Many miracles are associated with the name of St. Savva Storozhevsky. We will tell a story about one of them. It happened during the days of the French capture of Moscow in 1812. The French general Eugene Beauharnais with a detachment of twenty thousand soldiers occupied Zvenigorod and settled in the Storozhevsky monastery.
Appearance of Saint Sava to General Eugene Beauharnais
Eugene Beauharnais
Who is this Eugene Beauharnais, to whom a miracle happened in the monastery he occupied? He was the stepson of Napoleon, the Viceroy of Italy, and a major military leader. His father, a young officer Alexandre Beauharnais, at the end of the 18th century married the Josephine, who in 1781 bore him a son. The child was named Eugene Beauharnais. Alexander's political and military career came to an abrupt end: he was assassinated in 1794. His son was 13 years old at that time. While still a young man, Eugene enlisted in the army. In 1796, the widow Josephine Beauharnais married General Napoleon Bonaparte, who was little known at the time, who accepted Josephine’s children as his own.
At the age of 16, Eugene became Bonaparte's adjutant. From his first steps in the combat field, he showed courage and bravery. Together with Bonaparte, he participated in the Italian campaign of 1796–1797, in the Egyptian expedition of 1798–1801, and other Napoleonic wars. When Napoleon returned to France from the Egyptian campaign in the fall of 1799, Eugene received the rank of captain of horse huntsmen. During the Italian campaign of 1800, Eugene Beauharnais was promoted to colonel at the age of 18 for his courage in one of the battles. On this occasion, Napoleon said: “Eugene is rapidly moving towards immortality: he covered himself with glory in all battles.”
Eugene assisted Bonaparte in the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire 1799, as a result of which a new government was created in France led by Napoleon. Napoleon then became First Consul for life and finally, in 1804, he declared himself Emperor of France, and Eugene began to be called Prince. He accompanied his stepfather everywhere, who valued his stepson for his nobility, openness, devotion, and military talents.
In 1804, when Eugene was only 22 years old, he became a brigadier general; in 1805 Napoleon I proclaimed him Viceroy of Italy, and in 1806 he officially adopted him. On January 26, 1806, Eugene Beauharnais married Princess Augusta Amalia, daughter of the Bavarian king Maximilian Augustus. In the campaign of 1812, Italian troops under the leadership of Eugene fought, naturally, on the side of Napoleon.
So, let’s continue the story about General Beauharnais’s stay in the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery. Eugene slept all day, and in the evening he woke up and suddenly saw a handsome old man in black monastic clothes enter his cell. Looking at the prince, the monk said in a quiet voice:
“Do not order your army to plunder the monastery, or to carry away anything from the church. If you fulfill my request, God will have mercy on you, and you will return to your fatherland safe and sound. And know that your descendants will serve Russia.”
Having said this, the monk immediately disappeared. Eugene was shocked by the vision: the dream was almost a reality. He immediately wrote down everything that happened in his diary.
Eugene listened to the advice of the Russian elder and in the morning gave the order not to touch the property of the monastery. In the cathedral church, he saw an icon with the face of St. Savva of Storozhevsky, in whom he recognized his night guest. The prince bowed to the relics of the saint, sealed the temple and assigned 30 guards, strictly ordering them to allow only monks inside. All valuables stolen overnight were returned to the monastery by order of the general. This noble act of Beauharnais evokes all the more respect if we take into account the fact that at the same time hundreds of Orthodox churches were destroyed by the French; they had even set up a stable in the main church of the Moscow Kremlin, the Assumption Cathedral.
Painting of a church in the village of Anosovo, Smolensk region
Beauharnais fulfilled the will of Saint Sava: the monastery suffered little, and the monk, in turn, kept his promise. Eugene indeed remained alive and unharmed, and was never wounded in battle, while almost all of Napoleon’s marshals died or were executed. Ney and Murat were shot, Berthier committed suicide; Bessieres was killed near Lutzen; Marshal Duron was killed in battle. Mortier, who blew up the Kremlin during the retreat from Moscow, was himself blown up in Paris by a bomb intended for King Louis Philippe. Junot died in madness. Marshal Poniatowski drowned while wounded; Marshal Augereau died of a painful lung disease.
After the fall of Napoleon, the new French government valued and respected General Beauharnais, and the Russian Emperor Alexander I developed such sympathy for him that at one time he was inclined to put him on the imperial throne of France. But he refused all honors and lived out his life quietly and calmly in Munich, receiving from his father-in-law, King Maximilian Joseph, the title of Prince of Leuchtenberg. He had 6 children. Eugene Beauharnais died on February 21, 1824, and was buried in the Munich Church of St. Michael, not far from a holy place with the relics of the holy healers, Saints Cosmas and Damian.
Eugene Beauharnais and Napoleon in Russia. Artist: Adam Albrecht
How the descendants of Beauharnais began to serve Russia
All his life, Eugene Beauharnais sacredly honored the memory of Saint Sava, because through his prayers, God saved his life. Soon after the Napoleonic campaign, a chapel of St. Sava was built near Paris, and he became one of the few Russian saints known and revered in France. Eugene raised his son Maximilian in reverence of the Russian saint, and of Russia itself.
In 1839, Maximilian, Duke of Lichtenberg, came to Russia to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Borodino. When the military parade took place on the Borodino field, Maximilian, to the considerable surprise of the Russian side, asked to be taken to Zvenigorod, near Moscow, to the monastery of St. Savva of Storozhevsky. Fulfilling the will of his late father, together with the imperial family he visited the Savvino-Storozhevsky monastery and venerated the relics of the saint.
K. P. Bryullov. Portrait of Duke Maximilian of Leuchtenberg. 1849
Soon the young man Maximilian married the daughter of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I, Grand Duchess Maria. Maria Nikolaevna married for love. She met her chosen one in 1837, when he came to St. Petersburg for cavalry maneuvers. A year later, during his second visit, the young people realized that they could not live without each other. Nicholas I agreed to his daughter’s marriage on the condition that the couple would live in Russia and not abroad. The wedding took place on July 2, 1839 and took place according to two rites: Orthodox and Catholic (Maximilian was a Catholic). After the wedding, the newlyweds again visited the Storozhevsky monastery and venerated the relics of the saint. Maximilian moved to Russia permanently. His family settled in St. Petersburg on Nevsky Prospekt, in the palace that Nicholas I built for his beloved daughter. The marriage produced seven children. Maximilian was the president of the Academy of Arts, the head of the Mining Institute, conducted scientific research in the field of electroplating, established a galvanoplastic plant and a hospital in St. Petersburg, and started an exemplary farm on the Tambov estate. He also took a great part in the construction of the first railways in Russia. Maximilian died at 35 from tuberculosis. His descendants lived in the palace on Nevsky Prospect until the October Revolution, during which the Dukes of Leuchtenberg, fortunately, were in Paris. This is how the prediction of Saint Sava of Storozhevsky came true that the descendants of Eugene Beauharnais would serve Russia.
Descendants of Beauharnais in our time
In 1995, the 80-year-old Orthodox nun Elisaveta, a representative of the Beauharnais family, came to the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum from France. According to her, family tradition said that Maximilian converted to Orthodoxy.
Currently, all descendants of Beauharnais have Russian names and profess Orthodoxy. They consider the Monk Savva of Storozhevsky their heavenly patron. When a new family is created, it receives a copy of the icon of the saint, once donated by the monastery to Eugene Beauharnais.