Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

by Robert K. Massie

The new relationship worked out between the empress and Potemkin had given each of them freedom to choose other sexual partners, while preserving affection and close political collaboration between themselves. Catherine often missed him. “I am burning with impatience to see you again; it seems to me that I have not seen you for a year. I kiss you, my friend. Come back happy and in good health and we shall love each other…. I kiss you and I so much want to see you because I love you with all my heart.” In her letters, she made a point of informing him that her new favorite—whoever he happened to be at the moment—sent his love or respects. She made her lovers write directly to him, mostly fawning declarations of how much they, too, missed, admired, or even worshipped him. The young men did this because they knew that, in comparison to Potemkin’s influence, their own was nonexistent.