Many, hoping to replace him, sought to undermine his position and ruined themselves. A young Servian, called Lovitz, himself a protégé of Potemkin, imagined he had succeeded. He had been placed near the empress by his patron, and resolved to take advantage of his protector's absence to ruin him. How did he bring it about? That must remain one of the secrets of the closet which the walls of the palace of the Hermitage has not revealed to us. It is only known that Potemkin was sent for to the palace; that, upon entering his apartments, he was told he was utterly disgraced, that he was exiled, and he was threatened with death if he did not obey. He went at once, travel-stained as he was after his journey, to the empress's rooms. A young orderly officer tried to bar his entrance, but Potemkin took him round the hips, lifted him up, flung him across the chamber, entered the empress's room and, in ten minutes' time, came out with a paper in his hand.
"Here, monsieur," he said to the young officer, who was still considerably knocked about by the treatment he had just received, "this is the brevet of a captaincy that Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to sign for you."
That same day, Lovitz was exiled to the town of Schaklov, which was made into a principality for him.
From time to time Potemkin dreamt of the duchy of Courland and the throne of Poland; but, upon further reflection, he saw that he did not want either, for whether the crown were ducal or regal, he knew he could not be more powerful nor more fortunate than he was in his present position. Did not there pass through his hands every hour, to play with as a cowboy plays with pebbles, more diamonds, rubies and emeralds than any one crown could contain? Had he not couriers at his beck and call to fetch him sturgeon from the Volga, water melons from Astrakan, grapes from the Crimea, and most beautiful flowers from whatever quarter they could be found? Did he not give his sovereign every New Year's Day a plate of cherries that cost him ten thousand roubles?
The Prince de Ligne (grandfather of the prince of that name, with whom we are acquainted), author of the charming memoirs which bear his name, and of the most intellectually refined letters that have probably ever been penned, knew Potemkin, and said of him--