Alexander Beloselsky-Belozersky
Alexander Mikhailovich Beloselsky-Belozersky (1752-1809), known in French publications of the time as Alexandre Bélosselsky de Bélozersk, was Catherine II of Russia's minister at the Savoyard court in the years when the French Revolution reached the gates of Piedmont. He arrived in Turin on 4 April 1792[1]. His 86 dispatches to the St Petersburg government, written from Turin between 18 April 1792 and 12 March 1793, were published in Paris in 1901 by a great-great-granddaughter, Princess Lise Troubetzkoï, under the title Un ambassadeur russe à Turin (1792-1793)[2][3]. They are the account of an outside observer of the city before and during the invasion: the court, the ministers, the army, prices, discontent.
Arrival and the court
The first dispatch, dated Turin, 7 April 1792, recounts his arrival three days earlier: the following morning the prince sent his own man, Karpov, to the master of ceremonies; in the afternoon he was received by the foreign minister, Count d'Hauteville, and shortly afterwards presented his letter of credentials to the king in the Royal Cabinet, in an audience lasting almost an hour[1]. The court, he noted, spent "nearly three quarters of the year" outside the city, between Moncalieri, Venaria and Rivoli, and the foreign envoy was required to follow it; his house in Turin was the one that had belonged to the Portuguese ambassador[1].
Part of the dispatches form a household budget, written to ask the sovereign for a pay rise: house rent about 3,800 francs, horses 980, travel following the court 600, servants 4,992, kitchen 3,600, wood, coal and candles 2,300, wines 1,800, diplomatic livery 1,200, for a total of 19,272 francs before receptions, dinners, theatre boxes — assigned by the king — and ceremonial liveries. Turin, he concluded, cost about twice as much as Vienna or Dresden for the same standing[1].
His judgment of the kingdom's men is harsh and detailed: Count d'Hauteville "educated, very hard-working" but unable to decide anything; the minister of war, Cravanzana, "incapable and indecisive"; the governor of Turin, the elderly Count Salmour; the minister of the interior, Count Granery; the archbishop-cardinal "rather mediocre"; the generals "very poor" and the officers too young, idle or ignorant, while the troops were "fairly well trained". The only one with useful ideas, in the prince's view, was the Prince of Piedmont, who however spoke rarely; the Duke of Aosta was asking for command of the army. Of King Victor Amadeus III he wrote that he had "a fine soul and an enlightened mind", while reproaching him for leaving wrongdoers unpunished[1].
The year of the invasion
From the summer of 1792 the dispatches follow the rapid deterioration of events. The Russian minister describes the discontent growing with poverty, beggars and bandits on the roads, and riots of Jacobin inspiration; he recounts that French agents were selling salt at half the Piedmontese price and buying bread at bakeries in Savoy, and that the government responded by halving the price of salt, emptying the state coffers. Two uprisings were put down[1]. He also denied a rumour picked up by the French press that the king had been poisoned by a cook: a court cook had been arrested for "impertinent remarks" and released after a week[1].
On 2 September 1792 Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy, Princess de Lamballe, was killed in Paris, and the King of Sardinia ordered three weeks of court mourning[1]. That same month the French army entered Savoy and then the County of Nice, annexing them without a declaration of war. Twenty-five thousand French troops passed through Montmélian: six Sardinian battalions withdrew, blowing up the bridge and with it communications with Turin, the infantry halted at Moutiers and the cavalry crossed into Valle d'Aosta, losing equipment and cannon. In two weeks, the prince noted, the king had lost two thirds of his States[1]. The king's household announced that the royal family would move to the countryside, to the Vigna della Regina, and that after its departure the sovereign would no longer receive foreign diplomats[1].
The 1901 edition
The volume was published in Paris by E. Leroux in 1901, in octavo, xii-155 pages with a portrait, carrying the subtitle "The events in Paris. The end of the French monarchy. The dispositions of the Sardinian court. The conquest of Nice and Savoy"[2]. It was reviewed in the Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine by Pierre Caron, who praised the intention and criticised the method: the book gives no indication of where the dispatches came from, whether the originals were in Russian or French, nor whether the collection is the complete correspondence or a selection, and the absence of such information "calls for, if not distrust, then at least reserve" (in the original: "commande, sinon la méfiance, du moins la réserve")[2]. The same reviewer sums up the first group of documents as a picture of Victor Amadeus III's policy towards France for almost all of 1792: frightened and outraged by the Revolution, the king did not dare declare himself against it for fear that the slowness of his Austrian allies would leave him alone in an unequal struggle[2]. The book, no longer under copyright, can be read in a digital copy[3].
Sources
- L'ambasciatore russo — Atlante di Torino
- Un ambasciatore russo a Torino (1792-1793): i dispacci del principe Belosel'skij-Belozerskij, recensione di Pierre Caron — Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, t. 3, n. 6, pp. 645-646
- Un ambasciatore russo a Torino (1792-1793). Dispacci del principe Alexandre Bélosselsky de Bélozersk, pubblicati dalla principessa Lise Troubetzkoï — Parigi, E. Leroux, copia digitale su Internet Archive