like an Amazon's, and her small Nero-like ears, her abundant, dry, light red hair, which crackled and sparkled under the comb like a miniature thunderstorm, all this plainly said: This woman longs insatiably for power and pleasure, but she also possesses the talent for directing, for commanding and for enjoying, and a strong will, which is only spurred on by difficulties, as well. She is not, however, deficient in craft, so as to be able to avoid them, if they cannot be trodden underfoot.

There was not a trace of sentimentality in her, but also no cruelty. She shrank from no means that would enable her to attain her ends quickly and fully, and would have waded through the blood of her enemies if necessary, but she would not torment anybody, and her face bore an expression of refined humanity and of kindness—the kindness of the lion to the mouse.

She was the most dangerous despot, and exhibited a voluptuous atmosphere, and every knee bent voluntarily before her, and every neck was ready to assume her yoke.

"Little Catherine" formed the greatest contrast to her, for Princess Daschkow was a languishing, intellectual lady with uneasy movements, a small, pale, nervous face which was very clever, very changeable, and very attractive.

Both ladies were silent for a considerable time, and then they looked at one another. They had understood each other immediately.

"Shall we dress Katinka?" the Empress said, shaking out her hair. "No." she exclaimed suddenly, and stamped on the floor; "we will have a chat."

The princess went quickly to the door which opened into the anteroom, opened it, looked out and shut it again. Then she sat down on a low stool at the Empress's feet, and said, in a low voice, "Ivan must die."

"Yes, he must die," the Empress replied gloomily, and rested her head on her hands sadly, like some lovesick girl.

"You must not allow anything to stand in your way," the Daschkow continued eagerly; "every day brings new dangers and difficulties. You have the right of getting him out of the way, and it is likewise your duty to do so, for your path lies upward. You are pursuing great human ideas and you must sacrifice this stupid boy to them. Ivan must die."

"You are the only soul whom I can entirely trust—my only friend—" Catherine began.

"No, you have no friends," the princess said, interrupting her, "for you make tools of your friends as you do your enemies. You are right, and I also am your mere tool but you attach me to yourself by the strongest bonds of true sympathy. I love mankind, I love my country, and you are serving both as long as you hold the reins of government."

"I wish to do so," Catherine replied, "but whether I shall be able to do it, the future and history must decide. You see, this is what I think. The French philosophers have discovered the great truth: Man is born to freedom, but he can only become free by education. I rule this enormous realm, and in this realm I wish to sow culture, so that here also the seeds of freedom may ripen.

"I know that nobody has the right to enslave others, but my nature demands to rule, and to rule despotically and if I had to trample on culture and freedom in order to rule, I have no doubt that I should do it without hesitation. In this kingdom, however, my will has no limits, and I can command here like another Alexander; I can satisfy every whim like a Nero, and work for mankind like a philosopher. The present is mine, the future I can give ungrudgingly to my people. I do not wish to be termed the Semiramis of the North as Voltaire calls me in flattery, but really to be so.

"Believe me, people forgive us, the mighty ones of the earth, for our vices, but never for our weaknesses, and are not my plans great and human enough for many a foolish head to be sacrificed to them, and for many a cruelty to be forgiven on their account?"

"Your policy has surprised Europe," Madame de Daschkow replied; "France and Austria see that you have deceived them, as you are going hand in hand with Frederick the Great. The Catholic powers see in astonishment that you openly venture to protect the Polish dissenters, and that you have given that restless nation a king in Poniatowski, who is your crowned slave."

"Courage is everything, Katinka, and I possess that courage which produces acts of daring policy. I am determined to advance without any consideration or pity. Above all things, I wish to make Russia great, and already my armies are threatening Sweden, Poland, Turkey and Asia at the same time I shall drive the Turks out of Europe, and divide Poland, and my people shall raise themselves out of their present barbarous state, and already great reforms have begun. Religious tolerance exists more than elsewhere in my country, and commerce and trades are flourishing, and what other monarch has ever done as much as I have for this country voluntarily, and unless forced to it by a revolution? I do it because I choose to, and that gives me the right to rule.

"I overthrew my husband and had him put to death because I was obliged to—because I did not love him and wished to rule. He could not do it, and if he had given the throne up to me voluntarily, I could not have spared him. I was obliged to shed blood in order to rule and now there can be no question of a little more or less. I have the right to rule, and I will rule."

The princess gave her a significant look.

"I suppose you think I am deceived a to my position, Katinka?" the Empress continued. "Hitherto I have attacked skillfully, and played off Orloff and Panin's party against each other, and made both of them serviceable to myself, and fastened my fellow culprits to my triumphal car. Is there not something humorous in appointing the physician who prepared the poison for the father, as physician-in-ordinary to the son?"

"To your son, the heir apparent," the princess said.

The Empress shrugged her shoulders. "I have even made my lover a slave, and yet every new day threatens me with new signs of danger. When I made my public entry into Moscow, in my imperial purple and ermine, was greeted by one single shout of joy? The people stood in the streets in astonishment, and stared at the pageant. The guards are sorry for what they have done, and these ambitious priests, whom I am fighting with the weapons of this century, oppose me with this bugbear—this idiotic Prince Ivan. But unfortunately this bugbear has blood in its veins, and I shall be obliged to shed the blood against my will."

"But how?" the Daschkow asked, with charming simplicity.

"How?" The Empress became thoughtful.

"How—that is just it. Every spot of blood is horribly conspicuous on the ermine; I must shed no more."

"Is that necessary?" the little princess laughed, as she played with the lace on her mistress's dressing gown.

"You can kill him by amiable means, without causing any sensation."

"Do you think so—? But, by the way, you are looking very pale. Are you fretting for your general in Poland? Shall I give your husband leave of absence?"

"For heavens sake, do not!" the Daschkow said hastily, lifting up her hand to the Empress; "you terrify me."

The Czarina laughed, and put her hand lightly round her neck. "Is Panin still firmly in your toils my dear?"

"He is living with me in Gatschina."

"That is capital. But you must be sure and not let him go now, Katinka; you must keep a close watch over him. The old coxcomb would like to put my son, that boy Paul, upon the throne, and to be regent. Keep him in your eye and-in your snares."

"You may depend upon me. "

The Empress rose, went to the window, and was silent.

"There are, however, moments, my child," she then said, after a time, "when governing makes me sad and weary."

The other said nothing.

"But the worst of it all is, Katinka, that Orloff bores me."

Little Catherine looked up at the great Catherine in astonishment, and then a delightful, mischievous smile played round her lips.

"Now we will dress," Catherine said with a laugh. "and then mount our horses and I will show myself to my faithful people."

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