September 6, 1790
Catherine II ordered Russian subjects to immediately return to Russia from France, where the revolution was taking place.
I do not believe in the great moral and legislative abilities of shoemakers and cobblers
I don't like cooks as night watchmen, justice without justice, and barbaric executions on a lamppost.
By that time, more than a year had passed since the storming of the Bastille, but rivers of blood continued to flow in France.
By the beginning of the French Revolution, the 60-year-old Russian Empress had a reputation as one of the most enlightened monarchs in Europe, and maintained a long correspondence with Voltaire и Diderot.
An extraordinary woman! The soul of Brutus in the form of Cleopatra!
(Diderot)
It is believed that, against the backdrop of the French Revolution, Catherine cast off the "mask of liberalism." In fact, she never wore one—she dreamed only of an enlightened monarchy and absolutism "with a human face." Now, instead of philosophical treatises, she read with horror the dispatches of her ambassador from Paris:
The mob dealt with Mr. de Foulon, a former army quartermaster. They hanged him from a lamppost, then cut off his head, impaled it on a broomstick, and carried it through the streets of Paris. The same fate befell Mr. Berthier.
(Russian Ambassador to France Ivan Simolin)
Following such reports, the empress began calling Paris "a hellish hell" and "a den of robbers." And the revolutionaries "unworthy cowards" who knew "neither faith, nor law, nor honor."
Parisian scoundrels committed disgusting atrocities under the guise of freedom
If some of them were hanged, the rest would come to their senses.
I would have used the services of 300 French cavaliers. Either they would have saved the country, or I would have met my doom.
Catherine even led a European coalition to fight revolutionary France.
The weakening of monarchical power in France endangers all other monarchies. I am prepared to resist with all my might. It is time to act and take up arms.
In reality, she withdrew from military action against France. According to one theory, she needed the coalition to distract Prussia and Austria from the Polish issue.
The return of her subjects from France to their homeland was only one measure of Catherine's "anti-French" campaign. How many Russians returned after her order (and whether they ever did) is unknown. Some believe it only included those who were present on the day of the Bastille uprising or who had joined Parisian clubs.
At the same time, opposition writers within Russia fell into disgrace. Thus, in 1790, the author of "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" Alexander Radishchev He miraculously escaped execution and was sent into exile for ten years. In 1792, the publisher of the magazine "Drone" was sent to prison. Nikolay Novikov.
Novikov was imprisoned in the Shlisselburg Fortress for 15 years without trial by personal decree of Catherine II. The decree declared him a state criminal, a charlatan who profited by deceiving the gullible.
(historian Nikolai Pavlenko)
In 1793, following the news of the execution of the French King Louis XVI, 63-year-old Catherine temporarily took to her bed. After recovering, she issued a decree expulsing all French citizens from Russia and restricted the flow of French emigrants.
A week later, it ceased all trade relations with France and imposed a ban on the import of its goods, including books and magazines.
The majority of them [goods] serve only for excess and ruinous luxury, while others can be replaced by products and handicrafts, both those of Our Empire itself and those delivered from other places with which Our subjects carry out permitted and profitable trade.
In 1796, two months before her death, still fearing revolution in Russia, Catherine issued a decree restricting the import of foreign books and strengthening censorship.
Guns can't fight ideas.
