The Great gives Catherine a designated lover in the form of sweet, seemingly perfect Leo Voronsky. While Leo himself was not a real person, he's loosely based on the real story of Catherine's life. Even early on in her marriage to Peter, Catherine took lovers (as did Peter), according to History. Her first lover was Sergei Saltykov, a popular young officer who seems to be the closest inspiration for the character of Leo. In her own memoirs, Catherine later implied heavily that her son and successor Paul was actually Saltykov's son, not Peter III's; historians disagree as to whether or not she was telling the truth.