Louisa by Louisa Thomas

looked at Kitty directly and said he expected to meet them every day.
    This was not all. At a ball at the French ambassador’s house in May 1810 to celebrate the marriage of Napoleon and the Austrian archduchess Marie Louise, the tsar asked Louisa to dance, which she understood to be a great honor. Then he asked her where her sister was, and soon he had Kitty by the hand. As they danced, Kitty—too unaware, or too uncaring, of the rigid etiquette that should have restrained her—laughed and flirted, treating the tsar like an American suitor and not a god. Charmed, he prolonged the dance, delaying the ambassador’s dinner for twenty-five minutes as the pair circled the hall, sweeping past courtiers, leaving gossip in their wake. When the following winter’s social season began, an invitation to the theater at the Hermitage arrived, and Miss Catherine Johnson was included. Since Kitty held no position with the legation and had never been formally presented, there was some doubt about what to do until the master of ceremonies assured John Quincy that the emperor had taken the pen in hand and written Miss Catherine Johnson’s name himself. The group of Americans was also invited to use the royal entrance, normally granted only to diplomats of ambassadorial (not ministerial) rank. It was, the Monsieur de Maisonneuve said with some astonishment, “a very extraordinary distinction.”
    These very extraordinary marks of distinction were flattering to the United States, but not so flattering to Kitty’s reputation, and they troubled Louisa. There were already whispers and wolfish grins. Butshe also knew, she later wrote, that there was a danger in refusing the tsar. Everything followed from Alexander: if he wanted to make Kitty suffer, the United States could suffer too. The distinctions between world politics and social contretemps were not as clear as someone like John Quincy would have liked to allow. In 1810–11, Alexander’s desire for ships, his desire to send the French a message, his desire to lure Kitty into bed were overlaid. Of these, Kitty was only a speck to the tsar, only an idle desire, one passing interest among many. Still, Kitty drew the emperor’s eye toward the Americans. He lingered with them, having ways and reasons to flatter them. Louisa had to be both her sister’s protector and her husband’s wife, and a republican and a courtier—in this instance, conflicting roles. In the end, she let the mild flirtation play out until it dissipated, as the emperor’s flirtations tended to do. For as long as it was innocent, it was amusing, and perhaps it was a slight advantage.
    The French ambassador Caulaincourt, whose regular mistress was the wife of a Russian military officer, once told Louisa she was too solemn for one so pretty. “When we were at Rome we must do as Rome,” he said.
    She coyly replied, “If I should go to Rome perhaps I might.”
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    B Y M AY 1811 , the mood had shifted. Caulaincourt was recalled to France. Napoleon was furious with Alexander’s provocations against France, and a war between their countries loomed. The city’s elite alternated between fervor and droll optimism as the soldiers began to muster and march. But Louisa’s attention was elsewhere. In June, the tsar bought their apartment building on Nevsky Prospect from the Adamses’ landlord, and so, while seven months pregnant, she had to pack up and quickly move. John Quincy rented a dacha in a profusion of flowers on Apothecary Island, northeast of the city, with views ofthe river and one of the tsar’s palaces. John Quincy called it their “Russian Arcadia.” Outside, barges floated by with musicians serenading the imperial family. Louisa kept the windows and doors open to hear it. She needed the refuge, the calm, the distractions. She was terrified at the prospect of giving birth.
    Her family at home