Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

Chapter 380 022 Little Katya was favored by the "old witch" (Part )
After seeing that the guests were seated, the princess' wife said, "We are not here for anything else today. It is Katya's name day, and she is considered an adult."

As soon as the old lady spoke, Nicholas was confused: "To enter the palace, you have to be sixteen years old to be an adult, right?"

"I think so, but Your Highness, your sister, Her Highness Elena, is about to get married at this age."

Nicholas had little impression of Elena, the most beautiful of the five sisters. After all, she and the eldest sister got married when he was very young, so he was not as familiar with her as he was with the third, fourth and sixth sisters.

But he has reached the age where he should be sensible, and he can think clearly even if he is a bit stubborn.

Of course, he is not a fool and knows something.

Solovyov had been in St. Petersburg for a long time. It had been nearly ten years since he was brought here by Dmitri Volkonsky. This kind of name-day celebration, especially for a distant relative girl living here as a guest, was somewhat interesting.

The old master's two older sons, even though the eldest son was blind, both married and had sons. The second son was very familiar with Solovyov, and the two had studied the four-stage tactics together.

As for the third son, Solovyov actually did not have a good impression of him.

One thing in particular is that his sister and little Katya are very good friends. If little Katya marries Sergei, it will not be a good marriage.

Solovyov said this based entirely on his experience.

Of course he didn't know that if Katya married Sergei, she would be very unhappy.

Although this prince looked good and had some knowledge, he had a bad personality and was quite lustful.

Although little Katya has a slender figure and has received strict dance training since childhood, she is pretty good anyway, but compared with this kind of firewood girl
Not only did Alexander and Louisa know that this marriage was not a good one, but after the two got married, Alexander also said that little Katya could marry a new husband and give her a large dowry.

However, the girl was devout in her faith and finally refused.

What’s even more exaggerated is that even Moscow and Ryazan knew that this marriage was not a good one.

Tolstoy's mother was at the ancestral estate at the time. She heard about this and wrote about it in her diary. She thought that such a lovely girl did not get her own happiness.

As for what happened later, it was even more unfortunate. She became a widow in her thirties and had no children. Her husband felt that he owed her and meant to leave all his inheritance to his wife, but the will was lost.

Then, Sergei's nephews did what Prince Vasily Kurakin wanted most, seizing his uncle's property and driving his aunt away.

If it weren't for the fact that Katya had many close friends in the palace at that time, and her elder brother was in Petersburg and her second brother was in Moscow, both of them were in high positions, she would not have been kept in the palace. Alexander II took good care of her and kept her serving in the palace for 35 years until his death.

Of course, Solovyov couldn't possibly know so much shit, he just felt that this matchmaking was a sour one.

However, he had to offend the wife of the Grand Tutor. That was nine years ago, so it wouldn't matter if it happened again.

Vasily Vasilyevich, his wife and two sons were all confused, but considering that the princess was from their own family, they couldn't say anything.

Although everyone was used to the princess's strange behavior, it was a bit too abrupt to make a sudden turn here on the pretext of celebrating little Katya's birthday and mention the engagement between her youngest son Sergei and Prince Vasily's daughter little Katya.

Prince Vasily was obviously hesitant. He looked at his daughter again, reluctant to let her go.

However, this marriage was indeed a good match. The Taifu's youngest son Sergei also had some talent. Although he was far inferior to his second brother, he had also published some articles and was considered to have some talent.

As Prince Vasily had been away from the country for a long time, he seemed to think this marriage was a good one.

On this point, he did not understand it as deeply as the young Nicholas.

After all, who is this Sergei? Because the family of the Grand Tutor often appears in Alexander's court. What is he like?
It’s not a very good impression after all, so some people will still frown.

The confused Prince Vasily and his family did not express their opinion at this time, and old tutor Saltykov spoke again.

"It would be an honor for our family if we could marry Prince Krimsky. I just don't know what your opinion is."

If things continue like this, there is actually another way, which is to let Sergei and little Katya stay in the same room for a while.

Solovyov was very familiar with this matter. After all, his friend Pierre fell into this trick, allowing Prince Vasily of the Kurakin family to succeed and marry his daughter Helen into the Bezukhov family.

Although Helen was a natural socialite and very beautiful, Pierre was the one who suffered in this matter.

Therefore, for Prince Vasily Vasilyevich, who had always been optimistic about him, Solovyov did not want his daughter, his sister's friend, to be married off so easily and become the little princess of the Saltykov family.

That "old witch" will cause some trouble. She is like a puppeteer manipulating puppets and making her husband speak.

This old man can't even decide whether to serve oysters on the table, but he has such a high status that what he says is nonsense, but it carries weight.

But the guests all seemed to feel that it was inappropriate.

The strange thing was that little Nikolai leaned close to Solovyov's ear and said, "Sister Katya has a beautiful figure. It would be inappropriate for her to marry Prince Sergei, who is in the Guards but has not served much. Such a good sister should marry a warrior. Boss, you..."

Although Nicholas is a very stubborn boy, he seems to be a bit precocious and knows how to act as a matchmaker. But let's not go into details.

"Your Highness, this is not appropriate."

"You are still unmarried at your age. This is not right! When my brother and sister-in-law got married,

The more the kid talked, the more outrageous it became, making Solovyov feel awkward, so he simply covered his mouth in an impolite manner.

This caught the attention of little Katya, who stood up and said, "Baron, it is really rude of you to cover His Highness' mouth like this!"

Speaking of which, this girl is very knowledgeable about etiquette, but she knows the rules very well at the age of fifteen.

In the future, she would make the girls in the palace respect and fear her, and she would be nicknamed "Mother Goose". All the "little hooves who don't know the rules" would be sent to her to learn the rules. Therefore, Solovyov felt a little embarrassed. Even the girl didn't call him as usual, but spoke very formally. When the name "Brother Mishka" came out, the girl sounded sweet and greasy, but calling him "Baron" restrained Solovyov.

This really made Sergei clever. Wow, this girl, although still very young, had managed to keep Solovyov, the most promising young officer in the Guards who had killed at least dozens of Frenchmen on the battlefield, under her control.

What would happen if I married this daughter-in-law?

Sergei was overthinking. Little Katya had two ideals. One was to become a young lady with excellent manners like Her Majesty the Queen, and the other was to marry an outstanding young nobleman to be his wife and manage the household as a hostess.

As for being a maid in the palace, it is an obligation and responsibility, but for this girl, it is a career.

However, it was Nicholas who spoke unexpectedly at this time.

"I think that Sister Katya and Prince Sergei should feel that they are suitable for each other and adapt to each other for a period of time. Only then will it work."

He actually knows a lot about marrying a wife, and it's a Russian tradition that there has to be adaptation before engagement, and there is a cooling-off period before marriage.

This kid Nicholas is not only messing up other people's marriages, but one thing is also clear: there is a new weirdo in the Russian royal family. Compared with the empresses, they all seem quite normal except that they all keep gigolos.

As for Queen Mother Maria, she had no real lover, so she probably couldn't be an empress.

What about the tsars? Ivan the Terrible was just a bad-tempered tsar, but the Romanovs were full of eccentrics: Peter the Great changed his ways and cut his beard, Peter II was a weird kid, and Peter III was a well-known German bastard.

There is no need to say more about Paul, who was Solovyov's boss whom he respected very much, but his behavior was indeed quite strange.

As for Alexander, when he was still the Grand Duke of the Emperor, he already had the inclination of "Why is Your Majesty rebelling?"

Although, this man later succumbed to reality and became the emperor of all Russia honestly.

As for Nicholas, we can only say that the male members of the Romanov royal family, whether they are the original direct descendants or the Holstein collateral line after Peter III, all have a kind of abstract beauty, which is quite in line with the matching mechanism of the Slavic region.

He is indeed interesting in this way.

Then, the "old witch" could no longer continue with her practice.

This time Solovyov did not offend the "old witch", but Nicholas became the "little villain", causing the Princess's plan to fail.

However, Solovyov also had the feeling that Nikolai was either not smart or too stubborn. It was difficult to change the things he had made up his mind about, and he even openly provoked trouble like this.

When Paul was around, he liked to act as a matchmaker. If Nicholas didn't guide them well, he would probably just break up couples. Even if it was such a bad match that he broke them up, it would be considered a merit.

It sounds scary that their family takes after their father, as each person inherits different traits, and maybe in opposite directions. This may be a feature of the Russian court.

As for the Princess's wife, although the Tutor's family is very powerful, His Highness's words and calling him over actually ruined the plan.

It's a case of being too clever but outsmarting. It's quite troublesome to call this child here.

However, when the news reached Alexander, he also told Louisa about it when he visited his pregnant wife.

"Liza, have you heard what happened at Nikolai Ivanovitch's?"

"Not yet, Your Majesty, but what happened?"

"It seems that my precious sisters haven't come to you during this period to tell you the stories that happened in his house."

Speaking of which, the "old witch" was often made fun of by the girls in the royal family. After all, she was too weird.

Even when Paul gave her a ribbon, she could actually hold a piece of musk in her hand and chat with people for half a day.

In short, he's a weirdo.

Seeing that Louisa was willing to listen to him, Alexander then said: "Nicholas was invited by the princess to the official residence on Palace Embankment Road to celebrate the name day of Prince Krymsky's granddaughter Catherine. At this time, she proposed to marry this Katya to her youngest son Sergei."

Hearing this, Louisa also frowned.

"That doesn't sound right. If Prince Sergei wants to marry, he shouldn't choose a girl like this. As for bringing it up on this occasion, do you want to get engaged right away, or wait for a while?"

"It seems that they hope to get engaged immediately."

"This is not good, especially for a little girl like this. If you want to be my maid, you should find a husband who is of the right status and knows how to love her, not someone like Sergei."

"Yes, Seryosha. He is really not suitable. He should be found a woman who is compatible with him in the social world."

For Alexander, after all, the man involved was the son of his guardian at the time, so it was not easy for him to interfere directly.

"So what happened in the end? Sasha, you told me this, there must be some story that happened."

"That's true. Nikolai actually brought it up. It's not appropriate. And then, the princess can't say anything. I'm very surprised. Kolya is only 10 years old, but he already understands a lot. As his brother, I really need to work hard in the future to find him a wife that he will be satisfied with."

When Louisa heard this, she felt that what Alexander said was indeed incoherent, but Nicholas's unintentional and childish words made her think of something.

For the girls around me who are not engaged yet, when we find husbands for them in the future, we have to be very selective and avoid doing anything weird like this "old witch" can do.

As for little Katya, she hadn't thought it through either.

"It's just that. I think we should find suitable husbands for the palace maids in the future. And even if Katya and Prince Sergei are really going to get engaged, there should be a probation period before that. Love is mutual. If one party feels that it is not suitable, they should be free."

(End of this chapter)