following her mother's death in 1750, the 11-year-old elizaveta was attached to the oranienbaum court of grand duke peter's wife, grand duchess catherine alekseyevna (at this time, peter was the heir to the russian imperial throne). accounts portray elizaveta as extremely uncouth: she "swore like a soldier, squinted her eyes, smelled bad, and spit while talking". baron de breteuil compared her appearance to that of a "scullery maid of the lowliest kind". catherine herself would write of her as "very ugly, extremely dirty child with an olive skin". peter, however, developed a fondness for her, which the court was at a loss to explain. catherine called elizaveta a "new madame de pompadour" (of whom she greatly disapproved), while the grand duke took to calling her "my romanova" (a pun on her patronymic, romanovna: his own surname was romanov).