Lestocq’s care; if he was no longer reliable, he would have to pay.
In the night of November 11, 1748, Lestocq was yanked from
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Terrible Tsarinas his bed and thrown into a cell in the Peter and Paul Fortress. A special commission, chaired by Bestuzhev in person, with General Apraxin and Count Alexander Shuvalov as assessors, accused Lestocq of having sold out to Sweden and Prussia, of corresponding clandestinely with Johanna of Anhalt-Zerbst, mother of the Grand Duchess Catherine, and of conspiring against the empress of Russia. After being tortured, and despite his oaths of innocence, he was shipped off to Uglich, and stripped of all his possessions.
However, in a reflex of tolerance, Elizabeth granted that the condemned man’s wife could join him in his cell and, later, in exile. Perhaps she felt sorry for the fate of this man whom she had to punish, on royal principle, event though she had such positive memories of the eagerness with which he had always offered his services. Elizabeth may not have been good, but she was sensitive, and even sentimental. Incapable of granting clemency, she nonetheless had always been willing to shed tears for the victims of an epidemic in some remote country or for the poor soldiers who were risking their lives at the borders of the realm. Since she was usually presented to her subjects in a familiar and smiling guise, they, forgetting the torments, spoliations, and executions ordered under her reign, called her “The Lenient.” Even her ladies of honor, whom she sometimes thanked with a good hard slap or an insult harsh enough to make a soldier blush, would melt when, having wrongfully punished them, she would admit her fault. But it was with her morganatic husband, Razumovsky, that she showed her most affectionate and most attentive side. When the weather was cold, she would button his fur-lined coat, taking care that this gesture of marital solicitude was seen by all their entourage. Whenever he was confined to his armchair by a bout of gout - as often happened- she would sacrifice important appointments to bear him company, and life at the palace would re«182»
Elizabethan Russia turn to normal only after the patient had recovered.
However, she did allow herself to deceive him with vigorous young men like the counts Nikita Panin and Sergei Saltykov. But, of all her secondary lovers, her favorite was Shuvalov’s nephew, Ivan Ivanovich. She was attracted by this new recruit’s alluring youth and good looks, but also by his education and his knowledge of France. She, who never spent a minute reading, was filled with wonder to see him so impatient to receive the latest books that were being sent to him from Paris. At the age of 23, he was corresponding with Voltaire! With him, one could abandon oneself to love and culture, both at the same time - and without even tiring the eyes and taxing the brain! Certainly, being introduced to the splendors of art, literature, and science in the arms of a man who was a living encyclopedia must be one of the pleasantest methods of education. Elizabeth seemed to be so happy with this arrangement that Razumovsky did not even think of reproaching her for this betrayal. He even considered Ivan Shuvalov worthy of esteem and encouraged Her Majesty to pursue her pleasure and her studies with him.
With Ivan Shuvalov’s encouragement, Elizabeth founded the University of Moscow and the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. Aware of her own ignorance, she must have enjoyed the irony and felt proud to preside over the awakening of the intellectual movement in Russia, and to know that the writers and the artists of tomorrow would be so much in her debt, despite her lack of learning.
However, while Razumovsky wisely allowed himself to be supplanted by Ivan Shuvalov in Her Majesty’s good graces, Chancellor Bestuzhev guessed that his own preeminence was threatened by this rising scion of a large and ambitious clan. He tried hard to distract the tsarina with the charming Nikita Beketov; but, after having dazzled Her Majesty during a show put on by
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Terrible Tsarinas the students in the Cadet Academy, this Adonis was called up to serve in the army. He was brought back to St. Petersburg, where he could again be placed before Her Majesty, but it was no use.
The Shuvalov clan made short work of him. Out of pure friendship, they recommended a certain face cream to him; and, when Beketov tried it, red spots broke out on his face and he was smitten with a high fever. In his delusion, he made indecent comments about Her Majesty. He was driven out the palace and never managed to set foot there again, leaving the way clear for Ivan Shuvalov and Alexis Razumovsky, who both accepted and respected each other.
Under their combined influence, the tsarina gave way to her passion for building, seeking to prove herself a worthy heir to Peter the Great by embellishing his city, St. Petersburg. She spared no expense in renovating the Winter Palace, and in three years she had a summer palace built at Tsarskoye Selo, which would become her favorite residence. The chief architect of all these enormous projects, the Italian Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli, also erected a church at Peterhof and designed the park surrounding the palace, as well as the gardens of Tsarskoye Selo. To compete with Louis XV (whom she took as her model in the art of royal ostentation), Elizabeth turned to the highly regarded European painters of the day, commissioning them to bequeath to the curiosity of the future generations the portraits of Her Majesty and her close friends. After the court painter Caravaque, she invited the very famous Jean-Marc Nattier to come from France.
But he changed his mind at the last minute, and she had to settle for his son-in-law, Louis Tocque, who was won over by an offer of 26,000 rubles from Ivan Shuvalov. In two years, Tocque painted ten canvases and, at the end of his contract, passed the brush to Louis-Joseph Le Lorraine and to Louis-Jean-Francois Lagrenee.2 All these artists were chosen, advised and appointed by Ivan Shu«184»
Elizabethan Russia valov - he performed his best services for the glory of his imperial mistress by attracting to St. Petersburg such talented foreign painters and architects.
Elizabeth felt it was her duty to enrich the capital with beautiful buildings and to embellish the royal apartments with paintings worthy of the galleries of Versailles; at the same time, she had the ambition (although she seldom opened a book) to initiate her compatriots to the delights of the mind. She spoke French rather well and even tried to write verse in that language (as was the rage in all the European courts), but it soon became clear that that pastime was beyond her abilities. On the other hand, she encouraged a proliferation of ballet performances, on the premise that such shows are, at least, an amusing way to participate in the general culture. Most of the ballets were directed by her dance master, Landet. Even more than these theatrical evenings, the innumerable balls served as an occasion for the women to exhibit their most elegant ensembles. But, at these gatherings, they hardly spoke - neither among themselves nor with the male guests. Social mores were still exceedingly conservative; indeed, mixed-gender events were still something of a novelty in this God-fearing world. The ladies, mute and stiff, would line up along one side of the room, their eyes lowered, not looking at the gentlemen aligned on the other side. Later on, the swirling couples also displayed a numbing decency and slowness. “The repetitious and always uniform attendance of these pleasures quickly becomes tiresome,” would write the sharp-tongued Chevalier d’Eon. Similarly, the Marquis de l’Hopital told his minister, the duke of Choiseul: “I won’t even mention the boredom; it is inexpressible!”
Elizabeth tried to shake some life into these events by encouraging the first theater performances in the history of Russia.
She authorized the installation of a company of French actors in St. Petersburg, while the Senate granted the Hilferding Germans
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Terrible Tsarinas the privilege of staging comedies and operas in both capitals.
