AUTHOR’S NOTE

Most of Paul’s biographers describe the Minister Panin as friendly to the Czarevitch, but in view of the fact that Panin betrayed his trust during Catherine’s Revolution and could only expect punishment on Paul’s accession, the other theory of his enmity towards the Czarevitch seems most likely.

In the first despatch delivered to the Empress in Chapter One I have mentioned Orenburg as the town attacked by Pugachev, when in fact it fell later on in the campaign.

The incident of Paul’s intended arrest and Potemkin’s intervention is fiction, inserted for dramatic effect and I hope excused by its probability under the circumstances.

Countess Bruce had lost Catherine’s favour some time before the advent of Plato Zubov, but to avoid confusion by introducing a new lady-in-waiting I have ignored this.

I have found no record of Paul’s attendance at Potemkin’s last ball, though the descriptions are those of eye-witnesses, but I have assumed that on such an occasion the Czarevitch and his wife would have been present. They were travelling between Gatchina and the capital quite frequently at that time.

I have scarcely mentioned young Nicholas Panin, nephew of the old Minister and one of the conspirators in the plot to murder Paul, in order to avoid confusion with his uncle who had been dead for many years. Nicholas Panin’s part in the plot was always subservient to von Pahlen’s, and he did not take part in the actual murder.

EVELYN ANTHONY