Terrible tsarinas

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Elizabeth’s Triumph sign of the cross and cheering Her with wishes for a long life.

Whenever the cavalcade came within sight of a monastery, the bells would ring and the monks and nuns would come out of their sanctuaries in a procession to display their most prized icons before the daughter of Peter the Great.

Elizabeth never tired of the repetition of this folksy homage; to her, it already seemed like just a pleasant routine. Still, she did permit herself a few days’ respite at Vsesvyatskoye before completing the trip. At dawn on April 17, 1741 she made her entrance into Moscow, with every bell in the city chiming a greeting. On April 23, heralds proclaimed at the crossroads the news of the upcoming coronation. Two days later, announced by a salvo of artillery fire, the procession was formed.

In a gesture of supreme coquetry towards France, to which she still had no lasting ties, Elizabeth had entrusted to a Frenchman by the name of Rochambeau the responsibility fo r ensuring the elegance and brilliance of the event. To get from the famous “red staircase” that decorated the facade of her palace to the Cathedral of the Assumption across the plaza inside the Kremlin, she advanced, hieratic, under a canopy. Twenty pages in white livery embroidered in gold carried her train. Every region of the empire was represented by its delegates, who made up a silent but colorful escort, matching its pace to that of the priests at the head of the procession. The Reverend Father Ambroise, assisted by Stephan, Bishop of Pskov, made the sign of the cross and welcomed the procession into the immense nave. Sprinkled with holy water, enveloped in the fumes of incense, Elizabeth accepted the sacramental signs of the apotheosis with a studied blend of dignity and humility. The liturgy proceeded according to an immutable rite: it was the very one that had honored Peter the Great, Catherine I and, barely eleven years ago, the pitiful Anna Ivanovna who was guilty of trying to pull the throne out from under the