Terrible Tsarinas

duced to the splendors of art, literature, and science in the arms of

a man who was a living encyclopedia must be one of the pleasant-

est methods of education. Elizabeth seemed to be so happy with

this arrangement that Razumovsky did not even think of re-

proaching 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. Peters-

burg. Aware of her own ignorance, she must have enjoyed the

irony and felt proud to preside over the awakening of the intellec-

tual 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, Chan-

cellor Bestuzhev guessed that his own preeminence was threat-

ened 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

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Terrible Tsarinas

the students in the Cadet Academy, this Adonis was called up to

serve in the army. He was brought back to St. Petersburg, where

he could again be placed before Her Majesty, but it was no use.

The Shuvalov clan made short work of him. Out of pure friend-

ship, they recommended a certain face cream to him; and, when

Beketov tried it, red spots broke out on his face and he was smit-

ten with a high fever. In his delusion, he made indecent com-

ments about Her Majesty. He was driven out the palace and never

managed to set foot there again, leaving the way clear for Ivan

Shuvalov and Alexis Razumovsky, who both accepted and re-

spected each other.

Under their combined influence, the tsarina gave way to her

passion for building, seeking to prove herself a worthy heir to Pe-

ter the Great by embellishing his city, St. Petersburg. She spared

no expense in renovating the Winter Palace, and in three years

she had a summer palace built at Tsarskoye Selo, which would

become her favorite residence. The chief architect of all these

enormous projects, the Italian Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli,

also erected a church at Peterhof and designed the park surround-

ing the palace, as well as the gardens of Tsarskoye Selo. To com-

pete with Louis XV (whom she took as her model in the art of

royal ostentation), Elizabeth turned to the highly regarded Euro-

pean painters of the day, commissioning them to bequeath to the

curiosity of the future generations the portraits of Her Majesty

and her close friends. After the court painter Caravaque, she in-

vited the very famous Jean-Marc Nattier to come from France.

But he changed his mind at the last minute, and she had to settle

for his son-in-law, Louis Tocqué, who was won over by an offer of

26,000 rubles from Ivan Shuvalov. In two years, Tocqué painted

ten canvases and, at the end of his contract, passed the brush to

Louis-Joseph Le Lorraine and to Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée.2

All these artists were chosen, advised and appointed by Ivan Shu-

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Elizabethan Russia

valov — he performed his best services for the glory of his impe-

rial mistress by attracting to St. Petersburg such talented foreign

painters and architects.

Elizabeth felt it was her duty to enrich the capital with

beautiful buildings and to embellish the royal apartments with

paintings worthy of the galleries of Versailles; at the same time,

she had the ambition (although she seldom opened a book) to ini-

tiate her compatriots to the delights of the mind. She spoke

French rather well and even tried to write verse in that language

(as was the rage in all the European courts), but it soon became

clear that that pastime was beyond her abilities. On the other

hand, she encouraged a proliferation of ballet performances, on

the premise that such shows are, at least, an amusing way to par-

ticipate in the general culture. Most of the ballets were directed

by her dance master, Landet. Even more than these theatrical eve-

nings, the innumerable balls served as an occasion for the women

to exhibit their most elegant ensembles. But, at these gatherings,

they hardly spoke — neither among themselves nor with the male

guests. Social mores were still exceedingly conservative; indeed,

mixed-gender events were still something of a novelty in this

God-fearing world. The ladies, mute and stiff, would line up along

one side of the room, their eyes lowered, not looking at the gentle-

men aligned on the other side. Later on, the swirling couples also

displayed a numbing decency and slowness. “The repetitious and

always uniform attendance of these pleasures quickly becomes

tiresome,” would write the sharp-tongued Chevalier d’Éon. Simi-

larly, the Marquis de l’Hôpital told his minister, the duke of

Choiseul: “I won’t even mention the boredom; it is inexpressible!”