"You can love freedom and adore the king"

In the discussion of Russia's intervention in the American electoral process, the name of the “citizen of the wife” - the ambassador of revolutionary France to the United States - as an example of similar unacceptable actions was repeatedly mentioned. He really, in violation of all the norms of diplomatic etiquette, was engaged in frank propaganda, tried to drag America into the war with England, quarreled the members of the President of Washington, and almost made the American Maidan. In the end, Washington was forced to demand his replacement. But before being in America, his wife served in St. Petersburg, he turned the guards officers to his revolutionary faith and was declared an unwanted face. A bright but forgotten figure.

Edmond Charles Zhenya was of minor and made a career thanks to his own abilities and family ties. He was the ninth and last child of an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Edm Jacques Zhenya. Sr. wife held the post of head of the translation bureau, but his functions went far beyond this framework. He carefully monitored the events in the North American colonies and was considered a specialist on this issue. His awareness was very appreciated by Minister Etienne Francois de Shuazel, who pursued anti -English policy. With the replacing Shuazel Vergenna, his wife's position was further strengthened-he became the closest adviser to the Minister of Minister.

Edmond Charles Zhenya (1763-1834). Harper's Encyclopædia of United States History. 1905

Edmond grew up in an atmosphere of adoration and admiration. He was a damn about his family and from the diapers used to the thought of his exclusivity. However, his father took up his education and education early. French historian Claude Muazi writes about this:

The mother considered by the mother as the gift of the Sun, Edmond was during the first years of his life the object of the unceasing attention of his older sisters and all home ones. All his whims forgave him. He would be incorrigibly spoiled if his father personally had not undertook to form his character and mind.

Edmond's education received brilliant. At the age of 12, he fluently read and explained in five languages, not counting the ancients, engaged in natural sciences, music and singing, took the lessons of fencing, dancing, riding. Meanwhile, one of his sisters, known in history as Madame Campan, served at the Versailles court: she was a reverement of the daughters of Louis XV, and under Louis XVI became the first punisher of Maria Antoinette. In the person of Queen, Edmond acquired his benefactor. Thanks to her, young polyglot - 14 years old - was appointed an oral translator to the brother of King Count Provensky. It was Sinekura, but thanks to her, Edmond got access to the princes and began to accompany his father on his trips to the European capitals.

In 1778, fifteen -year -old Edmond was introduced to Voltaire. The 84-year-old elder returned from exile. A young official of a foreign board Denis Fonvizin, who was then in France, reported this event:

The arrival of the Volter to Paris has exactly such an action in the people, as it were, the descent of some deity on Earth. The reverence provided to him does not differ from adoration. I am sure that if deep old age and weaknesses did not aggravate him and he would like to preach now a new sect, then all the people turned to him.

A pilgrimage began to the famous sage. Voltaire's blessing was the last squeak of Parisian fashion. Another Parisian celebrity, Benjamin Franklin, led to Voltaire his grandson. Voltaire, losing his hand on the young man’s head, as if he said: "God and freedom." To which John Adams sarcastically remarked: "Two old actors on the stage of the theater of philosophy and frivolity."

"Voltaire blesses the grandson of Franklin in the name of God and freedom." Artist Pedru America (Brazil). 1889-1890

By the time Edmond to his wife appeared before Voltaire, the elder could no longer speak, but, according to his wife himself, signs made it clear that he would consider the translation of the history of the reign of the Swedish Eric XIV as an “interesting historical document”.

The formation of a young man of that era was considered incomplete if he did not take a large foreign trip, moreover, independent. Edmond Charles Zhenya went on a trip in 1780, at the age of 17, with a pack of letters of recommendation and in the uniform of the dragoon. This tour turned his head. He is warmly accepted by the French ambassadors. He seems to be monarchs. Ladies are crazy about the young handsome man.

But in September 1781, his wife suffered a blow to his wife: unexpectedly died the Sr. wife, and 18-year-old Edmond became the head of the family. The family had two houses, a good departure and the staff of the servants, but the father left Edmone 100 thousand livres of debt and no reliable position. Already on the day of his father’s death, he wrote to the Minister Verzhenna:

Overwhelmed by the deepest and most sincere sorrow, let me, Monsieur, to outline the cruel situation of the mother, who, with the death of her husband, has lost its existence sources, and the unfortunate position of the son, who cannot expect another fate than that he appeals to your kindness.

Vergenn reported on official zeal and unusual abilities to his wife Jr., and Edmond took his father's place. Like his father, he was very interested in American affairs. He accompanied John Adams during his visit to the court. He was instructed to draw up a daily report on events in North America on the basis of messages of the European and American press. He was on the tip of the then diplomatic anger of the day - negotiations about the world in which Madrid and Hague participated in addition to London, Philadelphia and Paris and which ended with the signing in Versailles in September 1783 of the Parisian world, meaning the recognition of the independence of the United States.

"American delegates to sign a preliminary peace agreement with England." The unfinished canvas of Benjamin West. 1783-1784. From left to right: John Day, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Lawrence and the secretary of the mission, William Temple Franklin, is the same grandson of Franklin, who blessed Voltaire.

But in February 1787, Fortune turned away from his wife: his patron of Vergenn died. The new minister of Count de Montmoren America was not interested in. Wife found himself in the backyard of the ministry. And six months after the death of Vergenna, he received a notification that his position was being reduced. Madame Campan in his memoirs claims that his brother's career collapse was the result of intrigues of the Anglofil Party in the Ministry.

Edmond was desperate. He was assigned a temporary salary, and then only out of particular mercy. Meanwhile, all paternal debts have not yet been paid. The family began to sell the situation. The loving sister Madame Campan managed to exhaust for her brother through the queen the place of the secretary of Count de Segur, the ambassador of France in St. Petersburg.

At the end of 1787, Edmond Charles Zhenya went to the country completely unknown to him.

I liked the young assistant. He wrote about him:

His appearance, his manners and the ability to conduct a conversation completely meet the commendable reviews that gave me the faces of him whose letters he brought.

Louis Filip de Segur 24-year-old volunteer participated on the side of the North American colonies in the war for independence, was not alien to the ideas of enlightenment and freedom. However, he was also a secular man and managed, despite the policy of Paris, which was not uniform in relation to Russia, to establish excellent relations with the empress.

Count Louis-Filipp de Segur. Unknown artist

Segur entered the close circle of Catherine, chatted with her easily on the "small Hermitages", as the evenings of this narrow circle were called, amused her and, among the few other diplomats, accompanied her on a trip to the Crimea. Catherine wrote a Grimm about him:

I am not surprised by the reputation of G. de Segur, a young and brilliant intermediary, who was able to find the Versailles cabinet-apparently, it was acquired by justice, and probably it is the best of all that we have from your places. It is difficult to be more amiable and have more intelligence. He seems to like us: he is cheerful like a finch. He writes for us poems and songs.

But gradually the empress cooled to him. The reason was that from the perlustrated Correspondence of Segur, it revealed that his courtesy lies deep contempt for Russian despotism. In the notes of the office secretary of Ekaterina Khrapovitsky there is a note of August 3, 1789. The Sovereign read the opened letter of Segur to the Marquis de Lafayet, in which he congratulates the addressee on the capture of the Bastille, and is indignant :

Can a royal minister write like that? .. He congratulates him on a happy revolution, which was made by the inept of some ministers, the severity of taxes and the irritated pride of parliaments.

The count, for his part, was eager to return to Paris to see everything with his own eyes and take a personal part in the events. He asked for a vacation for several months. The farewell audience of the Empress was cold-formal.

Edmond Charles Zhenya remained in St. Petersburg to the attorney in France’s affairs until the appointment of a new ambassador. But the marquise d'Osmon appointed to this post was in no hurry to arrive at the service station, and his wife remained the head of the diplomatic mission for three years.

He had great and formidable events in his homeland, and the young diplomat was forced to follow them in the press and the stories of visitors. He adored the king and especially the queen, but gradually his eyes evolved. At first, he perceives the revolution negatively. “Very reasonable measures are being taken,” he reported to Montmoren about the situation in the Russian capital, “so that the information about the unrest that is so depressed by France and causes painful convulsions from it.” “We showed Europe a sad picture of all the disasters that the anarchy entails,” he wrote in a letter in January 1790. However, a year later, he sent to Paris the text of the oath for loyalty to the new regime.

After the unsuccessful flight and arrest of the royal family, his wife was in a difficult situation. “Despite the fact that I am extremely caution, my situation becomes more and sadder every day,” he reports to the Minister in July 1791. Three days later, he sends a new report:

Freedom terrifies the despots of Europe; They would like to connect to destroy it, but the peoples who use it are closely connected and repulse this aspirations. For a long time I could not learn the directions of the new Constitution. The investigations of the revolution frightened me, but now I am quite committed to the system that the people chose.

So Edmond Zhenya turned into a constitutional monarchist.

Mormorene was annoyed by his reasoning to his wife. He pointed to him: "I ask you not to talk about our revolution neither good nor bad."

The mood of the attorney was not a secret for the empress. Although he used a very complex cipher in his correspondence, this cipher managed to hack. But this merit does not belong to the head of the encryption service of the Empire, the natural scientist and mathematics of the French Espinus. The key to secret acquired the Russian ambassador to Paris Ivan Simolin.

Ivan Simolin (1720-1799). Artist Ferdinand de Mays. 1790

In June 1790, he informed Vice Chancellor Count Osterman:

An unexpected and extreme need forced one official of the Foreign Department of Foreign Affairs to offer me through G. Mashkov (Secretary of the Embassy. - V.A.) his services and to attest to the complete devotion to our court. I considered useful and even absolutely necessary in the interests of the empress not to miss such a favorable case for us to enlist a reliable source of information. The above official began by delivering me a cipher used by G. wife when his correspondence with Count de Montmoren, and the cipher of the latter for correspondence with the aforementioned attorney in business - these ciphers are completely different.

So Catherine began to read all the correspondence to her wife, as well as to receive through Simolin from his agent the content of reports sent by the attorney with the opportunity or eliminated the per lustration in a different way. These reports testified to the activity unacceptable for the diplomat. In October 1791, Simolin informed Osterman:

Mr. Wife in his penultimate letter reported the extreme difficulty in spreading the ideas of their holy revolution in Russia, but that he nevertheless had already managed to seduce many guard officers.

In December of the same year, the news came from Paris even more alarming: as if his wife "created a party of friends of mankind in St. Petersburg and that he found here a significant number of sufficiently firm people who could stop the empress in her plans" (that is, the plans of the joint armed intervention of the European powers in order to suppress the revolution).

Almost certainly his wife in the dispatches exaggerated his successes in the propaganda of the revolution. Nevertheless, it remained that Russian society perceived events in France with burning interest, and sometimes with sympathy.

Knowing the image of his wife’s thoughts and the oath signed by him, the empress announced that since Louis XVI is not free, she could not deal with his attorney. His wife was in isolation. He was not invited to the court and refused to accept in a foreign board. He was not expelled from the empire only because Catherine needed her ambassador to Paris to observe the development of events. When Simolin reported that the wife was sent to the wife of new trendy letters, Catherine ordered: "But the wife would be accredited again, then just declare that nothing would be accepted from him."

My behavior will prove that you can love freedom and adore the king

In such an ambiguous position, his wife remained almost 11 months. The sister wrote to him about the upcoming democratization of the diplomatic corps, and his wife hoped for a quick increase in service and at the same time demonstrated his commitment to a new system in every possible way. In particular, he made major donations for the maintenance of the national guard, and when Madame Campan made him a remark that his zeal was excessively, answered her:

I am a patriot not by calculation, but in good conscience, as always. I love freedom, I hate violence, and the rules of my behavior are based on a civil oath. I am faithful to the last sigh of the law, nation and the king.

In another letter to his sister, he asks:

Tell the queen about my feelings and tell her that I will shed my blood to protect her with the same readiness as to protect the constitution.

And finally, in the third:

My behavior will prove that you can love freedom and adore the king.

On the fields of one of such messages, Catherine personally deigned to draw:

Yes, this is crazy in the full sense of the word.

Some researchers believe that Catherine used his wife to misinform the French government through authorized leaks and, not without pleasure, read information from “reliable sources” in his reports. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that despite the strictest order of the empress, sources, and in very high areas, the wife had. It is necessary that Catherine did not give pleasure to the passages from the display of his wife, who are related to her personally - not as a monarch, but as a woman: "Catherine II is noticeably lowered; she sees it, and she takes possession of melancholy ...", "The state of health of the empress is inspired by fears ..." The family secrets of the Russian autocrats did not take refuge - her dislike of this and the character of this and the nature of this The son (at the Gatchina court there were ladies who maintained a short relationship with his wife until the Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich forbade this to his retinue):

The Grand Duke in everything goes in the footsteps of his unfortunate father, and if the heart of the Grand Duchess is not the temple of all virtues, then he will once experience the same fate as Peter III, and he expects this, tells it to her ... He is gloomy, grunting, does not trust anyone. The courtiers hate him, the military is moaning under his command from his petty severity. The guard does not love him, and, as soon as he enters the throne, innumerable revolutionary movements will undoubtedly put an end to the brilliant period of the reign of Catherine.

But the grandchildren of Catherine Alexander and Konstantin Pavlovichs inspire his wife with sympathy and interest. Here, for example, a message from June 1792:

Persons assigned to the upbringing of young great princes, absorbed, like the whole courtyard, the idea, that the empress hates our constitution, carefully avoided talking about her to their august pupils and even refused to satisfy their curiosity about the situation of France. But what was their amazement when they heard a few days ago that in. K. Alexander started a discussion about human rights and other provisions of our social contract. One was asked from the other who could explain all this so well to the Grand Duke, everyone swore that he did not concern these issues, and finally decided to ask him to reveal this secret. Alexander kindly satisfied their curiosity and, with all the innocence of his age, informed them that this grandmother told them about the French constitution on all its points, explained the reasons for the revolution of 1789, but recommended that they capture all this in her heart and not tell anyone.

Given the "Days of the Aleksandrovs, the Beautiful Beginning", under which Pushkin was understanding the hobby of the young king with liberal ideas, the story is quite believable.

There is evidence that his wife, and before him, Segur used the services and secret informants. On a copy of one of the dispatch of the French attorney in the affairs, in which he reported that Catherine responded with a sharp refusal to offer to expel all the French from Russia, the empress wrote: "Probably, my wife has some informant in my room, I think I guess who it is."

Khrapovitsky in his notes reports:

The secret decree of Sheshkovsky is given to me, so that, having taken the colleges of the foreign affairs of the Obvornaya Advisor Valtz, to interrogate him with foreign ministers in relations and does he know the same for others? For from Simolin received from Paris an extract on expenses in a foreign department, in which 60 tons of livery were shown in it in 1787, and in the next three years, 6 tons of each.

Stepan Sheshkovsky-chief secretary of the secret office, who was entrusted with the investigation of the most important cases of state crimes: Pugachev, Radishchev, Novikov. He gained shameful fame and was not accepted in the highest Russian society.

In her decree, Catherine strictly warned of non -disclosure of the circumstances of the case:

Imaging it, by doing this, doing this with an extreme and impenetrable secret, and by no means taking it away and not demanding either the agreed, below anyone from anyone without a report without an accurate report and our command.

From the perlustrated report of the Prussian ambassador in St. Petersburg, Golts knew that an official of the foreign collegium Ivan Waltz also collaborates with this embassy. The roller was arrested. During the interrogation, he swore “terrible oaths” in innocence: the secretary of the Prussian embassy tried to bribe him, but in vain, the French sheet on the payment of his fees is “being a lie”. The continuation did not receive a continuation: Catherine ordered administratively send him to her own estate to Penza under the supervision of local authorities.

The names of his two agents were given to his wife himself in an encrypted report, not knowing that the cipher was hacked. In the summer of 1792, when a rumor swept through Europe that Russia was sending a military squadron to the shores of France to landing in Normandy, the attorney reported to Paris that his informant would be on every Russian ship, the same will lead this agent: two would lead:

These are two young naval officers, one Dutchman, another Frenchman by origin, born in England by the recklessness of Louis XIV, but again became a Frenchman, thanks to the wisdom of our new laws and the fatherly kindness of Louis XVI. The name of the first Lusk, and the second Chateenf. Not out of benefit, they will serve us, but out of hatred of despotism, love of freedom and in the hope of getting into our fleet. Both served Russia with honors, have honorary diplomas, respected by comrades and bosses.

Constantine was the adjutant of the vice president of the Admiralty College of Count Chernyshev and really had access to state secrets.

I have reason to suspect that my letters are delayed or intercepted

In the deposits of his wife, there are only references to “reliable, but top secret” and “very true” sources. His awareness of the mood of the empress, her plans and the last news at the court was really unusual, although he often became a victim of deliberate misinformation. By the end of his stay in Russia, his wife began to guess that his correspondence would be perlust:

I have reason to suspect that my letters are delayed or intercepted.

Thus, the “leakage war” was conducted by both sides with the only difference being that Catherine was vividly interested in reporting to his wife, and the Minister of Montmoren and Lesser replaced him was not the slightest degree.

When his wife fell out of favor with Catherine, many of his acquaintances had tried for the debt of a decent person not to interrupt his acquaintance with him. “At the court,” his wife informed in one of the letters, “there are courageous people who openly protect me; especially in the guard I have many friends, youth are all for me.” Such statements in his correspondence are found more than once.

In February 1792, Catherine decided to withdraw the ambassador of Simolin from Paris. The war of European monarchies with revolutionary France was rapidly approaching. However, in March, with a difference of 15 days, at first the Austrian emperor, the brother of Maria Antoinette Leopold II, was suddenly died, then the king of Sweden Gustav III was killed by the conspirators. In Europe, a rumor flashed that both deaths were the work of the “French demagogues” and that Catherine was next in line.

Gustav III and Catherine II in 1783. Miniature Cornelius Hoyer

The report from Berlin also reported the name of the French agent, planning to kill the Russian autocrat, Bassville. Catherine accepted this information as seriously as possible. The border guard was ordered to look at both. In St. Petersburg, interrogations and searches of the French were interrogated. The building of the French embassy was, according to his wife, "surrounded by detectives." “Agents,” he wrote, “they dissolve throughout the city and especially among the people rumors that friends of the Constitution, uniting with the Jacobins ... intend to poison the empress.” They said that attackers are hiding at the embassy.

But the basceville sunk into the water. The embassy remained inviolable. In June of the same 1792, his wife received the highest order to leave the Empire within eight days, which he fulfilled with the greatest relief.

In his notes, Count de Segur will write about Edmone Wife:

At the request of the queen, they gave me a young man who used her protection, Mr. Zhenya, brother of Ms. Campan. He was smart, educated, knew several languages and was talented, but very dust. Subsequently, he was passionate about the revolution and was appointed by the Girondins Party as an envoy to the American states ...

It is about his stay in the United States that we are going to tell in the second part.

***

In the work on this essay, the following publications and work of historians were used, in addition to the text indicated in the text:

The French Revolution of 1789 in the reports of the Russian ambassador to Paris I. M. Simolin / Introductory article "Tsarism and the French bourgeois revolution of 1789 according to the reports of I. M. Simolin" and the general edition of N. Lukin. Publication, archival certificate and translation of the texts of E. Alexandrova. "Literary inheritance", vol. 29/30. M., 1937

Epiphany S. Russia and France in 1789-1792: Based on the materials of the per lustration of the reports of the French attorney in the affairs in Russia of Edmond, to the wife. "Literary inheritance", vol. 33/34. M., 1939

Sterange M. M. Russian Society and the French Revolution of 1789-1794. M., 1956

Gladyshev A. V. Youth of the diplomat: E. Sh. Zhenya. Journal of the Saratov GU "History and Historical Memory", No. 1, 2910