An Imperial Lover by Mary Imlay Taylor

TO Zénaïde I gave a full description of the scene at Mentchikofs palace, and she soon discovered the key to the matter. The episode was much discussed, and she found that Yury Apraxin was an adopted son of Madame Zotof's brother, and called by courtesy a nephew of the Councillor Zotof. No blood relationship existed; madame's brother, having no children, had adopted the son of a friend, but young Apraxin held the place of a nephew in the Zotof household. Here, then, was a complication. Not only was the czar offended at one of mademoiselle's connections, but how would Zotof endure the insult offered to his family? Beyond all this there was another tangle in the skein; Zénaïde was informed that young Apraxin had been absent in Lithuania and was a lover of Mademoiselle Zotof, that her hand had been promised to him, -- one of those marriage contracts common in Russia, as in France, when a boy and girl were betrothed in infancy by their parents. At an inopportune time the fiancé had returned to claim his bride, but had been quickly repudiated by Zotof, and in a few days he discovered the cause of his discomfiture. Consequent jealousy of the czar led him to make the offensive speech which had caused Peter's outburst. Apraxin had been only a week in Moscow, and probably knew nothing, as yet, of M. de Lambert; but I fancied that as soon as he learned the truth, his jealousy of the Frenchman would be more bitter than that which had animated his attack upon the czar. So it was a wheel within a wheel, and it required my wife's wit to trace it all out.

Meanwhile the czar was apparently wavering between the two fair women, although showing more favor to Catherine since the offence from one of mademoiselle's family. It was whispered, too, that M. Zotof had found it difficult to accept the affair at Mentchikof's with toleration. The open insult to his protégé was scarcely repaired by the czar's forgiveness of the youth's offence; however, the councillor was, in the end, too wise to quarrel with a sovereign who might smite his adopted nephew with one hand, and raise his niece to a throne with the other. Moreover, madame would not allow him to resent the affront while she had visions of her niece upon the throne of Russia, and it ended in Apraxin being left to nurse his hatred of the czar in secret.