HER MAJESTY'S SERGEANT

HER MAJESTY'S SERGEANT

or,

THE RISE AND FALL OF GRIGORI POTIOMKIN

July, 1762

Catherine had just succeeded in her coup d'état, and her husband, Peter III (the Not-So-Great), was in tears upon receiving the news of the defection of his soldiery. His reaction was the expected one: the lover of his wife made him drunk to contrive to put him under the knife for phimosis surgery, among soldiers, with the military surgeon she had prepared in advance. Catherine's pregnancy required her to consummate the marriage, after several years during which the one who still was czarevich played with his wooden soldiers in bed. At last, the poor sinner could bed the Czarevna, who was already pregnant. This was the man who lost the throne.

Catherine, dressed in an officer's uniform, gets upon her horse, astride it of course, and is about to set forth towards Saint Petersburg, when she sees that the strap of her sword is missing. A young non-commissioned officer storms towards her and gives her his own sword-strap. He's a bogatyr, a tall and strong bear of a man. His name is Grigori Potiomkin.

October, 1791

Potiomkin, ex-lover to Catherine II of Russia, Prince of Tauris, Conqueror of Crimea, planner and constructor of real-life towns, inventor (in the collective consciousness, encouraged by the slander of a Saxon) of sham cardboard villages, and, long story short, a man of excess, has just been vanquished. After the Czarina's famous trip to Crimea, accompanied by the ambassadors of every kingdom in Europe, and by Joseph II of Austria himself, he sees how a young lover, an upstart lordling called Platon Zubov, is not satisfied, like the others who came before, with making Catherine happy in the nighttime. No. He wants to rule. Potiomkin, to catch the Czarina's attention, arranges the most absurd celebration ever known to be held at the court, spending nearly a million roubles. It is his swan song, and he decides to return down south. There, at least, he believes that he is still in charge. But he finds out that the diplomat who had replaced him when it came to parleying with the Turk has arranged a peace with conditions that Potiomkin does not like. He chides the diplomat, threatening him with corporal punishment, until he discovers that he has been following secret instructions from Catherine.

And thus, he decides to die following his most primal instincts. He devours and quaffs like a beast, and a fever becomes his companion. He orders to be drenched in eau de Cologne and cold water, to lower his temperature, and keep on eating and drinking, until he can hold no more. He commands that his carriage be prepared. He wants to go, no one knows why, to Nikolayev, a town he has founded on the mouth of the Bug River. His niece and former mistress Aleksandra accompanies him, and with her come a physician, three secretaries, and an escort of Cossacks.

The kibitka keeps on bouncing and stumbling across the steppes of Moldova, and the ailing man cannot stand it. After a few verstas, he gives the order for the carriage to stop. He says he wants to die on the ground. They lay down a blanket under the shade of a tree, in the wayside ditch. They lay him down upon this cover. He looks up to the skies. At midday, he breathes his last. Someone asks for a golden rouble coin to shut his right eye, the only one he has (he lost his left eye, but the right one was spared, in a drunken fight with one of the Orlov brothers, back when he was still a sergeant). A Cossack finds, in one of his pockets, a coin of verdigrised bronze, worth five kopeks. 

(In memoriam Grigori Potiomkin - 16th of October 1791, Moldova)