Terrible tsarinas

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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