Elizabeth of Russia

“ I helped her to put on her mantilla.
“If I live a hundred years I shall not forget this,” she whispered, with a happy smile, shaking me warmly by the hand. “You have kept your word. All is being fulfilled. I shall soon be in Russia, and once there—why not hope? They will proclaim the future Empress Elizabeth II.... Oh! now is the time for wonders. The present empress, what was she a little while ago?” ”

“ This revolution was accepted by the people with the loudest demonstrations of joy. The memory of Peter the Great was enshrined in every heart, and all exulted in placing the crown upon his daughter's brow. The next morning, at the head of the royal guards and all the other troops of the metropolis, Elizabeth was proclaimed Empress of Russia. In one week from this time, the deposed infant emperor, Ivan, who was then thirteen months old, was sent, with his parents, from Petersburg to Riga, where they were for a long time detained in a castle as prisoners. ”

“ She said that she did not wish any blood to be shed, and added: "I swear to die for you; will you swear to die for me?" They made the oath. When she returned to the palace, the regent, the infant czar, and the German members of the Government were arrested. Ivan VI was sent to a fortress near the Swedish frontier. The Germans were brought before a court and condemned to death, but Elizabeth commuted the sentence to exile. After this she went to Moscow, where she was crowned as czarina. Her next act was to send for her nephew, Peter, the son of her sister Anne of Holstein. ”

“ But amicable relations were soon restored between Elizabeth and her barbarian admirer. If she had heard of his awful vengeance in 1571, she had also heard of the massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris in 1572!
Russia had now opened diplomatic relations with the Western kingdoms. The foreign ambassadors were received with great pomp in a sumptuous hall hung with tapestries and blazing with gold and silver. The Tsar, with crown and scepter, sat upon his throne, supported by the roaring lions, and carefully studied the new ambassador as he suavely asked him about his master. ”

“ The party opposed to Bestoujeff were in favour of France, her protégée Sweden, and the king of Prussia. The Marquis de la Chétardie was the soul of this party; the courtiers from Holstein its prominent personages. They had gained over Lestocq, one of the principal actors in the revolution which had placed Elizabeth on the throne of Russia. He had a large share in her confidence. He had been her surgeon since the death of the Empress Catherine I, to whose household he had also been attached, and had rendered essential services to both mother and daughter. ”

“ The Empress Elizabeth had recalled this Duke from Siberia, whither he had been exiled under the regency of the Princess Anne. There, the Duke was living with his wife, his sons, and his daughter. This daughter was neither handsome nor pretty, nor well made, for she was humpbacked, and rather small; but she had fine eyes, much intelligence, and a singular talent for intrigue. Her parents were not very fond of her; she pretended, indeed, that they constantly ill-treated her. One day she fled from home, and took refuge with the wife of the Waiwode of Yaroslav, Madame Pouchkine. ”

“ Petersburg, she having been rechristened Catherine, upon adopting the Greek faith. A mutual dislike deepened into hatred between this brilliant, clever woman and her vulgar and inferior husband; and there is little doubt that the treacherous conduct of the Russian commander was part of a plan to place her infant son Paul upon the throne instead of his father, and make her Regent. Elizabeth's death was apparently at hand and the general mistrust of Peter's fitness for the position opened the way for such a conspiracy—which, however, is not known, but only suspected. ”

“ Peter's reforms and the work of civilizing Russia by the introduction of western culture and education were continued by Elizabeth. A new Russian literature and a higher learning had their birth during Elizabeth's reign. It is true that her wars weakened Russia, but they gave training to Russian generals, and prepared the ground for Elizabeth's successors. The favorites and assistants of the empress were mostly men of ability and broad aims. ”

“ In this case, we have not even a marshal reverenced by the soldiers, not even a statesman. An intriguing physician, Lestocq, and an intriguing ambassador, La Chétardie, are sufficient to carry to the throne, Elizabeth, daughter of Peter I.
Elizabeth, absorbed in pleasures and petty intrigues, little thought of overturning the government. She was led to believe that the Regent intended to shut her up in a convent. She, Elizabeth, who spent her time in the barracks of the guards, and in licentious excesses ... better make herself Empress! ”

“ She softened the brutality that had reigned supreme in Russia. She patronized the arts. Her armies twice defeated Frederick the Great and raided his capital, Berlin. Had Elizabeth lived, she would probably have crushed him.
In her early years this imperial woman had been betrothed to Louis XV. of France, but the match was broken off. Subsequently she entered into a morganatic marriage and bore a son who, of course, could not be her heir. In 1742, therefore, she looked about for a suitable successor, and chose her nephew, Prince Peter of Holstein-Gottorp. ”

“ The Marquis and Lestoc, watching the signs of the times, arrived at the conclusion that the period of the banishment of the Duke de Biren and of the assumption of the supreme power by the mother of Ivan, was also the period for effecting the revolution which was to place the Princess Elizabeth on the 60 throne of her ancestors. The dissatisfaction in Russia had, by this time, spread widely among all classes. The people chafed under a despotism inflicted on them by foreigners. ”

“ In 1753, Elizabeth and Maria Theresa entered into an agreement to resist all further augmentation of the Prussian power. In the bloody Seven Years' War between Frederic and Maria Theresa, the heart of Elizabeth was always with the Austrian queen, and for five of those years their armies fought side by side. In the year 1759, Elizabeth sent an army of one hundred thousand men into Prussia. They committed every outrage which fiends could perpetrate ”

“ Looking back upon the past to the days of Ivan the Terrible and Queen Elizabeth, and reviewing the situation in the Russian Empire to-day, and, above all, looking forward to our immediate future, it seems to me that our countrymen in Russia have had a real mission to fulfil, and have done it worthily and well. ”

“ Whether Elizabeth was struggling with her own glimmer of a conscience or with less humane counsellors it would be difficult to say. She consulted everybody. Was her life really in danger, or might she follow her impulse of humanity and let the weak-minded couple depart? Humanity was a new and rare thing in Russia.
In 1744, when Anne expected a third baby, the deposed couple were, at the instigation of Frederick of Prussia, confined in the fortress of Schlüsselburg, and four months later they were put upon sledges and driven north. ”

“ When they saw him hesitating, they relaxed the conferences, and only renewed them when they had invented some new bait for making him see things in a favourable light.
In the beginning of the spring we moved to the Summer Garden, and occupied the little house built by Peter I, the apartments of which are on a level with the garden. The stone quay, and the bridge of the Fontanka, had not then been built. In this house I had one of the most painful annoyances which I experienced during the entire reign of the Empress Elizabeth. ”

“ One is on runners, and large enough for a whole family; it has a table and benches covered with green cloth, and was used by the Empress Elizabeth in her journeys between St. Petersburg and Moscow.
"Enough of curiosities. We grew weary with seeing the relics of the rulers of Russia, though all were full of interest, and willingly followed our guide to the churches that stand within the walls of the Kremlin. The first is the Church of the Assumption, in which the emperors are crowned, and where the patriarchs formerly officiated. ”

“ RUSSIA: A. D. 1732-1733. Interference in the election of king of Poland. See POLAND: A. D. 1732-1733. RUSSIA: A. D. 1740-1762. Two regencies and two revolutions. The reign of Empress Elizabeth. The Empress Anne died in 1740. Her deceased sister, Catherine, had left a daughter, Anna, married to Anthony Ulrich, Prince of Brunswick, and this daughter had an infant son, Ivan. By the will of the Empress the child Ivan was named as her successor, and Biren was appointed Regent. He enjoyed the regency but a short time, when he was overcome by a palace conspiracy and sent in banishment to Siberia. ”

“ This instance shews, that the lenity which is now practised in Russia, is much preferable to the former severities; and is better calculated to retain those in their duty, who by a good education, have a proper sense of honour. It was absolutely necessary at that time, to use the utmost rigour towards the common people; but since their manners have been changed, the empress Elizabeth [39] has completed, by clemency, the work her father begun, by the authority of the laws. This lenity has even been carried, by this princess, to a degree unexampled, in the history of any nation. ”

“ In the mean time, Elizabeth was prosecuting with great vigor the hereditary war with Sweden. Russia was constantly gaining in this conflict, and at length the Swedes purchased peace by surrendering to the Russians extensive territories in Finland. The favor of Russia was still more effectually purchased by the Swedes choosing for their king, Adolphus Frederic, Duke of the Russian province of Holstein, and kinsman of Elizabeth. The boundaries of Russia were thus enlarged, and Sweden became almost a tributary province of the gigantic empire. ”

“ He agreed that I had been treated very cruelly; that the Empress, having chosen me at a very tender age, had abandoned me to the mercy of my enemies; and that she would do far better to banish my rivals, and especially Elizabeth Voronzoff, and keep a check upon her favourites, who had become the blood-suckers of the people, by means of the new monopolies which the Schouvaloffs were every day devising, besides which, they were daily giving the people cause to complain of their injustice, as witness the affair of Count Bestoujeff, of whose innocence the public were persuaded. ”

“ She developed the material prosperity of the country, reformed the legislation, and created new centres of population; she gave an energetic impulse to science and the national literature; she prepared the way for the alliance of France and Russia, emancipated from the German yoke; while in foreign affairs she put a stop to the threatening advance of Prussia." Elizabeth died in January, 1762. A. Rambaud, History of Russia, volume 2, chapter 6. RUSSIA: A. D. 1743. Acquisition of part of Finland from Sweden. See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN) : A. D. 1720-1792. RUSSIA: A. D. 1755. ”

“ Petersburg. The Princess Dashkoff, the youngest sister of Elizabeth Voronzoff, although she wishes to arrogate to herself all the honour of this revolution, was in very bad odour on account of her connections, while her age, which is only nineteen, was not calculated to inspire confidence. She pretends that everything passed through her to reach me, yet I was in communication with all the chiefs for six months before she even knew one of their names. It is quite true that she has great talent, but it is spoilt by her excessive ostentation and her naturally quarrelsome disposition. ”

“ I replied, “Yes.” “Well, then,” he said, “it is pleasant to have to deal with sensible people. The Emperor offers to resign. I will bring him to you after his resignation, which is entirely voluntary, and I shall save my country from a civil war.” I willingly charged him with this commission, and he departed to fulfil it.
Peter III renounced the empire at Oranienbaum, in full liberty, surrounded by fifteen hundred Holstein troops, and came to Peterhoff, accompanied by Elizabeth Voronzoff, Godowitz, and Michael Ismaïloff. ”

“ Count Ivan Schouvalof, one of Elizabeth's friends, believed in education and was given a free hand. He ordered that the priests and their children should attend school, on penalty of being whipped. He founded the University of Moscow, which has educated many learned Russians. To induce students to enter, he induced Elizabeth to (p. 182) make a law that all students should be tchins of the tenth grade, and the professors hold the eighth grade. He sent young men abroad to study and established higher schools in every Government. ”

“ At last the Empress fixed the 21st of August for the ceremony. As the day came nearer, I became more and more melancholy. My heart predicted but little happiness; ambition alone sustained me. In my inmost soul there was a something which never allowed me to doubt for a single moment that sooner or later I should become the sovereign Empress of Russia in my own right.
The marriage was celebrated with much pomp and magnificence. In the evening I found in my room Madame Krause, sister of the head lady’s-maid to the Empress, who had placed her with me as my head lady’s-maid. ”

“ On the other hand, it is not too much to say that, from the end of 1759 to the end of 1761, the unshakable firmness of the Russian empress was the one constraining political force which held together the heterogeneous, incessantly jarring elements of the anti-Prussian combination. From the Russian point of view, Elizabeth’s greatness as a statesman consists in her steady appreciation of Russian interests, and her determination to promote them at all hazards. ”