Terrible tsarinas

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Elizabeth’s Triumph allegorical ballet illustrating the return of “The Golden Age” to Russia, La Chetardie was terrified to learn that a letter addressed by Amelot de Chailloux to the French ambass ador in Turkey had been intercepted by the Austrian secret service; the letter contained insulting criticism against the tsarina and prophesized the collapse of the Russian Empire, “which cannot help but dissolve into complete nothingness.” Horrified by this diplomatic blunder, the silver-tongued La Chetardie hoped that he could find a way to attenuate its impact on the mood of the very sensitive empress; but she felt deeply wounded by the minister’s faux pas. Lestocq intervened, making valiant efforts to defend France by asserting that La Chetardie and Amelot were devoted to the idea of a French-Russian agreement, but Elizabeth refused to take the bait this time. She had finally lost confidence entirely in the ambassador and the country that he represented. When La Chetardie arrived, to plead his innocence in a misunderstanding that he “deplored and renounced” as much as she did, Elizabeth kept him waiting for two hours in her antechamber, among her ladies of honor; then she came out of her private apartments to tell him that she could receive him neither that day nor in the days to come, and that henceforth he would have to address himself to her foreign minister, in other words to Alexis Bestuzhev, since “Russia does not need, Sir, any intermediary” in dealing with any country whatsoever.

Despite the severe put-down, La Chetardie clung to the hope that a reconciliation could be effected. He protested, he wrote to his government, and he begged Lestocq to intercede with Her Majesty Elizabeth I once more. Didn’t she have full confidence in his prescriptions, be they medical or diplomatic? Lestocq had, sometimes, provided medicines that seemed to be effective against the mild complaints from which she suffered, but his political exhortations fell flat. Elizabeth had stopped listening; she was