Terrible Tsarinas

and perhaps even the empress had been bribed to launch the

country into a useless war.

Indifferent to these rumors, Elizabeth was astonished to find

herself in the position of an unalienable friend of France. Standing

tall in the face of misfortune, she hosted a reception on May 7 in

honor of Mackenzie Douglas (who was back in St. Petersburg af-

ter a brief diplomatic eclipse), and acknowledged him with atten-

tion, respect and promises. A few days later, the rather weird

Charles de Beaumont (called the Chevalier d’Éon de Beaumont)

arrived. This ambiguous and seductive character had already

made an initial appearance in Russia; he had worn women’s cloth-

ing at that time. The elegance of his gowns and the brilliance of

his conversation had so impressed the empress that she occasion-

ally had invited him to come and “read” to her. However, now the

Chevalier d’Éon was parading in front of her in men’s clothing.

But whether he presented himself in a skirt or in breeches, she

still found him brimming with grace and spirit. Which was his

real gender? Elizabeth didn’t much care — she showed up both

ways, herself, at court masquerades! The main thing was that this

gentleman embodied French intelligence and taste. He brought

with him a personal letter from the Prince de Conti. The cordial

terms of the message touched her more surely than the usual flat-

tery from the ambassadors. Without a moment’s hesitation, she

declared to him: “I do not wish for any third party or any media-

tors in a meeting with the King [Louis XV]. I ask of him only

truthfulness, sincerity and perfect reciprocity in what we decide

between us.” This was a straightforward and unambiguous decla-

ration: more than a testimony of confidence, it read like an inter-

national declaration of love.

Elizabeth would have liked to take some time to savor this

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Terrible Tsarinas

honeymoon with France, but her insomnia and ill-health no

longer left her any respite. The repeated bouts of illness made her

fear that she might even lose her wits before winning a decisive

victory in the war in which she had been involved, against her

wishes, by the game of alliances. And here was Frederick II, tak-

ing his enemies by surprise and opening hostilities by invading

Saxony without notice.1 The first engagements were to his advan-

tage. Dresden was taken by storm, the Austrians were defeated in

Prague, and the Saxons in Pirna. Forced to stand by her Austrian

allies, Elizabeth was resigned to intervening. At her command,

General Apraxin, appointed Field Marshal, left St. Petersburg and

massed his troops in Riga. When Louis XV dispatched the Mar-

quis de l’Hôpital to exhort the tsarina to take action, she en-

trusted to Mikhail Bestuzhev (the chancellor’s conveniently Fran-

cophile brother) the task of signing Russia to the treaty of Ver-

sailles. This was done on December 31, 1756.

Secretly embarrassed by taking this ostentatious stand,

Elizabeth still hoped that the spreading conflict would not set

ablaze all of Europe. She was also afraid that Louis XV might be

using her in order to secure a rapprochement, no longer provi-

sional but permanent, with Austria. As if to prove her right, in

May 1757 Louis XV proclaimed the need to confirm his commit-

ment to Maria Theresa, in a new alliance intended to bar Prussia

from possibly compromising the peace in Europe. Elizabeth sur-

mised that, under this generous pretext, the king was dissimulat-

ing a more subtle intention. While declaring solidarity with Rus-

sia, he most particularly wanted to ensure that Russia would not

seek to expand at the expense of its two neighbors, Poland and

Sweden, who were traditional allies of France. As long as Louis

XV was playing this double game, he could not play squarely with

Elizabeth. She would have to keep stringing along the envoys

from Versailles. She wondered whether Alexis Bestuzhev, hob-

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Her Majesty and Their Imperial Highnesses

bled by his British sympathies, was still qualified to defend the

interests of the country. The chancellor, steadfastly proclaiming

his patriotism and integrity, would prefer to see an Anglo-

Prussian coalition triumph over an Austro-French coalition

(thanks in particular to Russia’s inaction); but meanwhile, the

empress’s lover Ivan Shuvalov had never disguised his penchant

for France, its literature, its fashions and, far more important, its

political interests. Elizabeth was caught as never before in the

struggle between her favorite and her chancellor, the inclinations

of her heart (which leaned toward Versailles) and the objections

of her mind, which stumbled over her obligations to Berlin.

Critical decisions had to be made, but the daily worries and

the recrudescence of her illness undermined her physical stamina

a little more every day. She sometimes had hallucinations; she

moved to a different bed-chamber because she felt threatened by a

faceless enemy; she implored the icons to come to her aid; and