Terrible tsarinas

II.

After a brief moment of despair, the Grand Duke Peter went back to believing in the German miracle. As for Elizabeth, dazed by the hymns, the artillery salvos, the ringing bells and the diplomatic congratulations, finally was delighted to be able to pause

Terrible Tsarinas and reflect. Her bellicose temper was followed by a gradual return to reason: what harm would it do to allow Frederick II, having been taught a good lesson, to stay on his throne for a while?

The main objective, surely, was to conclude an arrangement that was acceptable to all parties. But alas! it seems that France, at one time disposed to listen to the tsarina’s concerns, returned to its old protectionist ways and recoiled at the thought of leaving her with a free hand in Eastern Prussia and Poland. One would almost think that Louis XV and his advisers, who had so ardently sought her assistance against Prussia and England, now feared that she would take too large a role in the European game, should victory be theirs.

To back up the Marquis de l’Hopital, who was getting a bit old and tired, Versailles appointed the young baron of Breteuil. He arrived in St. Petersburg, all full of life. He was charged by the duke of Choiseul with convincing the Empress to delay further military operations in order not to “increase the embarrassments of the king of Prussia,” since that could compromise the signing of a peace accord. At least, that is what the French envoy in Elizabeth’s entourage was told. She was shocked by this call for moderation at the very hour when the spoils were to be divided. In front of Ambassador Esterhazy who, in the name of the AustroRussian alliance, accused General Peter Saltykov of foot-dragging and thus helping England (whom he hinted might be paying for this indirect assistance), she flushed red with indignation and exclaimed: “We have never made a promise that we did not endeavor to hold ourselves to!… I will never allow that glory, bought at the price of the precious blood of our subjects, to be sullied by suspicions of insincerity!” And, in fact, at the end of the third year of a senseless war, she could say that Russia was the only power in the coalition that seemed ready to make every sacrifice to obtain the capitulation of Prussia.