Captain jacques margeret: a remarkable huguenot soldier in Russia’s time of troubles

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Captain jacques margeret: a remarkable huguenot soldier in Russia's time of troubles

Chester S. L. Dunning

Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America

Abstract

Captain Jacques Margeret (fl. 1591-1621), a brave and highly intelligent French Huguenot soldier, was an active observer-participant in the Time of Troubles who contributed to Russia's military modernization. Margeret also wrote one of the most valuable foreign accounts of early modern Russia: Estвt de l 'Empire de Russie et Grand Duchй de Moscovie (1607). In this essay, Chester Dunning surveys two hundred years of scholarship about Margeret and his famous book, and he lays the foundation for a more objective biography of the remarkable French captain who served Tsar Boris Godunov, Tsar “Dmitrii”, Tsar Vasilii Shuiskii, the Tushinite pretender Dmitrii, “Tsar” Wladyslaw, King Sigismund III of Poland-Lithuania, Prince Janusz Radziwill, and finally King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden. This essay challenges recent scholarship concerning Margeret's identity, his religious affiliation, his early career in France, his controversial career in Russia, his later career, and the composition of his book. This essay is based on fifty years of research by the translator of Jacques Margeret's book into English as The Russian Empire and Grand Duchy of Muscovy: A 17^th-Century French Account (1983). In addition to reading most published sources and scholarship about Margeret and his account of Russia, the author has examined documents related to Margeret's biography in French, Russian, Polish, and British archives. In the process, Dunning discovered a letter Margeret wrote to King James I in 1612 encouraging English military intervention in north Russia to counter Polish and Swedish intervention.

Key words: Jacques Margeret, Huguenots, mercenary soldiers, Boris Godunov, Dobrynichi, Tsar Dmitrii, Tushino, Klushino, Dmitrii Pozharskii, Janusz Radziwill, James I, Estat de l 'Empire de Russie.

КАПИТАН ЖАК МАРЖЕРЕТ - ВЫДАЮЩИЙСЯ ГУГЕНОТСКИЙ СОЛДАТ СМУТНОГО ВРЕМЕНИ В РОССИИ¹

Честер С. Л. Даннинг margeret time troubles military

Техасский университет A&M, г. Колледж-Стейшен, Техас, Соединенные Штаты Америки

Аннотация. Капитан Жак Маржерет (в период его деятельности с 1591 по 1621 г.), храбрый и очень умный французский гугенотский солдат, был активным наблюдателем-участником Смутного времени, который внес вклад в военную модернизацию России. Маржерет также является автором одной из наиболее ценных зарубежных публикаций о современном ему периоде истории России - «Состояние Российскойимперии и Великого княжества Московии» (1607). В данной статье автор рассматривает двухсотлетний опыт исследований, посвященных Маржерету и его знаменитой книге, и закладывает основу для более объективной биографии замечательного французского капитана, который служил царю Борису Годунову, царю «Дмитрию», царю Василию Шуйскому, претенденту на трон тушинскому «Дмитрию», «царю» Владиславу, польско- литовскому королю Сигизмунду Ш, гетману Янушу Радзивиллу и, наконец, королю Швеции Густаву II Адольфу. Эта работа ставит под сомнение недавние наблюдения, касающиеся личности Маржерета, его религиозной принадлежности, ранней карьеры во Франции, неоднозначной карьеры в России, более поздней карьеры и состава его книги. Данная статья основана на пятидесятилетних исследованиях переводчика книги Жака Маржерета на английский язык «Российская империя и Великое княжество Московское: французское повествование 17-го века» (1983). В дополнение к большинству опубликованных источников и научных работ о Маржерете и его сочинении о России автор изучил документы, связанные с биографией Маржерета во французском, русском, польском и британском архивах. В ходе этой работы автор статьи обнаружил письмо, которое Маржерет написал королю Джеймсу I в 1612 г., призывающее английскую военную интервенцию на севере России противостоять польской и шведской интервенции.

Ключевые слова: Жак Маржерет, гугеноты, наемные солдаты, Борис Годунов, Добрыничи, Лжедмит- рий, Тушино, Клушино, Дмитрий Пожарский, Януш Радзивилл, Джеймс I, «Состояние Российской империи».

One of the most valuable foreign accounts of early modern Russia was written by Captain Jacques Margeret (fl. 1591-1621), a brave and highly intelligent French soldier who was an active observer-participant in Russia's Time of Troubles. Margeret's book, Estat de l 'Empire de Russie et Grand Duchй de Moscovie,was published in 1607 by command of King Henri IV [69; 70]. As the first printed French eyewitness account of Russia, Margeret's book played an important role in acquainting the French reading public with Muscovite Russia and in helping scholars make sense out of the Time of Troubles [21, vol. 14, p. 450-467, 490-504; 38; 67, p. 430-432; 108, livre 1 [1605], p. 41-55 (v); livre 2 [1606], p. 152-158 (v)].

The first Russian historian to make extensive use of Margeret's unique information was Nikolai Karamzin [51, p. 378-379; 52]. It was Karamzin's use of Margeret as a source in Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskogo that prompted Aleksandr Pushkin to acquire a copy of Margeret's book and to make the French captain a character in his play, Boris Godunov [30, p. 67, 71, 100, 102, 107, 151-152, 209, 406-409, 495, notes 201-202]. Due to Karamzin's influence, Margeret's book became one of the first foreign accounts to be translated into Russian. Nikolai Ustrialov published his translation in 1830, and it was used by several generations of Russian and Soviet historians ². Unfortunately, Ustrialov's

French was not up to the task, and he also mistranslated (or deleted) controversial passages in order to be politically correct in Tsar Nikolai I's Russia. The deficiencies of Ustrialov's translation went largely unnoticed until the late twentieth century, resulting in errors in Russian and Soviet historical scholarship [38, p. 360-369; 73, p. 105, note 98; 77, p. 19-20; 128, p. 210, note 5].

Napoleon's invasion of Russia was still a fresh memory in 1830 when Ustrialov praised Margeret's book as a valuable source but called Captain Margeret a “typical bloodthirsty French Catholic,” referring to the French officer's controversial second tour of duty in Russia (16091611) [78, p. xiii, xix-x]. By the time the third edition of Ustrialov's translation appeared in 1859, however, Ustrialov's assessment of Margeret had changed dramatically. Influenced by warming Franco-Russian relations after the Crimean War, Ustrialov referred to Margeret as a hero even while in Polish service during the Moscow uprising of March 1611 [123, vol. 1, p. 240-241]. He also praised Margeret's balanced portrayal of Russia's absolute monarchy. Ustrialov's high opinion of the Frenchman had a significant effect on the use of Margeret's evidence by other historians, who stopped complaining about Margeret's Polish service and concentrated on using his valuable evidence. Still referring to him as a Catholic, they praised Margeret and his book [1, s. 20; 55, p. 20; 58, p. 7; 98, p. 193; 99, p. 29; 127, p. 425]. By the time the fourth edition of Ustrialov's translation appeared in 1913, Margeret was being portrayed positively by Russian historians and his book had become a minor classic [79, p. 5-6]³.

Sergei Platonov (1860-1933), probably the greatest historian of the Time of Troubles, made extensive use of Margeret's unique evidence and praised him: “A master not only of the sword and musket but of the pen as well, he has left us with a fascinating description of events and institutions in Moscow.” Platonov understood that Margeret's account of the “most memorable and tragic” events in Russia from 1590 to 1606 was a valuable narrative of the first phase of the Time of Troubles, the period of dynastic crisis that began with Tsarevich Dmitrii's “death” in Uglich in 1591 and ended with the assassination of Tsar Dmitrii in 1606 [99, p. 29, 37, 48; 100, p. 86, 218, 253-254, 292-293, 295-296, 559, 561; 101, p. 67-68, 85-91]. Platonov's model of the Time of Troubles became extremely influential, but after the Russian Revolution his enthusiasm for Margeret was met with skepticism by early Soviet historians. Although Academician Platonov became a leading historian in the U.S.S.R. in the 1920s, he lost favor in the Stalin era and was forced into internal exile, where he died in 1933 ⁴. Shortly after Platonov was silenced, Captain Margeret was denounced as a “typical Polish henchman,” and the value of his book was downgraded [11, p. 100; 26, p. 490; 56, p. 35; 82, p. 193, 195]. Nevertheless, Soviet historians still depended heavily on Margeret's eyewitness testimony [57, p. 231, 253-254; 115, p. 368-369]. In a major study of Margeret's career published in 1959, Givi Zhordaniia denounced him as a “typical adventurer” and “Polish agent” who actively supported Polish efforts to conquer Russia during the period 1610-1619 [130, p. 247, 311]. Unfortunately, Zhordaniia used sources poorly and was utterly confused by Margeret's activities after his departure from Russia in 1611 [38, p. 364; 130, p. 293-379]. During the post-Stalin era, Soviet scholars continued to use Margeret's unique information, but they frequently expressed dissatisfaction with him for not sharing their views about the nature of popular unrest during Russia's “First Peasant War” [4, p. 8, 11-12, 28-35; 38, p. 363-369; 57, p. 231, 253-254; 130, p. 239-279].

In the late twentieth century, Soviet and American scholars significantly advanced our understanding of Captain Margeret and his account of Russia. In 1982 Iurii Limonov published a fairly accurate Russian translation of Margeret's book with an excellent introduction and brief but useful notes. Limonov carefully examined Margeret's life and challenged the long-held assumption that he was a Catholic. Limonov made a good case for Margeret having been a Huguenot, a French Protestant [77, p. 14-19, 31-41]. In 1983 I published the first English translation of Margeret's book and made a good case for Margeret having been a Huguenot [35, p. 335336; 38, p. 369-370; 73, p. xvi, 97, note 20]. In 1989 I published a letter Margeret wrote to King James I of England in 1613. That letter clearly shows that Margeret was a Protestant who strongly opposed Catholic Poland's attempt to conquer Russia [31; 32].

In the early twenty-first century, Russian and Western scholars continue to study Jacques Margeret's biography, and they have made some important discoveries [9; 89]. Historians of Russia and scholars from a variety of disciplines continue to mine Margeret's book for unique information [17; 50; 53; 59; 64; 103; 109]. The most notable recent contribution to the study of Margeret and his book was the publication in 2007 of Sostoianie rossiiskoy imperii: Zh. Marzheret v dokumentakh i issledovaniiakh, edited by Andrй Berelowitch, VD. Nazarov, and P.Iu. Uvarov [80]. This ambitious work, the product of international collaborative research, includes an accurate Russian translation of Margeret's text along with excellent annotation, a detailed examination of Margeret's historical evidence, and a study of the French captain's complicated and controversial career. Also included are copies of many documents related to Margeret's biography that greatly facilitate tracking his career, evaluating his actions, and using his evidence. The new Russian edition of Margeret's account received positive reviews, and it significantly advances the study of the formidable Frenchman ⁵. Unfortunately, the scholarly apparatus of Sostoianie rossiiskoy imperii contains many errors and misinterpretations that distort Margeret's biography and complicate the task of interpreting his unique evidence. The purpose of this essay is to review what is known about Jacques Margeret's life in order to dispel confusion about him and to help future historians make more sophisticated use of his remarkable book.

Jacques Margeret was bom circa 1570 into one of the oldest known families of Auxonne, a royal county located on the eastern border of France between Burgundy and HabsburgcontrolledFranche-Comtй. The Margeret family's history provides a classic example of the rise of the bourgeoisie in early modern France. In the sixteenth century the Margerets produced many respectable merchants, mayors, magistrates, and soldiers. A few members of the family managed to become non-hereditary robe nobles. In the seventeenth century the Margerets continued to prosper and produced several robe nobles. During the reign of King Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715), two members of the Margeret family finally succeeded in gaining entry into France's hereditary sword nobility [9, p. 302313; 27, p. 157; 71, p. ii-iv]. Jacques Margeret's grandfather, Pierre Margeret, was a Huguenot who became a prosperous merchant in Dijon by the 1560s. Pierre sired six children, including Jacques's father Guillaume [9, p. 303, 307; 27, p. 126-127; 71, p. iii-iv]. Guillaume Margeret was a Huguenot who became a wealthy jewel merchant and traveled to Persia twice [9, p. 303305, 309-310, 314; 27, p. 204, note 15; 80, p. 448; 130, p. 247]. Guillaume's younger brother, Chrйtien Margeret, also a Huguenot, served as a magistrate in the Chambre des Comptes of Dijon (the sovereign court of accounts for Burgundy). He became a rich and powerful robe noble in service to King Henri IV (r. 1589-1610) [9, p. 307-311; 27, p. 112-114, 118, 127, 157; 71, p. iii-iv].

Guillaume Margeret married Jehanne Bynet, and their two children, Jacques and Marie, grew up in a comfortable bourgeois household [9, p. 303-305, 309]. Jacques received a very good education. He was fluent in French and German, and he studied Latin [9, p. 313, 320; 19, p. 54; 67, p. 429; 69, p. Aii-Aiii, 9, 16-16(v), 51; 73, p. 85, 187, note 333; 82, p. 118; 130, p. 248-249]. Jacques became a good, if not inspired, writer. His study of the Russian empire is filled with the spirit of the French Renaissance, and it shows his awareness of classical literature, the Bible, and ideas of such giants of the French Renaissance as Montaigne and Jean Bodin [9, p. 313, 320-321; 73, p. xxx]. Jacques may have received training in finance and trade as a youth. His family background and later activities make that seem likely. His book is filled with details about the Russian economy, foreign trade, finances, the tsar's treasury, and pearls worn by the Russian elite. While in Russian service Jacques became an associate of John Merrick, chief agent of the Muscovy Company, and throughout his life Jacques wrote letters and intelligence reports, handled complex finances, and maintained an interest in the fur trade [13, p. 91-94, 124-125; 32, p. 98-99; 71, p. xix-xxvi; 73, p. xxiii; 104, vol. 14, p. 225-226]. Nevertheless, growing up in the tumultuous era of the French Wars of Religion, Jacques quite naturally studied the profession of arms, which was to be his main occupation for thirty years.

When King Henri III was assassinated in 1589, the French throne devolved to the Protestant Henri of Navarre who founded the Bourbon dynasty as King Henri IV. The immediate reaction of many French Catholics to the accession of a Protestant king was to join the Catholic League that openly challenged Henri's authority, triggering a destructive civil war. All the important towns of Burgundy quickly joined the Catholic League. Only a relatively small number of Burgundians, many of them Huguenots, resisted. Magistrates supporting Henri IV were persecuted, forced out of Dijon, and had their possessions confiscated. Jacques's uncle, Chrйtien Margeret, lost his house, and his wife and daughter were imprisoned by the Catholic League [9, p. 308-309; 29, p. 340341, 413; 54, p. 243-244]. Supporters of the king set up a royalist counter-government in the strategically located town of Saint-Jean-de-Losne, converting it into a formidable base for military operations against the Catholic League.

Chrйtien Margeret actively sought foreign loans to support the cause of King Henri IV. In 1591 Chrйtien traveled to Germany and the Swiss cantons seeking funds. He was accompanied by his nephew Jacques Margeret. They returned to France later that year and headed straight for Saint-Jean-de-Losne. There the newly promoted robe noble Chrйtien Margeret played an important role in the royalist countergovernment. King Henri gave Chrйtien the task of collecting the salt tax (gabelle)across much of France, which he did with such zeal that the cost of salt rose dramatically. The king was pleased with Chrйtien's faithful service, and that accelerated his career [9, p. 308, 310; 27, p. 51- 52, 112-114, 118]. Chrйtien Margeret's nephew Jacques joined royalist military forces being organized in Saint-Jean-de-Losne by Philippe Baillet, lord ofVaugrenant. One of the fifty intrepid men of arms chosen to form the mainstay of the town's defense was Jacques Margeret. Despite repeated efforts by the Catholic League to capture Saint-Jean-de-Losne, its sturdy fortifications and energetic defense by the royalists proved too difficult to overcome. Serving under Vaugrenant, Jacques also fought elsewhere in Burgundy and participated in raiding parties to procure food and harass the enemy. Saint-Jean-de-Losne became the “terror” of the Catholic League in Burgundy [9, p. 317-319; 27, p. 126-127; 54, p. 244-347; 69, p. Aii(v); 71, p. iv-v, xxx; 73, p. 4; 130, p. 247].

Other soldiers from the Margeret family also joined the king's cause. A Protestant “Captain Margeret” led a force of fifty royalists who fought against the Catholic League in Burgundy. It has been suggested that this “Captain Margeret” was none other than Jacques [9, p. 319; 85, p. 478]. That is not true. Jacques was too young and served under Vaugrenant. It is more likely that this “Captain Margeret” was the same Huguenot Captain Margeret who was mentioned in a document from 1586 [9, p. 310; 28, p. 319, note 2]. Two of Jacques's cousins, Robert and Claude Margeret, fought for the king at Saint-Jean-de- Losne and other places in Burgundy. Robert Margeret died during a siege of the royalist headquarters in 1593. Claude Margeret, born in 1577, was just eighteen years old when Henri IV invaded Burgundy in 1595 and achieved a decisive victory over a larger Spanish army. During that battle Claude's zeal and skill so impressed the king that he awarded the young man a sword, a very high honor. Claude Margeret went on to become a captain of mercenary soldiers and a “military entrepreneur” in service to Prince Maurice of Nassau, the stadtholder of the Dutch Republic and a brilliant innovator of military tactics [9, p. 311]. The family of Jacques Margeret fought valiantly for Henri IV for several years. After the king achieved his great victory over the Spanish army in June 1595, he generously rewarded his faithful supporters. By July 1595 royalist officials, including Chrйtien Margeret, were back in control in Dijon [27, p. 52; 71, p. iii- v]. The civil war quickly died down, and Jacques Margeret soon found himself unemployed.

During the Thirteen Years' War (1593-1606), the Holy Roman emperor and his allies challenged Ottoman imperialism, and they welcomed French Huguenot soldiers with open arms. Enthusiastic reports of the progress of imperial troops against the Turks circulated widely in Europe in 1595, and many French soldiers joined the “crusade” [9, p. 320; 15, vol. 1, p. 1201]. In late 1595 or very early 1596 Jacques Margeret headed to Southeastern Europe to find work fighting against the Ottoman Empire ⁶ [69, p. Aii-Aii(v); 73, p. 4]. Huguenot soldiers fought bravely alongside Catholics against the Turks. Huguenots were renowned as exceptionally good combat troops, and they distinguished themselves in foreign armies as skilled and honest warriors. Huguenots were zealous in battle, and they spread knowledge of new military tactics geared to gunpowder warfare. In many ways Huguenot soldiers helped professionalize the armies they served in [45, p. 56, 19, 231, 243; 84, p. 3, 8-9, 26-27; 120, p. 153155, 190-191]. Jacques Margeret joined the service of Prince Sigismund Bathory of Transylvania (r. 1581-1601), and then he joined the service of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II (r. 1576-1612) in Hungary [69, p. ii- ii(v); 73, p. 4]. Transylvania and Hungary were both friendly to Huguenots. Jacques may have participated in the combined operations of the Habsburg and Transylvanian armies leading up to the battle of Keresztes in 1596 ⁷; he mentions the battle in his book [84, p. 9-10, 19, 26-27].

After fighting in Southeastern Europe, Margeret entered the service of King Sigismund III (r. 1587-1632) of Poland-Lithuania and received command of a company of infantry [69, p. ii(v); 73, p. 4]. Margeret left Polish service before King Sigismund, a fanatic Catholic, launched an invasion of Lutheran Sweden in 1598. As a Huguenot mercenary soldier, Margeret was willing to serve Catholic kings, but he was unwilling to help a Catholic king conquer a Protestant country. Margeret returned to Germany, possibly to Habsburg territory, but without reentering imperial service. Instead, he was recruited into Russian service by Afanasii Vlas'ev, Tsar Boris's diplomatic envoy on a mission to the Holy Roman emperor. Vlasyev was impressed by Captain Margeret whose time in Eastern Europe had given him valuable experience as a military officer and some knowledge of Slavic languages. Margeret's fluency in German, the common language of the foreign troops in tsarist service, was also an important factor in Vlas'ev's decision to hire him. Margeret arrived in Russia in 1600, and his first tour of duty there lasted six years [42, p. 102, 109-112, 115-118, 125-126; 71, p. v, xxx; 83, p. 266-267; 130, p. 247-249].

I have studied Jacques Margeret for forty years, and I thought I knew him well. But according to Andrй Berelowitch, one of the editors of Sostoianie rossiiskoy imperii, almost everything I think I know is wrong. It was a truly bizarre experience for me to read Berelowitch's essay, “Kapitan Marzheret vo frantsuzskikh arkhivakh” [8] Berelowitch claims that the Captain Margeret who served in Russia from 1600 to 1606 and then published Estat de l 'Empire de Russiewas not Jacques Margeret, but was instead his cousin Йtienne Margeret from the Catholic branch of the family. Йtienne's father, Antoine Margeret, and his grandfather, Charles Margeret, were both Catholics. Berelowitch suspects that Йtienne was also a Catholic or was simply indifferent to religion. Berelowitch asserts that it was Йtienne who accompanied Chrйtien Margeret to Germany in 1591. Instead of returning to France to fight for Henri IV, Йtienne supposedly deserted his king at a critical time and headed for Southeastern Europe to fight the Turks. Berelowitch believes that Йtienne Margeret never served in Saint-Jean-de-Losne, contradicting the claim Captain Margeret made in his book [8, p. 453-454, 457-460; 69, p. Aii(v); 73, p. 4]. According to Berelowitch, when Йtienne returned to France from Russia in 1606 and presented himself to Henri IV, he brazenly lied about having fought for the king in the civil war. In other words, the preface to Henri in Estat de l'Empire de Russie was nothing but a hoax to promote the career of Йtienne Margeret.

There is no evidence to support such fantastic claims about Captain Margeret's identity, and Berelowitch seems unsure of his own conclusions [8, p. 449, 457-458]. There are, in fact, a host of problems with Berelowitch's hypothesis, starting with direct evidence that the author of Estat de l 'Empire de Russiewas named Jacques, not Йtienne ⁸; that Captain Margeret's father was named Guillaume, not Antoine ⁹ [8, p. 457-458; 80, p. 265-268, 271-273; 111, col. 235, 243; 112, col. 116; 130, p. 247, 285]; that his grandfather was named Pierre, not Charles [8, p. 468, note 2; 71, p. iii-iv; 80, p. 465-466]; and that all three of them were Huguenots, not Catholics [9, p. 303-404, 309; 13, p. 91-98, 123; 27,p.112-114, 118, 126-127, 157; 32, p.96,104105; 35, p. 335, note 21; 38, p. 369-370; 71, p. iii- iv, xix-xxvi; 73, p. xvi, 97, note 20; 98, p. 182-194]. There is also no reason to doubt that Jacques fought for his king until 1595. Berelowitch's more cautious co-editor, VD. Nazarov, rejected the conjectural identification of Captain Margeret as Jacques's Catholic cousin. Nazarov acknowledged that Jacques Margeret was a Huguenot and the author of Estat de l 'Empire de Russie,but he accepted enough of Berelowitch's reasoning to argue that Jacques must have served only briefly at Saint- Jean-de-Losne [85, p. 477-478; 80, p. 465-466].

What led Berelowitch to such startling and wrong-headed conclusions? It turns out to be a combination of three things: the sub-title of Margeret's book and two documents Berelowitch studied in Bibliothиque Nationale: a short note written in 1668 and the dossier prepared in 1699 by two members of the Margeret family seeking promotion into the hereditary sword nobility [8, p. 446-465]. When Jacques Margeret chose the title for his book, he added a sub-title to help potential readers understand the time frame of his study: State of the Russian Empire and Grand Duchy of Muscovy with that which has happened there most memorable and tragic during the reign of four emperors: that is to say, from the year 1590 up to September 1606. When the second edition of Margeret's book was being prepared for publication in 1668, its editors were unable to find much information about the author. As a result, in writing about Margeret they took their cue from the dates listed in the sub-title of his book. Since Margeret's book covered the period from 1590 to 1606, it was not illogical to assume that he was already in Russia by the early 1590s. The editors decided that Margeret must have departed for Russia “around 1591.” That faulty conclusion in 1668 was accepted without question by the aspiring Margeret brothers in 1699 ¹⁰ [8, p. 458-459].

In preparing the dossier to support their bid to become hereditary sword nobles, the Margeret brothers made many mistakes, and they embellished their family history to claim more soldiers and fewer merchants as ancestors. They also purged Huguenots from their lineage - a necessity after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The rather famous Captain Margeret who wrote Estat de l 'Empire de Russie was only a distant relative of the Margeret brothers, but they turned him into one of their direct ancestors. This sleight of hand was facilitated by an erroneous statement made in 1668 by their ancestor Pierre Margeret, grand audiencierof Louis XIV. Pierre claimed to be Captain Margeret's great nephew, but Jacques was actually a cousin of Pierre's grandfather [8, p. 448449, 456-458; 80, p. 465-466]. Ignoring ample evidence that Captain Margeret's forename was Jacques, the Margeret brothers declared that his name was Etienne. They managed to convince French officials that they were worthy of promotion, but Berelowitch failed to make a persuasive case for Captain Margeret and Etienne Margeret being the same person [8, p. 448, 456459]. At the dawn of the eighteenth century the Margeret family's dream of rising from the bourgeoisie into the sword nobility finally came true. Unfortunately, the sloppy and misleading paperwork associated with their success confused some future scholars.

Jacques Margeret entered Russian service in 1600. Tsar Boris Godunov (r. 1598-1605) was favorably impressed by the French captain and gave him command of a cavalry company. An intelligent, sober, and valiant soldier, Margeret served Tsar Boris with zeal for several years, rising to share overall command of the tsar's foreign troops which numbered several thousand [4, p. 28; 18, p. 112; 46, p. 169; 81, p. 118; 116, p. 605; 130, p. 257] ⁿ. Captain Margeret's career in Russian service provides a good example of the “second wave” of foreign mercenaries in the era of the gunpowder revolution: European officers and soldiers who not only fought for the ruler who hired them but also helped train and organize native troops [107, p. 236-237]. Margeret's initial salary was high; he was paid 80 rubles per year in cash and received a service land grant (pomest'e) of 700 chetverti (about 4 square kilometers) [83, prilozh. no. 4, p. 266273; 118, p. 3; 130, p. 248-249]. Although Margeret spoke German to the tsar's foreign troops, he learned to read and to communicate effectively in Russian [4, p. 30; 48, p. 9; 55, p. 21; 67, p. 426; 78, p. xviii; 80, p. 22-23; 81, p. 83, 117;

128; 130, p. 245, 249]. While in Godunov's service, Margeret had the opportunity to observe many activities at court, in the tsar's bureaucracy, and in the field. When in Moscow, he lived close to the Kremlin; but his military duties took him to many parts of Russia, including the southern steppe frontier. Margeret's description of Russia's zasechnaia cherta(or zaseka) defense lines and the early warning system set up to oppose Tatar invasions provides invaluable evidence unique among foreign accounts of early modern Russia [46, p. 174-177; 73, p. 43-45; 74, p. 15; 85, p. 482483; 129, p. 54-64].

Captain Margeret was in the tsar's army sent to repel the pretender Dmitrii Ivanovich's invasion in 1604-1605. Margeret's actions at the battle of Dobrynichi (January 1605) were instrumental in the defeat of Dmitrii's army, for which he received special thanks from Tsar Boris. Margeret was silent about his own actions during the battle and credited the Russian infantry for the victory. Nevertheless, eyewitnesses and Tsar Boris were certain that it was Captain Margeret's own daring and tactical brilliance that won the day [4, p. 17, 33; 18, p. 102; 19, p. 40-41; 73, p. 62-63; 82, p. 86-89; 81, p. 82-84; 123, vol. 1, p. 237; 127, p. 165; 130, p. 250, 255, 273-276]. At the outset of the battle, Dmitrii's Polish cavalry launched such a ferocious attack against the main force of the tsar's army that it wavered and began to retreat in disorder. Dmitrii's cavalry pressed the attack and captured some artillery. Seeing the danger, Captain Margeret led the foreign troops forward from the flank of the tsar's army. The Dutch merchant Isaac Massa described the scene: “[The] Germans and the Livonians in Boris's service, commanded by a Frenchman, Captain Jacques Margeret, pulled together, placed themselves at the head of the army in the face of the enemy, and began skirmishing with them” [81, p. 83].

In the words of Conrad Bussow, a soldier who was an eyewitness [19, p. 40]:

“[Margeret's men] attacked Dmitrii's formations with such force that not only were they unable to pursue the fleeing Muscovites but they were even forced to abandon the captured artillery and flee headlong. The German battle cry was `Hilff Gott! Hilff Gott! ' God helped them. They boldly pursued Dmitrii's fleeing army, fired at the horsemen, and cut down all those they could reach or pursue. When the

Muscovites saw the bravery of the Germans, and how they alone were driving the enemy from the field and pushing them back, they regained courage and came in thousands to the aid of the Germans, learning also to call out the German battle cry `Hilff Gutt! ' Hilff Gutt! ' and the Germans were not a little amused [to see the Muscovites] appropriate the German language and battle cry so well.”

Tsar Boris's Russian soldiers strongly praised the foreign mercenaries for their valor, and Captain Margeret's bravery and the German battle cry were immortalized in Pushkin's Boris Godunov¹² [19, p. 40; 30, p. 66-67, 71, 100, 102, 107, 151-152, 201-202, 406-409, 495, notes 201-202].

The tactic used next by the Russian infantry at Dobrynichi that Captain Margeret commended had never before been seen in Russia. Foreign officers had trained and organized the Russian infantry to fight in a linear formation, utilizing new Dutch tactics for the delivery of mass firepower in battle [19, p. 40; 46, p. 164-165; 95, p. 231-232; 107, p. 237-238]. Margeret wrote that while the armies were skirmishing, Dmitrii “played for double or nothing” in a bold attempt to regain the initiative. According to Margeret, “Dmitrii sent his main cavalry along a small valley to attempt to cut between the village and the Russian army” [73, p. 63]. But Captain Margeret and other officers had anticipated such an attack and deployed the strel tsy in a long line, some of them behind prefabricated wooden barricades [81, p. 84; 107, p. 236-238]. Margeret described what happened next: “The [tsar's] infantry, seeing the Poles so near, fired a volley from ten or twelve thousand harquebuses which so frightened the Poles that they turned back in great confusion” [73, p. 63]. Simultaneously, approximately three hundred cannon were fired at Dmitrii's attacking cavalry, killing many men and horses and adding to the incredibly disorienting noise and smoke. Captain Margeret himself was almost certainly responsible for this new, highly effective battle formation - a Russian variant on the Dutch model [36, p. 220, note 188; 46, p. 162-168; 73, p. xviii, 98, note 36; 81, p. 84]. That should not be too surprising since Jacques's cousin, Captain Claude Margeret, worked for Prince Maurice of Nassau, a principal inventor of the new tactics for enhancing infantry mass firepower [9, p. 312; 94].

Captain Margeret returned to Moscow after the battle of Dobrynichi to receive the tsar's thanks and to participate in a victory parade. Tsar Boris generously rewarded Margeret and his men, who received a year's pay in advance. Margeret was almost certainly allowed to exchange some of his service land grants for high-status votchina estates [18, p. 102; 19, p. 42; 46, p. 51, 56-57; 116, p. 605; 123, vol. 1, p. 237; 130, p. 248]. Soon after Tsar Boris died in April 1605, the tsar's army submitted to the pretender Dmitrii. To their credit, the foreign mercenaries remained loyal to Tsar Fedor Borisovich (r. 1605). But when the citizens of Moscow overthrew the Godunov dynasty and welcomed Tsar Dmitrii (r. 1605-1606), the foreign troops had little choice but to join the Russians in recognizing Dmitrii as tsar. On June 20, 1605, Margeret and his officers met with Tsar Dmitrii at his camp in Kolomenskoe. They begged the new tsar not to be angry with them for their actions at the battle of Dobrynichi. Tsar Dmitrii smiled and commended them for their skill, valor, and steadfastness to the oath they swore to Tsar Fedor. Dmitrii promised them that if they displayed the same zeal for him, he would rely on them more than his Russian army. In this way, Captain Margeret entered Tsar Dmitrii's service and retained his position as commander of the tsar's foreign troops [18, p. 102; 19, p. 49; 67, p. 425; 73, p. xviii; 81, p. 117; 82, p. 86-89; 130, p. 250251]. Tsar Dmitrii was impressed by Captain Margeret, and the feeling was mutual. Perhaps because Dmitrii's career reminded him of Henri IV's rise to power, Margeret was quite willing to serve the new tsar.

During his campaign for the throne, Dmitrii had observed the weaknesses of the Russian army, and he knew it needed modernization. Tsar Dmitrii sharpened the martial skills of his Russian troops by requiring them to receive active field training, especially in siege warfare. According to Isaac Massa, the tsar personally “took part in these exercises as a common soldier, and spared nothing to instruct the Muscovites in the science of war” [36, p. 220; 81, p. 117]. Historians traditionally believed that modern military tactics arrived in Russia during the reign of Tsar Vasilii Shuiskii (r. 1606-1610), but Soviet military historians correctly discerned that modernization began earlier, during the reign of Tsar Dmitrii. Since Dmitrii often used his foreign troops to train

Russian soldiers, it is highly probable that Jacques Margeret helped modernize Russian infantry tactics and maneuvers [4, p. 17, 33; 11, p. 61; 18, p. 102, 186-187; 19, p. 44, 55-56; 46, p. 162-168; 81, p. 100,117-118; 82, p. 86-89; 86; 106,p.67- 76; 130, p. 250-251, 255, 273-276]. In January 1606, Tsar Dmitrii created an elite bodyguard of 300 foreign mercenaries led by Captain Margeret, who personally commanded the first company of the guard composed of 100 “archers,” mostly Germans and Livonians ¹³ [18, p. 112; 19, p. 5354; 36, p. 215; 81, p. 116-118, 121; 123, vol. 1, p. 238; 130, p. 250-257]. Despite the name, the tsar's archers carried partisans (pole-axes) with the tsar's coat-of-arms stamped in gold on the blades, and their weapons were covered in red velvet bound by silver wire. The archers wore strikingly beautiful uniforms of red velvet and cloth-of-gold, and they accompanied the tsar everywhere. When he left Moscow they accompanied him on horseback holding matchlock guns at-the-ready. Tsar Dmitrii's enemies later portrayed this as a “heretical innovation” that greatly upset the Russian lords [92, p. 112-113; 99, p. 36-37; 130, p. 254]. That is an exaggeration. It is worth noting that the usurper Vasilii Shuiskii retained Dmitrii's “heretical” foreign bodyguard [73, p. xviii-xix, 78-79]. Tsar Dmitrii's archers received the highest pay in the Russian army [1, s. 18; 78, p. ix; 81, p. 117; 82, p. 118; 123, vol. 1, p. 238; 130, p. 251-255, 257]. Captain Margeret received an increase in salary and more land, including a village with a tavern. Margeret enjoyed many privileges, and the tsar had complete confidence in him [3, p. 409; 116, p. 605; 123, vol. 1, p. 238; 130, p. 238, 248, 254, 257].

In May 1606 Tsar Dmitrii was assassinated by a small group of disgruntled Russians led by Vasilii Shuiskii [36, p. 226-238]. Dmitrii had been repeatedly warned by Captain Margeret and others of a plot to kill him, but the tsar foolishly dismissed those warnings. On the night he was murdered, Tsar Dmitrii sent most of his bodyguards out of the Kremlin to protect his Polish wedding guests from hostile encounters with the city's agitated population. The tsar had only a few guards and no officer with him when Shuiskii struck [36, p. 231-232, 235; 60, p. 41-42; 81, p. 135, 137-138]. Captain Margeret was sick and not on duty that night. That probably saved his life and may even have been a factor in the conspirators' decision to strike when they did [21, vol. 14, p. 494; 104, vol. 14, p. 177]¹⁴. Over the years historians have credited propaganda and rumors about the involvement in the conspiracy of persons close to Dmitrii, including his “mother,” the Romanovs, Prince Fedor Mstislavskii, and Captain Margeret [36, p. 232; 89, p. 506; 101, p. 82; 114, p. 17-18, 38, 42; 126, p. 59-60]. The rumor that Margeret supported the conspiracy was put forward by a confused and frightened foreigner being held in custody and in no position to know anything about the assassination [85, p. 484; 87, p. 76]. In fact, Margeret was devoted to Tsar Dmitrii, which is obvious to anyone who reads his book.

Before killing Tsar Dmitrii and seizing power, Vasilii Shuiskii tried to demonize Tsar Dmitrii's foreign troops in a whispering campaign against the impostor “Grishka Otrep'ev.” Once in power, Tsar Vasilii felt compelled to dismiss most of the foreign mercenaries in the Russian army. Given no severance pay, many of them were reduced to begging and robbery by the time they reached the border. Shuiskii did try to retain key officers who wished to leave Russian service [21, vol. 14, p. 504; 36, p. 271; 73, p. xix-xxi; 81, p. 153; 85, p. 484]. The new tsar asked Captain Margeret to remain as commander of his foreign bodyguard, which Margeret agreed to do. Tsar Vasilii's request was, of course, virtually a command, but the miserable plight of those foreign troops Shuiskii had dismissed may also have influenced Margeret's decision to remain in Russia somewhat longer. Captain Margeret accompanied Shuiskii on several occasions when the new tsar came close to being attacked by the residents of Moscow. Many ordinary Russians regarded Shuiskii as a usurper who had murdered their beloved Tsar Dmitrii [36, p. 247-250; 73, p. 7579; 85, p. 485-486; 114, p. 43, 49]. Margeret also detested Shuiskii and took the first available opportunity to leave Russian service in good standing. By mid-summer he managed to secure the tsar's reluctant permission to return to France. Tsar Vasilii gave Captain Margeret rich presents in recognition of his long and faithful service to Russia ¹⁵ [85, p. 482-485; 130, p. 258-260]. Margeret departed for France from Arkhangelsk in September 1606, probably sailing on an English ship. It has been claimed that Captain Margeret “abandoned” Russian service because he saw the whole country rising in mutiny against the usurper

Shuiskii [78, p. xii; 82, p. 154; 130, p. 258]. That is simply not true. Margeret received permission to leave Russia at a time when Tsar Vasilii was still confident that his forces could easily overcome any rebellion. Margeret departed from Arkhangelsk before news of the scope of the rebellion against Shuiskii could reach him [69, p. 41(v)-42, 45(v)-46, 47-47(v); 73, p. 75-80]. By the time he arrived in France, however, Moscow was under siege by tens of thousands of rebels determined to restore “Tsar Dmitrii” to his throne.

Soon after returning to France, Captain Margeret presented himself to King Henri IV. Margeret gave the king a sample of Tsar Dmitrii's diplomatic correspondence and a petition from Bertrand of Kazan, a business associate of Jacques' father who had been living in Russia for many years and lost his fortune when Tsar Dmitrii was assassinated. Henri later wrote to Tsar Vasilii on Bertrand's behalf [23, p. 444-445; 39, p. 330331]. King Henri listened with pleasure to Jacques's stories about Russia and ordered him to write a book about that mysterious land [69, p. Aiii; 70, p. aii-aii(v); 130, p. 260]. Henri was keenly interested in Russia, especially the meteoric career of Tsar Dmitrii. Russia was also of considerable interest to Jacques-Auguste de Thou, the royal librarian and foremost historian of the age. De Thou interviewed Margeret at length and included much of the French captain's information about Russia in his own monumental Historia sui temporis. It is likely that de Thou urged the king to commission Margeret's book in order to correct many popular and scholarly views of Russia then current in Europe. Nevertheless, Henri IV deserves much of the credit for the appearance of Margeret's book. Without the king's great curiosity, the restless Captain Margeret might never have published his brilliant account of Russia [21, vol. 14, p. 450-467, 490-504; 73, p. xxvii-xxx; 78, p. xvii-xviii; 80, p. 420-423; 104, vol. 14, p. 125-131, 157-163].

Jacques worked on Estat de l'Empire de Russie during winter 1606-1607, and he published it in March 1607. Margeret attempted to write an objective account of Russia following the guidelines laid down by the great French Renaissance scholar Jean Bodin and the Ancients (primarily Polybius). Captain Margeret fit Bodin's description of a most reliable historian: an open- minded person who spent a great part of his life holding important offices and in warfare, a man of experience who did not praise himself in his writings but who attempted instead to present an account devoid of emotion and partisanship. Margeret sought to speak only the truth about Russia, unadorned by “heroics” or literary flourishes, so that the French reading public might discern the truth in his words and learn from it [7, p. 35-37; 9, p. 313, 320-321; 12, p. xxxvii, 41-44, 50-51; 69, p. Aii-Aiii; 73, p. 3-4]. Although Margeret's writing style is somewhat unpolished and simpler than that of the great writers, it is straightforward, vigorous, and typical of the late French Renaissance. Margeret was not a professional writer, but his prodigious knowledge of Russia, combined with his intelligence, honesty, keenness of observation, and careful differentiation between fact and opinion, made his account a work of lasting value [1, s. 45; 70, p. aii- aiii; 73, p. xxx; 78, p. 3-7; 99, p. 37; 123, vol. 1, p. 241; 130, p. 245]. As soon as it was published, Margeret's book became influential in shaping French and European views of Russia, and it has been used extensively by scholars ever since. Margeret's account of Russia has long been regarded as an extremely valuable and highly accurate source for reconstructing the early history of the Time of Troubles [4, p. 14, 20, 29; 18, p. 32-34; 19, p. xxxi; 63, p. 104, 411, 413, 418; 73, p. 8, 20-21; 85, p. 480-481].

S cholars have long been puzzled by Margeret's ability to write his book so quickly. One clue to the mystery may be found in Margeret's writing style. His narrative has an informal, oral tone to it, as if one were listening to the unpretentious soldier's own voice. That stylistic feature is due at least in part to how the book was produced. Margeret almost certainly dictated his account to a court scribe ¹⁶. To explain how Margeret managed to write such an accurate account of Russia so quickly, scholars have reasonably suggested that he must have taken extensive notes while in Russian service and may even have worked on a rough draft of his book while living in Russia or on his journey back home to France ¹⁷ [80, p. 16]. Expanding on the work of Iurii Limonov, Dmitrii Liseitsev carefully studied Margeret's remarkably accurate information about the tsar's bureaucracy. Liseitsev attempted to identify Margeret's expert informants and made a good case for officials in the Posol 'skii prikaz, including Afanasii Vlas'ev. Liseitsev claimed that the accuracy of Margeret's information about the tsar'sprikazy implies that Margeret relied not just on expert informants and his own observations, but that he also consulted written Russian sources in preparing his account for publication. That is undoubtedly true; there is even evidence that Margeret read some Russian chronicles [4, p. 30; 61, p. 221-222; 63, p. 93-95, 100-103, 575; 73, p. 14, 89, 109, note 20, 192, note 353; 85, p. 479-481, 489-492].

Dmitrii Liseitsev claimed that Margeret made use of Giles Fletcher's controversial Of the Russe Commonwealth (1591) in preparing his book. Liseitsev suggested that John Merrick may have given Margeret a copy of Fletcher's book in September 1606, but he provided no evidence to support such a dubious assertion. Liseitsev based his claim only on the similarity of some information about Russian administration found in Of the Russe Commonwealth and Margeret's book [63, p. 104]. In fact, there is no reason to believe Margeret ever saw Fletcher's book; he certainly did not need Fletcher's help to describe tsarist Russia or its administrative institutions. And why would the chief agent of the Muscovy Company recommend a book that his company successfully lobbied Queen Elizabeth I to suppress in 1591? Captain Margeret's positive description of Russia as a well-run absolute monarchy that practiced religious toleration was based on his own experience, and it has little in common with Fletcher's distorted description of the Russian government as “plaine tyrannical” [10, p. 150-154; 41, p. 20; 117, p. 189-198]. Margeret did not need to consult Fletcher's book to be able to write knowledgeably about Russia, nor did he need to borrow information from earlier accounts of Russia. Instead, Margeret recorded only what he personally saw, heard, and read during six years of service as a high-ranking official in the tsar's government¹⁸.

Jacques presented King Henri with a copy of his book in spring 1607, and it was placed in the Royal Library ¹⁹. Margeret then returned to Auxonne and Burgundy to visit his family and to manage his affairs. In Dijon Jacques made a formal claim to part of his grandfather Pierre's estate, in the process referring to himself as “escuyer” [modern French: йcuyer]or “knight,” meaning a nobleman [9, p. 315; 71, pp. iii-iv, viii; 98, p. 193-194]. Some historians incorrectly assumed that the Margeret family was already noble by the time Jacques was born [24, p. 365; 89, p. 505]. That is not true. The Margerets were definitely bourgeois in the sixteenth century. Selfpromotion of soldiers into the ranks of the petty nobility was not uncommon in early modern France, but Jacques never again referred to himself as a “knight.” Until the end of his career he was content to be addressed as “Captain Margeret.”

In the years following Tsar Dmitrii's death, rumors persisted throughout Europe that he had somehow miraculously escaped assassination in 1606. Captain Margeret was undoubtedly interested in those rumors. He had never been completely convinced of Dmitrii's death because he was not an eyewitness, and at some point he decided to find out for himself if the rumors were true. By 1609 Margeret returned to Russia to fight against the usurper-tsar Shuiskii in the name of “Tsar Dmitrii.” As soon as he arrived in Tushino, however, he discovered that the second pretender Dmitrii Ivanovich was an obvious impostor, merely a convenient tool of the forces gathered in opposition to Tsar Vasilii. Real power in Tushino rested in the hands of several Polish-Lithuanian lords and a few Muscovite dignitaries well known to Margeret, including the boyar Mikhail Saltykov. With no illusions about the identity of the second pretender, Margeret remained in Tushinite service. No doubt he was a welcome addition, as much for the propaganda value of having the captain of Tsar Dmitrii's bodyguard in camp as for his military skills. Margeret almost certainly received a generous land grant from the second pretender [57, p. 326-327; 69, p. 41(v)-42, 45-47(v); 73, p. 75-77; 130, p. 262-263]. In 1612 Prince Dmitrii Pozharskii, senior commander of the Russian national liberation forces fighting against Polish intervention, accused Captain Margeret of being an “enemy” of Russia in part for having worked with the controversial cossack commander Ivan Zarutskii while in the second pretender's service [116, p. 605]. V.D. Nazarov claimed that Margeret never traveled to Tushino and never entered the second pretender's service. Nazarov rejected Pozharskii's accusation as nothing more than propaganda intended to make Margeret (and foreign mercenaries generally) look odious [85, p. 493]. That is not true. According to one of Margeret's close associates, he recruited foreign mercenaries for Tushinite service [80, p. 301; 110, p. 18-23, 138-144].