Russian Guards helmet held by Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh in the 1960 film “Candide”

In the 1960 French film adaptation of Voltaire's "Candide, or Optimism" I noticed an interesting detail. In the twentieth-century version, Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh lives not in Westphalia but somewhere a few steps between Alsace and Lorraine, and this time he, like previous generations of his family, is in the business of making helmets. French and Prussian alike. Thanks to the fortunes of war, the barons thus acquired wealth and privileges three times greater than those the Revolution had taken from them.

Yet the helmet the Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh holds with particular pride is neither Prussian nor French, but Russian: that of an officer of the Life Guards Horse Regiment, with the large guards cockade in the form of the silver star of the Order of Saint Andrew the First-Called, with an enamelled centre and the motto of the Order of Saint Andrew, “For Faith and Loyalty”, exactly like mine, if anyone remembers; I wrote about it in this post.