Catherine, that hare-brained young lady, apparently was very happy to follow Bestuzhev in this scandalous about- face. She always had shown herself to be too much impressed with the French spirit! Her Majesty’s fury was a combination of political frustration and wounded personal pride.
She regretted having trusted Bestuzhev to conduct the international talks, when the vice-chancellor, Vorontsov, and the Shuvalov brothers had been advising her to bide her time.
In order to try to limit the damage, she hastily convened a “conference” in February 1756, where Bestuzhev, Vorontsov, the Shuvalov brothers, Prince Trubestkoy, General Alexander Buturlin, General Apraxin and Admiral Golytsin met under her effective presidency. All these minds, working together, would find a way out of this mess - if anyone could! In the worst case they had to decide whether, assuming a confrontation did take place, Russia could accept “subsidies” in exchange for its neutrality. Draped in imperial honor, Elizabeth said no. But then came word that Louis XV was on the verge of signing a pact of reciprocal military assistance with Maria Theresa, in Austria. Bound by its former engagements to Austria, Russia became, at the same time, an ally of France.
Trapped in spite of herself by Louis XV and Maria Theresa, Elizabeth was obliged to take on Frederick II and George II.
Should she be pleased or frightened? All around her, the courtiers were divided between national pride, shame at having betrayed their friends of yesterday, and fear that there would be a high
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Her Majesty and Their Imperial Highnesses price to pay for this unnecessary change of course. Behind closed doors, it was said that the Grand Duchess Catherine, Bestuzhev, and perhaps even the empress had been bribed to launch the country into a useless war.
Indifferent to these rumors, Elizabeth was astonished to find herself in the position of an unalienable friend of France. Standing tall in the face of misfortune, she hosted a reception on May 7 in honor of Mackenzie Douglas (who was back in St. Petersburg after a brief diplomatic eclipse), and acknowledged him with attention, respect and promises. A few days later, the rather weird Charles de Beaumont (called the Chevalier d’Eon de Beaumont) arrived. This ambiguous and seductive character had already made an initial appearance in Russia; he had worn women’s clothing at that time. The elegance of his gowns and the brilliance of his conversation had so impressed the empress that she occasionally had invited him to come and “read” to her. However, now the Chevalier d’Eon was parading in front of her in men’s clothing.
But whether he presented himself in a skirt or in breeches, she still found him brimming with grace and spirit. Which was his real gender? Elizabeth didn’t much care - she showed up both ways, herself, at court masquerades! The main thing was that this gentleman embodied French intelligence and taste. He brought with him a personal letter from the Prince de Conti. The cordial terms of the message touched her more surely than the usual flattery from the ambassadors. Without a moment’s hesitation, she declared to him: “I do not wish for any third party or any mediators in a meeting with the King [Louis XV]. I ask of him only truthfulness, sincerity and perfect reciprocity in what we decide between us.” This was a straightforward and unambiguous declaration: more than a testimony of confidence, it read like an international declaration of love.
Elizabeth would have liked to take some time to savor this
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Terrible Tsarinas honeymoon with France, but her insomnia and ill-health no longer left her any respite. The repeated bouts of illness made her fear that she might even lose her wits before winning a decisive victory in the war in which she had been involved, against her wishes, by the game of alliances. And here was Frederick II, taking his enemies by surprise and opening hostilities by invading Saxony without notice.1 The first engagements were to his advantage. Dresden was taken by storm, the Austrians were defeated in Prague, and the Saxons in Pirna. Forced to stand by her Austrian allies, Elizabeth was resigned to intervening. At her command, General Apraxin, appointed Field Marshal, left St. Petersburg and massed his troops in Riga. When Louis XV dispatched the Marquis de l’Hopital to exhort the tsarina to take action, she entrusted to Mikhail Bestuzhev (the chancellor’s conveniently Francophile brother) the task of signing Russia to the treaty of Versailles. This was done on December 31, 1756.
Secretly embarrassed by taking this ostentatious stand, Elizabeth still hoped that the spreading conflict would not set ablaze all of Europe. She was also afraid that Louis XV might be using her in order to secure a rapprochement, no longer provisional but permanent, with Austria. As if to prove her right, in May 1757 Louis XV proclaimed the need to confirm his commitment to Maria Theresa, in a new alliance intended to bar Prussia from possibly compromising the peace in Europe. Elizabeth surmised that, under this generous pretext, the king was dissimulating a more subtle intention. While declaring solidarity with Russia, he most particularly wanted to ensure that Russia would not seek to expand at the expense of its two neighbors, Poland and Sweden, who were traditional allies of France. As long as Louis XV was playing this double game, he could not play squarely with Elizabeth. She would have to keep stringing along the envoys from Versailles. She wondered whether Alexis Bestuzhev, hob«206»
Her Majesty and Their Imperial Highnesses bled by his British sympathies, was still qualified to defend the interests of the country. The chancellor, steadfastly proclaiming his patriotism and integrity, would prefer to see an AngloPrussian coalition triumph over an Austro-French coalition (thanks in particular to Russia’s inaction); but meanwhile, the empress’s lover Ivan Shuvalov had never disguised his penchant for France, its literature, its fashions and, far more important, its political interests. Elizabeth was caught as never before in the struggle between her favorite and her chancellor, the inclinations of her heart (which leaned toward Versailles) and the objections of her mind, which stumbled over her obligations to Berlin.
Critical decisions had to be made, but the daily worries and the recrudescence of her illness undermined her physical stamina a little more every day. She sometimes had hallucinations; she moved to a different bed-chamber because she felt threatened by a faceless enemy; she implored the icons to come to her aid; and once, when she blacked out, she had considerable difficulty pulling together her thoughts again after she regained consciousnes s.
Her fatigue was so profound that she would have liked to give up; but circumstances obliged her to go on.
She knew that behind her back they were already murmuring about the question of her successor. If she were suddenly to die the next day, who would receive the crown? According to tradition, her successor could be only her nephew, Peter. But she rankled at the idea that Russia should go to pieces in the hands of that half-mad, malicious maniac, who paraded around from morning to night in a Holstein uniform. It would be better to declare him incompetent, right now, and to designate the grand duke’s two-year-old son, Paul Petrovich, as sole heir. However, that would mean offering the role of regent to Catherine, whom Elizabeth hated as much for her good looks as for her youth, intelligence and many intrigues. Moreover, the grand duchess had lately
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Terrible Tsarinas teamed up with Alexis Bestuzhev. Those two would soon make a mess of all her carefully- laid plans.
This prospect profoundly aggravated the tsarina - then, suddenly, she stopped caring. What difference did it make for her to be concerned with the events of the future, since she presumably would not be there anymore to suffer from them? She was unable to make decisions even concerning the immediate future, and put off the tires ome burden of deciding whether to depose her nephew and hand over the reins of power to her grandson and
