Kill by the rules: codes of honor in the Russian Empire. The standard of noble honor Physical strength and dexterity

Russian aristocracy, or the nobleman's code of honor Noble education is not a pedagogical system, not a special technique and not a set of any rules. This is a way of life, a style of behavior, clothes. This was assimilated consciously, and partly unconsciously, through habits and imitation. These are traditions that are not discussed, but observed. The nobles were taught independence, courage, nobility, honor. The nobles had the belief that in the future the inequality of the strata of Russian society would gradually smooth out and the noble culture in its entirety - from works of literature and art to good manners - would become the property of all classes, would be the common legitimate heritage of free and enlightened citizens. The attitude of a nobleman was largely determined by his position and role in the state. The nobility was a privileged and service class at the same time. This gave birth in the soul of a nobleman a combination of a sense of being chosen and a sense of responsibility. The nobleman's attitude to military and public service was associated with serving society, Russia. Motto: "Serve faithfully to whom you swear." Even a nobleman who was not in public service was forced to deal with the affairs of his estate and his peasants. Instruction: "obey the bosses, do not chase after their affection, do not ask for service, do not refuse service, take care of the dress again, and honor from a young age." The difference between the service of the nobility and the service of the lackey is that the former implies a personal interest in matters of national importance. The nobleman serves the tsar as a vassal, but does common business with him, bearing his share of responsibility for everything that happens in the state. The upbringing of children consisted in the fact that they were oriented not to success, but to the ideal. To be brave, honest, educated - not in order to achieve fame, wealth, high rank, but because he is a nobleman, much has been given to him, and he should be just like that. The noble honor was considered the main class virtue. This honor does not give a person any privileges, but, on the contrary, makes him more vulnerable. Honor was the basic law of behavior of a nobleman, unconditionally and unconditionally prevailing over any other considerations - over profit, success, security or prudence. A person had to answer for his words and for an insult he had to fight a duel. Not to fight was considered the limit of meanness. If a person intentionally insults or rudely humiliates you - hit him, but if he only hurts you, then the best way to take revenge on him is to be exquisitely polite with him outwardly and, at the same time, return the barbs to him even with interest. With your enemy, you must be emphatically polite, or knock him down. Children were brought up in an atmosphere of high demands and emphasized trust. Noble upbringing gave success in life. It included not only external well-being, but also the internal state of a person - a clear conscience, high self-esteem, no tantrums, no anger, aristocratic pride did not allow such feelings to be shown. Great importance was attached to courage and confidence that it can be brought up through strong-willed efforts and attitudes. These qualities have always been highly valued and diligently instilled in children. They were impossible without physical strength, agility and endurance. Lyceum students were trained in horse riding, fencing, swimming, rowing, etc. The schedule was strict: getting up at 7 in the morning, walking in any weather, simple food - this was dictated by life itself. Girls were forced to lie on the floor so that their backs were even, regardless of the weather they were forced to walk, ride, dress lightly - Russian noblewomen were psychologically and physically better prepared for the difficulties of life than today's women. The children of the nobility learned to overcome pain, despair, fear, and tried to the best of their ability not to show how difficult it was. This required not only courage, but also an impeccable ability to control oneself, which was achieved through a long and careful education. In a secular society, a person often has to face very unpleasant things with a relaxed and cheerful face. He must seem pleased when in fact he is feeling bad, must approach with a smile those whom he would more willingly approach with a gun. These requirements were brought up from early childhood, persistently and sometimes cruelly. You must hide your temper and be able not to be, but to seem. He who controls himself controls the situation. It was believed that a well-mannered person does not burden those around him with his personal troubles and experiences, he knows how to protect his inner world from uninvited witnesses. In life, not connected with the service, the nobles were engaged in special activities, no less interesting and very important. Balls, social events, salon conversations, private correspondence - all this bore the tinge of rituals, participation in which required training. They had the ability to "appeal to people." It was a special art. The big world is a theater where everyone is both an artist and a spectator at the same time. A person who perfectly knows the rules of good manners was not burdened by them, but gained true freedom in relations with people. Children were taught, first of all, to the rules of hygiene: brush their teeth, wash their ears, keep their hands and nails in exemplary order. Do not pick your nose, ears, blow your nose only into a handkerchief and do not look into it anymore. Do not show off your dress, but think about how you are dressed. Caring for one's appearance was combined among aristocrats with physical endurance and courage. The rules of etiquette demanded that the most expensive and sophisticated outfit look simple. Particular attention was paid to jewelry: wearing too much jewelry was considered bad form. That is, a demonstration of wealth - open and deliberate - was considered obscene. Good manners were needed not only for holidays, for example, such as: not to sit when others are standing. Any question addressed to you cannot be left unanswered. You can’t take the best place in the room, pounce on the dish you like without offering it to others to taste. You need to speak slowly and clearly. The grossest insult is a clear inattention to the person who says something to you. When talking, you need to look the interlocutor in the face, do not look around or look out the window, corner, etc. If you are told a story already known, listen to it carefully to the end, give pleasure to the narrator. In a conversation with the elderly, hint that you expect to learn something from them. In a conversation with a woman, all jokes and witticisms, directly or indirectly, should be aimed at praising the interlocutor and should not be interpreted offensively or unpleasantly for her. The first rule of good manners is to behave in such a way as to make your company as pleasant as possible for others. A special sophistication of manners is to behave equally with both. Of course, a very high-ranking person needs to show his respect - for example, wait to be spoken to, and not start talking to the first. Maintain the conversation that has already been started, and not choose the topic of conversation yourself. Accidentally praise someone for good qualities. The rules of decency in treatment must be observed with everyone - with a lackey, and with a beggar on the street, and with a passerby. Swaggering and arrogance has always been considered bad manners. Modesty is the surest way to satisfy vanity. Self-esteem makes people behave modestly. Here are some rules - a code of honor for every nobleman: 1. Never try to appear smarter or more learned than the people in whose company you are. 2. Stay out of the way unless asked. 3. Speak often, but not for long. 4. Never indulge in mystery and mystery - this is unpleasant and suspicious. 5. Do not prove your opinion loudly and with fervor - even though you are right, express it modestly and calmly. 6. Express your views confidently, but treat others with respect. There is no falsehood, betrayal, all this concerns only politeness of manners. Lies and rudeness are unacceptable. 7. It's not a shame to clean up the dirt, it's a shame to live in the dirt.

I get robbed in the same way as others, but this is a good sign and shows that there is something to steal.
Catherine II, private letter, 1775

The nobles considered themselves the best people of the state. Whether they had such grounds or not, they talked about it. A. S. Pushkin believed that the meaning of the nobility is precisely this: to be the most perfect, most educated and most decent people in Russia.

For this they are given privileges that separate them from the common people, estates that give them the opportunity to live without worrying about a piece of bread.

Of course, outstanding personalities were rarely born among the nobles, most of these people were the most ordinary men and women who did nothing exceptional.

But here is the code of honor. He acted. A nobleman could not do much that was forgiven to a commoner, but not forgiven to him. Because noble. Because that's what ranks, estates and privileges are given.

The standard of noble honor. We remember, alas, only that “the age of the cavalry guard is short-lived, and therefore so la-la-la ... la-la, throwing back the canopy, and all la-la-la-la-la ... "

In our “democratic” time, due to the inertia of Soviet times, it is supposed to believe that the nobles “in fact” were not the best people in Russia and that their privileges and wealth were given completely in vain, for nothing. Class, you know, the principle! Only one thing can be advised for this ... And you guys should go to Azov. The walls of the Turkish fortress, 25-30 meters high, are perfectly preserved there. Bombards stand there ... with a diameter of up to 80 centimeters.

Further - it is clear. We take a ladder ... 30 meters long, it will weigh 150 kilos ... This is the one we take together. A sword in the teeth and - forward. On the walls! Bombs are falling from there, pouring tar and boiling water, shooting, stairs are repelled with special spears - and sideways, and your camping comrade is already writhing below with a broken spine. And you climb! And don't just climb - pistols on your belt. Sword in the teeth! Climb, encouraging the male soldiers, organizing subordinates, pulling out the wounded along the way. Dolez? Pistols pulled out, smoke, fumes, blood, lead - point blank, sword drawn - forward! There are still plenty of Turks on the walls, and they are not going to give up. Penicillin and painkillers, by the way, have not yet been invented, so every second wound is gangrene and amputation, and every third, even small by modern standards, is death in wild torment, like that of a prince, an oligarch and a nobleman in ... the fourth knee of Andrei Bolkonsky. Scary? I do not want? Nothing to freak out. Did you do it? Congratulations, you are nobles.

But we digress. Let us return to the very honor of the nobility, which should be protected from a young age. The code of honor, among other things, excluded any dishonest way of enrichment. The nobleman built his “quarry” in such a way that not only himself, but also his ancestors and his descendants could not be reproached for anything. Ancestors - that gave birth to a bad offspring. Descendants - that come from a scoundrel.

This very strict, very rigid code of honor could, in a number of cases, directly demand that death be preferred to the continuation of life. Honor is more important than physical existence.

The reader is generally aware of how harshly the code of honor acted: this is very historically described in Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter. Alexander Sergeevich relied on facts: during the Pugachevshchina, more than 300 nobles of both sexes were hanged for refusing to swear allegiance to Pugachev - "miraculously saved Peter III." Exactly like the captain and captain (!) Mironovs. The Pugachevites lined up noble families under the gallows, first they hanged their husbands in front of their wives and children. Then mothers in front of their children. Sometimes they started with children - maybe this will impress the parents? So: not a single described case has been preserved in the history of dads and moms ( moms too!) saved the child at the cost of a false oath.

At the same time, ordinary soldiers, yesterday's men, of course, usually betrayed, "recognizing" in Pugachev "the true king." But what is surprising, then, after the suppression of the rebellion, they usually ... returned back "to the sovereign's service", and they were taken! Well, what did they give slack, changed the oath? Guys. What to take from them. There is no real honor in them, what can you do.

And from the indigenous nobility, only 1 ( one!) the man chickened out under the gallows and went to serve Pugachev. After the defeat of the impostor, he rushed to save himself: after all, he was not Catherine's "ideological" enemy at all. Well, at first he was afraid, betrayed, and then there was no way out. The surname of this historical character is Shvanvich. In Pushkin, he is Shvabrin, and all contemporaries immediately recognized who he was talking about. By the way, in The Captain's Daughter, Pushkin did not invent the story of Shvabrin's duel: in fact, there was the same case of violation of the rules of the duel, only not by Shvanvich himself, but by his father. The incident was notorious at the time. Shvanvich's father cut the face of Alexei Orlov, the very favorite of Catherine the Great, when he looked back at a scream.

Until the end of his days, the face of Alexei Orlov was “decorated” with a terrible scar from the ear to the corner of the mouth. On unusual people, his smile acted terribly. Shvanvich Sr. was forgiven: he managed to convince the public that he had taken advantage of the enemy’s mistake “accidentally”, he slashed at the same time as he screamed.

This is how suspicion involuntarily arises: maybe meanness is still a hereditary quality? Maybe our ancestors were right when they judged a person not only by his own qualities, but also by the way of life of his parents and grandparents? Are many qualities transmitted even purely genetically, and even more so - through education?

In any case, when Shvanvich Jr. was tried, he was also reminded of the meanness committed by his father. And they haven't forgiven. The fact that a commoner was forgiven, who was often not even punished, but simply put back into service, could not be forgiven a nobleman. Under no circumstances.

It is difficult to describe the full measure of contempt for Shvanvich of the whole society. Shvanvich is politically dead. When he was led in shackles to the court, the women tried not to touch him even with the edge of their dress. No one addressed him and did not answer his words, except for the members of the court.

According to the verdict, he was not executed, but exiled to the Turukhansk region forever. Catherine died, Paul reigned, Alexander ascended the throne, the war with Napoleon died down ... Shvanvich lived. None of the Sovereigns, despite tradition, pardoned him upon accession to the throne. The living dead rotted on the banks of the Yenisei, in the forest-tundra, for a good forty years.

Russian nobles, including the highest-ranking ones, could not be “primordially” thievish just because they protected family honor. Yes, they were not disinterested, they worked for the result, including obtaining ranks, estates, awards, awards. They wanted to "make a quarry", and, of course, not all of them used only noble methods for this.

The nobles served their superiors, bowed to their superiors, married rich brides, and resorted to all sorts of petty scams to inflate their worth. But to steal ... to appropriate someone else's and even government money ...

From the point of view of the famous French diplomat Talleyrand, Russian courtiers were "strange". Including because they "did not take." The same "strangeness" was observed by the Russians by the Prussian king Frederick the Great, and the envoy Lestok, who played a significant role in the conspiracy that brought Elizabeth to the throne.

However, our kings are also strange. Let's say the state budget of France in 1720 was 5 million livres.

The fortune of the relative of the king, the Duke of Orleans, was estimated at 114 million livres, and his debts - at 74 million livres. The legendary diamond pendants donated by the king to his wife cost about 800,000 livres.

Here is what is interesting: the highest French nobility behaved exactly like in Russia - temporary workers. A classic domestic example of a thief at the throne is, of course, Aleksashka Menshikov. 14 million totaled his fortune at the time of the "confiscation" in 1727. And there is no certainty that everything was completely found.

But who is Menshikov - the "semi-powerful ruler"? Pieman? Is it the son of a groom, or a soldier? A typical temporary worker for our history.

Alas, sometimes all sorts of Menshikovs, Shafirovs, Khodorkovskys, Berezovskys, Gusinskys fell down on our long-suffering state. The price of these personalities is clear: fartsa without family and tribe, instantly elevated from "junior scientists" and pastry makers to the owners of the country. Steal the loot. At any moment they will be overthrown, imprisoned, exiled.

But there is a difference between a temporary worker and a hereditary aristocrat "having all rights". Therefore, it is somehow incorrect to compare Menshikov with the French princes of the blood. What is still “forgivable” to a temporary worker-grabber somehow looks wildly among those who have been on the throne for generations, among the hereditary rulers of the Kingdom of France themselves. The aristocracy, whose ancestors participated in the Crusades.

In general, one way or another, the kings themselves and their relatives in France have always been much richer than the state they headed.

The budget of the Russian Empire in 1899 reached an astronomical figure: 1.5 billion rubles.

And the value of the property of the royal family - according to the maximum calculation - 125 million rubles. Also not childish - 8% ... But you can’t compare with the French.

Morality: Russian tsars were much poorer than the state they headed. It is well known that during the first census in 1897, Nicholas II wrote in the column "occupation": "The owner of the Russian land."

Hmm yeah. Doubtful, Your Majesty! What kind of master are you when your entire large family of the total fortune accounts for only a maximum of 8%, and according to other sources - 2-3% of the annual state budget.

The Sovereign Emperor, of course, DISTRIBUTED in Russia according to the law and subject to certain restrictions established by laws, practically all the property of the State. But precisely - disposed of. Didn't own. The members of the imperial house were the richest people, and their content cost the Russian budget a pretty penny, but the state treasury is one thing, and their personal pocket is quite another. The right to dispose of state property by the emperor is partly the same right that, for example, the President of Russia has today, only with greater restrictions under the law. The only difference is that the President has this right limited in time, for the term of office, and is not inherited, but delegated directly by the people through direct elections.

But it would not occur to anyone today to say about the President of Russia - "the owner of the Russian land", even though he is partly the same manager of state property, who was, say, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov.

So, they were strange, our kings.

And their dignitaries were also strange.

Did the highest Russian dignitaries take bribes? As a rule, no. Did they steal the treasury? Rather, some of them used the treasury, and then mostly moderately and cautiously. In each era and for each layer and rank, there were their own standards of what is possible and what is not. These "concepts" had nothing to do with the written law, but its dignitaries never violated it. They knew - otherwise they will cease to be respected. With them it will be like with Shvanvich - civil death will come. Even without exile or confiscation, without exclusion from the nobility and without deprivation of ranks ... They will simply cease to exist for their class. For them, everything that was their world all their lives will disappear.

European theft as a court secular tradition

Some may object: after all, the code of knightly honor did not operate in Russia alone. Undoubtedly! But in Europe, this code, long ago, from the 15th century, began to corrode capitalism. It is known that, for example, in Britain, the principle practically officially operated: "A gentleman is one who has enough money to be a gentleman."

Do you have £40 income? Then you are a nobleman. And if you have “only” 39 pounds, you are not a gentleman, even if your ancestors helped William the Conqueror to get out of the ship ashore.

In Europe, only the eldest son inherited the estate and became a landlord. The second son usually still inherited movable property, and the third certainly did not receive anything. For those who do not know well this European principle of single inheritance from the course of school history, here is a good example: remember the wonderful fairy tale about the best PR-man of all time, Puss in Boots. The father bequeaths his entire household to the first son, something else for the little things to the second, while the third gets only the master's cat. The example is very clear and, most importantly, fully corresponds to the historical reality of that time. An attempt to introduce such a system in Russia was made by Peter I, but he failed. So, literally crowds of restless nobles wandered around Europe for centuries from the 15th-16th centuries - with ambition and swords, but without a livelihood.

When a Russian nobleman made a career, he increased his importance in a corporation called "Russia". The higher the rank, the more you owe.

And when a European made a career, he changed only his private position, nothing more. Conan Doyle describes in his famous Notes on Sherlock Holmes the phenomenon of practice buying. The doctor practices, it brings income, and the practice is worth something. You can buy a practice in such and such an area for such and such a sum. You invest money and get profit on them. So Dr. Watson, a permanent friend of Sherlock Holmes, bought the practice. If a doctor falls ill, gets old, does not work as intensively, loses a permanent clientele, the cost of practice goes down. Buying such a cheaper practice is a profitable business! It is like buying an estate that has fallen in price, which is easy, after working hard, to make it again bringing a solid income.

In the same way as the practices of doctors and lawyers, positions could be sold. Beginning with the Roman Empire, the positions of officials and even military leaders were often simply “put on the market”, where they cost a certain amount of money. There was even a case in the Byzantine Empire of the tenth century, when the court found it worth the money ... protection itself. The official married off his daughter and, “by pull”, attached his son-in-law to the position. Well, how not to please your own little man! But the son-in-law turned out to be a drunkard and a loafer, he was shamefully dismissed from his post, and then the father-in-law began to sue a relative, demanding payment for his services. And the court recognized the plaintiff's right to pay for his recommendation! In France, until the very end of the royal period in 1789, a system of farming was in effect. A certain merchant paid a tax to the state for an entire province, and then collected the tax himself. Of course, without hurting yourself. It was a profitable business, ransoms were torn from each other, and there was a harmonious system - to whom, when and how much to give in order to get a ransom.

To any courtier and in general to any nobleman, the king could also appoint an annuity - a life or hereditary pension. That is, to give not land, but a fixed income. Or a position where you don't have to do anything at all. Such a position had an official name - sinecure. The word comes from the Latin sine cura animarum - without care for the soul.

Among the French kings, the distribution of sinecures was as common as the distribution of rents or the surrender of the provinces of their own state.

Let us clarify that the concept of sinecure was much more peculiar. For example, the king's chamber pot had to be carried out by six people armed with swords and dressed in velvet. And these positions were not considered sinecure. What do you! The courtiers worked. Without much risk to life, but in difficult environmental conditions, one might say. A sinecure is different, for example, when a person lives in Versailles, which is well known, and receives a “salary” for the position of royal governor in the West Indies. Which he never saw.

Why, under such conditions, Adam Smith's "economic man" could not treat holding public office as simply a business?

Especially if he "safely" bought this position. He treated it simply as an investment.

Actually, approximately this is what often happens in MODERN RUSSIA. But one should not think that it has always been like this, from time immemorial, and a priori it cannot be otherwise.

Do not confuse modern madness with historical predisposition.

And in the good old days, officers, of course, could send soldiers to mow hay on their estate. Abuse, no doubt, but it was not in the course of hostilities that such a thing was committed. And cases of embezzlement by officers and their appropriation of amounts allocated for fodder or for the food of soldiers are rare and not typical even in the 18th century.

By the way, let's not forget: the Russian army has always been nervous about the position of army quartermaster.
A. V. Suvorov used to say: "Half a year of quartermastership, and you can be shot without trial."

Alexander Alexandrovich Vyazemsky

On the appointment of Alexander Alexandrovich Vyazemsky as Prosecutor General A. Rumyantsev said: “Your Majesty does wonders: a statesman has come out of an ordinary quartermaster.” Quartermaster in the army ... but did not steal! It was pleasantly surprising. Note, however: for Rumyantsev it is obvious that a statesman does not steal. This is the level of an "ordinary quartermaster" ...

But in Russia, for all its dislike for quartermasters, there was no case that soldiers went into battle completely barefoot, without boots, or were deprived of food.

And in Europe it happened, and more than once. Here is a small example from the life of a famous person.

The famous military engineer, military leader, classic of fortification, Marshal of France Vauban lived the life of a military man. He built 33 new fortresses and improved up to 300 old ones, participated in 53 sieges and 104 skirmishes and battles, forced the capitulation of many enemy "impregnable" fortresses. In 1677 he was appointed head of all engineering work in France. In five years, he developed a system of fortifications of the borders and surrounded the kingdom with a ring of fortifications.

But at the end of his life, Vauban incurred the displeasure of the king and was even dismissed from the service. The fact is that he published the book "La dime royale" ("Tithing of the King"). In it, Vauban eloquently describes the poverty of the people, the plight of the army, embezzlement and money-grubbing ... in fact, everyone. Unfortunately, the book has not been translated into Russian, but many pieces from it can be found in the work of the 19th century economist Brzhevsky.

No less gloomy flavor of general theft is present in the books of Montesquieu or Diderot. Indeed, it is worth reading for those who like to speculate about the benefits of the Protestant ethic and the genetic predisposition of Russians to theft and bribery.

If something was built, sums were appropriated, sometimes exceeding the costs of real construction by two or three times. Let's say the construction of the Grand Palace of Versailles cost 25,725,836 livres.

According to historians, the construction was carried out very economically, because they saved on everything, they counted everything, all orders were competitive, so they stole unusually little - no more than half of the funds allocated by the treasury.

Versailles, by the way, is “built on bones” to a much greater extent than our St. Petersburg: up to 6 thousand people died during its construction - from bad food, bad water, lack of medical care. But the courtiers who distributed the orders, and the contractors who received them, did not live in poverty. Alas, alas, you will never read about this either in French school textbooks or in guidebooks to the palaces of Versailles. Unlike us, the frivolous French do not show off to everyone and everything not the most cheerful pages of their history.

By the way, a few more words about sunny France. Once, the Comptroller General of the French Ministry of Finance, Calonne, was asked: “How did you decide to take over the management of the royal finances when you completely upset your personal affairs”? He replied, not without humor: "That's why I undertook to manage the royal finances, that my personal finances were already very upset."

Charles Maurice Talleyrand.

The absolute champion of the world, Europe and the Olympic Games in the number and quality of transitions from one political camp to another. So, in short: a royalist nobleman, a priest, an ardent republican deputy, a Bonapartist, the head of Napoleon’s diplomacy, a secret agent of Alexander I, again a monarchist, one of those who brought the Bourbons to the throne ... His most famous saying: “This is worse than a crime. This is mistake"

What is called - short and clear.

But Charles-Maurice Talleyrand became the embodiment, a kind of ideal model of the "economic man" in office.

“This is a vile, greedy, low intriguer, he needs dirt and money. For money, he sold his honor and his friend. For money, he would have sold his soul - and he would have been right, because he would have exchanged a dunghill for gold, ”said Mirabeau about him two years before the revolution, in 1787.

Talleyrand betrayed and sold first the Catholic Church in favor of the revolution, then the revolution in favor of Napoleon, then Napoleon in favor of Alexander I, then Alexander I in favor of Metternich and Castlereagh; he contributed most of all to the restoration of the Bourbons, betraying Napoleon, and after their overthrow he helped most of all to the speedy recognition of the “king of the barricades” Louis Philippe by the British government and the rest of Europe, and so on without end. His whole life was an endless series of betrayals and betrayals, and these deeds were associated with such grandiose historical events, took place on such an open world stage, were always (without exception) explained to such an extent by clearly selfish motives and were accompanied by such direct material benefits for him personally, that with his colossal mind, Talleyrand never expected that with a simple, ordinary and generally accepted, so to speak, hypocrisy, he could really deceive someone for a long time after the commission of one or another of his acts.

There are many stories about Talleyrand. Here is one of the most colorful: “In 1798, the following unpleasant story took place. In Paris (as early as the autumn of 1797) there were special American commissioners who had come to solicit the sums of money legally due to American shipowners. Talleyrand pulled the case, sending his agents, who, explaining themselves in English, told the Americans who thought hard that the minister would like to get “sweet”, the sweetness, from them, as they translated “les douceurs”.

Sweets were needed in such inappropriately huge sizes that American patience snapped. Not only did the delegates make a formal complaint to the President of the United States, their direct superior, but President Adams himself (in a message to Congress) repeated these accusations. On this occasion, the American representatives reproachfully recalled the recent emigration of Talleyrand: “This man, towards whom we have shown the most benevolent hospitality, he is the minister of the French government to whom we came, asking only for justice. And this ungrateful guest of ours, this bishop who denied his God, did not hesitate to extort from us fifty thousand pounds sterling for the sweetness, fifty thousand pounds sterling for the satisfaction of his vices.

The scandal was incredible. All of this was printed.

Talleyrand replied, carelessly and condescendingly, citing some unknown deceivers and the "inexperience" of the American representatives. Then he hurried to satisfy their demands, already waving his hand at the "sweet". But he only had those troubles with those savages from the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. Europeans were much more patient and avoided scandals. And their situation was even more dangerous: they were not guarded by the Atlantic Ocean.” That's it.

As the aforementioned Americans say, "no comment."

How Chancellor Bestuzhev turned out to be "corrupt"

So that you live on one salary!
From the movie "Diamond Arm"

How many times has anyone who is interested in Russian history or simply loves historical novels read that the famous Chancellor and Field Marshal of the time of Elizabeth Alexei Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin was a shameless bribe taker: first he took money from the British, then he was bribed by Frederick of Prussia. Specific amounts also appear: Bestuzhev supposedly received an official salary of 7,000 rubles, and a pension from the British - 12,000.

It's sad... Because it turns out - two hundred years have passed, and for us gossip spread by agents of the enemy of Russia, the Prussian King Frederick is still alive...

So: Bestuzhev consistently advocated a defensive and commercial alliance with England. In the end, in 1742, an Anglo-Russian treaty was signed on the recognition of the imperial title for Elizabeth, on mutual support in case of war and on the renewal of the trade agreement for 15 years. For England, this was an exceptionally advantageous treaty. During the negotiations, the envoy Veitch asked the English government of King George "tangible evidence of the gracious disposition of His Majesty." The king offered the brothers Alexei and Mikhail Bestuzhev pensions from the English treasury. Were they 12 thousand rubles or less or more, is unknown.

A. P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin.

Chancellor Bestuzhev is an honest man. Do you remember Chubais saying: "Koch is an honest man"? From Bestuzhev's honesty, Chubais would generally be confused

Such were the diplomatic customs in the 18th century: at the conclusion of treatises, during peace negotiations, the participants in these cases were always presented with gifts by the interested parties.

But here's what it turns out: Veitch received money from the royal government. But Bestuzhev did NOT receive them! His friendship with the British and his constant support for their policy in St. Petersburg were created solely by the consciousness of the benefits of Russia.

So sorry, who's the thief here? Alexey Bestuzhev? Or Veych?

And about Frederick of Prussia... This king had the best intelligence in Europe at that time. She acted somewhat straightforwardly, but effectively: she bought the services of all the necessary persons. Frederick himself personally drew up the most detailed instructions for his recruiters and assured that he had never encountered incorruptibility at any court of European monarchs. The methodical Friedrich divided his spies into 4 categories:
1) small scammers from the common people;
2) professional spies, including double and triple agents;
3) bribed courtiers and officials;
4) intimidated people who have become spies involuntarily: because their loved ones are taken hostage or they are being blackmailed.

Naturally, Friedrich also had the richest agents in St. Petersburg. True, for some reason the names of well-known agents are Levenwolde and Fabricius ... But let's not be petty - since Petersburg, it means that Russians live there. Among the "agents of influence", by the way, was the mother of the future Empress Catherine II, Johann of Anhalt-Zerbskaya. One thing is good: due to extreme stupidity, this lady, even if she wanted to harm Russia, it would not be in her power.

So, Friedrich dreamed of buying Bestuzhev. However, Bestuzhev each time sent his agents far away and not in very diplomatic terms in three languages ​​at once: he was completely fluent in French and German.

And in the end, Frederick wanted to take revenge on the worthless chancellor! To this end, he began to spread rumors ... about the venality of Bestuzhev. He pretended that Bestuzhev worked so hard for his services that poor Friedrich could not afford to maintain such an expensive agent.

Pure water "black PR", as they would say today.

So Bestuzhev turned out to be a bribe taker, who was supported by both the British and, “of course,” Friedrich.
Contemporaries laughed, because they knew the truth. And the descendants, it turns out, BELIEVE ...

Not only are we forgetful, we also do not like our outstanding historical figures. We do not respect.
No matter what nasty things you say about them, we all agree.

Recently, the oldest Russian popular science and country history magazine "Vokrug Sveta" (published since 1861.) published a curious material on its pages: "Codes of honor in the Russian Empire."

We have already considered the history of "" - its origin and popularity, analyzed in detail the reasons for Pushkin's duel and the details of its conduct - conditions, place, time, consequences, .., but how did a real dueling boom in the Russian Empire with its rules and "code of honor" We haven't talked about this yet. Fixing it!

Having made a remark to a stranger for talking during a performance, a modern person may not be afraid for his life. And in the 19th century, Alexander Pushkin came with his seconds to another nobleman precisely on this occasion.

At first, duels in Russia did not take root for a long time - in the 17th century they were started only by foreigners in the Russian service; but in the 19th century a real dueling boom began. At the same time, a single generally accepted code has not appeared. Perhaps because no one wanted to attract the attention of the authorities as the author of a detailed instruction on the commission of a criminal offense, which since the time of Peter I, duels were considered. So the combatants, with the help of seconds, discussed and prescribed the rules by which they were going to fight or shoot, focusing on established traditions and precedents, advice from experienced duelists and foreign codes.

In 1894, Alexander III, by order entitled "Rules on the Proceeding of Quarrels that Occur in the Officers' Environment," actually legalized duels as a way to resolve issues of honor for the military and put fights under the control of officer courts.

Since then, several domestic dueling codes have appeared: Count Vasily Durasov (1908), Alexei Suvorin (1913), Major General Joseph Mikulin (1912) and others. But all of them differed in details among themselves and with the existing practice.

Members

Until the end of the 19th century, the duelist was undoubtedly a nobleman. “I am a Russian nobleman, Pushkin; my companions will testify to this, and therefore you will not be ashamed to deal with me, ”the poet introduced himself to a certain major Denisevich in order to challenge him to a duel.

The goal of any duel- nothing more than compensation for damage done to honor, and honor is the prerogative of the noble class. By the 20th century, class boundaries were blurred and the possession of honor, and consequently, its protection, was also claimed by non-nobles.

“When a nobleman is called by a commoner, the first is obliged to reject the call and give the latter the right to seek satisfaction through the court order,” the Durasov code prescribes. However, the duel that took place in the year of its publication between the nobleman, the Black Hundred deputy Nikolai Markov, and the raznochintsy, the Cadet deputy Osip Pergament, did not seem to anyone a violation of custom.

Duel of Isabella de Carazzi with Diambra de Pottinella. Jusepe de Ribera. 1636

The duelist must be physically fit for the duel: mentally healthy, able to hold a weapon and fight. Theoretically - over 18 years old, under 60. And, of course, the duelist was a man. Ladies' duels happened in the West, but they did not take root in Russia. When the cavalry girl Nadezhda Durova was a second in the duel, her colleagues did not know that Cornet Alexandrov was a woman, and they did not see any contradiction with dueling traditions.

A person unable to defend his honor on his own had the right to put up a replacement. It could be a relative, in the absence of such - an old and close friend. For the honor of a woman, a man also had the right to participate in a duel, in which she was insulted. It was not welcome when close relatives, boss and subordinate, creditor and debtor came out against each other.

Occasion

The reason for the duel, in essence, is always the same - an insult to honor. However, duelists had very different grounds for mutual insults. “Have we seen many fights for a just cause? And then everything is for actresses, for cards, for horses or for a portion of ice cream, ”stated the character of the story“ Test ”, written in 1830 by Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky.

The call could be received in the theater for comments about the acting of actors, at a party for retold gossip, in the street for a misunderstood gesture.

Source: cyrillitsa.ru

In the winter of 1822, Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Starov demanded satisfaction from Pushkin because of the music at a public ball. The poet ordered the orchestra to play a mazurka, interrupting the quadrille ordered by Starov's subordinates, and the lieutenant colonel considered this insulting to the entire regiment. The duel took place, both missed.

A lady was often involved in the conflict. In September 1825, society was agitated by a duel between the courtier, adjutant wing Vladimir Novosiltsev, and a poor nobleman, lieutenant Konstantin Chernov. The adjutant wing officially became engaged to the lieutenant's sister, but due to the disapproval of her mother, who considered the bride not noble enough, he postponed the wedding under various pretexts. In the end, the damage done to the honor of the entire Chernov family could only be repaired by bloodshed. The duelists fatally wounded each other. The funeral of the lieutenant turned, in the words of the culturologist Yuri Lotman, into "the first street manifestation in Russia." The assembled crowd was indignant against social inequality - within the noble class.

Fights directly for political reasons in the Russian Empire until the beginning of the 20th century were rare. But with the establishment of the State Duma, parliamentary debates more than once gave rise to a challenge. So, a duel in 1909 ended the conflict between two deputies of the same party - Alexander Guchkov and Count Alexei Uvarov. Guchkov lightly wounded the enemy, the count fired into the air. When Guchkov was elected chairman of the State Duma the following year, he had to resign for a while in order to serve his sentence in the fortress for this duel by a court verdict.

Denial of satisfaction without an apology for insult and without good reason left a stain on the reputation of both parties. It happened that a person whose call was rejected decided to attempt or commit suicide in order to restore honor.

Those who evaded the duel lost the right to further defend their good name in duels. The codes of the early 20th century ordered the officer who did so to immediately retire as unworthy of service. In practice, people quite often found a way to avoid bloodshed, often conflicts ended in reconciliation of the parties after the call.

Weapon

Russian duelists usually chose one of three types of weapons to resolve issues of honor: swords, sabers or pistols. Since the 18th century, European masters have been producing special dual weapons for duels: the chances of the duels must be equal.

They fought on swords or sabers, by prior arrangement, either on the spot or moving around the area designated for the duel. Fencing was recommended bare-chested or in one shirt, so that tight clothing would not interfere with the duelist and would not give him additional protection. However, in Russia they preferred to shoot themselves. On the one hand, when shooting, the difference in training did not affect the result as much as in fencing, so, by the way, civilians willingly chose a duel with pistols. On the other hand, a duel with firearms was more likely to be fatal: more dangerous meant more honorable.

Humor: Duel (Lieutenant Rzhevsky shoots himself from behind Natasha and cattle Bezukhov from behind a tree) Photo: AST

Pistol fights were different - the duelists fired in turn or at the same time on command, standing still or moving towards each other. Sometimes a so-called barrier was designated between them - marks that limited the minimum distance at which opponents could approach each other, usually from 8 to 20 steps. In another version, the duelists walked towards each other not in the direction of the barrier, but along the parallel lines marked out by the seconds. A shot, depending on the rules of the duel, was given from three seconds to a minute. The one who unloaded the pistol first was forbidden to shoot in the air.

Particularly desperate shot almost at point blank range - from three steps through a handkerchief, which they held between them with their left hands. So, from three steps in 1824, Ryleev sorted out relations on pistols with his sister's lover, Prince Konstantin Shakhovsky. The first bullet slightly wounded Ryleev. Twice the bullets of the opponents hit the weapon, and the seconds stopped the duel.

There was another way to shoot at a signal, standing together in a fresh grave.

Some fighters were measured by composure and without weapons. The so-called "American duel" was resorted to in 1861, arguing about power, the Warsaw governor-general Alexander Gershtentsweig and the governor of the kingdom of Poland, Karl Lambert. The dignitaries drew lots: the intermediary handed them the two ends of a handkerchief. Gerstentsweig, who took hold of the one on which the knot was tied, shot himself according to the conditions of the duel.

Seconds

After the challenge was made and accepted, all negotiations on the terms of the duel were to be conducted not by the combatants, but by their seconds (which could be from one to three). Taking a servant as a second was considered disrespectful to the enemy: the second should be equal. If the seconds failed to reconcile the opponents, they discussed all the nuances of the duel and the rights of the participants, chose and marked out a place for the duel, and invited a doctor. A lot depended on these people, it was not for nothing that the dueling theorist of the early 20th century Bruno de Labori wrote: “It is not pistol bullets and not the edge of a sword that kill, but bad seconds.”

Duel, Lisbon Portugal, July 14, 1908

Even before the duel began, the seconds made sure that everything was done according to the rules. It was important not to be late. According to the codes, if one of the opponents made himself wait for more than 15 minutes, the other had the right to leave the place of the duel and declare the latecomer to evade the duel.

The Russian literary critic Lotman calculated that Onegin in Pushkin's novel arrived at the duel with Lensky about two hours later than the agreed time. Such negligence, according to the researcher, indicates that the author wanted to make the hero an unwilling killer.

And a conscientious second in place of Zaretsky, Lotman noted, was obliged to use the violation of the rules as a chance to cancel the duel and reconcile the parties. However, in practice, punctuality was often neglected. When in 1909 two poets, Maximilian Voloshin and Nikolai Gumilyov, agreed to shoot themselves because of the poetess Elizaveta Dmitrieva, they were both late by almost an hour, but the duel nevertheless took place.

The theme of fights of honor is revealed in the film "Duelist", a historical thriller with elements of mysticism, which was released in wide Russian distribution on September 29, 2016. Director of the film Alexei Mizgirev, starring Pyotr Fedorov. The film takes place in St. Petersburg in 1860. The protagonist, a retired officer, earns a living by going to fights instead of other people. In reality, dueling traditions, however, left very few opportunities to replace a participant in a duel with an outsider: if the summoned one proved his incapacity, it was customary for his honor to be defended by a relative or close friend. But the hero of the picture is able to surprise the viewer - according to the script, he is not an ordinary person.

Before placing the opponents in their starting positions, the seconds examined their weapons and clothes; then they gave signals for battle, followed the time and the observance of the rules. Noticing the violation, they were obliged to stop the fight. The seconds announced the end of the duel, recorded its result in the protocol, and took away the wounded.

Having got involved in the conflict, the seconds could fight among themselves. Alexander Griboyedov had a chance to participate in such a “quadruple” duel, and he himself unwittingly became the culprit of contention.

The future author of the comedy "Woe from Wit" was friends with the ballerina Avdotya Istomina. When she quarreled with her lover, Vasily Sheremetev, Griboedov took the girl to a friend, Count Zavadovsky, with whom he then lived. Out of jealousy, Sheremetev challenged Zavadovsky to a duel, and on the condition that the seconds, Griboedov and his namesake Yakubovich, the future Decembrist, should also shoot themselves. In 1817, the first duel took place on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, and Sheremetev was mortally wounded. Yakubovich was sent from the capital to serve in the Caucasus. When in the fall of 1818 Griboyedov was passing through Tiflis, Yakubovich tracked him down, and the duel took place. The writer missed, the enemy shot him in the palm. 11 years later in Tehran, when Persian religious fanatics slaughtered the Russian diplomatic mission, the body of Griboedov, who headed it, was identified among those killed by the hand crippled in that duel.

After the revolution, the nobility and its customs were done away with, and there was no place for duels in the new Soviet state. But the memory of dueling traditions sometimes came to life. In the 1940s, Lev Gumilyov, the son of two poets, challenged the writer Sergei Snegov to a duel in the heat of a furious dispute over religion. The duel did not take place because it was impossible to get a suitable weapon in the Norilsk Gulag forced labor camp, where the debaters were.

Unusual duels

nude. British physician Humphrey Howarth was convinced that particles of clothing that entered the body with a bullet would inevitably cause inflammation. In 1806, he appeared naked for a duel. His opponent Lord Barrymore considered the situation ridiculous and canceled the fight.

Balloons. In 1808, the duellists de Grandpre and Le Piqué, vying for the favor of the actress of the Paris Opera, shot themselves, rising with their seconds into the sky in two balloons. Grandpre hit the opponent's ball, and Piqué and his second crashed.

drums. Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and actor Will Ferrell bear a striking resemblance. In 2014, the musician jokingly told his double that he was actually very different from him, surpassing him in beauty and talent. Word by word, it came to a challenge to a duel ... on the drums. Stars dressed alike staged a drum battle on Jimmy Fallon's late-night TV show. The host announced Ferrell as the winner.

Not only poets in a duel risked their lives and ...

…composer. The duel between Georg Friedrich Handel and his colleague Johann Matteson was more like a fight than a duel. In 1704, in the finale of Matteson's opera Cleopatra, two composers did not share a place at the harpsichord. They drew their swords and started a fight outside the theater building. The duel ended when Matteson's weapon broke on a button on Handel's caftan.

…painter. In 1870, the writer Edmond Duranty sharply criticized the paintings of his friend Edouard Manet. The artist was seriously offended and challenged Duranty to a duel, giving him a public slap in the cafe. They fought with swords, and with such frenzy that the weapon bent. Manet easily wounded the enemy, after which the people of art reconciled and the friendship continued. Manet's second was the writer Emile Zola.

…dictator. In 1921, the socialist Ettore Ciccotti challenged the experienced duelist Benito Mussolini to a duel, for calling him in a newspaper "the most contemptible of the people who infected the social life of Italy." The politicians locked themselves in the building and sorted things out with swords until Ciccotti became ill with a heart.

…choreographer. In 1958, 52-year-old choreographer Serge Lifar, a native of Kiev, and 72-year-old ballet impresario of Chile origin, Marquis Georges de Cuevas, crossed swords near Paris. The duel was led to a conflict over the changes Cuevas made to Lifar's choreography in Black and White. The fight ended in the seventh minute, when the choreographer was slightly wounded in the arm. The duelists reconciled.

On the next page:

Honour- common Slavic. It is formed from chsti, chtu - "to read, to read, to count." The form of chsti goes back to *čьt-ti, in which the combination tt changed into st as a result of dissimilation, and further to *kьt-ti, a related lit. skaitýti - "to read", OE Ind. citti- "thought". The same basis appears in read, honor, count, even (even number).

What we call honor today is the inner moral dignity of a person, valor, etc. - in ancient times it had a purely material basis - wealth, property, livestock. The gods endowed man with wealth and at the same time - respect, reverence for others. The property of an honest man could be counted. At the same time, the property was a kind of open book in which the glorious deeds of the farmer, warrior, pirate, thief were "recorded"; the property was a "book" that could be read.

“Slavery among the Greeks was in many ways a ritual, and not some purely economic institution. Rather, it was a symbolic institution, at least in the sense that for the Greeks it drew a line between a person’s readiness at any moment to lay down his life for his dignity and the lack of it, but then man is a slave. Heraclitus said: "War (Polemos) is the father of all, the king of all: she declares some to be gods, others to be people, some she creates slaves, others free" (B 29). And the world is a constant war. there is, even in trifles, there is a constant solution to the question - am I ready to die for my freedom.This is a very simple thing and is noticeable even in any street fight or what happened in concentration camps where political prisoners or spiritual people clashed with criminals. retreated only in one case: when they felt that a person was ready to lay down his life for a trifle. slap. What does it seem to matter compared to the book that you can write tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. But after all, you need to have these "tomorrow" or "the day after tomorrow".[...] For example, one of the Stoics says (later Plotinus will repeat this) that the evil ones reign because of the cowardice of their subjects, and this is fair, and not vice versa. That is, if you are kind, just and good, if you think so of yourself, then manage to defend yourself in a fight.

“In Russia, the noble concept of honor and dishonor appeared in a distinct guise in post-Petrine times. The honor of the times of parochialism grew out of the consciousness of the inviolability of the place of the clan and the person in the state structure. his willingness to kill or die for the sake of purity of reputation. There was no need for this. The state regulated relations between subjects. And not because it was stronger and sharper than after Peter. On the contrary. But because noble subjects trusted the state and traditions more and less connected the concept of honor with their personality. If one boyar was given another head for an insult, he considered himself satisfied, although there was no merit in what was happening. Everything was done by the orderliness of ideas about the class value of the clan and man. no punishment for a duel was mentioned, but proclaimed something else: “But if someone, under the royal majesty, draws a saber or some other weapon at someone and wounds whom with that weapon, and from that wound the one whom he wounds will die, or at the same time he kills someone to death, and that killer for the murder itself is punishable by death. And although the one whom that murderer wounds will not die, and that murderer, according to the same, will be executed by death.

The main thing here is the exposure of weapons in the presence of the sovereign, that is, the fact of insulting majesty by violence in his presence is more important than the fact of the fight and its result. And we are not talking here about duels in the exact sense of the word, but about any armed incident in an appropriate situation.

Peter dreamed of the impossible: of independent, enterprising people - proud and free in the business sphere and at the same time - slaves in the public sphere. But to feel personal responsibility for the fate of the state and at the same time be its slave is unthinkable. In the minds and souls of the Russian nobles for many decades there was a struggle between these two mutually exclusive principles. This struggle led to the formation of an internally free noble minority. The appearance of duels in Russia was an integral part of the turbulent process of formation of the noble avant-garde.

The right to fight, which, despite the cruel pressure of the authorities, defended the post-Petrine nobility, became a strong sign of independence from the despotic state. Autocracy fundamentally claimed the right to control all spheres of existence of subjects, to dispose of their life and death. The nobleman, reserving the de facto right to a duel, sharply limited the influence of the state on his life. The right to duel created a sphere in which all the nobles were equal, regardless of nobility, wealth, official position. Except, perhaps, the highest official degrees and members of the imperial family. Although in the Decembrist times, this turned out to be unconditional.

The right to duel became for the Russian nobleman evidence of his human emancipation. The right to duel has become the right to decide for oneself - even at the cost of one's life - one's own destiny. The right to duel has become a measure not of the biological, but of the social value of the individual. It turned out that for a new type of nobleman, self-respect is more important than life.

But it was self-respect that the state did not need at all. Self-respect is incompatible with the self-perception of a slave. The insightful Peter understood and foresaw the possibility of duels and their real meaning. "A patent on fights and initiation of quarrels" in the "Military Regulations" appeared before fights had any chance to spread in Russia. Peter was clearly guided by the German anti-duel legislation. At the end of the XVII century. In Germany, an imperial law was issued threatening duelists with death by hanging with confiscation of property. In France, the duel was declared lèse majesté. The Charter of Peter says: "If it happens that two people go to the appointed place, and one draws a sword against the other, then We command those, although none of them will be wounded or killed, without any mercy, also the seconds or witnesses on whom they will prove it, execute them by death and describe their belongings ... If they start to fight, and in that battle they are killed and wounded, then both the living and the dead will be hanged. Over time, these provisions of the Charter became even more stringent (which indicates the ineffectiveness of the ban on a duel): now hanging was threatened only for a challenge to a duel; if the duel took place, the duelists were to be hung by their feet.

[...] The right to a duel, contrary to the opinion of Catherine II, ultimately turned out to be by no means a blind imitation of Europe, but a need for public self-affirmation, a means of protecting one's personality from the all-embracing claims of a despotic state. [...] For a man of the noble avant-garde, the value of his own personality was associated with the consciousness of responsibility for the fate of the country and the state. The man of the noble avant-garde defended not only and not so much his pride, but his dignity as a man of a certain position. He saw himself as the protector and center of the idea of ​​independence. Not without reason in The Bronze Horseman Pushkin placed "independence and honor" side by side.

During the civil war, the father of my mother's sister, I.P. Antropov, was awarded the Order of the Red Star, in fact, for a duel. The part he commanded was to occupy the town. The forces of his formation and the formation of the White defending the town were approximately the same, and in order not to put their people in battle, the two commanders decided the matter by a duel. The whites are gone.

1. Mamardashvili M. Lectures on ancient philosophy. M., 1997, p.294-5
2. Gordin Ya. The right to fight. L., 1989, pp. 262-268

An image has developed around the Russian nobles that they are all completely honest, noble, sensitive and at the same time courageous. Surely among them there were people with shortcomings and weaknesses, but still the vast majority were indeed almost mythical creatures for whom honor and manners were vital.

The lifestyle, demeanor and even appearance of young princesses and counts are the result of a special upbringing focused on the ideal. But as happens with ideals, there are no clear instructions on how to achieve them. And yet we tried to characterize the most important principles of noble education. If they are used in reasonable measures, it is possible to grow a modern prince Bolkonsky.

Self-esteem

From childhood, little nobles were taught that "to whom much is given, much will be asked from him." Therefore, you were born a nobleman - if you please, correspond: be brave, honest, educated - and not in order to achieve fame and fortune, but because you must be just that.

From this follows the concept of “noble honor”: according to the then ideas, “honor” does not give a person any privileges, but, on the contrary, makes him more vulnerable than others. To break this word was to ruin one's reputation once and for all. There are cases when a person, admitting his irreparable guilt, gave his word of honor to shoot himself - and kept his promise.

Bravery

Cowardice does not go well with noble impulses, therefore, among the nobles, special attention was paid to courage and it was believed that it could and should be trained through strong-willed efforts and training. Moreover, this concerned not only young men who served in the army and navy, performing difficult tasks and thereby deserving respect, but also young ladies.

Princess Ekaterina Meshcherskaya recalled that, as a girl, she was afraid of thunderstorms, and her older brother dragged her onto the window sill of the open window and set her under the downpour. Katya lost consciousness from fear, and when she came to, her brother wiped her wet face and said: “Well, answer me: will you still be cowardly and afraid of thunderstorms?”

Physical strength and agility

Being brave and at the same time frail will not work, so the nobles were required to have appropriate physical training. For example, in the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, where Pushkin studied, time was allotted every day for “gymnastic exercises”: the lyceum students learned horseback riding, fencing, swimming and rowing. At the same time, it should be taken into account that the lyceum was a privileged educational institution, which, according to the plan, trained statesmen. In military schools, the requirements for pupils were incomparably more stringent.

Demonstration of physical endurance was a special chic, especially since good physical fitness required "fashionable" entertainment: hunting and horseback riding. We add that every man had to be ready to go to a duel.

self-control

A truly aristocratic quality that has always distinguished this estate. Where a simple peasant will impose on everyone “by the mother”, a real nobleman will not even raise an eyebrow and will react with equal restraint to both good and bad news. From childhood, he was trained to take the blows of fate courageously, with dignity, in no case losing heart. Complaints, tears, extra sentiments - this is beyond the scope of etiquette. A real nobleman could not afford cowardice.

You can, of course, accuse the aristocrats of falsehood and hypocrisy, but by and large they are right. Firstly, no one cares about your troubles and you should not impose them on others. Secondly, by keeping true emotions a secret, you protect your inner world from intrigue.

Caring for appearance

"You can be a smart person And think about the beauty of nails ...". You, of course, know the author of these lines. Noble children were obliged to look good, but not in order to demonstrate their wealth, but out of respect for others!

“A person truly disposed to people will not offend the feelings of his neighbors either by excessive negligence in clothes or by excessive dapperness,” wrote Earl Chesterfield.

The cult of the beautiful that reigned among the nobles demanded polished nails, coiffed hair, and exquisite but simple-looking clothes. Suffice it to recall the toilets of Anna Karenina: “Anna changed into a very simple cambric dress. Dolly examined this simple dress carefully. She knew what it meant and for what money this simplicity is acquired.

Ability to like

In contrast to the modern trend of “love me for who I am,” the nobles sincerely tried to please everyone - and not out of sycophancy, but out of etiquette. You should behave in such a way as to make your company as pleasant as possible for others. And there is a reason for this: after all, being pleasant in society is a good way to make being in it pleasant for yourself.

The ability to please was a whole science and began with the simplest formulations: "Treat others the way you would like them to treat you",

And to more complex instructions: "Try to recognize in everyone his merits and his weaknesses and pay tribute to the first, and even more to the second."

“No matter how empty and frivolous this or that company may be, as soon as you are in it, do not show people by your inattention to them that you consider them empty.”

Isn't it a useful skill that strengthens your reputation and saves your nerves?

Modesty

Modesty was not meant to be stiffness or shyness (they were just fighting with it, a polite person should not have hidden his manners), but a restrained attitude towards his person.

It was believed that one should not butt into conversations with one's own comments or advice. “Carry your learning as you wear a watch—in your inside pocket. If you are asked what time it is - answer, but do not announce the time every hour, and when no one asks you, you are not a night watchman ”(“ Letters to the Son ”Earl Chesterfield).

Or another great example that is worth adopting today: “Speak often, but never speak for a long time - even if you don’t like what you say, at least you won’t tire your listeners.”

Appropriate, polite speech

We all know that the French language in Russia was the language of communication of the nobility, but they also spoke Russian no worse. There were two unspoken rules about speech. First, a real aristocrat could say nasty things and insults to another aristocrat, but only if they were denounced in an impeccably polite manner. This required a special art of language proficiency, knowledge of all the accepted clichés of secular speech, obligatory polite formulas.

Secondly, the nobleman's speech should be appropriate, and if he was among the peasants in the bazaar, then he should have been "his own" there too. Although this did not mean that he was allowed to slide into rudeness and vulgarism, innocent jokes were quite allowed.

“COMME IL FAUT” OU “JE NE SAIS QUOI”

From French it means “as it should” or “I don’t know what”.

Trying to define what true good breeding is, the British Earl of Chesterfield compared it to a kind of invisible line, crossing which a person becomes unbearably ceremonious, and not reaching it, cheeky or awkward. The subtlety lies in the fact that a well-mannered person knows when to neglect the rules of etiquette in order to maintain a good tone.

The special elusive charm and attractiveness of the nobles was passed "from hand to hand" and largely consisted in the noble simplicity and ease of behavior.

It is almost impossible to teach the elusive "comme il faut", but it can be absorbed by reading literature. For example, Olga Muravyova's book "How to Raise a Nobleman", which formed the basis of this article. In the book you can find more examples of aristocratic behavior, but do not forget about the beautiful Russian classics.

Prepared by Elina CHUYANOVA.