Catherine Bagration

Catherine Bagration
"Princesse Bagration" by Jean-Baptiste Isabey
Born	7 December 1783 Naples
Died	21 May or 2 June 1857 (aged 73) Venice
Burial	Isola di San Michele, Venice
Spouse	Pyotr Bagration John Hobart Caradoc
Issue	Marie-Clementine Bagration (illegitimate)
Dynasty	Bagrationi dynasty (by marriage)
Father	Pavel Skavronsky
Mother	Yekaterina von Engelhardt
Religion	Eastern Orthodox Church

Princess Catherine Bagration (Russian: Екатерина Павловна Багратион) née Skavronskaya (7 December 1783 - 21 May 1857 or 2 June 1857) was a Russian princess, married to general Pyotr Bagration. She was known for her beauty, love affairs and unconventional behaviour.

She was the daughter of Count Pavel Martinovich Skavronsky, Chamberlain of the Royal Court and Minister Plenipotentiary to Naples, well known for his mental imbalance and extraordinary love of music, and Yekaterina von Engelhardt, niece and at the same time favorite of Prince Grigory Potemkin. She was educated at the court of the Empress Catherine II the Great and the Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of her son Emperor Paul I; and later became a maid of honor for the Empress Maria.

In 1800 the Paul I of Russia, who was well known for his caprices, found out that General Pyotr Bagration, a Prince of the Bagrationi dynasty, was secretly in love with Catherine. The Emperor often used to marry members of his court off to each other, and one day at the Palace of Gatchina he suddenly announced that it was his intention to attend the marriage of General Bagration and Countess Catherine Skavronskaya. The Countess was said to be in love with Count Peter von der Pahlen, and even the prospective groom was shocked. Nobody however dared to argue with the monarch, and the wedding took place on 2 September in the chapel of the Gatchina Palace, near St. Petersburg.

This is what General Louis Alexandre Andrault de Langéron had to say about this union : "Bagration married the young niece of the great Prince Potemkin. This rich and lustrous partner did not suit him. Bagration was a mere soldier, with the tone and manners of one, and he was extremely ugly. His wife was as white as he was black, and she was as beautiful as an angel, bright, the liveliest of the beauties of St.Petersburg; she would not be happy with such a husband for long...".