unassailable.
Such a marriage would represent an unprecedented triumph, for the diplomat and for peace.
Resolving to bet everything on this last card, La Chetardie went after Maurice of Saxony; he had entered Prague as a conqueror, at the head of a French army, just a few months before.
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Elizabeth’s Triumph Without revealing to him his precise plans, he urged Saxony to come quickly to Russia where, he claimed, the tsarina would be very happy to receive him. Enticed by this prestigious invitation, Maurice of Saxony could not say no. He soon arrived in Moscow, still glowing with his military successes. Elizabeth, who had long since guessed what was behind this unexpected visit, had some fun with this semi-gallant, semi-political rendezvous dreamt up by the incorrigible French ambassador. Maurice of Saxony was a handsome man and a fine talker; she was charmed by this belated suitor that La Chetardie had pulled from his sleeve. They danced together, and chatted for hours on end, in private; Elizabeth strolled about town at his side, dressed in men’s clothes; watched the “commemorative” fireworks with him, and sighed languorously by the moonlit windows of the palace; but neither she nor he expressed the least sentiment that might commit them for the future. They allowed themselves to enjoy a pleasant game of flirtation, as a respite from their daily lives, both knowing that this exchange of smiles, intimate looks and compliments would lead to nothing. La Chetardie fanned the coals in vain; the fire would not take. After a few weeks of playing at love, Maurice of Saxony left Moscow to shape up his now sloppy and disorganized army, which was rumored to be on the verge of evacuating Prague.
As he headed out to achieve his destiny as a great soldier in the service of France, he wrote love letters to Elizabeth praising her beauty, her majesty, and her grace, evoking one “particularly successful” evening, a certain “white moire gown,” a certain supper where it was not the wine that was intoxicating, the nighttime ride around the Kremlin… She read the letters, melted, and was a little bit saddened to find herself alone again after the exaltation of this artificial courtship. When Bestuzhev advised her to enter into an alliance with England (a country that, in the opinion of the empress, had the flaw of too often being hostile to Ver«143»
Terrible Tsarinas sailles’ policies), she replied that she would never be the enemy of France, “for I am too much beholden!” Whom could she have had in mind, in making a pronouncement that so exposed her intimate feelings? Louis XV, whom she had never met, to whom she had been promised in marriage only by chance and who so often had betrayed her confidence? The crafty La Chetardie who, likewise, was about to leave her? Her obscure governess, Mme. Latour, or the part-time tutor, Mr. Rambour, who in her youth at Ismailovo had taught her the subtleties of the French language? Or Maurice of Saxony, who penned such beautiful love letters but whose heart remained cold?
La Chetardie was at last recalled by his government, and he was preparing for his final audience before leaving the palace when Elizabeth called him in and spontaneously suggested that he accompany her on the pilgrimage she wished to make to the
[Holy Trinity] Troitsky-St. Sergievsky Monastery, just north of Moscow.* Flattered by this return to grace, the ambassador traveled with her to this high holy place. Lodged very comfortably with the tsarina’s retinue, he did not leave her side for eight days.
To be frank, Elizabeth was delighted by this discreet “companionship.” She took La Chetardie with her to visit the churches as well as in the drawing rooms. The courtiers were already whispering that the “Gaulois” was about to replace Maurice of Saxony in Her Majesty’s favor.
But, as soon as the little imperial band returned to St. Petersburg, La Chetardie had to admit that once more he had begun to rejoice too soon. Getting a hold on herself after a brief and very feminine lapse, Elizabeth once again took a very cool, even distant, tone with La Chetardie, as in their earlier conversations. Time * Ed. note: This was one of the earliest and most influential religious centers in Russia and, indeed, helped to concentrate power in Moscow during the Middle Ages.
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Elizabeth’s Triumph and again, she made appointments with him and then broke them, and one day when he complained to her about Bestuzhev, whose ostracism of France was close to an obsession (according to the Fernchman), she set him in his place with a few sharp words. “We do not condemn people before proving their crimes!”6 However, the day before La Chetardie’s departure, she sent him a snuffbox studded with diamonds, with her portrait in miniature in the middle.
The day after this necessary separation from a character who charmed and irritated her by turns, Elizabeth was as sad as if she had lost a dear friend. While La Chetardie was stopped at a stagehouse along the way, an emissary from Elizabeth caught up with him. The man handed him a note in a sealed envelope, bearing only the words: “France will be in my heart forever.”7 That sounds like the wail of a lover who has been forsaken - but by whom? By an ambassador? By a king? By France itself? Her feelings must have been quite confused, by now. While her subjects may have been entitled to dream, that innocent diversion was off limits for her. Abandoned by someone whom she had always claimed was of no importance, it was time to come back to reality and to focus on the succession to the throne, rather than thinking about her life as a woman.
On November 7, 1742, she published a proclamation solemnly dubbing Duke Charles Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp Grand Duke, crown prince and Imperial Highness, under the Russian name of Peter Fyodorovich. She took this occasion to confirm her intention not to marry. In fact, she was afraid that if she married a man of lower rank, or a foreign prince, she would be letting down not only the brave men of the Leib-Kompania but all the Russians who were so attached to the memory of her father, Peter the Great. Better to remain unwed, s he thought. To be worthy of the role that she intended to play, she would have to forego any
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Terrible Tsarinas union officially sanctioned by the Church and remain faithful to her image as the maiden- tsar, “the imperial Virgin,” already celebrated by Russian legend.
On the other hand, she was beginning to see that the youth whom she had selected to be her heir, whom she had had baptized into the Orthodox faith under the name of Peter Fyodorovich and who had so very little Russian blood in his veins, was never going to forget his true fatherland. In fact, despite the efforts of his mentor, Simon Todorsky, Grand Duke Peter always returned instinctively to his origins. Besides, it was hard not to continue worshiping his native Germany when everything about the society, the streets and the shops of St. Petersburg reflected its influence so strongly. It was clear that the majority of influential people in the palace and in the ministries spoke German more fluently than Russian, and along the very luxurious Nevsky Prospect, many of the stores were German; elsewhere, signs of the Hanseatic League were in evidence, and there were plenty of Lutheran churches. When Peter Fyodorovich showed up at a barracks guardroom, during a walk about town, the officer he addressed would often answer him in German. And with every reminder of his homeland, Peter regretted being exiled in this city that, despite its splendors, meant less to him than the most trivial village of Schleswig- Holstein.
Forced to acclimatize himself, he took an aversion to the Russian vocabulary, Russian grammar, and Russian ways. He resented Russia for not being German, and he took to saying, “I was not born for the Russians, and I do not like them!” Living at the center of this great land of foreigners, he chose his friends from among the declared Germanophiles, and put together a little homeland to console himself. He surrounded himself with a close circle of sympathizers, and pretended to live with them in Russia as if their mission were to colonize that backward and unculti«146»
