The Russian Pompadour

A Pompadour of the male sex” is how Prussian King Frederick II aptly characterized Russian Empress Elizabeth’s favorite, the High Chamberlain Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov (1727-1797). Of course, this kind of comparison has its limitations, yet in the present case the parallel with Louis XV’s famous mistress – the Marquise de Pompadour (1721-1764) – has a certain historical accuracy. Indeed, both Shuvalov and Pompadour spent many years as favorites of crowned protectors known for their capriciousness and eccentricity. Louis’ penchant for love was legendary, (he was nicknamed “Louis the In-Love”) and Elizabeth was no less “passionate for love” (to cite Mikhail Shcherbatov’s phrase), and at one time was even considered as a possible wife for Louis. Neither favorite could boast an ancient lineage: Pompadour was the granddaughter of a peasant, and although Shuvalov was of the gentry, his family was far from well-born and of only middling status. Nevertheless, their upward paths were quite different. 

The future marquise, for whom it was foretold in childhood that she would belong to the king, unswervingly proceeded toward her goal, and for 20 years wove intrigues around the monarch, bribed courtiers to her side, and arrayed herself in lavish, eye-catching costumes (for example, of Diana the huntress); she studied the nuances of her patron’s psychology, divined all of his desires, and, binding him to herself, adroitly manipulated all of the secret springs of his heart. 

Shuvalov, on the other hand, began his service at court as a simple page and, with characteristic modesty, did not go out of his way to please the empress, who was two decades his senior. Catherine the Great (then still Grand Dutchess) wrote this of him on the eve of his liaison with Elizabeth: “I found him forever in the waiting room with book in hand… He was then 18 years old, was not at all bad looking, very ready to oblige, very polite, very attentive, and seemed to be by nature of very gentle manners... Apart from that, he was very poor.” 

At that time, Ivan was interested in the maid of honor Princess Gagarina, whom he even wanted to marry, and had no thoughts for the empress. He was pushed in her direction by ambitious relatives who had influence at court and wanted to utilize the handsome Ivan to solidify their position. His all-powerful cousin Peter Shuvalov filled the empress’ ear with his praise, as – more importantly – did Elizabeth’s childhood friend Mavra E. Shuvalova (born Shepeleva). Ivan’s character, beauty and youth did the rest. He attracted royal attention and was quickly promoted to kamerjunker. 

However, Elizabeth’s romantic interest in Shuvalov did not prevent her at first from simultaneously enjoying three other favorites. Although she gave him clear preference, it is hard to agree with the historian Vladimir Naumov, who asserts that she had a “strong and profound feeling” for him. The foppish empress, the empress-bacchante, had led a “dissipated lifestyle” since youth, and had a weakness for external effect. It is enough to consider her early correspondence with Shepeleva, in which, at Elizabeth’s request, Shepeleva describes in detail the clothes and appearance of potential cavaliers. One thing is indisputable – Shuvalov attracted her attention not by his boring interest in books, but by his foppishness and youthful vigor. Indeed, for Elizabeth, fashion was a matter of prime importance. French fashion and social graces had become the law at her court.

Here the Marquise de Pompadour necessarily comes to mind, as one whose name is connected to an entire era in the history of fashion: it was she who introduced high heels and tall hairdos (this due to the fact that she herself was short), the small woman’s purse, as well as the fireplace known as “Pompadour-petit.” Shuvalov, while no lawgiver in the realm of clothing, always dressed according to the latest Parisian style and served as trendsetter at court. 

In contrast to Pompadour, who prided herself on being a great spendthrift, Shuvalov was restrained and economical. His clothes were fashionable, but did not feature the kind of excessive luxury that characterized those of other leading fashion plates of the day, like Semyon Naryshkin, Peter Shuvalov, Ivan Chernyshev, Kirill Razumovsky, Stepan Apraksin and Peter Sheremetyev. For example, one of Naryshkin’s suits was not only covered with precious stones, but had the image of an exotic tree woven into it with gold thread, and silver for its branches. Peter Shuvalov was famous for the almost Asiatic luxury of his attire – even his shoes had diamond buckles. And Apraksin’s traveling wardrobe was so big that it could hardly fit in a caravan of several dozen carriages. 

But Elizabeth herself outdid them all: she owned fifteen thousand dresses, thousands of pairs of shoes, hundreds of yards of the richest fabrics. She changed clothing seven times a day and ordered that everyone at court come to balls or receptions in new clothes; at her command, hussars marked guests’ clothing with special inks, so that they dared not appear in them a second time. “The court, emulating – or rather, trying to please the empress – dressed in clothes woven of gold... grandees sought favor in dress, by everything that was expensive... at table, by everything precious... in drink, by everything rare… A person was honored according to the grandeur of his lifestyle and clothing,” commented a contemporary. 

They called Elizabeth “a Russian barynya in French heels.” In fact, both in and out of Russia the search went on for the very latest, most fashionable things for the empress. All Parisian imports into Russia were first brought to court, where the empress picked out the things she liked, then paid the merchants minimal prices (despite her reputation for being open-handed); only then did they have the right to sell what was left to mere mortals. And if this procedure was violated – the empress’ anger was terrible. 

An unusual beauty in her youth, Elizabeth suffered from narcissism her entire life. As historian Vasily Klyuchevsky put it, “she didn’t take her eyes off herself.” It seemed as if she were born to be first. She had a luxurious build, and loved dressing up in menswear, which showed off her figure; others, even young ladies, paled in comparison. With time, however, she grew increasingly intolerant of praise for others’ beauty, and began to persecute women who might be considered even somewhat pretty. Should an unfortunate lady dress too loudly or well, she might immediately fall victim to imperial caprice. How many women’s dresses did Elizabeth cut up with her scissors, how many hairdos did the jealous empress ruin? And of course, it was unheard-of impertinence to appear at court in the same dress as she wore – madame Natalya Lopukhina who dared to do this very thing was publicly hit on both cheeks, and later put to death. 

Elizabeth’s anger achieved an almost bestial state when her jealousy was aroused by someone attracting the attention of her favorites, especially Shuvalov. “Anyone suspected of a romance with Shuvalov,” wrote the historian Alexander. V. Stepanov, “was arrested and sent to prison. Even married women and mothers were not spared the stultifying hand of the Petersburg Inquisition: they were ripped from the arms of their husbands, led away from their crying children—and all of this on mere suspicion, often [!] having no basis at all in reality.” Moreover, Elizabeth was also jealous of her favorites’ past; contemporaries recall that the empress was very bitter toward Princess Gagarina, who had once been Shuvalov’s love interest, and caused her unpleasantries whenever she could. 

Things got to the point that court beauties were afraid to be seen by Shuvalov, and “looked on him as on the Plague, from which one should turn and run” (this despite his well-known graciousness and gallant manners). They came to hate the favorite who involuntarily caused the empresses’ reprimands. There were rumors that several maids in waiting got themselves poodles and named them Ivan Ivanovich to mock him. Catherine the Great reports that “they forced the poodles to do various tricks and to wear light colors,” like those in which Shuvalov liked to dress. (Elizabeth, however, quickly put an end to this “outrage.”)

An unflattering mention of her clothing was the height of insult to Elizabeth, who considered herself to be the most fashionable woman of her time. In particular, she was indignant at complaints by foreigners (spoiled Frenchmen, most of all) that wealth and opulence failed to mask the lack of taste and refinement of the Russian court. Elizabeth was particularly outraged by something Louis XV said to a certain woman courtier: “How absurd you look today, just like the Russian tsaritsa!” Elizabeth’s “well-wishers” – enemies of France – immediately informed her of the emperor’s words, and this occasioned a cooling in Russo-Gallic relations. But not for long, however, as Ivan Shuvalov did everything he could to bring the empress and her court back to the side of France. He was extremely successful, such that, toward the late 1750’s, France and Russia were close allies.

Shuvalov was not merely a “galloman,” but was, in the words of Kazimir Waliszewski, “the most convinced francophone of the era.” According to foreign diplomats, Shuvalov mastered “a purely French way of speaking and of carrying himself.” He was a great fan of French Enlightenment literature, and had a lively correspondence with Voltaire, Diderot and Helvetius. It was said that his home, with its elaborate decorations, looked like cuffs made of Allanson lace.

Of course, long before Shuvalov, other Russian aristocrats collected French libraries and hired French governesses for their children. “Necessity forced them to learn to speak French, the requirement of education,” wrote the historian Sergei Solovyev. “Not only in Russia, but throughout Europe, a mastery of the French language, French literature, and French manners were necessary for a person of society.” 

The seductions of France gave rise to a special cultural and historical type in Russia. The historian Vasily Klyuchevsky called this “the Elizabethan petimetr” (from the French, “petit-mâitre,” or “little master”), and explained its appearance as a special stage in the development of the Russian gentry. However, this is somewhat of a generalization; after all, during this period the word petimetr had a clearly negative, pejorative meaning. This is dramatically seen in Alexander Sumarokov’s comedies of the 1750’s, in which the new breed of fops are attacked for their empty-headedness, ignorance, immorality, gallomania, and disdain for their homeland. The article “Petit-mâitre” in the New Lexicon of the French, German, Latin and Russian Languages (1755-1764), gives this definition: “A young person who thinks much of himself, and who puts no one higher than himself.” 

During this period a harsh literary skirmish raged about petimetry (plural). Some saw the phenomenon as a dangerous social phenomenon, and charged its defenders with dissipation (e.g., “He who would defend / The spoiled age of debauched young men / Is a beast, not a man”). The argument began with the “Satire on Petimetry and Coquettes” (1753), by the literary critic Ivan Yelagin, who seemed to direct his barbs at a collective image of a foppish galloman. Shuvalov, however, took the work personally, and was particularly upset by the following lines, which declared that the petimetr: 

…only thinks up new hairdos 

To attract a mute, stupid regiment of coquettes.

When I consider his deeds

And think about his get-up,

A bottomless source of mirth yawns before me;

On his own he is more hilarious than ten lunatics. 

…только новые приборы вымышляет,

немый и глупый полк кокеток лишь прельщает...

Когда его труды себе воображаю

И мысленно его наряды я считаю,

тогда откроется мне бездна к смеху вин;

cмешнее десяти безумных он один.

Yelagin gave a lively description of the petimetr’s long vigil at the toilet table, but his harshest jabs were reserved for gallomaniacs – those who rejected German or native culture, and who “follow French ways in everything / And become a laughingstock of all reasonable Russians.” 

Yevgeny Lebedev suggests that Shuvalov may have taken Yelagin’s satire personally, because the term petimetr not only meant “fashionplate”, or “empty-headed young person,” but also suggested “an
empty-headed young person who is being kept by a rich aristocratic lady.” This might better explain the distress felt by the 26 year old Shuvalov, then favorite of the 44-year old Elizabeth. At Shuvalov’s insistent request, his allies (Mikhail Lomonosov, Nikolai Popovsky, Ivan Barkov) wrote rebuttals in verse to Yelagin, depicting him as a sanctimonious hypocrite moralizing about youthful indiscretions, peccadilloes that often precede important serious work for the good of the country (in which Shuvalov was in fact engaged).

The fact is, Ivan Ivanovich had become known not simply for his love of French culture but for his efforts on behalf of Russian literature, and for expanding Russians’ educational opportunities. It was he, rather than any other patron of his era, that earned the sobriquet of Maecenas (i.e. Patron). Here is another parallel to Marquise de Pompadour, who (among other things) helped Voltaire receive the positions of court chamberlain and head historian of France. For his part, Shuvalov was patron to the renowned writers of his age: Sumarokov and Lomonosov. The latter immortalized Shuvalov in his well-known “Letter on the Usefulness of Glass” (1752) and dedicated the epic poem “Peter the Great” (1760) to him. Shuvalov himself wrote Russian poetry with Lomonosov’s guidance and made a summary of his Rhetoric.

In 1755, on Shuvalov’s initiative, a university was founded in Moscow (whose first curator he became), as well as two gymnasia. “Under his supervision,” wrote a contemporary, “many people were able to successfully complete the university and reach important ranks, for example, Potemkin and Popov.” Always ready for new undertakings, he established a university print shop, which published the newspaper Moscow News, also a Shuvalov creation. He took part in creating the Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1757, and served as its president until 1763. He founded the Kazan gymnasium in 1758 (where he made the acquaintance of the subsequently famous poet, Gavriil Derzhavin, one of its graduates). Like the Marquise de Pompadour, Shuvalov knew Voltaire well, and helped convince the “patriarch from Ferney” to write his history of Russia under Peter the Great, which played a role in raising Russia’s prestige in Europe. 

In 1760, Shuvalov gave strong support to the well-known writer Mikhail Kheraskov’s proposal to publish a journal through the university typography (Useful Entertainment, 1760-2). This journal was remarkable for its neo-stoicism, which Shuvalov himself shared, and which was perhaps best expressed in the lines by poet Mikhail Kheraskov: 

Do not seek glory in titles

Do not subordinate your mind to wealth,

And do not blindly desire

Poison for your soul.

Не ищи ты в титлах славы, 

Ум в богатство не вперяй,

И душе своей отравы

Ослепленно не желай. 

During the last years of Elizabeth’s life, when she was often sick and isolated, Shuvalov’s role became more important. He became her main advisor and secretary, frequently delivering her personal orders to the Senate, and bringing petitions and reports back to the empress. However, in contrast to the all-powerful French marquise, who was known for her snobbery and intricate behind-the-scenes dealings, Shuvalov always acted with integrity, and dealt with everyone in an equally genial manner. One contemporary wrote that, “He would lend his ear to anyone, and even the poorest people who came up to him were not made to feel that he was some kind of deity.” His indifference to wealth and titles was proverbial. He adamantly refused Elizabeth’s offers to grant him the title of count, a large salary, and large estates, and he also declined the proposal to have a medal coined in his honor. It was said that, when the empress prepared a suitcase for Shuvalov that was full of precious stones and bars of silver and gold, he refused this gift as well. “I may say that I was born without pride, without desire for riches, honors and exalted station,” he said.

Shuvalov had a naturally philosophical cast of mind, a melancholy temperament and an unhurried style, which was reflected in his favorite saying: “Quietly, little by little.” (“Потихоньку, мало-помалу”). But despite this external lugubriousness, Shuvalov did not hesitate to do good. To quote Madame de Pompadour, “to do good, one must have a mind; fools are incapable of it.” Shuvalov was in fact an outstanding intellectual, patron and connoisseur of art and culture. “He had not one stain on his career,” wrote the historian Sergei Platonov, “on the contrary, he was a remarkably attractive personality, a representative of humaneness and learning, the best product of the Petrine reforms and an ornament of the Elizabethan era.”

But upon the empress’ death in January 1762, the Elizabethan era receded into the past, and Shuvalov lost his former influence. In 1763, he went abroad and lived there for the next 14 years. In Vienna, Paris, Naples, Berlin and Rome he was greeted with great honor. The Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II drove him in his carriage. He was given a great reception at the court of Louis XV, where the Duke of Orleans presented him with a snuff box bearing an enamel portrait of Peter I – precious for a Russian. He kept company with the great figures of the French Enlightenment; the encyclopedists Diderot and d’Alembert welcomed him, and Marmontelle wrote verses in his honor. Everyone that came into contact with him was impressed by his erudition and breadth of views. He became especially close to Voltaire. One of their exchanges has been preserved:

Voltaire let fall that “Peter I and Catherine II brought Russia closer to Europe.” 

“No,” objected Shuvalov, “they simply brought Europe closer to Russia.”

Shuvalov himself, it would seem, brought the values of European culture to Russia and helped make them Russia’s. In a more practical vein, he amassed a collection of very rare antiquities and magnificent paintings, and had copies of the best Italian statuary made, all of which he later donated to the Academy of Arts – a crucial core of the Hermitage Museum’s initial collection. And he was a great supporter of Russian artists and scholars abroad. In addition, he was entrusted with delicate diplomatic tasks; Catherine the Great asked him to lead important negotiations regarding the replacement of the papal nuncio in Warsaw, which he accomplished brilliantly. 

In 1777, Shuvalov returned home to a hero’s welcome. Catherine gave a grandiose ball in his honor. She granted him the rank of High Chamberlain and awarded him the highest Russian medal – the order of Andrei the First-Called. 

Shuvalov’s Petersburg home became a focus of the nation’s intellectual life. Visitors included such luminaries as Yekaterina Dashkova, Alexander Khrapovitsky, Osip Kozodavlev, Ivan Dmitriev, Alexander Shishkov, and Alexei Olenin. 

He had sensed the young Derzhavin’s potential early on, and continued to support him. He also recognized the talent of the poet Ermil Kostrov, translator of The Iliad, who actually came to live in his home. The writers Denis Fonvizin and Ippolit Bogdanovich were also in Shuvalov’s debt. He valued and patronized non-noble Russian natural talents such as the peasant artist Sveshnikov. And he also nurtured his own literary interests – together with Dashkova he published the journal Collocutor of Lovers of the Russian Word from 1783-84.

Blessed with quiet fame and universal respect, Shuvalov passed away in 1797, during the reign of Paul I. The entire Russian court accompanied him on his last journey. At his graveside in Alexander Nevsky Monastery, the well-known church orator Anastasy (Anastasy Bratanovsky-Romanenko) gave the eulogy. “Shuvalov’s life was worthy of Plutarch,” he declared to the solemn assemblage. The next day, driving by Shuvalov’s house, the emperor stopped, exited his carriage, removed his hat and made a low bow, thus offering a final salute to his many services.

Virtue does not die

The muses make it immortal. 

The Pericleses are thus immortal 

And the Maecenases live forever.

Like memory, your glory and titles,

Shuvalov, will not die!

Не умирает добродетель,

Бессмертна музами она.

Бессмертны музами Периклы

И Меценаты ввек живут.

Подобно память, слава, титлы

Твои, Шувалов, не умрут!

(A Tribute Dedicated to Ivan Shuvalov,

by Gavriil Derzhavin.)