Pavlovsk Palace ( Russian : Павловский дворец ) is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by the order of Catherine the Great for her son Grand Duke Paul , in Pavlovsk , within Saint Petersburg . After his death, it became the home of his widow, Maria Feodorovna . The palace and the large English garden surrounding it are now a Russian state museum and public park.
214-538: In 1777, the Empress Catherine II of Russia gave a parcel of a thousand hectares of forest along the winding Slavyanka River , four kilometers from her residence at Tsarskoye Selo, to her son and heir Paul I and his wife Maria Feodorovna , to celebrate the birth of their first son, the future Alexander I of Russia . At the time the land was given to Paul and Maria Feodorovna, there were two rustic log lodges called Krik and Krak . Paul and his wife spent
428-702: A League of Armed Neutrality , designed to defend neutral shipping from being searched by the British Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War . From 1788 to 1790, Russia fought a war against Sweden instigated by Catherine's cousin, King Gustav III of Sweden, who expected to overrun the Russian armies still engaged in war against the Ottomans and hoped to strike Saint Petersburg directly. But Russia's Baltic Fleet checked
642-523: A pleuritis that almost killed her. She credited her survival to frequent bloodletting ; in a single day, she received four phlebotomies . Her mother's opposition to this practice brought her the Empress's disfavour. When Sophie's situation looked desperate, her mother wanted her confessed by a Lutheran pastor. Awaking from her delirium, however, Sophie said, "I don't want any Lutheran; I want my Orthodox father [clergyman]". This increased her popularity with
856-485: A "Northern Accord" between Russia, Prussia, Poland, and Sweden to counter the power of the Bourbon – Habsburg League. When it became apparent that his plan could not succeed, Panin fell out of favour with Catherine and she had him replaced with Ivan Osterman (in office 1781–1797). Catherine agreed to a commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1766, but stopped short of a full military alliance. Although she could see
1070-639: A "revolution" in her teenage mind as Tacitus was the first intellectual she read who understood power politics as they are, not as they should be. She was especially impressed with his argument that people do not act for their professed idealistic reasons, and instead she learned to look for the "hidden and interested motives". According to Alexander Hertzen , who edited a version of Catherine's memoirs, Catherine had her first sexual relationship with Sergei Saltykov while living at Oranienbaum, as her marriage to Peter had not yet been consummated, as Catherine later claimed. Nonetheless, Catherine would eventually leave
1284-485: A 1749 Russian military plot to crown Peter (together with Catherine) in Elizabeth's stead. As a result of this plot, Elizabeth likely wanted to deny both Catherine and Peter any rights to the Russian throne. Elizabeth, therefore, allowed Catherine to have sexual lovers only after a new legal heir, Catherine and Peter's son Paul , survived and appeared to be strong. After this, Catherine carried on sexual liaisons over
1498-728: A 1790 letter to Baron de Grimm written in French, she called the Qianlong Emperor " mon voisin chinois aux petits yeux " ("my Chinese neighbour with small eyes"). In the Far East, Russians became active in fur trapping in Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands . This spurred Russian interest in opening trade with Japan to the south for supplies and food. In 1783, storms drove a Japanese sea captain, Daikokuya Kōdayū , ashore in
1712-672: A Chinese kiosk, Chinese bridges and classical temples in the English landscape garden style which had spread rapidly across Europe in the second half of the 18th century. In 1780, Catherine the Great loaned her official architect, the Scotsman Charles Cameron , to design a palace on a hillside overlooking the Slavyanka River, near the site of Marienthal. Cameron had studied under English architect Isaac Ware , who
1926-669: A Polish anti-reform group known as the Targowica Confederation . After defeating Polish loyalist forces in the Polish–Russian War of 1792 and in the Kościuszko Uprising (1794), Russia completed the partitioning of Poland, dividing all of the remaining Commonwealth territory with Prussia and Austria (1795). The Qianlong Emperor of China was committed to an expansionist policy in Central Asia and saw
2140-541: A canteen at a children's health camp. During World War II, the frescoes were seriously damaged. The difficult process of restoration of the Gonzago Gallery was only completed in 2011. 59°41′9″N 30°27′12″E / 59.68583°N 30.45333°E / 59.68583; 30.45333 Catherine II of Russia Catherine II (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst ; 2 May 1729 – 17 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine
2354-430: A cold, abusive woman who loved gossip and court intrigues. Her hunger for fame centered on her daughter's prospects of becoming Empress of Russia, but Joanna also infuriated Elizabeth , who eventually banned her from the country for allegedly spying for King Frederick. Elizabeth knew the family well and had intended to marry Joanna's brother Charles Augustus (Karl August von Holstein). He died of smallpox in 1727, before
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#17327724811752568-712: A counter-revolution. Louis himself held reservations against depending on foreign assistance. Like his mother and father, he thought that the Austrians were treacherous and the Prussians were overly ambitious. As tensions in Paris rose and he was pressured to accept measures from the Assembly against his will, Louis XVI and the Queen plotted to secretly escape from France. Beyond escape, they hoped to raise an "armed congress" with
2782-473: A country. Mirabeau's death on 7 April, and Louis XVI's indecision, fatally weakened negotiations between the Crown and moderate politicians. The Third Estate leaders also had no desire in turning back or remaining moderate after their hard efforts to change the politics of the time, and so the plans for a constitutional monarchy did not last long. On one hand, Louis was nowhere near as reactionary as his brothers,
2996-605: A dangerous foreign attempt to undermine France's sovereignty. In addition to the ideological differences between France and the monarchical powers of Europe, there were continuing disputes over the status of Austrian estates in Alsace , and the concern of members of the National Constituent Assembly about the agitation of émigrés nobles abroad, especially in the Austrian Netherlands and
3210-577: A fire caused by a defective chimney destroyed a major part of the interior of the palace, including all the decor of the State Apartments and living rooms. Most of the furniture was saved, along with some door panels, fireplaces and mirrors, but most of the Palace had to be rebuilt. Maria Feodorovna brought Cameron and Brenna's young assistant, the Italian architect Carlo Rossi , to help restore
3424-584: A formal Treaty of Alliance , and later that year France went to war with Britain . In deciding in favor of war, despite France's large financial problems, the King was materially influenced by alarmist reports after the Battle of Saratoga , which suggested that Britain was preparing to make huge concessions to the Thirteen Colonies and then, allied with them, to strike at French and Spanish possessions in
3638-452: A half years. Officers were quartered in the salons on the first floor, and the ballroom was made into a garage for cars and motorcycles. Barracks were located in the north wing and a hospital in the south wing. German soldiers, Dutch soldiers and Spanish soldiers in special units of the German army occupied the buildings in the park. The sculpture and furniture that remained in the house and all
3852-459: A large area: 350 square metres for the wall and 200 square metres for the ceiling. The gallery was built in 1795-1797 by the architect Vincenzo Brenna as a summer outdoor dining room for the palace's inhabitants. The painting of the Gallery, created by Pietro di Gotthardo Gonzago, was carried out on behalf of Empress Maria Feodorovna much later. The work was carried out in 1805–1807. It
4066-499: A low dome supported by sixty-four columns. On either side of the building were two single story colonnades of curved open winged galleries connected to service buildings one and a half stories high. Each facade of the palace was decorated with molded friezes and reliefs. In September 1781, as construction of the Pavlovsk Palace began, Paul and Maria set off on a journey to Austria, Italy, France and Germany. They traveled under
4280-472: A new war against Persia in 1796 after they, under the new king Agha Mohammad Khan , again invaded Georgia and established rule in 1795, expelling the newly established Russian garrisons in the Caucasus. The ultimate goal for the Russian government, however, was to topple the anti-Russian shah (king), and to replace him with his pro-Russian half-brother Morteza Qoli Khan , who had defected to Russia. It
4494-493: A parade ground for Emperor Pavel's Imperial guards. In the forest to the left of this axis he placed a romantic thatch-roofed dairy with stalls for two cows modeled after the one in the park of Württemberg where Maria Feodorovna had grown up; and on the other side of the parade route, an aviary, filled with parakeets, nightingales, starlings, and quail. This part of the garden also included a labyrinth , and picturesque tombstones imported from Italy. An early French visitor described
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#17327724811754708-664: A particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted the masses to revolt . From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists , who were seeking their independence from Great Britain , which was realised in the Treaty of Paris (1783) . The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime . This led to the convening of the Estates General of 1789 . Discontent among
4922-504: A parting in 1786. Cameron left to build a new palace for Catherine in the Crimea. He had finished entry vestibule and the five rooms of the private apartments. The work of decorating the interior was taken over by an Italian architect, Vincenzo Brenna , from Florence, who had come to Russia in 1783. Brenna designed interiors which reflected Paul's taste for Roman classicism. He created the white and gold Halls of War and Peace, on either side of
5136-446: A pension; Ernestine Lambriquet (1778–1813), daughter of two servants at the palace, who was raised as the playmate of his daughter and whom he adopted after the death of her mother in 1788; and finally "Zoe" Jeanne Louise Victoire (born in 1787), who was adopted in 1790 along with her two older sisters when her parents, an usher and his wife in service of the king, had died. Of these, only Armand, Ernestine and Zoe actually lived with
5350-467: A position more favorable to Austria, which in the Treaty of Teschen was able to get in compensation the Innviertel , a territory whose population numbered around 100,000 persons. However, this intervention was a disaster for the image of the Queen, who was named " l'Autrichienne " (a pun in French meaning "Austrian", but the "chienne" suffix can mean "bitch") on account of it. Louis XVI hoped to use
5564-742: A record two months and weighed 2.3 kg (5.1 lbs). From 1762, the Great Imperial Crown was the coronation crown of all Romanov emperors until the monarchy's abolition in 1917. It is one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty and is now on display in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury Museum . During her reign, Catherine extended the borders of the Russian Empire by some 520,000 square kilometres (200,000 sq mi), absorbing New Russia , Crimea ,
5778-596: A regent or as a usurper , tolerable only during the minority of her son, Grand Duke Paul. Catherine was crowned at the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow on 22 September 1762. Her coronation marks the creation of one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty, the Great Imperial Crown of Russia , designed by Swiss-French court diamond jeweller Jérémie Pauzié . Inspired by Byzantine design,
5992-470: A roof or floors. The north wall had fallen. Most of the parquet floors of the palace had been used as firewood; a few pieces were found in unburned portions of the palace near the stoves. Of the more than 100,000 trees that had been in the park before the War, at least 70 percent had been cut down or destroyed by shelling. All the decorative bridges in the park had been blown up. Eight hundred bunkers had been dug in
6206-494: A sailing expedition around the world (La Pérouse and his fleet disappeared after leaving Botany Bay in March 1788. Louis is recorded as having asked, on the morning of his execution, "Any news of La Pérouse?".). There is a lack of scholarship on the subject of Louis XVI's time as a constitutional monarch, though it was a significant length of time. The reason as to why many biographers have not elaborated extensively on this time in
6420-502: A series of unsuccessful foreign military campaigns, leaving France in a state of financial difficulty. The young Louis XVI felt woefully unqualified to resolve the situation. As king, Louis XVI focused primarily on religious freedom and foreign policy. Although raised as the Dauphin since 1765, he lacked firmness and decisiveness. His desire to be loved by his people is evident in the prefaces of many of his edicts that would often explain
6634-492: A setting for a reproduction of the Belvedere Apollo. It was placed at the entrance of the park, and it was made of porous limestone with a coarse finish; the surfaces suggest that they had been aged by centuries of weather. At the same time the Slavyanka River was dammed, to create a lake which would mirror the facade of the palace above. Maria Feodorovna also insisted in having several rustic structures which recalled
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6848-896: A system of government fully controlled by the Russian Empire through a Permanent Council , under the supervision of her ambassadors and envoys . Fearing that the May Constitution of Poland (1791) might lead to a resurgence in the power of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the growing democratic movements inside the Commonwealth might become a threat to the European monarchies, Catherine decided to refrain from her planned intervention into France and to intervene in Poland instead. She provided support to
7062-548: A tribunal for the occasion), found guilty of high treason and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. Louis XVI's death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Both of his sons died in childhood, before the Bourbon Restoration ; his only child to reach adulthood, Marie Thérèse , was given over to her Austrian relatives in exchange for French prisoners of war, eventually dying childless in 1851. Louis-Auguste de France , who
7276-517: A war with Austria and Germany, impossible without her foreign policy. King Louis XVI Louis XVI (Louis Auguste; French: [lwi sɛːz] ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution . The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765) (son and heir-apparent of King Louis XV ), and Maria Josepha of Saxony , Louis became
7490-423: A wider perspective, the failure was attributable to the king's indecision—he repeatedly postponed the schedule, allowing for smaller problems to become severe. Furthermore, he totally misunderstood the political situation. He thought only a small number of radicals in Paris were promoting a revolution that the people as a whole rejected. He thought, mistakenly, that he was beloved by his subjects. The King's flight in
7704-455: Is believed that Gonzago previously made a drawing on the wet plaster method graffiti, and then worked on the plaster that has not yet dried up in the technique of grisaille red paint based on iron oxide pigment. When the plaster had dried, the artist elaborated and modelled the form with lime-based paints. In 1822-1824 the architect Carlo Rossi built a library over the Gallery with large arched windows framed with rosettes ornaments. Because of
7918-749: Is never wrong." He, therefore, appointed an experienced advisor, Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas who, until his death in 1781, would take charge of many important ministerial functions. Among the major events of Louis XVI's reign was his signing of the Edict of Versailles , also known as the Edict of Tolerance, on 7 November 1787, which was registered in the Parlement of Paris on 29 January 1788. Granting non-Roman Catholics – Huguenots and Lutherans , as well as Jews – civil and legal status in France and
8132-521: The Aleutian Islands , at that time Russian territory. Russian local authorities helped his party, and the Russian government decided to use him as a trade envoy. On 28 June 1791, Catherine granted Daikokuya an audience at Tsarskoye Selo . Subsequently, in 1792, the Russian government dispatched a trade mission to Japan, led by Adam Laxman . The Tokugawa shogunate received the mission, but negotiations failed. Nicholas I, her grandson, evaluated
8346-502: The Count of Provence and the Count of Artois , and he repeatedly sent messages to them requesting a halt to their attempts to launch counter-coups. This was often done through his secretly nominated regent, Cardinal Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne . On the other hand, Louis was alienated from the new democratic government both by its negative reaction to the traditional role of the monarch and in its treatment of him and his family. He
8560-567: The Declaration of Pillnitz , which declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe in the well-being of Louis and his family, and threatened vague but severe consequences if anything should befall them. Although Leopold saw the Pillnitz Declaration as an easy way to appear concerned about the developments in France without committing any soldiers or finances to change them, the revolutionary leaders in Paris viewed it fearfully as
8774-477: The Estates General , which had not met since 1614 (at the beginning of the reign of Louis XIII ). As a last-ditch attempt to get new monetary reforms approved, Louis XVI convoked the Estates General on 8 August 1788, setting the date of their opening on 1 May 1789. With the convocation of the Estates General, as in many other instances during his reign, Louis XVI placed his reputation and public image in
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8988-607: The National Assembly . Louis's indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime , and his popularity deteriorated progressively. His unsuccessful flight to Varennes in June 1791, four months before the constitutional monarchy was declared, seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to
9202-620: The National Assembly . Louis XVI's attempts to control it resulted in the Tennis Court Oath ( serment du jeu de paume ), on 20 June, the declaration of the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July, and eventually to the storming of the Bastille on 14 July, which started the French Revolution. Within three short months, the majority of the King's executive authority had been transferred to the elected representatives of
9416-613: The North Caucasus , right-bank Ukraine , Belarus , Lithuania , and Courland at the expense, mainly, of two powers—the Ottoman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . Catherine's foreign minister, Nikita Panin (in office 1763–1781), exercised considerable influence from the beginning of Catherine's reign. A shrewd statesman, Panin dedicated much effort and millions of rubles to setting up
9630-413: The Parlement , who opposed his reforms, on 6 May 1788, and even dissolving and depriving of all power the "Parlement", replacing it with a plenary court, on 8 May 1788. The failure of these measures and displays of royal power is attributable to three decisive factors. First, the majority of the population stood in favor of the Parlement against the King, and thus continuously rebelled against him. Second,
9844-730: The Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 . Russia inflicted some of the heaviest defeats ever suffered by the Ottoman Empire, including at the Battle of Chesma (5–7 July 1770) and the Battle of Kagul (21 July 1770). In 1769, a last major Crimean–Nogai slave raid , which ravaged the Russian held territories in Ukraine, saw the capture of up to 20,000 slaves for the Crimean slave trade . The Russian victories procured access to
10058-525: The Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792 . This war was another catastrophe for the Ottomans, ending with the Treaty of Jassy (1792), which legitimised the Russian claim to the Crimean peninsula and granted the Yedisan region to Russia. In the Treaty of Georgievsk (1783), Russia agreed to protect Georgia against any new invasions and further political aspirations of their Persian suzerains . Catherine waged
10272-649: The Seven Years' War . Vergennes, supported by King Louis, refused to go to war to support Austria in the War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778, when the Queen's brother Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor tried to partition Bavaria over a disputed inheritance. Vergennes and Maurepas refused to support the Austrian position, but the intervention of Marie Antoinette in favor of Austria obliged France to adopt
10486-525: The Testament politique de Louis XVI ("Political Testament of Louis XVI"), explaining his rejection of the constitutional system as illegitimate. The National Assembly was quick to decide to publish the theory that the King had been kidnapped, thus avoiding any challenge to the Constitution, which was then nearing completion, while at the same time ordering that the carriage be placed under arrest. It
10700-444: The great powers of Europe. In her accession to power and her rule of the empire, Catherine often relied on her noble favourites, most notably Count Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin . Assisted by highly successful generals such as Alexander Suvorov and Pyotr Rumyantsev , and admirals such as Samuel Greig and Fyodor Ushakov , she governed at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding rapidly by conquest and diplomacy. In
10914-462: The 1790s. In 1768, she formally became the protector of the political rights of dissidents and peasants of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which provoked an anti-Russian uprising in Poland, the Confederation of Bar (1768–1772), supported by France. After the rebels, their French and European volunteers, and their allied Ottoman Empire had been defeated, she established in the Commonwealth
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#173277248117511128-856: The American Revolutionary War as an opportunity to expel the British from India. In 1782, he sealed an alliance with the Peshwa Madhavrao II . As a consequence, the Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau moved his troops to the Isle de France (now Mauritius ) and later contributed to the French effort in India in 1783. Pierre André de Suffren became the ally of Hyder Ali in the Second Anglo-Mysore War against
11342-402: The American rebels was a disappointment, with defeats at Rhode Island and Savannah . In 1780, France sent Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau and François Joseph Paul de Grasse to help the Americans, along with large land and naval forces. The French expeditionary force arrived in North America in July 1780. The appearance of French fleets in the Caribbean was followed by
11556-406: The Assembly created the Comité des Finances, and while Louis XVI attempted to declare his concern and interest in remedying the economic situations, inclusively offering to melt crown silver as a dramatic measure, it appeared to the public that the King did not understand that such statements no longer held the same meaning as they did before and that doing such a thing could not restore the economy of
11770-402: The Austrian court did hope for the princess to exert influence over her husband. Letters sent between the Empress and the Ambassador express a desire for Marie Antoinette to exercise authority in the French court and to encourage Louis XVI to dedicate more attention to his role as prince. To their disappointment, however, the princess did not seem overly interested in "serious affairs". Over time,
11984-422: The Black Sea and allowed Catherine's government to incorporate present-day southern Ukraine, where the Russians founded the new cities of Odessa , Nikolayev , Yekaterinoslav (literally: "the Glory of Catherine") and Kherson . The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca , signed 21 July 1774 (OS: 10 July 1774), gave the Russians territories at Azov , Kerch , Yenikale , Kinburn and the small strip of Black Sea coast between
12198-500: The British East India Company from 1782 to 1783, engaging the Royal Navy along the coasts of India and Ceylon . France also intervened in Cochinchina following Pierre Pigneau de Behaine 's intervention to obtain military aid. A France-Cochinchina alliance was signed through the Treaty of Versailles of 1787 , between Louis XVI and Prince Nguyễn Ánh . Louis XVI also encouraged major voyages of exploration. In 1785, he appointed Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse to lead
12412-412: The British. This had led to a strategy amongst the French leadership of seeking to rebuild the French military in order to fight a war of revenge against Britain, in which it was hoped the lost colonies could be recovered. France still maintained a strong influence in the West Indies , and in India maintained five trading posts , leaving opportunities for disputes and power-play with Great Britain. In
12626-463: The Children of France), from 1760 until his marriage in 1770, did not prepare him for the throne that he was to inherit in 1774 after the death of his grandfather, Louis XV. Throughout his education, Louis-Auguste received a mixture of studies particular to religion, morality, and humanities. His instructors may have also had a good hand in shaping Louis-Auguste into the indecisive king that he became. Abbé Berthier, his instructor, taught him that timidity
12840-476: The Crimean state and maintain friendly relations with Russia. His period of rule proved disappointing after repeated effort to prop up his regime through military force and monetary aid. Finally, Catherine annexed Crimea in 1783. The palace of the Crimean Khanate passed into the hands of the Russians. In 1787, Catherine conducted a triumphal procession in the Crimea, which helped provoke the next Russo-Turkish War. The Ottomans restarted hostilities with Russia in
13054-414: The Crown to restore its power in a new constitutional form . Beginning in 1791, Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin , Minister of Foreign Affairs, started to organize covert resistance to the revolutionary forces. Thus, the funds of the Liste Civile , voted annually by the National Assembly, were partially assigned to secret expenses in order to preserve the monarchy. Arnault Laporte , who was in charge of
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#173277248117513268-526: The Emperor Paul was murdered by members of his court in 1801, and his son Alexander became Emperor. Pavlovsk Palace became the residence of the Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759–1828), the mother of both Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Emperor Nicholas I of Russia . She turned the house into a memorial to her murdered husband, filled with his furniture and portraits, and made the house a showcase for finest 18th-century French furnishings, paintings, sculpture and porcelain. Another disaster struck Pavlovsk in 1803;
13482-474: The Empress and her court as a whole. Elizabeth doted on Sophie and saw her as a daughter after this. Sophie's father, a devout German Lutheran, opposed his daughter's conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy . Despite his objections, on 28 June 1744, the Russian Orthodox Church received Sophie as a member. It was then that she took the new name Catherine (Yekaterina or Ekaterina) and the (artificial) patronymic Алексеевна (Alekseyevna, daughter of Aleksey), so that she
13696-529: The French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters . The French nobility reacted to the proposed reforms with hostility, and successfully opposed their implementation. Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market , advocated by his economic liberal minister Turgot , but it resulted in an increase in bread prices. In periods of bad harvests, it led to food scarcity which, during
13910-426: The French public. France's alliance with its traditional enemy Austria had pulled the country into the disastrous Seven Years' War , in which it was defeated by the British and the Prussians , both in Europe and in North America . By the time that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were married, the French people generally disliked the Austrian alliance, and Marie Antoinette was seen as an unwelcome foreigner. For
14124-480: The Great of Prussia took an active part. The objective was to strengthen the friendship between Prussia and Russia, to weaken the influence of Austria , and to overthrow the chancellor Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin , a known partisan of the Austrian alliance on whom the reigning Russian Empress Elizabeth relied. The diplomatic intrigue failed, largely due to the intervention of Sophie's mother, Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp . Historical accounts portray Joanna as
14338-430: The Great , was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter III . Under her long reign, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment , Russia experienced a renaissance of culture and sciences, which led to the founding of many new cities, universities, and theatres, along with large-scale immigration from the rest of Europe and the recognition of Russia as one of
14552-458: The Great died in 1796, and Paul became Emperor. He decided to enlarge Pavlovsk into a palace suitable for a royal residence, adding two new wings on either side of the main building, and a church attached to the south wing. Between 1797 and 1799, he lavished money and the finest materials on Brenna's interiors. The reign of Emperor Paul did not last long. He alienated the nobles, and became increasingly fearful of conspiracies. His fears were justified;
14766-428: The Greek Hall by Cameron, which had a colonnade of green false marble columns, resembling a Greek temple. He made the Italian hall into a replica of a Roman temple, and he built the State Bedroom for Maria Feodorovna as an imitation of the state bedroom of the King of France, with a huge gilded bed, and cream silk wallpaper painted in tempura with colorful flowers, fruit, musical instruments and gardening tools. Catherine
14980-458: The Ismailovsky Regiment to go to the Semenovsky Barracks, where the clergy was waiting to ordain her as the sole occupant of the Russian throne and began her reign as Empress of Russia as Catherine II. She had her husband arrested and forced him to sign a document of abdication, leaving no one to dispute her accession to the throne. On 17 July 1762—eight days after the coup that amazed the outside world and just six months after his accession to
15194-540: The King agreed to retain many of the traditions which had been the norm in 1614 and prior convocations of the Estates General, but which were intolerable to a Third Estate (the bourgeoisie) buoyed by recent proclamations of equality. For example, the First and Second Estates (the clergy and nobility respectively) proceeded into the assembly wearing their finest garments, while the Third Estate was required to wear plain, oppressively somber black, an act of alienation that Louis XVI would likely have not condoned. He seemed to regard
15408-476: The Nation. The Menus-Plaisirs du Roi was under the direction of Papillon de la Ferté and he gave details in his journal about the costs of the performances over the years 1756–1780 in three different palaces. The wedding in 1771 was especially costly. The performance of Castor et Pollux in 1779 when he was visited by his brother-in-law, Joseph II, involved more than 500 people. Royal household spending in 1788
15622-414: The Palace and found that a group of revolutionary sailors had searched the Palace for weapons and taken a few sabers, but otherwise everything was in its place. He hired former soldiers to guard the house, put all the furniture into the main building, made an inventory of all the treasures in the Palace, and successfully resisted demands from various revolutionary committees for dishes, chairs, tables, and all
15836-593: The Palace, He redesigned the Greek and Italian halls, replacing the molding on the walls with false marble, and he added a Russian touch; fireplaces faced with Russian lapis-lazuli and jasper , which had originally been in the Mikhailovsky Palace that Paul had built in St. Petersburg. Voronykhin also made plans for a semi-circular library in one of the wings, which was later built by Carlo Rossi, and he redesigned
16050-411: The Palace. She also employed a Russian architect, Andrei Voronykhin, who had been born a serf, and was trained in decoration and design, who rose to become the architect of Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Voronykhin was named chief architect of Pavlovsk by Maria Feodorovna. He brought back the architect Quarenghi , who had redecorated five rooms on the main floor, to recreate his work. He remade some of
16264-902: The Palace. They found other furniture and objects as far away as Riga, Tallinn, and in Konigsberg, in Germany. Some precious objects from Pavlovsk left Russia even before the war. Four Gobelins tapestries from Pavlovsk were sold by the Soviet Government to J. Paul Getty , and are now on display in the Getty Museum in Malibu, California . The restorers used only the original variants of the architectural decoration; those created by Cameron, Brenna, Voronykhin, and Rossi. The only changes permitted were to use modern materials. Columns made of wood were replaced by poured concrete or bricks, and
16478-587: The Parlement of Paris to register the new laws and fiscal reforms. Upon the refusal of the members of the Parlement , Louis XVI tried to use his absolute power to subjugate them by every means: enforcing in many occasions the registration of his reforms via Lit de justice (6 August 1787, 19 November 1787, and 8 May 1788), exiling all Parlement magistrates to Troyes as a punishment on 15 August 1787, prohibiting six members from attending parliamentary sessions on 19 November, arresting two very important members of
16692-462: The Prussian envoy, Baron Goltz, reported that Louis XVI had definitely declined the operation. Louis XVI was frequently declared to be perfectly capable of sexual intercourse, as confirmed by Joseph II , and during the time he was supposed to have had the operation, he went out hunting almost every day, according to his journal. This would not have been possible if he had undergone a circumcision; at
16906-596: The Royal Swedish navy in the tied Battle of Hogland (July 1788), and the Swedish army failed to advance. Denmark declared war on Sweden in 1788 (the Theatre War ). After the decisive defeat of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Svensksund in 1790, the parties signed the Treaty of Värälä (14 August 1790), returning all conquered territories to their respective owners and confirming the Treaty of Åbo . Russia
17120-518: The Russian Empire as a potential rival, making for difficult and unfriendly relations between Beijing and Saint Petersburg. In 1762, he unilaterally abrogated the Treaty of Kyakhta , which governed the caravan trade between the two empires. Another source of tension was the wave of Dzungar Mongol fugitives from the Qing Empire who took refuge with the Russians. The Dzungar genocide which
17334-448: The Russian Empire gaining the largest share. In the east, Russians became the first Europeans to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America . Many cities and towns were founded on Catherine's orders in the newly conquered lands, most notably Yekaterinoslav , Kherson , Nikolayev , and Sevastopol . An admirer of Peter the Great , Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and
17548-469: The Russian Revolution in 1917, the eldest son of Constantine Constantinovich, Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia , along with his wife, Princess Helen of Serbia , the daughter of King Peter I of Serbia , were living in one of the wings of Pavlovsk, together with his father's widowed sister Queen Olga of Greece . As the political situation deteriorated, they left, and the house was left to
17762-401: The Russian language, rising late at night to repeat her lessons in her bedroom. Staying up late at night in the harsh Russian cold caused her to fall ill with pneumonia , though she survived and recovered. In her memoirs, she wrote that she made the decision then to do whatever was necessary and to profess to believe whatever was required of her to become qualified to wear the crown. Although she
17976-572: The Russian protectorate since the reign of Peter I, but he did not intervene into the problem of political freedoms of dissidents advocating for their religious freedoms only. Catherine did turn Russia into a global great power, not only a European one, but with quite a different reputation from what she initially had planned as an honest policy. The global trade of Russian natural resources and Russian grain provoked famines, starvation and fear of famines in Russia. Her dynasty lost power because of this and of
18190-492: The State Rooms. In 1784, twelve Hubert Robert landscapes were commissioned for Pavlovsk. The couple purchased ninety-six clocks from Europe. The Imperial Glass factory, made special chandeliers for each room. In the midst of the construction, tensions grew between them and Cameron. Cameron was used to the unlimited budget for materials given him by Catherine the Great, while Catherine gave very little money to Paul; and Cameron
18404-805: The West Indies. Spain and the Netherlands soon joined the French in an anti-British coalition. After 1778, Great Britain switched its focus to the West Indies , as defending the sugar islands was considered more important than trying to recover the Thirteen Colonies. France and Spain planned to invade the British Isles themselves with the Armada of 1779 , but the operation never went ahead. France's initial military assistance to
18618-525: The Zubovs had other plans for the army, ordered the troops to retreat to Russia. This reversal aroused the frustration and enmity of the powerful Zubovs and other officers who took part in the campaign; many of them would be among the conspirators who arranged Paul's murder five years later. Catherine longed for recognition as an enlightened sovereign. She refused the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp, which had ports on
18832-407: The bases, and delicate clocks had to have their casing and mechanisms separated and packed separately, with diagrams on how to put them back together. One piece of each set of furniture was saved, and the others left behind. The Roman and Greek antiquities were too heavy and delicate to move, so they were taken to the basements, placed as close together as possible, and then hidden by a brick wall. By
19046-460: The beginning of the Palace, fifty rooms were finished, and the Palace looked again as it had in the time of Maria Feodorovna. Pavlovsk Park was conceived by Cameron as a classic English landscape garden , an idealized landscape filled with picturesque pieces of classical architecture, designed to surprise and please the viewer. Like the English landscape garden, it took much of its inspiration from
19260-684: The benefits of friendship with Britain, Catherine was wary of Britain's increased power following its victory in the Seven Years' War , which threatened the European balance of power . Peter the Great had gained a foothold in the south, on the edge of the Black Sea, during the Azov campaigns . Catherine completed the conquest of the south, making Russia the dominant power in the Balkans following
19474-485: The books from the library. He was able to persuade Lunacharsky himself to come to Pavlovsk. After Lunacharsky's visit, Pavlovsk was officially confiscated, but turned into a museum, open to the public two or three days a week. Having succeeded in saving the Palace, Polovtsoff took family and belongings and slipped across the border to Finland and moved to Paris. The German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 and
19688-521: The books of the Rossi Library were taken to Germany. The statue of Emperor Paul in the courtyard was used as a telephone pole. The Germans did not discover the antiquities hidden behind the brick wall in the basement. Pavlovsk was retaken on 24 January 1944. When the Soviet troops arrived, the palace had already been burning for three days. The main building of the Palace was a hollow shell, without
19902-522: The capture of a number of the sugar islands, including Tobago and Grenada . In October 1781, the French naval blockade was instrumental in forcing a British army under Cornwallis to surrender at the Siege of Yorktown . When news of this reached London in March 1782, the North ministry fell and Great Britain immediately sued for peace terms; however, France delayed the end of the war until September 1783 in
20116-777: The care of Alexander Polovotsoff, director of the Art Institute and the Museum of Applied Arts in St. Petersburg. When Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917, Polovtsoff went to the Winter Palace, found Anatoly Lunacharsky , the Commissar of Enlightenment of the new government, and demanded that Pavlovsk be saved as a museum. Lunacharsky agreed and named him Commissar Curator of Pavlovsk. He returned to
20330-676: The ceilings of the Italian and Greek Halls were made of steel and concrete so they would be fireproof. A special school, the Mukhina Leningrad Higher Artistic Industry School, was created in Leningrad to teach the arts of restoring architectural details, furniture, and art objects. This school produced a corps of restoration experts who worked on all the palaces around Leningrad. The work was meticulous and difficult, and proceeded very slowly. In 1950, after six years of planting new trees, parts of
20544-422: The civil list, collaborated with both Montmorin and Mirabeau. After the sudden death of Mirabeau, Maximilien Radix de Sainte-Foix , a noted financier, took his place. In effect, he headed a secret council of advisers to Louis XVI, which tried to preserve the monarchy; these schemes proved unsuccessful, and were exposed later when the armoire de fer was discovered. Regarding the financial difficulties facing France,
20758-490: The coast of the Atlantic Ocean and refrained from having a Russian army in Germany. Instead, she pioneered for Russia the role that Britain later played through most of the 19th and early 20th centuries as an international mediator in disputes that could, or did, lead to war. She acted as mediator in the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–1779) between the German states of Prussia and Austria. In 1780, she established
20972-442: The condition seven years after their marriage. Louis XVI's doctors were not in favour of the surgery – the operation was delicate and traumatic, and capable of doing "as much harm as good" to an adult male. The argument for phimosis and a resulting operation is mostly seen to originate from Stefan Zweig 's 1932 biography of Marie Antoinette. Most modern historians agree that Louis XVI had no surgery – for instance, as late as 1777,
21186-473: The construction of the library, Gonzago's assistant had to redo the ceiling of the Gallery in 1824. Rossi placed busts of ancient writers and philosophers between the windows, with stucco wreaths above them. In the 19th-century updates of the paintings in the Gallery were made. During the Soviet era, a museum-reserve was established based on the Pavlovsky Palace. In the 1930s, the Gallery was used as
21400-459: The country's way out of debt. Again this failed, so Louis convoked the Assembly of Notables in 1787 to discuss a revolutionary new fiscal reform proposed by Calonne. When the nobles were informed of the true extent of the debt, they were shocked and rejected the plan. After this, Louis XVI and his new Controller-General of Finances , Étienne-Charles de Loménie de Brienne , tried to simply force
21614-476: The couple became closer, though while their marriage was reportedly consummated in July 1773, it did not actually happen until 1777. The couple's failure to produce any children for several years placed a strain upon their marriage, exacerbated by the publication of obscene pamphlets ( libelles ) mocking their infertility. One such pamphlet questioned, "Can the King do it? Can't the King do it?". The reasons for
21828-404: The couple's initial failure to have children were debated at that time, and they have continued to be debated since. One suggestion is that Louis XVI suffered from a physiological dysfunction, most often thought to be phimosis , a suggestion first made in late 1772 by the royal doctors. Historians adhering to this view suggest that he was circumcised (a common treatment for phimosis) to relieve
22042-562: The court poet Derzhavin in his famous ode; he later commented bitterly on Zubov's inglorious return from the expedition in another famous poem. By mid-June 1796, Zubov's troops easily overran most of the territory of modern-day Azerbaijan , including three principal cities— Baku , Shemakha , and Ganja . By November, they were stationed at the confluence of the Aras and Kura Rivers , poised to attack mainland Iran. In this month, Catherine died, and her son and successor Paul I, who detested that
22256-469: The crisis from the public by explaining only that ordinary revenues exceeded ordinary expenses, and not mentioning the loans. After he was forced from office in 1781, new taxes were levied. This intervention in America was not possible without France adopting a neutral position in European affairs to avoid being drawn into a continental war which would be simply a repetition of the French policy mistakes in
22470-535: The crowd to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the reasoning being that the King would be more accountable to the people if he lived among them in Paris. The Revolution's principles of popular sovereignty, though central to democratic principles of later eras, marked a decisive break from the centuries-old principle of divine right that was at the heart of the French monarchy. As a result, the Revolution
22684-460: The crown was constructed of two half spheres, one gold and one silver, representing the Eastern and Western Roman Empires , divided by a foliate garland and fastened with a low hoop. The crown contains 75 pearls and 4,936 Indian diamonds forming laurel and oak leaves, the symbols of power and strength, and is surmounted by a 398.62-carat ruby spinel and a diamond cross. The crown was produced in
22898-520: The deputies of the Estates General with respect: in a wave of self-important patriotism, members of the Estates refused to remove their hats in the King's presence, so Louis removed his to them. This convocation was one of the events that transformed the general economic and political malaise of the country into the French Revolution . In June 1789, the Third Estate unilaterally declared itself
23112-526: The developments in France, and considered whether they should intervene, either in support of Louis or to take advantage of the chaos in France. The key figure was Marie Antoinette's brother, Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor . Initially, he had looked on the Revolution with equanimity. However, he became more and more disturbed as it became more and more radical. Despite this, he still hoped to avoid war. On 27 August, Leopold and Frederick William II of Prussia , in consultation with émigrés French nobles, issued
23326-538: The different seasons in the park, painting scenes with brilliant colors of the autumn leaves. Gonzaga was the architect of Pavlovsk Park until his death in 1831 at the age of eighty. The Gonzago Gallery is a unique architectural and fresco ensemble in the Pavlovsk Palace, created by the Italian decorator, architect and art theorist Pietro di Gottardo Gonzago in the early 19th century. It is the only example in Northern Europe of an exterior fresco painting of such
23540-510: The early century by Benois, and another eleven thousand photographs taken just before the war. The chief of the restoration, Feodor Oleinik, was insistent that all the restoration be faithful to the original work: "Pay attention and do not use later details", he demanded. "Only the original variant, only that done by Cameron, Brenna, Vornykhin, or Rossi." Old techniques of artisans of the 18th century, such as painting false marble and gilding furniture, had to be relearned and applied. A silk workshop
23754-627: The economy continued to depend on serfdom , and the increasing demands of the state and of private landowners intensified the exploitation of serf labour. This was one of the chief reasons behind rebellions, including Pugachev's Rebellion of Cossacks , nomads, peoples of the Volga, and peasants. The Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility , issued during the short reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine, freed Russian nobles from compulsory military or state service. The construction of many mansions of
23968-479: The effect of this part of the garden: "Melancholy consumes the soul when you arrive...then the pain is followed by pleasure." Marie Feodorovna was deeply interested in botany. In 1801, Cameron constructed an elegant flower garden behind the Palace, just outside the windows of the private apartment of Marie Feodorovna. Next to the garden was a Greek temple containing a statue of the Three Graces , looking down at
24182-419: The final version of her memoirs to her son, the future Paul I , in which she explained why Paul had been Peter's son. Saltykov was used to make Peter jealous, and she did not desire to have a child with him; Catherine wanted to become empress herself, and did not want another heir to the throne; however, Elizabeth blackmailed Peter and Catherine to produce this heir. Peter and Catherine had both been involved in
24396-522: The first ever accounting of the French Crown's expenses and accounts, the Compte-rendu au Roi . This misleading publication led the people of France to believe the kingdom ran a modest surplus. When this policy of hiding and ignoring the kingdom's financial woes failed miserably, Louis dismissed and replaced him in 1783 with Charles Alexandre de Calonne , who increased public spending to "buy"
24610-428: The foreign policy of Catherine the Great as a dishonest one. Catherine failed to reach any of the initial goals she had put forward. Her foreign policy lacked a long-term strategy and from the very start was characterised by a series of mistakes. She lost the large territories of the Russian protectorate of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania and left its territories to Prussia and Austria. The Commonwealth had become
24824-577: The funeral procession of Catherine the Great, Paul I, and Alexander I. as well as the Coronations of Paul I, Alexander I and Nicholas I. For Cameron he painted landscape scenes of the Pavlovsk Park on the walls and ceilings of rooms of the Palace, and he designed spectacular sets for the 1814 ceremony at Pavlovsk welcoming Alexander I home after his victory over Napoleon. Gonzaga planned the landscape of Pavlovsk Park with meticulous care, marking
25038-458: The hands of those who were perhaps not as sensitive to the desires of the French population as he was. Because it had been so long since the Estates General had been convened, there was some debate as to which procedures should be followed. Ultimately, the Parlement of Paris agreed that "all traditional observances should be carefully maintained to avoid the impression that the Estates General could make things up as it went along." Under this decision,
25252-440: The help of the émigrés , as well as assistance from other nations with which they could return and, in essence, recapture France. This degree of planning reveals Louis's political determination, but it was for this determined plot that he was eventually convicted of high treason. He left behind (on his bed) a 16-page written manifesto, Déclaration du roi, adressée à tous les François, à sa sortie de Paris , traditionally known as
25466-552: The hope of overrunning more British colonies in India and the West Indies. Great Britain recognized the independence of the Thirteen Colonies as the United States of America, and the French war ministry rebuilt its army . However, the British defeated the main French fleet in 1782 at the Battle of the Saintes and successfully defended Jamaica and Gibraltar . France gained little from the Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended
25680-401: The house to her younger son, Michael, and specified that none of the furniture should be taken away. After Michael's death, it went to the second son of Nicholas I, Konstantine Nikolayevich. It then passed to his widow and then their eldest son, Konstantine Konstantinovich. Her descendants respected the will, and turned the house into a family museum, just as it was when she died. At the time of
25894-620: The incognito of "The Count and Countess of the North". During their travels they saw the palaces and French gardens of Versailles and Chantilly, which strongly influenced the future appearance of Pavlovsk Park. King Louis XVI presented them with four Gobelin tapestries , Marie Antoinette presented Maria Feodorovna with a sixty-piece toilet set of Sèvres porcelain, and they ordered more sets of porcelain and purchased statues, busts, paintings, furniture and paintings, all for Pavlovsk. While they traveled, they kept in contact almost daily with Kuchelbecker,
26108-416: The interior walls and decoration had been exactly recreated, the next step was the furnishings. The twelve thousand pieces of furniture and art objects removed from their original places, from paintings and tapestries to water pitchers and glasses, had to be put back where they belonged. Furniture, doors, and parquet floors of many different colors of wood which had been burned or stolen were remade exactly like
26322-491: The king from his profile on a 50 livres assignat (paper money), had given the alert. Louis XVI and his family were taken back to Paris where they arrived on 25 June. Viewed suspiciously as traitors, they were placed under tight house arrest upon their return to the Tuileries. At the individual level, the failure of the escape plans was due to a series of misadventures, delays, misinterpretations, and poor judgments. In
26536-531: The king's life is due to the uncertainty surrounding his actions during this period, as Louis XVI's declaration that was left behind in the Tuileries stated that he regarded his actions during his constitutional reign as provisional; he reflected that his "palace was a prison". This time period was exemplary in its demonstration of an institution's deliberation while in their last standing moments. Louis XVI's time in his previous palace came to an end on 5 October 1789, when an angry mob of Parisian working men and women
26750-529: The last rail link from Leningrad to Moscow was cut, and the city was under blockade. By 28 August, the Germans were fifty kilometers from Pavlovsk. A Soviet division headquarters was located in one wing of the palace. As the Germans approached, the park and palace came under bombardment. The museum staff began to bury the statues which were too heavy to evacuate. They calculated that the Germans would not dig deeper than one meter eighty centimeters, so they buried all
26964-678: The legal right to practice their faiths, this edict effectively nullified the Edict of Fontainebleau that had been law for 102 years. The Edict of Versailles did not legally proclaim freedom of religion in France – this took two more years, with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 – however, it was an important step in eliminating religious tensions and it officially ended religious persecution within his realm. Radical financial reforms by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes angered
27178-724: The library, which contained more than twenty thousand books as well as collections of rare coins and butterflies. He also designed the Corner Salon, where Maria Feodorovna received guests such as the first American Ambassador to Russia, John Quincy Adams , and the Lavender Room, whose walls were made of lilac-colored false marble, matching the lilac flowers outside the windows. These rooms were furnished with furniture made of native Russian woods, including Karelian birch, poplar and walnut. Maria Feodorovna died on 24 October 1828, fourteen days after her sixty-seventh birthday. She left
27392-457: The likely goal of subsequently getting rid of Peter III since at least 1749. Peter III's temperament became quite unbearable for those who resided in the palace. He would announce trying drills in the morning to male servants, who later joined Catherine in her room to sing and dance until late hours. In 1759, Catherine became pregnant with her second child, Anna, who only lived to 14 months. Due to various rumours of Catherine's promiscuity, Peter
27606-450: The marriage bed and Marie Antoinette's lack of interest in conjugal activity. Joseph described the couple as "complete fumblers"; however, with his advice, Louis XVI began to apply himself more effectively to his marital duties, and in the third week of March 1778 Marie Antoinette became pregnant. Eventually, the royal couple became the parents of four children. According to Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan , Marie Antoinette's lady-in-waiting,
27820-426: The marriage was unsuccessful; it was not consummated for years due to Peter III's mental immaturity. After Peter took a mistress, Catherine became involved with other prominent court figures. She soon became popular with several powerful political groups that opposed her husband. Unhappy with her husband, Catherine became an avid reader of books, mostly in French. She disparaged her husband for his devotion to reading on
28034-406: The members of France's middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to the French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy , of which Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were representatives. Increasing tensions and violence were marked by events such as the storming of the Bastille , during which riots in Paris forced Louis to definitively recognize the legislative authority of
28248-615: The minor states of the Holy Roman Empire . In the end, the Legislative Assembly , supported by Louis XVI, declared war on Austria ("the King of Bohemia and Hungary") first, voting for war on 20 April 1792, after a long list of grievances was presented to it by the foreign minister, Charles François Dumouriez . Dumouriez prepared an immediate invasion of the Austrian Netherlands, where he expected
28462-527: The monarchs had clearly been heading for the Austrian border . War now seemed imminent, and the King seemed to have been politically involved with France's traditional enemies, who were still widely hated despite recent cooperation. Many citizens felt betrayed, and as a result, Republicanism now burst out of the coffee houses and became a dominating philosophy of the rapidly radicalized French Revolution. The other monarchies of Europe looked with concern upon
28676-400: The nature and good intention of his actions as benefiting the people, such as reinstating the parlements . When questioned about his decision, he said, "It may be considered politically unwise, but it seems to me to be the general wish and I want to be loved." In spite of his indecisiveness, Louis XVI was determined to be a good king, stating that he "must always consult public opinion; it
28890-414: The new Dauphin when his father died in 1765. In 1770, he married Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria (Marie Antoinette). He became King of France and Navarre on his grandfather's death on 10 May 1774, and reigned until the abolition of the monarchy on 21 September 1792. From 1791 onwards, he used the style of King of the French . The first part of Louis XVI's reign was marked by attempts to reform
29104-465: The next generation will never be able to reconstruct them." Even before the war had ended, the Soviet government decided to restore Pavlovsk and the other ruined palaces around Leningrad. First the mines had to be cleared from the ruins and palace and the park. Then the remaining walls were supported with scaffolding, and casts were made of the remaining molding. Fragments of plaster molding were collected, sorted, and casts made. The color of paint still on
29318-483: The night of 2–3 November 1783. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were the parents of four live-born children: In addition to his biological children, Louis XVI also adopted six children: "Armand" Francois-Michel Gagné ( c. 1771 –1792), a poor orphan adopted in 1776; Jean Amilcar ( c. 1781 –1796), a Senegalese slave boy given to the queen as a present by Stanislas de Boufflers in 1787, but whom she instead had freed, baptized, adopted and placed in
29532-481: The night of 8 July 1762 (OS: 27 June 1762), Catherine was given the news that one of her co-conspirators had been arrested by her estranged husband and that the coup they had been planning would have to take place at once. The next day, she left the palace and departed for the Ismailovsky Regiment , where she delivered a speech asking the soldiers to protect her from her husband. Catherine then left with
29746-595: The nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the empress, changed the face of the country. She is often included in the ranks of the enlightened despots . As a patron of the arts, she presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment , including the establishment of the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens , the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe. Catherine
29960-659: The nobility. Peter ceased Russian operations against Prussia, and Frederick suggested the partition of Polish territories with Russia. Peter also intervened in a dispute between his Duchy of Holstein and Denmark over the province of Schleswig (see Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff ). As Duke of Holstein-Gottorp , Peter planned war against Denmark, Russia's traditional ally against Sweden . In July 1762, barely six months after becoming emperor, Peter lingered in Oranienbaum with his Holstein-born courtiers and relatives, while Catherine lived in another palace nearby. On
30174-482: The nobles and were blocked by the parlements who insisted that the King did not have the legal right to levy new taxes. So, in 1776, Turgot was dismissed and Malesherbes resigned, to be replaced by Jacques Necker . Necker supported the American Revolution , and he carried out a policy of taking out large international loans instead of raising taxes. He attempted to gain public favor in 1781 by publishing
30388-458: The north-west of present-day Germany near the border with Denmark) in 1739. The newlyweds settled in the palace of Oranienbaum , which remained the residence of the "young court" for many years. From there, they governed the duchy (which occupied less than a third of the current German state of Schleswig-Holstein , even including that part of Schleswig occupied by Denmark) to obtain experience to govern Russia. Apart from providing that experience,
30602-594: The northeastern border of France, where he would join the émigrés and be protected by Austria. The voyage was planned by the Swedish nobleman, and often assumed secret lover of Queen Marie Antoinette, Axel von Fersen . While the National Assembly worked painstakingly towards a constitution , Louis and Marie-Antoinette were involved in plans of their own. Louis had appointed Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier de Breteuil to act as plenipotentiary, dealing with other foreign heads of state in an attempt to bring about
30816-553: The one hand "Lutheran prayer-books, the other the history of and trial of some highway robbers who had been hanged or broken on the wheel". It was during this period that she first read Voltaire and the other philosophes of the French Enlightenment . As she learned Russian, she became increasingly interested in the literature of her adopted country. Finally, it was the Annals by Tacitus that caused what she called
31030-469: The originals. The crystal chandeliers of the 18th century were exactly copied. In 1957, thirteen years after the Palace had been burned, the first seven rooms were opened to the public. In 1958, four more rooms were opened, and eleven more in 1960. The Egyptian Vestibule was finished in 1963, and the Italian Room opened in 1965. Eleven more rooms were ready by 1967. By 1977, on the 200th anniversary of
31244-559: The palace itself but with two classical pavilions. The first was the Temple of Friendship, a circular Dorian temple with sixteen columns supporting a low dome, containing a statue of Catherine the Great. It was placed at a bend of the Slavyanka River, below the future palace, and was surrounded by silver poplars and transplanted Siberian pines. The second was the Apollo Colonnade, a double row of columns with an entablature, forming
31458-595: The palace itself, Cameron conceived a country house which seems to have been based on a design by Andrea Palladio shown in a woodcut in his book I quattro libri dell'architettura , for the Villa Capra "La Rotonda" near Vicenza in Italy. This same drawing was later used by Thomas Jefferson in his design for the University of Virginia . The palace he designed had a cube-shaped central block three stories high with
31672-569: The palace where she grew up at Étupes, forty miles from Basel , in what was then the Duchy of Württemberg and today is in Alsace . Cameron constructed a small Swiss chalet with a library; a dairy of rough stones with a thatched roof, where milk products were kept and prepared, and an aviary in the form of a small classical temple with metal netting between the Dorian columns, which was filled with nightingales , goldfinch , starlings and quail . For
31886-481: The park opened to the public. In 1955, the restoration of the facade of the Palace was completed, and restoration of the interiors began. Fortunately for the restorers, the original plans by Cameron, Brenna, Voronykhin and Rossi still existed. Also, fragments of the original interior molding, cornices, friezes and the frames for the carvings, bas-reliefs, medallions and paintings still remained, and could be copied. In addition, there were 2500 photographic negatives taken in
32100-516: The park was the Rose Pavilion, built in 1811, a simple structure surrounded entirely by rosebushes. The Rose Pavilion was the site of a grand fete on 12 July 1814, celebrating the return of Alexander I to St. Petersburg after the defeat of Napoleon. For the occasion, architect Pietro de Gottardo Gonzaga built a ballroom the size of the Rose Pavilion itself in just seventeen days, and surrounded it with huge canvases of Russian villagers celebrating
32314-651: The park. The Rose Pavilion was gone; the Germans had used the materials to construct a fortified dugout. On 18 February 1944, a meeting was held at the House of Architects in Leningrad to discuss the fate of the ruined Palaces. Academician and architect Aleksei Shchusev, who had designed the Lenin Mausoleum, called for the immediate reconstruction of the Palaces. "If we do not do this", he said, "we who know and remember these palaces in all their glory as they were, then
32528-547: The prince's studies were "proofs of [his] intelligence and the excellence of [his] judgement," though flattery was to be expected when addressing a prince. Louis-Auguste's apparent mathematical skills are corroborated by his enjoyment of cartography, which would have required an understanding of scale and projections. He also enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather and rough play with his younger brothers, Louis-Stanislas, Count of Provence , and Charles-Philipe, Count of Artois . From an early age, Louis-Auguste
32742-587: The private apartments of Maria Feodorovna on the ground floor, which included a library, boudoir and bedroom. He installed French doors and large windows in the apartment, so the flower garden outside seemed to be part of the interior. In 1805 Voronykhin built the Centaur bridge in the park, and the Visconti bridge, which crossed the Slavyanka at a point it was filled with water lilies. His last construction in
32956-444: The prospects of foreign intervention . His credibility was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility. The growth of anti-clericalism among revolutionaries resulted in the abolition of the dîme (religious land tax) and several government policies aimed at the dechristianization of France . In a context of civil and international war , Louis XVI
33170-401: The queen also suffered two miscarriages. The first one, in 1779, a few months after the birth of her first child, is mentioned in a letter to her daughter, written in July by Empress Maria Theresa. Madame Campan states that Louis XVI spent an entire morning consoling his wife at her bedside, and swore to secrecy everyone who knew of the occurrence. Marie Antoinette suffered a second miscarriage on
33384-506: The remaining walls was carefully noted for later copying. Photographs and early plans of the palace were brought together to help with the restoration. As soon as the war ended, a search began for treasures stolen from the Palace. Curators collected pieces of furniture, fabric, the legs of tables and pieces of doors and gilded cornices from the German fortifications around the Palace. In the buildings which had been German headquarters, they found chairs, marble statues and rolled-up paintings from
33598-400: The river into a picturesque pond in the valley below the Palace. In 1780, Cameron constructed a large Roman temple at a turn in the river in the bottom of the valley. The classical temple, similar to the Temple of Pan in the gardens at Stowe House in England. It was originally called the Temple of Gratitude, dedicated to Catherine the Great, who had donated the land for the Park, but in 1780 it
33812-405: The river. She imported flowers from Holland for her garden, including hyacinth , tulips , daffodils and narcissus . She also constructed an orangery and several greenhouses where she grew apricots, cherries, peaches, grapes and pineapples. The River Slavyanovka was the picturesque axis of the composition, with winding paths along the river providing changing views to the visitor. A dam turned
34026-418: The rivers Dnieper and Bug . The treaty also removed restrictions on Russian naval and commercial traffic in the Azov Sea , granted Russia the position of protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire and made Crimea a protectorate of Russia. In 1770, Russia's State Council announced a policy in favour of eventual Crimean independence. Catherine named Şahin Giray , a Crimean Tatar leader, to head
34240-409: The romanticized landscape paintings of Claude Lorraine and Hubert Robert . The gallery of Pavlovsk has twelve landscape paintings by Hubert Robert that were commissioned by Maria Feodorovna. Cameron laid out a triple alley of five straight rows of Linden trees , imported from Lübeck , in a long axis from the courtyard of the Palace, leading to a small semi-circular place in the forest. This served as
34454-400: The rooms, such as the Tapestry Room and the State Bedroom, exactly as they had been, but for other rooms he added decoration inspired by Roman models discovered at Pompeii and Herculaneum; Roman-style lamps, furniture, Roman couches, and chairs copied after those of Roman senators. Following the French taste of the time for Egyptian art, he added black Egyptian statues in the entry vestibule of
34668-400: The royal family: Jean Amilcar, along with the elder siblings of Zoe and Armand who were also formally foster children of the royal couple, simply lived on the queen's expense until her imprisonment, which proved fatal for at least Amilcar, as he was evicted from the boarding school when the fee was no longer paid, and reportedly starved to death on the street. Armand and Zoe had a position which
34882-631: The royal treasury was financially destitute to a crippling degree, leaving it incapable of sustaining its own imposed reforms. Third, although the King enjoyed as much absolute power as his predecessors, he lacked the personal authority crucial for absolutism to function properly. Now unpopular with both the commoners and the aristocracy, Louis XVI was therefore only very briefly able to impose his decisions and reforms, for periods ranging from 2 to 4 months, before having to revoke them. As authority dissipated from him and reforms were clearly becoming unavoidable, there were increasingly loud calls for him to convoke
35096-427: The ruling dynasties of Germany, she received her education chiefly from a French governess and from tutors. According to her memoirs, Sophie was considered a tomboy and trained herself to master a sword. Catherine found her childhood to be uneventful; she once wrote to her correspondent Baron Grimm , "I see nothing of interest in it". Although Sophie was born a princess, her family had little money; her rise to power
35310-406: The short term was traumatic for France, inciting a wave of emotions that ranged from anxiety to violence to panic. The realization that the King had repudiated the Revolution was a shock for people who until then had seen him as a good king who governed as a manifestation of God's will. Many suspected the King of collaborating with the Austrians, due to Marie Antoinette's family ties and the fact that
35524-437: The south, the Crimean Khanate was annexed following victories over the Bar Confederation and the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War . With the support of Great Britain , Russia colonised the territories of New Russia along the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas . In the west, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth —ruled by Catherine's former lover, King Stanisław August Poniatowski —was eventually partitioned , with
35738-422: The spring of 1776, Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes , the Minister for Foreign Affairs, saw an opportunity to humiliate France's long-standing enemy, Great Britain , and to recover territory lost during the Seven Years' War , by supporting the American Revolution . In the same year Louis was persuaded by Pierre Beaumarchais to send supplies, ammunition, and guns to the rebels secretly. Early in 1778 he signed
35952-407: The statues as deep as three meters. The statues of the Three Graces were buried three meters beneath the private garden of Maria Feodorovna. Their calculations were correct; the statues were still there after the war. On 16 September, the last soldiers left, and the Germans took over Pavlovsk Palace, still occupied by a group of elderly women guardians. The Germans occupied Pavlovsk palace for two and
36166-450: The summers of 1777 to 1780 in Krik, while their new homes and the garden were being built. They began by building two wooden buildings, one kilometer apart. Paul's house, a two-story house in the Dutch style, with small gardens, was called "Marienthal", or the "Valley of Maria". Maria's house was a small wooden house with a cupola and flower beds, named "Paullust", or "Paul's Joy". Paul and Maria Feodorovna began to create picturesque "ruins",
36380-448: The supervisor of construction at Pavlovsk, sending back and forth drawings, plans and notes on the smallest details. Paul and Maria Feodorovna returned in November 1782, and they continued to fill Pavlovsk with art objects. A shipment of antique marbles, statues, busts, urns, and pottery discovered and purchased at Pompei , arrived in 1783. Sixteen sets of furniture, over two hundred pieces, were ordered from Paris between 1783 and 1785 for
36594-401: The swiftness of the German advance took the Soviet government by surprise. The morning after the attack, the curators of Pavlovsk, under the direction of museum curator Anatoliy Kuchumov, began to pack as many of art objects as possible, starting with the Sèvres porcelain toilet set given by Louis XVI to Maria Feodorovna and Paul in 1780. Ninety-six hours after the announcement of the beginning of
36808-411: The third week of August thirteen thousand objects, plus all the documentation, had been packed and sent away. Some crates were sent to Gorky, others to Sarapul, and the last group, on 20 August 1941, went to Leningrad, where the crates were stored in the basement of St Isaac's Cathedral . The last shipment included the chandelier from the Italian Hall and the jasper vases from the Greek Hall. On 30 August,
37022-521: The throne as Emperor Peter III and Catherine became empress consort . The imperial couple moved into the new Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. The Emperor's eccentricities and policies, including his great admiration for the Prussian King Frederick II, alienated the same groups that Catherine had cultivated as allies. Russia and Prussia had fought each other during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) and Russian troops had occupied Berlin in 1761. Peter supported Frederick II, eroding much of his support among
37236-422: The throne in 1774, he was nineteen years old. He had an enormous responsibility, as the government was deeply in debt, and resentment of despotic monarchy was on the rise. His predecessor, his grandfather Louis XV , had been widely hated by the time of his death. The public remembered him as an irresponsible man who spent his time womanizing rather than administrating. Furthermore, the monarchy had poured money into
37450-446: The throne included Ivan VI (1740–1764), who had been confined at Schlüsselburg in Lake Ladoga from the age of six months and was thought to be insane. Ivan VI was assassinated during an attempt to free him as part of a failed coup against Catherine. Like Elizabeth before her, Catherine had given strict instructions that Ivan was to be killed in the event of any such attempt. The woman later known as Princess Tarakanova (с. 1745–1775)
37664-411: The throne—Peter III died at Ropsha , possibly at the hands of Alexei Orlov (younger brother to Grigory Orlov, then a court favourite and a participant in the coup). Peter supposedly was assassinated, but it is unknown how he died. The official cause, after an autopsy, was a severe attack of haemorrhoidal colic and an apoplexy stroke. At the time of Peter III's overthrow, other potential rivals for
37878-402: The time of his daughter's birth, he held the rank of a Prussian general in his capacity as governor of the city of Stettin. However, because her second cousin Peter III converted to Orthodox Christianity, her mother's brother became the heir to the Swedish throne and two of her first cousins, Gustav III and Charles XIII , became Kings of Sweden . In accordance with the prevailing custom among
38092-446: The trees to be saved or cut down. He laid out paths and changed contours to create the effects he wanted, using open and closed spaces and different colors and shapes of trees to make theatrical scenes. He made dramatic use of the contrast between the white bark and light leaves of birch trees and the dark needles of red-brown trunks of pine trees, setting groups of birch trees in front of dark backgrounds of pines. He made decorative use of
38306-407: The very least, he would have been unable to ride to the hunt for a few weeks afterwards. The couple's sexual problems are now attributed to other factors. Antonia Fraser 's biography of Marie Antoinette discusses Joseph II's letter on the matter to one of his brothers after he visited Versailles in 1777. In the letter, Joseph describes in astonishingly frank detail Louis XVI's inadequate performance in
38520-419: The victory. The ball inside the pavilion opened with a Polonaise led by Alexander and his mother, and ended with a huge display of fireworks. In her later years Maria Feodorovna had a literary salon at Pavlovsk, which was frequented by poet Vasily Zhukovsky , fabulist Ivan Krylov , and historian Nikolai Karamzin . The last great St. Petersburg architect to work at Pavlovsk was Carlo Rossi, who in 1824 designed
38734-413: The war against Napoleon in 1812, wrote that Pavlovsk Park was the most beautiful example of the English landscape garden in all of the Russian Empire. Beginning in 1792, the chief architect of the Pavlovsk Park was the Italian landscape architect and painter, Pietro Gonzaga, who had begun his career as a set designer at the La Scala Theater in Milan. Gonzaga always remained a theater designer; he designed
38948-408: The war, except the colonies of Tobago and Senegal. Louis XVI was wholly disappointed in his aims of recovering Canada, India, and other islands in the West Indies from Britain, as they were too well defended and the Royal Navy made any attempted invasion of mainland Britain impossible. The war cost 1,066 million livres , financed by new loans at high interest (with no new taxes). Necker concealed
39162-491: The war, the first thirty-four crates were being carried from the palace by horse-drawn cart. Boards were put over the windows, and sand on the floor of the Palace. Thirty curators often worked by candlelight, and by July there were air raids. The paintings, chandeliers, crystal, porcelain, rare furniture, and works of ivory and amber were packed and sent first. They worked with great care – each piece of furniture had to be carefully dismantled, porcelain vases had to be separated from
39376-410: The wedding could take place. Despite Joanna's interference, Elizabeth took a strong liking to Sophie, and Sophie and Peter were eventually married in 1745. When Sophie arrived in Russia in 1744 at age 15, she spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with Elizabeth, but also with Elizabeth's husband Alexei Razumovsky and with the Russian people at large. She zealously applied herself to learning
39590-501: The years with many men, including Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski , Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (1734–1783), Alexander Vasilchikov , Grigory Potemkin , Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov and others. She became friends with Princess Ekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova , the sister of her husband's official mistress. In Dashkova's opinion, Dashkova introduced Catherine to several powerful political groups that opposed her husband; however, Catherine had been involved in military schemes against Elizabeth with
39804-612: The young couple, the marriage was initially amiable but distant. Louis XVI's shyness and, among other factors, the young age and inexperience of the newlyweds (who were near total strangers to each other: they had met only two days before their wedding) meant that the fifteen-year-old bridegroom failed to consummate the union with his fourteen-year-old bride. His fear of being manipulated by her for Austrian purposes caused him to behave coldly towards her in public. Correspondence between Marie Antoinette's mother and Austria's French ambassador Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau suggest that
40018-439: Was 10, she met the second cousin who would become her future husband and Peter III of Russia . She later wrote that she immediately found Peter detestable and that she stayed at one end of the castle and Peter at the other. She disliked his pale complexion and his fondness for alcohol. The choice of Sophie as wife of the future tsar was a result of the Lopukhina affair , in which Count Jean Armand de Lestocq and King Frederick
40232-423: Was 13% of total state expenses (excluding interest on debts). French involvement in the Seven Years' War had left Louis XVI a disastrous inheritance. Britain's victories had seen them capture most of France's colonial territories. While some were returned to France at the Treaty of Paris (1763) , almost all of New France was ceded to the British, or to France's Spanish allies to compensate them for losses to
40446-474: Was a deliberately deceptive choice, since Louis XVI had left a manifesto in plain view, assuming and justifying the escape. La Fayette decided to censor the text. Letters were sent throughout the country to stop the royal carriage. Louis's indecision, many delays, and misunderstanding of France were responsible for the failure of the escape. Within 24 hours, the royal family was arrested at Varennes-en-Argonne shortly after Jean-Baptiste Drouet , who recognised
40660-403: Was a value in strong monarchs, and Abbé Soldini, his confessor, instructed him not to let people read his mind. On 19 April 1770, at the age of fifteen, Louis XVI married the fourteen-year-old Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria , his second cousin once removed and the youngest daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa . This marriage was met with hostility from
40874-498: Was able to learn Russian, she spoke with a heavy accent, and made grammatical mistakes. Her writing also contained numerous spelling errors. In most circumstances Catherine II spoke French in her court. In fact the use of French as the main language of the Russian imperial court continued until 1812, when it became politically incorrect to speak French in court due to the war with Napoleonic France. Sophie recalled in her memoirs that as soon as she arrived in Russia, she fell ill with
41088-412: Was annoyed by the furniture, tapestries and fireplaces brought back from Europe by Maria Feodorovna without consulting him. Maria Feodorovna in turn was annoyed by the bright polychrome decoration and Pompeian arabesques used by Cameron, and wanted more delicate colors, and Paul did not like anything that resembled the style of his mother's house, the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. The tensions led to
41302-414: Was another potential rival. Although Catherine did not descend from the Romanov dynasty, her ancestors included members of the Rurik dynasty , which had preceded the Romanovs as rulers of Russia. She succeeded her husband as empress regnant , following the legal precedent of Empress Catherine I , who had succeeded her husband Peter I in 1725. Historians debate Catherine's technical status, whether as
41516-421: Was born on 2 May 1729 in Stettin , Province of Pomerania , Kingdom of Prussia , as Princess Sophia Augusta Frederica (Sophie Auguste Friederike) von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg. Her mother was Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp . Her father, Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , belonged to the ruling German family of Anhalt . He failed to become the duke of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia and, at
41730-405: Was close to William Kent . Kent introduced the Palladian style of architecture into England with his work at Chiswick House for Lord Burlington . Through this connection Cameron became familiar with the original plans of Palladio, which were in the personal collection of Lord Burlington. This style was the major influence on Cameron when he designed Pavlovsk. Cameron began his project not with
41944-406: Was committed by the Qing Empire had led many Dzungars to seek sanctuary in the Russian Empire, and it was also one of the reasons for the abrogation of the Treaty of Kyakhta. Catherine perceived that the Qianlong Emperor was an unpleasant and arrogant neighbour, once saying: "I shall not die until I have ejected the Turks from Europe, suppressed the pride of China and established trade with India". In
42158-483: Was encouraged in another of his interests, locksmithing, which was seen as a useful pursuit for a child. When his father died of tuberculosis on 20 December 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin . His mother never recovered from the loss of her husband and died on 13 March 1767, also from tuberculosis. The strict and conservative education he received from Paul François de Quelen de la Vauguyon , " gouverneur des Enfants de France " (governor of
42372-450: Was given the title Duke of Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles on 23 August 1754. One of seven children, he was the second surviving son of Louis , the Dauphin of France and the grandson of Louis XV and of his consort, Maria Leszczyńska . His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony , the daughter of Augustus III , Prince-elector of Saxony and King of Poland and Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria . Louis-Auguste
42586-449: Was in all respects the namesake of Catherine I , the mother of Elizabeth and the grandmother of Peter III. The following year, on 21 August 1745, the long-planned dynastic marriage between Catherine and Peter finally took place in Saint Petersburg . Catherine had recently turned 16. Her father did not travel to Russia for the wedding. The bridegroom, then known as Peter von Holstein-Gottorp, had become Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (located in
42800-410: Was incited by revolutionaries and marched on the Palace of Versailles , where the royal family lived. At dawn, they infiltrated the palace and attempted to kill the queen, who was associated with a frivolous lifestyle that symbolized much that was despised about the Ancien régime . After the situation had been defused by Lafayette , head of the National Guard , the king and his family were brought by
43014-422: Was led to believe he was not the child's biological father and is known to have proclaimed, "Go to the devil!" when Catherine angrily dismissed his accusation. She therefore spent much of this time alone in her private boudoir to hide away from Peter's abrasive personality. In the first version of her memoirs, edited and published by Alexander Hertzen, Catherine strongly implied that the real father of her son Paul
43228-432: Was more similar to that of Ernestine: Armand lived at court with the king and queen until he left them at the outbreak of the revolution because of his republican sympathies, and Zoe was chosen to be the playmate of the Dauphin, just as Ernestine had once been selected as the playmate of Marie Thérèse, and sent away to her sisters in a convent boarding school before the Flight to Varennes in 1791. When Louis XVI acceded to
43442-447: Was not Peter, but rather Saltykov. Catherine recalled in her memoirs her optimistic and resolute mood before her accession to the throne: I used to say to myself that happiness and misery depend on ourselves. If you feel unhappy, raise yourself above unhappiness, and so act that your happiness may be independent of all eventualities. After the death of the Empress Elizabeth on 5 January 1762 ( OS : 25 December 1761), Peter succeeded to
43656-478: Was one of the best means of advancing their interests. To improve the position of her house, Sophie was groomed throughout her childhood to become the wife of a powerful ruler. In addition to her native German, Sophie became fluent in French, the lingua franca of European elites in the 18th century. The young Sophie received the standard education for an 18th-century German princess, concentrating on etiquette, French, and Lutheran theology . In 1739, when Catherine
43870-406: Was opened in Moscow to recreate the original woven fabrics for wall coverings and upholstery, copying the texture, color and thread counts of the originals. In forty rooms of the Palace, painted decoration on the walls and ceilings had to be precisely recreated in the original colors and designs. A Master painter and six helpers recreated the original trompe l'oeil ceilings and wall paintings. Once
44084-462: Was opposed by many of the rural people of France and by all the governments of France's neighbors. Still, within the city of Paris and amongst the philosophers of the time, many of which were members of the National Assembly, the monarchy had next to no support. As the Revolution became more radical and the masses more uncontrollable, several of the Revolution's leading figures began to doubt its benefits. Some, like Honoré Mirabeau , secretly plotted with
44298-471: Was overlooked by his parents who favored his older brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy , who was regarded as bright and handsome but died at the age of nine in 1761. Louis-Auguste, a strong and healthy boy but very shy, excelled in his studies and had a strong taste for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy and became fluent in Italian and English. His tutors in mathematics and physics had high praises for his work. Le Blonde, his mathematics instructor, wrote that
44512-400: Was particularly irked by being kept essentially as a prisoner in the Tuileries, and by the refusal of the new regime to allow him to have confessors and priests of his choice rather than ' constitutional priests ' pledged to the state and not the Roman Catholic Church. On 21 June 1791, Louis XVI attempted to flee secretly with his family from Paris to the royalist fortress town of Montmédy on
44726-414: Was planted near the Palace. An Italian garden, with parterres, classical statues and a grand staircase was created by Brenna on the hillside overlooking the lake. Cameron used the intimate Dutch style for the little private garden outside Maria Feodorovna's private apartments, and the huge park was in the style of the English and French landscape garden. An English visitor, John Lowden, who saw Pavlovsk during
44940-405: Was renamed the Temple of Friendship, in honor of the visit to Pavlovsk of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor . Between 1780 and 1783, at the top of the hill which descended to the lake, Cameron constructed a colonnade with a copy of the Apollo Belvedere in Rome. By the early 19th century, the park at Pavlovsk had gardens representing many different styles. A formal and geometric garden à la française
45154-424: Was supported by her mother Joanna's wealthy relatives, who were both nobles and royal relations. The more than 300 sovereign entities of the Holy Roman Empire, many of them small and powerless, made for a highly competitive political system in which the various princely families fought for advantages over one another, often by way of political marriages. For smaller German princely families, an advantageous marriage
45368-415: Was suspended and arrested at the time of the Insurrection of 10 August 1792 . One month later, the monarchy was abolished and the French First Republic was proclaimed on 21 September 1792. The former king became a desacralized French citizen, addressed as Citoyen Louis Capet (Citizen Louis Capet) in reference to his ancestor Hugh Capet . Louis was tried by the National Convention (self-instituted as
45582-417: Was to stop any involvement in the internal affairs of Sweden. Large sums were paid to Gustav III and peace ensued for 20 years even in spite of the assassination of Gustav III in 1792. In 1764, Catherine placed Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski , her former lover, on the Polish throne . Although the idea of partitioning Poland came from Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine took a leading role in its execution in
45796-400: Was widely expected that a 13,000-strong Russian corps would be led by the seasoned general Ivan Gudovich , but the Empress followed the advice of her lover, Prince Zubov , and entrusted the command to his youthful brother, Count Valerian Zubov . The Russian troops set out from Kizlyar in April 1796 and stormed the key fortress of Derbent on 21 May (OS: 10 May). The event was glorified by
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