Within months of their wedding Praskovia became pregnant. On February 3, 1803 she gave birth to a son, Dmitry. However, the burden of her illness plus pregnancy and childbirth was too much for her system and she died on February 23, at the Sheremetev palace in St. Petersburg. Just before she died Nikolai informed Emperor Alexander I of his marriage and requested official recognition, which Alexander granted. News of the marriage scandalized society and angered Nikolai's family. Nikolai's two nephews, the Razumovsky brothers, had planned to inherit their uncle's vast fortune, and upon hearing that they were to lose it all to the son of a serf they contemplated murdering the infant.