Jean Armand de Lestocq

Who was Jean Armand de Lestocq?

Count Jean Armand de L'Estocq was a French adventurer who wielded immense influence on the foreign policy of Russia during the early reign of Empress Elizabeth.

Coming from a noble family of Champagne, as a youth he was committed to prison for a petty offense. He was liberated on the urging of Françoise-Marie de Bourbon, legitimized daughter of Louis XIV of France and Françoise-Athénaïs, marquise de Montespan. Françoise-Marie was also married at the time to Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. She was thus a well-connected patroness.

In 1709, Lestocq arrived to Saint Petersburg in the capacity of a court physician. He was well regarded by Catherine I of Russia until 1720, when her husband had him exiled to Kazan for having seduced a jester's daughter. Upon the Emperor's death, Catherine summoned her favourite physician to the Russian capital, where his light-hearted character made him friends with her daughter Elizaveta Petrovna, who he reportedly cured of syphilis.

More than anyone else, Lestocq helped prepare the 1741 coup d'etat which brought Elizaveta to the throne. He shaped Elizaveta's actions according to the advices of the French ambassador Marquis de La Chétardie and the Swedish ambassador, who were particularly interested in toppling the regime of Anna Leopoldovna, as France sought to counterbalance the Austrian influence at the Russian court and Sweden waged a war against Russia at that time.