At the end of the history of Soviet cinema - January 1, 1988, the premiere of the film "Midshipmen, Go!" Took place. For the overwhelming majority of viewers, the era of the reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna was a blank spot in the historical consciousness. And then a whole ensemble of bright acting talents became the pioneers. It is clear that the images of the midshipmen are fictional characters. But the court physician Count Johann Hermann Lestok, the French envoy of the Marquis Jacques-Joachim de la Chetardie and the Russian Count Alexei Bestuzhev-Ryumin were historical figures. The director and screenwriters, showing the events of the 1840s in Russia - the intrigues of the French at the St. Petersburg court and the counterintrigues of the Russian aristocrats, turned out to be historically accurate. Nearly.
Palace coup
Everything has its price: the accession of the daughter of Peter I, Elizabeth, cost the treasury of the French king 130 thousand gold ducats. It was this amount that the French envoy, the Marquis de Chétardie, handed over to the Frenchman, who was in the Russian service, Count Lestok, on the eve of the historic night from November 24 to 25, 1741. Until now, we were convinced that the guardsmen of the Izmailovsky Life Guards Regiment, on whose bayonets Elizaveta Petrovna was ascended to the throne, were carried away by the disinterested patriotic idea - to sweep away the hated Germans for the sake of the daughter of the Russian sovereign.
I wonder who was paid such a lot of money (130 thousand gold coins - at that time an astronomical amount) and for what? Receipts, of course, were not written, but logic dictates that the recipients of the funds were just patriotic guards, sold for their "bayonets" to French newcomers, and the hierarchs of the Orthodox Church, who blessed and anointed Elizabeth Petrovna for the kingdom for French gold. Maybe something passed on to someone from the Senate to swear an oath without a murmur to the new queen. There was simply no one else to pay and nothing else. But then another question arises: why were they so concerned about the fate of the Russian princess in Versailles?
Anglo-French rivalry for Russia
Peter I never made it to Paris (except for the version that he got there and stayed for life as a prisoner of the Bastille - the legendary Iron Mask, and the double of the Tsar's son Alexei Mikhailovich returned to Muscovy from the Grand Embassy). But Peter the Great visited London twice, and in general, at the beginning of the 18th century, Russia for the British and Scots was just paradise. We believe that under Peter I and after, Europe recognized St. Petersburg as the capital of the Russian Empire. And the British partners of Peter the Great defined his country and capital for themselves as follows: the British trading post in St. Petersburg. In their view, the British trading post in Muscovy was no different from those located in Africa, Oceania or on the lands of the New World. The same savages in the colonies, only fair-skinned, and they can also be robbed. It was good for the English to live on the riches of Russia. And the French?
The French kingdom considered itself slighted and quietly began to prepare a revenge. Count Lestok arrived from Paris to Russia in 1713 as a doctor and immediately took up the duties … of a personal physician for the wife of Peter I. At the beginning of the 18th century and in France, an aristocrat with a medical degree was a rarity. It is surprising that such an intimate position - the personal physician of the tsar's wife - was immediately entrusted to a stranger whom they had never seen before. Apparently, Count Aesculapius had such convincing recommendations that Peter the Great appreciated them instantly.
In 1719 Lestok fell into tsarist disgrace, he was exiled to Kazan. What was the reason for Peter's anger: a suspicion of an intimate relationship between a doctor and a royal patient, or the assumption of organizing a palace coup with the accession of Empress Catherine I? Apparently, both the one and the other, and both reasons were not proven - otherwise the count would not have gotten off with just a link. But there was something, since Peter I barely died, as Lestok was immediately returned to Petersburg. And he was assigned as a doctor to the daughter of Catherine I - the future Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. Lestock did not have any medical superpowers. But the fact that Catherine, widowed, did not forget him, proves that Peter I had grounds for suspicion.
Catherine I died, on the eve of the wedding, the grandson of Peter I, the young emperor Peter II, was poisoned, the era of Anna Ioannovna and the all-powerful favorite Ernst Biron began. By the way, this Kurlander, who did not complete the course of the University of Königsber, was looking for "happiness and ranks" in Russia before. Young Biron tried to get a place as chamber junker with the wife of the heir to the Russian throne, Alexei Petrovich, but he was refused due to low origin. Under Anna Leopoldovna, Biron returned to Russia and found his happiness.
But the Frenchman Lestok hated the Germans as much as the British. Like Catherine I once, the quirky Count Lestok began to whisper to the young Princess Elizabeth a seductive idea - relying on the bayonets of the Izmailovites, to take the throne herself. And to overthrow the "German yoke". The princess hesitated, but then the Marquis from Paris arrived in time with 130 thousand gold ducats. The conspiracy was practically uncovered - Elizabeth was invited to the regent of the juvenile emperor Ivan Antonovich and was dragged out. In tears, the daughter of Peter rushed to Lestok and begged to postpone the performance. But the dodgy Frenchman realized that he wouldn’t get off with a reprimand, and therefore delivered an ultimatum: either - or … The result is known.
After a successful coup and the accession of Elizabeth Petrovna, Count Lestok received much less than he expected. The organizer of the palace coup did not receive any ranks, orders, or lands. He was only given a large salary, and for each bloodletting to the queen (this is how the pressure was then reduced) they were paid 2,000 rubles. And they gave only a portrait of the new empress in a frame with diamonds. Admire!
Everything is like in the movies
In the film series about the midshipman the French, Lestok and de la Chtardie, are opposed by the Russian aristocrats Apraksin and Bestuzhev-Ryumin. If the marquis, who was in the royal service, was still worried about the benefits of France, then Lestok, who had not been at home for 30 years, was not interested in anything except money. He was indifferent to national self-consciousness and religious self-awareness - a sort of Russian oligarch-globalist of the mid-18th century. Not having received, as he believed, from Empress Elizabeth what he owed, the cunning Frenchman went down the beaten path … He became a close friend and drinking companion for the heir to the throne - the future Emperor Peter III.
It was the Russian princes and counts who pointed out to the empress this mysterious friendship. Elizabeth had a good memory and was able to think logically. The one who has changed the oath has no faith. But what if Lestok decides to repeat the experience of November 1741, only this time he overthrows her for the sake of Tsarevich Peter III? And she commanded to bring him to justice, and there they did not stand on ceremony. The whip blows (they did not give a damn about the count's dignity and French origin) made him confess to organizing a conspiracy by him to replace Elizabeth Petrovna with her nephew. While Lestok was sitting in the Peter and Paul Fortress, Count Apraksin received his rich house. And Bestuzhev-Ryumin profited from cash capital.
The convicted count was exiled in 1750: first to Uglich, then to Veliky Ustyug. As soon as Peter III ascended the throne, he ordered the return of an old friend from exile. Conclusion: it means that something connected them, and very serious, once years later, Tsar Pyotr Fedorovich did not forget the disgraced count-physician. Moreover, he allowed the rehabilitated count to personally search the houses of the St. Petersburg aristocracy for valuables stolen from his house earlier. In the living rooms of the best houses in the capital, Lestock's appearance was feared like the plague at that time.
The master of palace coups, Count Lestok, also survived a coup in favor of Catherine II, although he did not participate in it. But he foresaw it shrewdly, shortly warning the emperor: “Your Majesty! Your generous heart forgives its enemies, but believe me, your kindness will destroy you!"
The real Count Lestok, resurrected in our memory thanks to the film, died in St. Petersburg in 1767, forgotten by everyone, having survived two exiles, two empresses and three emperors. As a professional physician, in his old age, he brought himself to such uncleanliness that he was seized by insects. According to other sources, the death was the result of urolithiasis. It is difficult to say whether his carriage rushed past the building on Vasilievsky Island, which housed the Naval Cadet Corps. And did he speak at least once in his life with at least one of the midshipmen?
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №28, Alexander Smirnov