 Potemkin had no legitimate descendants, though it is probable he had illegitimate issue. Four of his five sisters lived long enough to bear children, but only the daughters of his sister Marfa Elena (sometimes rendered as'Helen') received Potemkin's special attention. The five unmarried Engelhardt sisters arrived in court in 1775 on the direction of their recently widowed father Vassily. Legend suggests Potemkin soon seduced many of the girls, one of whom was twelve or thirteen at the time. An affair with the third eldest, Varvara, can be verified; after that had subsided, Potemkin formed close — and probably amorous — relationships successively with Alexandra, the second eldest, and Ekaterina, the fifth.
