The History of Court Fools

by Dr. Doran

The men whom Peter sent into foreign countries to study art or science, were all subjected by him, on their return, to strict examination. If he found that they had profited by their studies, their reward was certain; if they had come back almost as ignorant as when they had set out, the penalty was also inevitable. They were degraded, made menial servants, and placed on the list of fools. At the court of the Czarina Anne, there were several of these individuals, over whom the chief fool, Pedrillo, had absolute authority. They were employed in keeping the imperial stoves supplied with wood, or in looking after the hounds, and served as objects of ridicule to the Czarina and her whole court.

Often by Peter’s side at table, and in his cups, was to be seen an individual addressed as the “Patriarch of Russia,” and sometimes as the “King of Siberia.” He was attired in sacerdotal robes, and covered with loosely-hung gold and silver medals, which sounded musically as he moved. It was a favourite trick with Peter, when he and the Patriarch were equally drunk, to suddenly overturn him, chair and all, and exhibit the reverend gentleman with his heels in the air. There is record of a similar fool in the person of the “King of the Samoieds.” He was a Pole who was boarded, and who received a rouble monthly, for entertaining the Czar and court by the exercise of such small wit as was reckoned at such low worth. This title of “King of the Samoieds” was usually conferred by Peter on what may be styled his occasional fools. Thus, meeting among the patients at the “Water Cure,” at Alonaitz, in 1719, a Portuguese Jew, whose singularities and comic bearing delighted the Czar, the latter first promoted him to the equivocal distinction of “titular count,” and then conferred on him the fool’s royalty in the Kingship of the Samoieds. The most burlesque of coronations was subsequently performed in Peter’s presence. It was to some such rank that the Czar elevated his own old writing-master, Sotoff; and it may be observed that when the Russian priests remonstrated against his distinguishing his fools by the title of “patriarchs,” he changed the rank and addressed them as “priests.”

To the rank of court fool Peter also elevated the head cook of the Czarina. The cook’s wife had, by her conduct, brought dishonour on her husband, but Peter turned this to comic account. He would have the poor official up at his state dinners, and overwhelm him with coarse jests and gestures in presence of the guests. The cook, however, is said to have occasionally answered so smartly, touching the Czar’s own domestic matters, as to make his Majesty wince again. In exchange of gross jokes, it was “like master, like man.” Neither time nor place was ever thought of by Peter when his will or comfort was in question; and even at church, in winter, when he felt cold, he would take off the wig of the man nearest him, and clap it on his own head, returning it after the service.

Thus the Czar made fools of various members of his household, and different officers of his court, but he had one official court fool whom he favoured above all others, and whom he carried abroad with him to foreign courts,—among others to those of England and France. At the latter court the buffoon produced almost as much effect as his master. The period of Peter’s sudden arrival in Paris, was that of the boyhood of Louis XV. He had travelled so swiftly from Holland, that his appearance in the French capital was the first intimation received by the authorities there of his having left the “pays de canaux, canards, et canaille,” as Voltaire flippantly designated the Dutch territory.

Peter was accompanied by the Princes Kourakin and Dolgorouki, by Baron Schaffirofy, and by his ambassador, Tolstoi. But, distinguished above these was Sotoff, the buffoon. He had originally been employed by Peter to instruct him in the art of writing. In one respect, all the followers of the Czar were on an equality, for there was not one of them who had not, in his turn, suffered exile, imprisonment, or the knout. There was no opportunity, therefore, for any one to reproach his fellows.

How Peter looked, and walked, and talked, and danced, and tossed the little King in his arms, and sneered at the Regent Duke of Orleans, and uttered much nonsense, and drank bottles of beer in his box at the opera; all these matters are chronicled by Saint-Simon and Cardinal Dubois, according to the point of view of the individual chronicler. The Cardinal seems to have been more particularly struck with the buffoon. The court of France no longer possessed official jesters, and Sotoff was a marvel and a novelty to the Cardinal. The latter, or the writer who drew up the autobiographical memoirs, from the notes and papers of Dubois, speaks with evident surprise of the presence and duties of Sotoff, who was not only privileged but commanded to give expression to every form of folly, without being in fear of any application of the knout. What jests he uttered were incomprehensible to Dubois and the French court, for Sotoff could only speak his native Russian; and in that language he uttered comments on all around him which raised the hilarity of the Muscovites, and excited the surprise, curiosity, and perhaps the vexation of the French courtiers. Sotoff, too, was singular in his appearance. He was at this time an aged dwarf, with long snowy hair flowing over his shoulders. He was so ugly and so deformed, that, according to the Cardinal, the very sight of him was almost insupportable to the refined and handsome nobles and ladies of the French court. Dubois compares the sound of his voice to the harsh croaking of frogs. In spite of all this, his wit and humour were very much to the taste of Peter, who could listen to a comedy of Molière’s without once smiling, but who could never hear a remark from Sotoff, the court fool, without growing weak from mere excess of laughter.

Sotoff was a man of low birth, but Russia has been especially remarkable for her fools of high degree, among whom Princes have not only been reckoned, but proud to find themselves upon the motley register. The famous Ice Palace, erected by order of the Czarina Anne, is one of those wonders of which most persons have heard. It was erected for the celebration of the marriage of Prince Galitzin. It is not, however, generally known that the Prince, who was between forty and fifty, and already had a son, a lieutenant in the army, was on the register of pages and court fools. This registration was a punishment inflicted on him for having changed his religion, from orthodox Russo-Greek to Roman Catholic. It was at the Czarina’s bidding that the princely fool wedded with a girl of low birth, and it was in obedience to the same high authority that couples from every province in the empire came up to do honour to the nuptial festival. A procession of above three hundred persons started from the imperial palace and traversed the city. The bride and bridegroom were under a canopy, on an elephant; some of the guests followed on camels, and others rode in sledges (for it was midwinter of 1739), and their sledges were in the shape of animals of various species, and were filled with passengers looking as singular as the conveyances themselves. After the ceremony, a banquet was given in honour of the Duke of Courland, where each couple ate their own peculiar provincial dish; and this was followed by a ball. The ball concluded, the married pair were conducted to the Ice Palace, their temporary home. It stood on the banks of the Neva; and was composed of large blocks of ice cemented into one mass by water. In length it was sixty feet, in breadth eighteen feet, and in height twenty-one feet. In front was an ice portico, with ice columns and statues. Behind these were the single floor, divided into two apartments, all of ice, with the doors and windows painted in imitation of green marble. Two ice dolphins spouted forth naphtha flames to light the procession over the threshold; and two ice mortars and three ice cannon fired several volleys of welcome without breaking. The two apartments were divided by a lobby; they were well furnished with elegant ice tables, ice chairs, ice statues, mirrors, candelabra, glass, plate, in short, every possible article that could be thought of, and all of ice. The bedroom had state bed, sheets, curtains, two night-caps, etc., all of ice. About the exterior were ornamental pyramids, a conservatory, with birds on the trees, a bath-house, and other appendages, of the same cold material. The whole was brilliantly illuminated, and into this Temple of Isis the Prince and his bride were solemnly conducted, and a guard-of-honour placed at the gate prevented any intrusion on the married couple, or any attempt of the latter to escape from the cold hospitality provided for them by the Czarina. This joke was so highly approved of, that to build ice palaces, though not to have performed in them the same play, became an imperial weakness. With regard, however, to court fools, it is a singular fact that Russia has not only made such officials out of foreign ambassadors whom she has duped by dint of that mingled piety and mendacity which betray the Tartar blood within her; but she has also commissioned her own envoys to play the rude jester at the courts of Kings whom she would fain bring into contempt,—and could bully with safety.

Such an agent as this, Russia found in the representative Repuin, whom she retained at the court of the last King of Poland, Stanislaus Poniatowsky. The arrogance of the Muscovite ambassador was extremely offensive, but his power of joking was quite as frequently employed, when he had a political end in view. One day he bullied or supported the King; at another time he rendered him contemptible by sarcasms uttered against him, in his hearing. Lord Malmesbury, in the first volume of his Diaries and Correspondence, dated from Warsaw, in 1767, gives several instances of unseemly liberties taken by Repuin with the King, such as Scogan himself would have hesitated to take with the royal Edward, who allowed him privilege of speech and action. One sample from the measure piled up by Lord Malmesbury will suffice:—“At the Primate’s, it was a question of some of the ancient Polish monarchs who, being driven from their own kingdom, were obliged, by way of support, to exercise some trade,—one particularly who, for awhile, was a goldsmith at Florence. The present King, discoursing on this topic, said, he should be extremely embarrassed, if he was to be put to the trial, as he knew no way of getting his livelihood. ‘Pardon me. Sire,’ said the Ambassador, ‘your Majesty still knows how to dance well.’ What should we think,” asks Lord Malmesbury, “if we heard an ambassador tell our King, ‘If all trades fail, your Majesty may turn dancing-master’?” There is no fear, however, of such a polite observation being made at our court by any Russian joculator in an ambassador’s dress. These arrogant agents know how to be submissive; and, in presence of a monarch to be respected, can sink to the ground, like a cowardly boy who avoids a blow from a bold adversary, or a Russian fleet in presence of a resolute enemy.

The Czar Paul had around him a number of that class of jesters who found favour with Peter; and he was further delighted to be made merry by the comic French actors who visited his capital. It was not always safe for these, however, to jest with him too roughly; as may be seen in the case of Fougère, the actor, who taking the jester’s privilege to speak freely to Paul once at supper, and to mock at his vaunted abilities, was punished for it by being dragged from his bed, in the night, tossed into a van which did not admit the light of day, and carried off, as he was politely informed, to his extreme horror, to Siberia. After several weeks had been spent in the journey, Fougère reached his destination, and on his eyes being unbandaged, he found himself in presence of Paul and a joyous number of convives, all of whom laughed heartily at the capital jest, whereby Fougère had been made to believe that he was being conveyed to Siberia, when he was only being drawn round and round St. Petersburg, for whole weeks.

Nicholas, who may be said to have swam to his throne in the blood of his subjects in the capital, and to have been washed from it by the same sanguinary deluge at Sebastopol, had, like his father Paul, his frolicsome humours and facetious whims. Of course he did not keep court fools; but he would sometimes catch a fool and compel him to exhibit for the amusement of his court. He once captured an individual of this species in the person of Save Saveitch Yakovloff. The young gentleman with this cacophonous appellation had been an officer in the Guards, and had been commissioned to purchase horses for his regiment. As, however, he had not cheated the vendors, and brought back steeds worth double the money which had been entrusted to him wherewith to buy them, his condition in his regiment was rendered intolerable, and he was forced out of it by a series of small but wearying nuisances. He applied for permission to travel, but was refused. In disgrace and involuntary idleness, all state employment denied him, Save was puzzled for a time as to what occupation he could turn to. After consideration, he resolved to set up in the capital as the glass of fashion, and he appeared in public in the most exaggerated costumes, founded on French and English books of fashion. He one day presented himself on the Nevski Prospect in the following guise. On his head was a little peaked hat like a flowerpot reversed; his beard was à la Henri Quatre; his cravat was a thick scarf tied in a gigantic bow; his cloak was a little Almaviva; in one hand he carried a knotted cudgel, with the other he held a small glass to his eye, and between his legs, or at his side, waddled the most ugly and costly of bulldogs. He was thus airing himself when the Imperial carriage passed; Nicholas sat therein; his eye rested for a moment on the “exquisite,” and then the Czar beckoned to the “fool,” who hurried up, thinking that his fortune was re-established.