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the middle of the eighteenth century. The reactionagainst German favourites, which came to a head withthe palace revolution that placed Peter's daughter, Elizabeth,on the throne (b. 1709, reigned 1741-62), told infavour of French fashions and the beginnings of deeperFrench influence, for instance, in drama and poetry andthe foundation in 1757 of the Academy of Fine Arts inimitation of that in Paris.In any case, since Russia had now been drawn intoregular, multiple contacts with Europe, she could notfail to be swayed by the dominance of French culturewhich she met in almost all western countries, even apartfrom her relations with France herself. The Frenchlanguage, since it was the international language ofeighteenth-century Europe, was adopted by the Russianupper class as its second language, in later generationsoften as its first. The private tutor was a principalmeans of education, and the French tutor (with howeverlittle qualifications) rapidly became from about 1750 anessential among the aristocracy.Not only did French literature become a staple, butFrench translations or versions of English, German, orother writings were for long the chief means wherebythese became known in Russia. Largely through Frenchculture Russia was introduced to ancient Greece andRome, and thanks to their French exemplars the first twoperiods of modern Russian literature, those of Elizabethand Catherine the Great, were pre-eminently those ofpseudo-classicism. Above all, the best of French cultureintroduced Russia to a new clarity of thought and expression,a new spirit of criticism, analysis, and sensibility,a new conception of education as distinguished from themere acquisition of skill or useful information.French style and French thought profoundly influencedRussian as a literary language and the technique andcontent of Russian prose and poetry. Moliere, Racine,Corneille, La Fontaine, and Fenelon exercised a prolongedsway. Montesquieu and the Encyclopaedists, above allVoltaire, had their great days between 1760 and 1790, andVoltaire continued long an influence. Rousseau lastedeven longer, as his effect on Tolstoy shows. After the344