Who was Elizabeth the Great?
Elizabeth of Russia
There is considerable speculation as to the actual paternity of Paul I. It is suggested that he was not Peter's son at all but that his mother had engaged in an affair, to which Elizabeth had consented, with a young officer, Sergei Vasilievich Saltykov who would have been Paul's real father.[31] In any case, Peter never gave any indication that he believed Paul to have been fathered by anyone but himself. He also did not take any interest in parenthood.[32] Elizabeth most certainly took an active interest. She removed the young Paul and acted as if she were his mother instead of Catherine.[32] The Empress had ordered the midwife to take the baby and to follow her. Catherine was not to see her child for another month and then only briefly for the churching ceremony.[33] Six months later, Elizabeth let Catherine see the child again. The child had in effect become a ward of the state and, in a larger sense, the property of the state, to be brought up by Elizabeth as she believed he should be: as a true heir and great-grandson of her father, Peter the Great.[33]