Pavel Nikolaievich Demidov
The ancestor of the Demidov family, Paul Nikolaievich's great-great-grandfather Nikita Demidovich Antufyev (1656–1725)[2] was a blacksmith and a weapon-maker in Tula in the 17th century.
He had gained the favour of Tsar Peter the Great with his well manufactured pistols and granted rights over the mines and foundries on the eastern slopes of the Urals, as well as to the thousands of serfs who toiled in them.
Under the management of Pavel Nikolaievich, the Demidov company employees made redundant due to old age, received a life pension which was half of their salary.
Abroad he donated notable sums to the Convent of Sankt Elizabeth in Linz, Austria, Comédie-Française in Paris, the poor of Berlin, the widows and orphans of French soldiers, who died in Africa.
As the eldest son of Count Nikolai Nikitich Demidov and Baroness Elisabeta Alexandrovna Stroganova, he lived with his father, first in Vienna at the Russian embassy, and then in Paris, where he studied at the presticious Lycée Napoléon, in a six-year course at the high school level.
The general perception was that his bride Aurora Stjernvall was hoped to persuade her husband to return to Russia and manage his property wisely and for the benefit of his own country and emperor.
He spent a princely life in Paris and in the castle of San Donato near Florence, and had, with his whims and outrage, expelled his wife, Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, and donated money recklessly wherever he choose.
In Helsinki on 9 January 1836 Paul married the well-known society beauty and maid-of-honour to Her Majesty the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Baroness Aurora Stjernvall (1808–1902).
The bride received a gold jewelry box with the world's seventh largest diamond attached to a platinum chain, the famous Le Sancy.
Wife Aurora was allowed to visit Saint Petersburg alone to show her respect for the emperor Nicholas I in accordance with the etiquette and, no doubt, her genuine gratitude.
[3] When their son Paul was born in October 1839, Demidov had already agreed to a plan of returning to Saint Petersburg, where the palace on Bolshaya Morskaya Street was being renovated.
