Solovyov in Tsarist Russia 1796.

Of the five daughters raised, Catherine was the most favored.

When she was a child, she was the cutest among the sisters, so it was understandable that Queen Mother Maria doted on her. Now she looks a bit like a dragoon.

However, because of her good figure and youth being a big factor, she naturally looks full of energy.

Before she got married, she could still choose her share of the dowry that Paul left to his five daughters.

Naturally, her sisters would be jealous of her. When Alexandra and Elena got married, Paul ordered the eunuchs to choose them. When Maria got married, although the Queen Mother gave a list, it was only symbolic, and the transfer still depended on the arrangements of the palace.

The factor of Queen Mother Maria's favoritism was involved here. The two older daughters were more favored by the Queen. The things they chose were not bad, as they were all left by the old lady, and their dowries were also quite generous.

Maria and Catherine were raised together, but Maria was treated differently from Catherine. Her list was all prepared by the Queen Mother.

The remaining good things still have to be chosen by Ekaterina.

It is no wonder that after Anna became the Queen of the Netherlands, she was not very nice to her niece. She was very jealous of her fourth sister.

When it came to her, she could only choose the remaining jewels of her father, which had been stolen once in Brussels and the palace had suffered a fire.
Catherine had the right to freely choose from the treasures left by her father to the five sisters, and could even choose more than the prescribed amount.

That is to say, she was raised with Maria since she was a child, so she dragged her sister to come and see.

"This is the treasure trove that Dad left us. But we have to choose what to give to Anya, so that..."

"What mom gave you was always the best. And you wanted to marry in China, so mom agreed. But Misha was unlucky. His friends were sad for a long time because of his death."

"Me too. If he hadn't been so reckless and insisted on arguing with General Tuchkov, this might not have happened."

Catherine still missed the late Prince Mikhail Dolgorukov a little, and she realized it a little and told Maria directly.

"Speaking of which, those young officers who swore allegiance to my brother, Prince Peter died of illness, Misha is gone too, and..."

When Maria heard what Catherine said, her face turned pale with fright, and the pockmarks on her face became more obvious.

"Don't say any more. I'm afraid something bad will happen again. I hope all the men are alive and well, so that we can be happy."

"Your husband is a good one, simple-minded and not opinionated. He should stay with you for a long time. But Maria, dear sister, I will miss you if you go back to Weimar. But we sisters are not too far away from each other, so we can always communicate. I would be very happy if you came to Paris."

"It's just that it's not what you think. Mishka, this guy, he's your fiancé's nephew, but he's against this marriage. I believe him, but I've been worried about you."

"I don't know what's wrong with Mikhail. It seems like there's a bolt on his mouth lately. No matter what you ask him, he always gives you a 'standard answer'. It's getting more and more boring."

Maria also felt what Catherine said.

"Speaking of which, I kept giving him hints, but he just wouldn't take the bait, so it was hard to ask him anything."

"Sister, you still like him. He already has a wife, and even his lover has moved in. He is so proud of himself. He also has a lover in Paris. What's the point of liking such a playboy? In the past, when he went out with us sisters, it was Sister Lina who asked him to come, and he honestly served as a guard. If you could have succeeded in the past, you would have captured him long ago."

"He is a bit philandering, but he is very talented."

Maria's eyes were almost full of stars, and her expression changed a lot in this period of time.

"You just like his talent. It's not possible that you fell in love with him before you got engaged, right?"

Ekaterina also found it strange. It seemed that she was the more infatuated one and was still obsessed with her dead ex-fiancé, but her sister seemed even more outrageous.

Maria's thoughts were finally revealed by someone. She blushed again and had a different expression.

"It doesn't matter. He won't follow me to Weimar. My brother gave him a title, made him a general, arranged a wife for him, promoted him and gave him medals. It's obvious that he wants to use him. I don't have any extravagant expectations. I just hope he doesn't forget me."

When she said this, she saw a jewelry box. After opening it, she saw a beautiful jewel necklace.

"It's really beautiful. It looks like something my grandma used to wear. Look at the decorations."

Girls all like jewelry. Maria praised it like this, but she was a little jealous of the fact that her fourth sister was the most spoiled. The queen mother must have left her a lot of good things to choose from.

"Yes, even the crystals and diamonds set into it are beautiful."

"Choose this for your wedding. Mishka's cheap uncle will definitely be fascinated by you."

As for how to fascinate people?
Maria's words, just look at Ekaterina's slender neck and then her chest.

Well, she has never given birth to a child and her body is innocent, but her size is about the same as mine, so she still has a bright future.

It seems that even within the Russian royal family, it is generally acknowledged that Napoleon was very lustful.
Catherine herself had accepted her fate. In addition to wanting to marry someone she loved, another important goal was to choose a place to be the queen.

But considering the current market conditions, those are Paris and Vienna.

It is outrageous that Emperor Franz was unlucky with his wives. Several of them died one after another. From any perspective, it is definitely inappropriate to go there.

Berlin? Although the relationship between King FW and Louise had begun to become somewhat subtle, King FW was rather useless after all, and he could hardly restrain himself when he saw his wife. In addition, those veterans united around him only for the queen, their daughter-in-law, so he could only accept it - even if Louise was really overthrown by Napoleon, it would still be the same, not to mention that such things were more or less groundless.

Now, that's Paris.

Napoleon knew that there was no problem with the small artillery, and that they had successfully launched shrapnel shells many times, so he began to think about the issue of his successor.

If there is a young foreign princess of the royal family who is willing to become his wife and bear children for him, then a son will naturally be the first heir.

If this goal is really difficult to achieve, consider the son of Louis and Hortense.

As for the marriage with Russia, it was naturally part of his goal. It could even be said that the Franco-Russian marriage looked terrifying.

Even if France and Russia fall out in the future, unlike the stingy Austrians, the Russian royal family has always been very active in protecting the interests of their relatives.

It is a guarantee, but not much. After all, it sounds outrageous for Russia to take on a bunch of countries just for a relative. But there are also benefits. It is really not appropriate for anything to happen between Russia and France.

After looking through them, Catherine just randomly selected some, nothing too excessive.

After all, she has a younger sister, Anna. Although she is younger, people have also started to talk about her marriage.

But after Queen Maria read it, she still felt it was not enough.

"that's it?"

"Yes, mother, that's about it."

Queen Mother Maria obviously disagreed with Catherine's idea. She knew the dowry list her husband left for his daughters, and Alexander kept adding to it, so that her granddaughters could use it when they got married in the future.

The first one on the list is Constantine’s only daughter Sonya. She has met the little king of Sweden and they seemed to get along well.

After that there were Alexander's daughters, although he had no sons. However, these girls also had to be carefully arranged, except for those who might have to marry in the country because there were no suitable foreign princes or dukes of the right age.

Nikolai and Mikhail will get married in the future, and they should have daughters. In short, this treasure house is always being added to.

Catherine chose too few, and as a mother, this was indeed extremely biased.

She was also rather harsh on her own daughter-in-law, but fortunately Louisa had gone off to be alone, raising the children and sometimes taking care of her sister-in-law, so at least there wasn't any major trouble.

The Queen Mother herself did not know that her actions would bring disharmony within her daughter's family.

With a stroke of her pen, she included some other jewels left by the Queen into her daughter's dowry.

Then, there is the ceremony here in Petersburg.

The people who came to propose marriage on behalf of Emperor Napoleon of France were Armand Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza, and General Lauriston, who, coincidentally, was also the current ambassador to Russia and Napoleon's planned next ambassador.

On the Russian side, Alexander was present at the ceremony, but the main people in charge were Prince Bagration and Solovyov. Although it was Grand Duke Constantine who was responsible for handing Catherine over to the French side, the situation looked very delicate.

Caulaincourt looked on and felt somewhat puzzled. The Emperor's eldest nephew was against marriage, yet he was assigned this job.

As for Prince Bagration, his long face has never been very friendly to France.

But there was nothing wrong with his identity, after all, he was Catherine's cousin-in-law.

Now Bagration's face was even more tense. From his wife's side, Ekaterina was also his cousin. This girl was going to marry to France, so naturally he was not very happy.

"Misha, I am lucky compared to you. You are going to Paris with the wedding procession, but I am fine. I will go directly to Odessa."

"We're going to Paris. Our whole family is planning to visit relatives. Now my stepmother feels awkward at home, so Katya and I are the only ones here."

"How's things going with Yulia?"

"Prince Mecklenburg has agreed, but Christian wants to get married, so we have to come back from Paris."

"Then I will take him to Odessa. The Moscow Grenadiers are the main force of the newly formed Southern Grenadiers Division. They will be very useful when fighting those Turks."

"Well, then our whole family might as well go to Odessa. Katya wants to buy a manor there."

This is a good thing. Christian is not the legitimate son of Mecklenburg. If he gets married in Odessa in the south, there is no need to make it such a grand ceremony.

Although weddings are always important and the family has to prepare a generous dowry for Yulia, it cannot be too conspicuous.

Solovyov was well aware that things would turn into the opposite when they reached their extremes, so he became cautious now.

Ever since Speransky had mentioned to him that Alexander intended to make Adela his second wife, he had been on guard.

Now, as a count lieutenant general who had risen to the throne through military merit, he was highly trusted by Alexander, held an important official position and enjoyed a prominent status. Even the status of his sisters' marriage partners had been raised a lot.

But he was still very worried. If something went wrong anywhere, it would be very troublesome.

Even if his current identity is very important to Alexander, once someone objects.
He also looked at Police Minister Balashov, who was now closer to Alexander.

When von Palen targeted him in the past, it was because he was the chief battalion commander of the Putin Regiment and, as Paul's personal bodyguard, it was inconvenient for them to carry out the assassination.

Now my status is much higher than it was back then. Although I am a third-class military officer, my position is actually arranged according to the status of a second-class military officer, that is, an infantry general.

Balashov is also a general of the aides-de-camp. He is obviously on the side of the conservative nobles. If he is involved in political struggles, it is likely to cause trouble.

This time it's not a matter of moving. If he is accidentally involved in a political struggle, unless he has outstanding military achievements, even if Constantine pleads for him, he will inevitably face trouble.

By the way, although he still retains the position of teacher to Grand Dukes Nicholas and Mikhail, their education is now taken care of by professional teachers from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum.

The students of the first term of the Imperial Village Lyceum, including the two grand dukes, totaling thirty-two people, are now attending the ceremony before Catherine's wedding.

Nicholas also had a little curly-haired kid wearing glasses as his follower, and the height difference was indeed very obvious.

Little Curly Solovyov would probably be at a loss whether to laugh or cry again. If the news that Nicholas's little follower was Pushkin were to get out, it might turn out to be quite funny in future history books.

However, considering that Pushkin had been doing dangerous things all the time, and Nicholas could tolerate him and even wanted to use him for his own benefit, this arrangement was quite reasonable.

Nicholas, like Alexander, has a tendency to collect talents.

The next ceremony will be held in the Amber Palace, and the magnificent palace gate will now be opened. (End of this chapter)