Catherine Dolgorukov - Later Life

Later Life

After the Tsar's death, Catherine received a pension of approximately 3.4 million rubles and agreed to give up the right to live in the Winter Palace or any of the Imperial residences in Russia in return for a separate residence for herself and the three children. She settled in Paris and on the Riviera, where she became known as a fashionable hostess and was used to having twenty servants and a private railway car, though the Romanov Family continued to look upon her and her children with disdain. Tsar Alexander III had his secret police spy on her and received reports on her activities in France. Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia used illness as an excuse to avoid socializing with her in 1895. Tsar Nicholas II recalled that Catherine was offended when he refused to be the sponsor when her daughter Olga married the Count of Merenberg in the spring of 1895. His mother, the dowager empress, had been appalled by the idea, so Nicholas declined. Catherine's son George was an abysmal failure in the Russian Navy, as Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia informed her by letter, but he was granted a place in the Cavalry School. Catherine survived her husband by forty-one years and died just as her money was running out.