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Updated: June 9, 2025
The next day, Madame Bestuchef found means to convince her credulous husband that Trenck was the victim of an intrigue, and entirely innocent of the charge brought against him. Trenck remained, therefore, the friend of the house, and Madame Bestuchef had the audacity to publicly insult my ambassador. Trenck now announced himself as a raging adversary of Prussia.
I hoped thereby to gain Russia, who is allied to England, to my side. But these hopes have been destroyed. Russia, angry with Britain for having allied herself to Prussia, has broken her contract. Bestuchef, it is true, wavered for a moment between his love of English guineas and his hatred of me, but hate carried the day."
No sooner was I entrusted more intimately with cabinet secrets, than I discovered the state of factions, and that Bestuchef and Apraxin were even then in Prussian pay; that a counterpoise, by their means, might be formed to the prevalence of the Austrian party. Hence we may date the change of Russian politics in the year 1762.
When hunger drove him to eat the coarse bread which was his only nourishment, and to satisfy his thirst with the muddy water in the tin pitcher at his side, he thought of the meals, worthy of Lucullus, of which he had partaken, at the Russian court, by the side of the all-powerful Russian minister Bestuchef; he remembered the fabulous pomp which surrounded him, and the profound reverence which was shown him, as the acknowledged favorite of the prime minister of the empress.
This was as gladly welcomed by Count Bruhl, the luxurious minister of King Augustus the Third of Poland and Saxony, as the English subsidy was by Bestuchef. The King of France appeared to stand alone; even as completely alone as Frederick of Prussia.
Manners were at that time so rude in Russia, that every foreigner who gave a dinner, or a ball, must send notice to the chancellor Bestuchef, that he might return a list of the guests allowed to be invited. Faction governed everything; and wherever Bestuchef was, no friend of Woranzow durst appear.
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