A packet of love letters in which the 19th century Czar Alexander II declares he belongs ”body and soul” to his 20 year-old mistress, Katia, is to be sold in Paris, auctioneers Christie’s said this week.
The collection of 11 letters from the Czar from February 1868 and another 11 letters from his young mistress from October 1871 is expected to fetch 3,000-15,000 euros ($3,992-19,960) per letter when they are sold on May 15, Christie’s said.
“Their relationship was a long one and they wrote to each other for 15 years, sometimes several times a day,” said Christoph Auvermann, head of books at Christie’s in Paris.
A separate packet of letters from the correspondence, most of which is held in a Moscow museum, was sold last November for a total of 131,400 euros.
Alexander II fell passionately in love with the teenaged Yekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova after an encounter in 1866 and installed her as his mistress near the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg where she could enter through a secret stairway.
They had four children and were married in 1880 after the death of Alexander’s first wife but their union lasted less than a year before the Czar was assassinated by revolutionaries.
The letters, written mainly in French, the language commonly used by the Russian aristocracy, bear witness to the passion that inspired the 1959 film melodrama “Magnificent Sinner” starring Austrian actress Romy Schneider.
“I believe I have shown you, by coming to see you twice, despite your sulking...you know perfectly well what the only reason for it is and you cannot dare to doubt the being who belongs to you body and soul and who only breathes through you,” one letter from Alexander reads.
‘Not so different from anyone else’
“I saw in your eyes that you wanted to throw yourself on me to forget everything and enjoy our ’bingerle’,” he continues, using a word Christie’s says was “born in the imagination of Katia and signifies ’making love’.”
“It’s always interesting to see how these people in high places are not so different from anyone else,” said Auvermann.
“And by offering a sequence of letters you have quite a good insight into what they were doing and how intense their relationship was,” he said.
Following the Czar’s assassination, Katia settled in the French resort of Biarritz and held on stubbornly to the letters despite attempts by Russia to get them back.
“For the imperial family, it was quite embarrassing because it showed their relationship went on during his marriage” Auvermann said.
“But people are always interested in these things. It’s like reading a story in a magazine like Paris Match.”