Terrible Tsarinas

ing any interest in a Russian grand duchess. The tenacious Cam-

predon now returned to his original thought. Couldn’t the nego-

tiations that had been broken off with the tsar be taken up again,

after his death, with the tsarina?

Campredon sought to persuade his government that they

could and, to prepare the ground, he redoubled his attentions to-

wards Catherine. The empress was flattered, in her maternal

pride, by the admiration the diplomat expressed for her daughter.

Wasn’t this, she thought, a premonitory sign of the warm senti-

ments that all the French would one day feel for Russia? With

emotion, she remembered Peter the Great’s fondness for little

Elizabeth, so young then, so blonde, so slender, so playful. The

gamine was only seven years old when Peter asked the French

painter Caravaque, a familiar figure at the palace in St. Petersburg,

to paint her in the nude so that he could look at her at any hour,

whenever he wished. He certainly would have been very proud to

have his child, so beautiful and so virtuous, selected for marriage

< 20 >

Catherine’s Reign: A Flash of Flamboyance

by a great prince of France. A few months after her husband’s fu-

neral, Catherine showed herself receptive to Campredon’s sugges-

tions. Matrimonial discussions were thus picked up again at the

point where they had been dropped upon the death of the tsar.

In April 1725, the rumor spread that the infanta Maria Anna

(the 7-year-old daughter of King Philip V of Spain), who was sup-

posed to have been engaged to the 15-year-old Louis XV, was

about to be sent back to her country because the French regent,

the Duke of Bourbon,3 considered her too young for the role. In-

spired, Catherine called for Campredon; he could only confirm the

news.

Catherine then waxed sympathetic over the fate of the un-

fortunate infanta, but declared that the regent’s decision did not

surprise her, for one cannot play with impunity with the sacred

candor of childhood. Then, wary of Naryshkin, the grand master

of the court who was present during this meeting, she went on in

Swedish. Praising Elizabeth’s physical and moral qualities, she

stressed the importance that the grand duchess would have on the

international chessboard in the case of a family accord with

France. She did not dare to state her thoughts outright, opting

merely to assert, with a prophetic gleam in her eyes: “We would

prefer friendship and an alliance with the King of France over all

the other princes in the world.” Her dream: that her dear little

Elizabeth, “that little royal morsel,” should become Queen of

France. How many problems would be resolved smoothly, from

one end of Europe to the other, if Louis XV agreed to become her

son-in-law! If need be, she promised, the fiancée would adopt the

Catholic religion. This offer struck Campredon very much like a

declaration of love; he dissolved in thanks and asked to be given

time to transmit the details of the proposal to his superiors. For

his part, Menshikov went to the ambassador and swore to him

that Elizabeth’s intelligence and grace were “worthy of the French

< 21 >

Terrible Tsarinas

genius,” that “she was born for France” and that she would dazzle

Versailles from her first appearance at the court. Persuaded that

the Regent would not be able to withstand these arguments, dic-

tated by sincere friendship, he went even further and suggested

supplementing the marriage of Louis XV and Elizabeth by marry-

ing the Duke of Bourbon with Maria Leszczynska, the daughter of

King Stanislaw of Poland, who was currently exiled in Wissem-

bourg. Indeed, someday this deposed sovereign might find his

way to the throne, if Russia did not find it too disadvantageous.

Secret memoranda went back and forth between the chan-

celleries for three months. To Catherine’s great surprise, no reso-

lution seemed to be forthcoming from the French. Could they

have misplayed their hand? Would they have to consider other

concessions, other compromises in order to take the top prize?

Catherine was lost in conjecture, in September 1725, when the

news broke like a thunderclap in the misty skies over St. Peters-

burg: confounding all predictions, Louis XV would marry Maria

Leszczynska, the empty-handed 22-year-old Pole, whom the Em-

press of Russia had thought of offering as a token to the Duke of

Bourbon.

This announcement was a superb snub to the tsarina. Out-

raged, she ordered Menshikov to discover the reasons behind such

a misalliance. He caught up with Campredon on his way to an

appointment between seconds, preliminary to a meeting of the

sword. Pressed with questions, the diplomat tried to hedge, fell

into rambling explanations, spoke of reciprocal inclinations be-

tween the fiancés (which seemed somewhat implausible), and

ended up implying that the House of France was not lacking in

applicants with whom the pretty Elizabeth might be satisfied, in

the absence of a king. Certain princes, he insinuated, would be

better partners than the sovereign himself.