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The Daughter of an Empress

by L. Mühlbach · English · Gutenberg #2132 · 697,870 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Daughter of an Empress

Author: L. Mühlbach

Translator: Nathaniel Greene


        
Release date: March 26, 2006 [eBook #2132]
                Most recently updated: October 14, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2132

Credits: Produced by Dagny; John Bickers and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAUGHTER OF AN EMPRESS ***




Produced by Dagny and John Bickers





THE DAUGHTER OF AN EMPRESS

By Louise Muhlbach




CONTENTS

     Countess Natalie Dolgorucki
     Count Munnich
     Count Ostermann
     The Night of the Conspiracy
     Hopes Deceived
     The Regent Anna Leopoldowna
     The Favorite
     No Love
     Princess Elizabeth
     A Conspiracy
     The Warning
     The Court Ball
     The Pencil-Sketch
     The Revolution
     The Sleep of Innocence
     The Recompensing
     Punishment
     The Palace of the Empress
     Eleonore Lapuschkin
     A Wedding
     Scenes and Portraits
     Princes also must die
     The Charmed Garden
     The Letters
     Diplomatic Quarrels
     The Fish Feud
     Pope Ganganelli (Clement XIV.)
     The Pope’s Recreation Hour
     A Death-Sentence
     The Festival of Cardinal Bernis
     The Improvisatrice
     The Departure
     An Honest Betrayer
     Alexis Orloff
     Corilla
     The Holy Chafferers
     “Sic transit gloria mundi”
      The Vapo
     The Invasion
     Intrigues
     The Dooming Letter
     The Russian Officer
     Anticipation
     He!
     The Warning
     The Russian Fleet
     Conclusion





THE DAUGHTER OF AN EMPRESS




COUNTESS NATALIE DOLGORUCKI

“No, Natalie, weep no more! Quick, dry your tears. Let not my
executioner see that we can feel pain or weep for sorrow!”

Drying her tears, she attempted a smile, but it was an unnatural,
painful smile.

“Ivan,” said she, “we will forget, forget all, excepting that we love
each other, and thus only can I become cheerful. And tell me, Ivan, have
I not always been in good spirits? Have not these long eight years in
Siberia passed away like a pleasant summer day? Have not our hearts
remained warm, and has not our love continued undisturbed by the
inclement Siberian cold? You may, therefore, well see that I have the
courage to bear all that can be borne. But you, my beloved, you my
husband, to see you die, without being able to save you, without being
permitted to die with you, is a cruel and unnatural sacrifice! Ivan, let
me weep; let your murderer see that I yet have tears. Oh, my God, I have
no longer any pride, I am nothing but a poor heart-broken woman! Your
widow, I weep over the yet living corpse of my husband!” With convulsive
sobs the trembling young wife fell upon her knees and with frantic grief
clung to her husband’s feet.

Count Ivan Dolgorucki no long felt the ability to stand aloof from her
sorrow. He bent down to his wife, raised her in his arms, and with her
he wept for his youth, his lost life, the vanishing happiness of his
love, and the shame of his fatherhood.

“I should joyfully go to my death, were it for the benefit of my
country,” said he. “But to fall a sacrifice to a cabal, to the jealousy
of an insidious, knavish favorite, is what makes the death-hour fearful.
Ah, I die for naught, I die that Munnich, Ostermann, and Biron may
remain securely in power. It is horrible thus to die!”

Natalie’s eyes flashed with a fanatic glow. “You die,” said she, “and
I shall live, will live, to see how God will avenge you upon these
evil-doers. I will live, that I may constantly think of you, and in
every hour of the day address to God my prayers for vengeance and
retribution!”

“Live and pray for our fatherland!” said Ivan.

“No,” she angrily cried, “rather let God’s curse rest upon this Russia,
which delivers over its noblest men to the executioner, and raises its
ignoblest women to the throne. No blessing for Russia, which is cursed
in all generations and for all time--no blessing for Russia, whose
bloodthirsty czarina permits the slaughter of the noble Ivan and his
brothers!”

“Ah,” said Ivan, “how beautiful you are now--how flash your eyes, and
how radiantly glow your cheeks! Would that my executioner were now
come, that he might see in you the heroine, Natalie, and not the
sorrow-stricken woman!”

“Ah, your prayer is granted; hear you not the rattling of the bolts, the
roll of the drum? They are coming, Ivan, they are coming!”

“Farewell, Natalie--farewell, forever!”

And, mutually embracing, they took one last, long kiss, but wept not.

“Hear me, Natalie! when they bind me upon the wheel, weep not. Be
resolute, my wife, and pray that their torments may not render me weak,
and that no cry may escape my lips!”

“I will pray, Ivan.”

In half an hour all was over. The noble and virtuous Count Ivan
Dolgorucki had been broken upon the wheel, and three of his brothers
beheaded, and for what?--Because Count Munnich, fearing that the noble
and respected brothers Dolgorucki might dispossess him of his usurped
power, had persuaded the Czarina Anna that they were plotting her
overthrow for the purpose of raising Katharina Ivanovna to the imperial
throne. No proof or conviction was required; Munnich had said it, and
that sufficed; the Dolgoruckis were annihilated!

But Natalie Dolgorucki still lived, and from the bloody scene of her
husband’s execution she repaired to Kiew. There would she live in the
cloister of the Penitents, preserving the memory of the being she loved,
and imploring the vengeance of Heaven upon his murderers!

It was in the twilight of a clear summer night when Natalie reached the
cloister in which she was on the next day to take the vows and exchange
her ordinary dress for the robe of hair-cloth and the nun’s veil.

Foaming rushed the Dnieper within its steep banks, hissing broke the
waves upon the gigantic boulders, and in the air was heard the sound as
of howling thunder and a roaring storm.

“I will take my leave of nature and of the world,” murmured Natalie,
motioning her attendants to remain at a distance, and with firm feet
climbing the steep rocky bank of the rushing Dnieper. Upon their knees
her servants prayed below, glancing up to the rock upon which they saw
the tall form of their mistress in the moonlight, which surrounded it
with a halo; the stars laid a radiant crown upon her pure brow, and her
locks, floating in the wind, resembled wings; to her servants she seemed
an angel borne upon air and light and love upward to her heavenly home!
Natalie stood there tranquil and tearless. The thoughtful glances of her
large eyes swept over the whole surrounding region. She took leave
of the world, of the trees and flowers, of the heavens and the earth.
Below, at her feet, lay the cloister, and Natalie, stretching forth her
arms toward it, exclaimed: “That is my grave! Happy, blessed Ivan, thou
diedst ere being coffined; but I shall be coffined while yet alive! I
stand here by thy tomb, mine Ivan. They have bedded thy noble form in
the cold waves of the Dnieper, whose rushing and roaring was thy funeral
knell, mine Ivan! I shall dwell by thy grave, and in the deathlike
stillness of my cell shall hear the tones of the solemn hymn with which
the impetuous stream will rock thee to thine eternal rest! Receive,
then, ye sacred waves of the Dnieper, receive thou, mine Ivan, in thy
cold grave, thy wife’s vow of fidelity to thee. Again will I espouse
thee--in life as in death, am I thine!”

And drawing from her finger the wedding-ring which her beloved husband
had once placed upon it, she threw it into the foaming waves.

Bending down, she saw the ring sinking in the waters and murmured: “I
greet thee, Ivan, I greet thee! Take my ring--forever am I thine!”

Then, rising proudly up, and stretching forth her arms toward heaven,
she exclaimed aloud: “I now go to pray that God may send thee vengeance.
Woe to Russia, woe!” and the stream with its boisterous waves howled and
thundered after her the words: “Woe to Russia, woe!”




COUNT MUNNICH

The Empress Anna was dead, and--an unheard-of case in Russian imperial
history--she had even died a natural death. Again was the Russian
imperial throne vacated! Who is there to mount it? whom has the empress
named as her successor? No one dared to speak of it; the question was
read in all eyes, but no lips ventured to open for the utterance of
an answer, as every conjecture, every expression, if unfounded and
unfulfilled, would be construed into the crime of high-treason as soon
as another than the one thus indicated should be called to the throne!

Who will obtain that throne? So asked each man in his heart. The
courtiers and great men of the realm asked it with shuddering and
despair. For, to whom should they now go to pay their homage and thus
recommend themselves to favor in advance? Should they go to Biron, the
Duke of Courland? Was it not possible that the dying empress had chosen
him, her warmly-beloved favorite, her darling minion, as her successor
to the throne of all the Russias? But how if she had not done so? If,
instead, she had chosen her niece, the wife of Prince Anton Ulrich, of
Brunswick, as her successor? Or was it not also possible that she had
declared the Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of Czar Peter the Great,
as empress? The latter, indeed, had the greatest, the most incontestable
right to the imperial throne of Russia; was she not the sole lawful heir
of her father? How, if one therefore went to her and congratulated her
as empress? But if one should make a mistake, how then?

The courtiers, as before said, shuddered and hesitated, and, in order
to avoid making a mistake, did nothing at all. They remained in their
palaces, ostensibly giving themselves up to deep mourning for the
decease of the beloved czarina, whom every one of them secretly hated so
long as she was yet alive.

There were but a few who were not in uncertainty respecting the
immediate future, and conspicuous among that few was Field-Marshal Count
Munnich.

While all hesitated and wavered in anxious doubt, Munnich alone was
calm. He knew what was coming, because he had had a hand in shaping the
event.

“Oh,” said he, while walking his room with folded arms, “we have at
length attained the object of our wishes, and this bright emblem for
which I have so long striven will now finally become mine. I shall be
the ruler of this land, and in the unrestricted exercise of royal power
I shall behold these millions of venal slaves grovelling at my feet,
and whimpering for a glance or a smile. Ah, how sweet is this governing
power!

“But,” he then continued, with a darkened brow, “what is the good of
being the ruler if I cannot bear the name of ruler?--what is it to
govern, if another is to be publicly recognized as regent and receive
homage as such? The kernel of this glory will be mine, but the shell,--I
also languish for the shell. But no, this is not the time for such
thoughts, now, when the circumstances demand a cheerful mien and every
outward indication of satisfaction! My time will also come, and, when
it comes, the shell as well as the kernel shall be mine! But this is the
hour for waiting upon the Duke of Courland! I shall be the first to wish
him joy, and shall at the same time remind him that he has given me his
ducal word that he will grant the first request I shall make to him as
regent. Well, well, I will ask now, that I may hereafter command.”

The field-marshal ordered his carriage and proceeded to the palace of
the Duke of Courland.

A deathlike stillness prevailed in the streets through which he rode. On
every hand were to be seen only curtained windows and closed palaces;
it seemed as if this usually so brilliant and noisy quarter of St.
Petersburg had suddenly become deserted and desolate. The usual
equipages, with their gold and silver-laced attendants, were nowhere to
be seen.

The count’s carriage thundered through the deserted streets, but
wherever he passed curious faces were seen peeping from the curtained
windows of the palaces; all doors were hastily opened behind him, and he
was followed by the runners of the counts and princes, charged with the
duty of espying his movements.

Count Munnich saw all that, and smiled.

“I have now given them the signal,” said he, “and this servile Russian
nobility will rush hither, like fawning hounds, to bow before a new idol
and pay it their venal homage.”

The carriage now stopped before the palace of the Duke of Courland, and
with an humble and reverential mien Munnich ascended the stairs to the
brilliant apartments of Biron.

He found the duke alone; absorbed in thought, he was standing at the
window looking down into streets which were henceforth to be subjected
to his sway.

“Your highness is surveying your realm,” said Munnich, with a smile.
“Wait but a little, and you will soon see all the great nobility
flocking here to pay you homage. My carriage stops before your door, and
these sharp-scenting hounds now know which way to turn with their abject
adoration.”

“Ah,” sadly responded Biron, “I dread the coming hour. I have a
misfortune-prophesying heart, and this night, in a dream, I saw myself
in a miserable hut, covered with beggarly rags, shivering with cold and
fainting with hunger!”

“That dream indicated prosperity and happiness, your highness,”
 laughingly responded Munnich, “for dreams are always interpreted by
contraries. You saw yourself as a beggar because you were to become
our ruler--because a purple mantle will this day be placed upon your
shoulders.”

“Blood also is purple,” gloomily remarked the duke, “and a sharp poniard
may also convert a beggar’s blouse into a purple mantle! Oh, my friend,
would that I had never become what I am! One sleeps ill when one must
constantly watch his happiness lest it escape him. And think of it, my
fortunes are dependent upon the eyes of a child, a nurseling, that with
its mother’s milk imbibes hatred to me, and whose first use of speech
will be, perhaps, to curse me!”

“Then it must be your task to teach the young emperor Ivan to speak,”
 exclaimed Munnich--“in that case he will learn to bless you.”

“I shall not be able to snatch him from his parents,” said Biron. “But
those parents certainly hate me, and indeed very naturally, as they, it
seems, were, next to me, designated as the guardians of their son Ivan.
The Duchess Anna Leopoldowna of Brunswick is ambitious.”

“Bah! for the present she is in love,” exclaimed Munnich, with a laugh,
“and women, when in love, think of nothing but their love. But only
look, your highness, did I not prophesy correctly? Only see the numerous
equipages now stopping before your door! The street will soon be too
narrow to contain them.”

And in the street below was really to be seen the rapid arrival of
a great number of the most splendid equipages, from which alighted
beautiful and richly-dressed women, whose male companions were covered
with orders, and who were all hastening into the palace. There was a
pressing and pushing which produced the greatest possible confusion.
Every one wished to be the first to congratulate the new ruler, and to
assure him of their unbounded devotion.

The duke’s halls were soon filled with Russian magnates, and when at
length the duke himself made his appearance among them, he everywhere
saw only happy, beaming faces, and encountered only glances of love and
admiration. The warmest wishes of all these hundreds seemed to have
been fulfilled, and Biron was precisely the man whom all had desired for
their emperor.

And, standing in the centre of these halls, they read to Biron the
testament of the deceased Empress Anna: that testament designated Ivan,
the son of the Duchess Anna Leopoldowna and Prince Ulrich of Brunswick,
as emperor, and him, Duke Biron of Courland, as absolute regent of the
empire during the minority of the emperor, who had now just reached the
age of seven months. The joy of the magnates was indescribable; they
sank into each other’s arms with tears of joy. At this moment old
enemies were reconciled; women who had long nourished a mutual hatred,
now tenderly pressed each other’s hands; tears of joy were trembling
in eyes which had never before been known to weep; friendly smiles were
seen on lips which had usually been curled with anger; and every one
extolled with ecstasy the happiness of Russia, and humbly bowed before
the new sun now rising over that blessed realm.

With the utmost enthusiasm they all took the oath of fidelity to the new
ruler, and then hastened to the palace of the Prince of Brunswick, there
with the humblest subjection to kiss the delicate little hand of the
child-emperor Ivan.

Munnich was again alone with the duke, who, forgetting all his
ill-boding dreams, now gave himself up to the proud feeling of his
greatness and power.

“Let them all go,” said he, “these magnates, to kiss the hand of this
emperor of seven months, and wallow in the dust before the cradle of a
whimpering nurseling! I shall nevertheless be the real emperor, and both
sceptre and crown will remain in my hands!”

“But in your greatness and splendor you will not forget your faithful
and devoted friends,” said Munnich; “your highness will remember that it
was I who chiefly induced the empress to name you as regent during the
minority of Ivan, and that you gave me your word of honor that you would
grant me the first request I should make to you.”

“I know, I know,” said Biron, with a sly smile, thoughtfully pacing the
room with his hands behind his back. But, suddenly stopping, he remained
standing before Munnich, and, looking him sharply in the eye, said:
“Shall I for once interpret your thoughts, Field-Marshal Count Munnich?
Shall I for once tell you why you used all your influence to decide the
Empress Anna to name me for the regency? Ah, you had a sharp eye, a sure
glance, and consequently discovered that Anna had long since resolved
in her heart to name me for the regency, before you undertook to confirm
her in this resolve by your sage counsels. But you said to yourself:
‘This good empress loves the Duke of Courland; hence she will
undoubtedly desire to render him great and happy in spite of all
opposition, and if I aid in this by my advice I shall bind both parties
to myself; the empress, by appearing to be devoted to her favorite,
and the favorite, by aiding him in the accomplishment of his ambitious
plans. I shall therefore secure my own position, both for the present
and future!’ Confess to me, field-marshal, that these were your thoughts
and calculations.”

“The regent, Sir Duke of Courland, has a great knowledge of human
nature, and hence I dare not contradict him,” said Munnich, with a
constrained laugh. “Your highness therefore recognizes the service
that I, from whatever motive, have rendered you, and hence you will not
refuse to grant my request.”

“Let me hear it,” said the duke, stretching himself out on a divan,
and negligently playing with a portrait of the Empress Anna, splendidly
ornamented with brilliants, and suspended from his neck by a heavy gold
chain.

“Name me generalissimo of all the troops,” said Munnich, with solemnity.

“Of all the troops?” asked Biron. “Including those on the water, or only
those on land?”

“The troops on the water as well as those on land.”

“Ah, that means, I am to give you unlimited power, and thus place you
at the head of all affairs!” Then, suddenly rising from his reclining
position, and striding directly to Munnich, the duke threateningly said:
“In my first observation I forgot to interpret a few of your thoughts
and plans. I will now tell you why you wished for my appointment as
regent. You desired it for the advancement of your own ambitious plans.
You knew Biron as an effeminate, yielding, pleasure-seeking favorite of
the empress--you saw him devoted only to amusement and enjoyment, and
you said to yourself: ‘That is the man I need. As I cannot myself be
made regent, let it be him! I will govern through him; and while this
voluptuous devotee of pleasure gives himself up to the intoxication of
enjoyments, I will rule in his stead.’ Well, Mr. Field-Marshal, were not
those your thoughts!”

Munnich had turned very pale while the duke was thus speaking, and a
sombre inquietude was depicted on his features.

“I know not,” he stammered, with embarrassment.

“But _I_ know!” thundered the duke, “and in your terror-struck face I
read the confirmation of what I have said. Look in the glass, sir count,
and you will make no further attempt at denial.”

“But the question here is not about what I might have once thought, but
of what you promised me. Your highness, I have made my first request!
It is for you to grant it. I implore your on the strength of your ducal
word to name me as the generalissimo of your troops!”

“No, never!” exclaimed the duke.

“You gave me your word!”

“I gave it as Duke of Courland! The regent is not bound by the promise
of the duke.”

“I made you regent!”

“And I do _not_ make you generalissimo!”

“You forfeit your word of honor?”

“No, ask something else, and I will grant it. But this is not feasible.
I must myself be the generalissimo of my own troops, or I should no
longer be the ruler! Ask, therefore, for something else.”

Munnich was silent. His features indicated a frightful commotion, and
his bosom heaved violently.

“I have nothing further to ask,” said he, after a pause.

“But, I will confer upon you a favor without your asking it!” proudly
responded the duke. “Count Munnich, I confirm you in your offices and
dignities, and, to prove to you my unlimited confidence, you shall
continue to be what you were under the Empress Anna, field-marshal in
the Russian army!”

“I thank you, sir duke,” calmly replied Munnich. “It is very noble in
you that you do not send me into banishment for my presumptuous demand.”

Clasping the offered hand of the duke, he respectfully pressed it to his
lips.

“And now go, to kiss the hand of the young emperor, that you may not be
accused of disrespect,” smilingly added Biron; “one must always preserve
appearances.”

Munnich silently bowed, while walking backward toward the door.

“We part as friends?” asked the duke, nodding an adieu.

“As friends for life and death!” said Munnich, with a smile.

But no sooner had the door closed behind him than the smile vanished
from his features, and was replaced by an expression of furious rage.
He threateningly shook his fist toward the door which separated him from
the duke, and with convulsively compressed lips and grating teeth he
said: “Yes, we now part as friends, but we shall yet meet as enemies! I
shall remember this hour, sir duke, and shall do my best to prevent your
forgetting it. Ah, you have not sent me to Siberia, but I will send you
there! And now to the Emperor Ivan. I shall there meet his parents, the
shamefully-slighted Ulrich of Brunswick, and his wife Anna Leopoldowna.
I think they will welcome me.”

With a firm step, rage and vengeance in his heart, but outwardly smiling
and submissive, Field-Marshal Count Munnich betook himself to the palace
of the Duke of Brunswick to kiss the hand of the cradled Emperor Ivan.




COUNT OSTERMANN

Four weeks had passed since Biron, Duke of Courland, had commenced his
rule over Russia, as regent, in the name of the infant Emperor Ivan. The
Russian people had with indifference submitted to this new ruler, and
manifested the same subjection to him as to his predecessor. It was all
the same to them whoever sat in godlike splendor upon the magnificent
imperial throne--what care that mass of degraded slaves, who are
crawling in the dust, for the name by which their tyrants are called?
They remain what they are, slaves; and the one upon the throne remains
what he is, their absolute lord and tyrant, who has the right to-day to
scourge them with whips, to-morrow to make them barons and counts, and
perhaps the next day to send them to Siberia, or subject them to the
infliction of the fatal knout. Whoever proclaims himself emperor or
dictator, is greeted by the Russian people, that horde of creeping
slaves, as their lord and master, the supreme disposer of life and
death, while they crawl in the dust at his feet.

They had sworn allegiance to the Regent Biron, as they had to the
Empress Anna; they threw themselves upon the earth when they met him,
they humbly bared their heads when passing his palace; and when the
magnates of the realm, the princes and counts of Russia, in their
proud equipages, discovered the regent’s carriage in the distance, they
ordered a halt, descended from their vehicles, and bowed themselves to
the ground before their passing lord. In Russia, all distinctions of
rank cease in the presence of the ruler; there is but one lord, and one
trembling slave, be he prince or beggar, and that lord must be obeyed,
whether he commands a murder or any other crime. The word and will of
the emperor purify and sanctify every act, blessing it and making it
honorable.

Biron was emperor, although he bore only the name of regent; he had the
power and the dominion; the infant nurseling Ivan, the minor emperor,
was but a shadow, a phantom, having the appearance but not the reality
of lordship; he was a thing unworthy of notice; he could make no one
tremble with fear, and therefore it was unnecessary to crawl in the dust
before him.

Homage was paid to the Regent Biron, Duke of Courland; the palace of
Prince Ulrich of Brunswick, and his son, the Emperor Ivan, stood empty
and desolate. No one regarded it, and yet perhaps it was worthy of
regard.

Yet many repaired to this quiet, silent palace, to know whom Biron would
perhaps have given princedoms and millions! But no one was there to
betray them to the regent; they were very silent and very cautious in
the palace of the Prince of Brunswick and his wife the Princess Anna
Leopoldowna.

It was, as we have said, about four weeks after the commencement of the
regency of the Duke of Courland, when a sedan-chair was set down before
a small back door of the Duchess Anna Leopoldowna’s palace; it had
been borne and accompanied by four serfs, over whose gold-embroidered
liveries, as if to protect them from the weather, had been laid a
tolerably thick coat of dust and sweat. Equally splendid, elegant, and
unclean was the chair which the servants now opened for the purpose of
aiding their age-enfeebled master to emerge from it. That person,
who now made his appearance, was a shrunken, trembling, coughing old
gentleman; his small, bent, distorted form was wrapped in a fur cloak
which, somewhat tattered, permitted a soiled and faded under-dress
to make itself perceptible, giving to the old man the appearance of
indigence and slovenliness. Nothing, not even the face, or the thin and
meagre hands he extended to his servants, was neat and cleanly; nothing
about him shone but his eyes, those gray, piercing eyes with their fiery
side-glances and their now kind and now sly and subtle expression. This
ragged and untidy old man might have been taken for a beggar, had not
his dirty fingers and his faded neck-tie, whose original color was
hardly discoverable, flashed with brilliants of an unusual size, and had
not the arms emblazoned upon the door of his chair, in spite of the dust
and dirt, betrayed a noble rank. The arms were those of the Ostermann
family, and this dirty old man in the ragged cloak was Count Ostermann,
the famous Russian statesman, the son of a German preacher, who had
managed by wisdom, cunning, and intrigue to continue in place under five
successive Russian emperors or regents, most of whom had usually been
thrust from power by some bloody means. Czar Peter, who first appointed
him as a minister of state, and confided to him the department of
foreign affairs, on his death-bed said to his successor, the first
Catherine, that Ostermann was the only one who had never made a false
step, and recommended him to his wife as a prop to the empire. Catherine
appointed him imperial chancellor and tutor of Peter II.; he knew how to
secure and preserve the favor of both, and the successor of Peter II.,
the Empress Anna, was glad to retain the services of the celebrated
statesman and diplomatist who had so faithfully served her predecessors.
From Anna he came to her favorite, Baron of Courland, who did not
venture to remove one whose talents had gained for him so distinguished
a reputation, and who in any case might prove a very dangerous enemy.

But with Count Ostermann it had gone as with Count Munnich. Neither
of them had been able to obtain from the regent any thing more than a
confirmation of their offices and dignities, to which Biron, jealous
of power, had been unwilling to make any addition. Deceived in their
expectations, vexed at this frustration of their plans, they had both
come to the determination to overthrow the man who was unwilling to
advance them; they had become Biron’s enemies because he did not show
himself their friend, and, openly devoted to him and bowing in the
dust before him, they had secretly repaired to his bitterest enemy,
the Duchess Anna Leopoldowna, to offer her their services against the
haughty regent who swayed the iron sceptre of his despotic power over
Russia.

A decisive conversation was this day to be held with the duchess and her
husband, Prince Ulrich of Brunswick, and therefore, an unheard-of case,
had even Count Ostermann resolved to leave his dusty room for some hours
and repair to the palace of the Duchess Anna Leopoldowna.

“Slowly, slowly, ye knaves,” groaned Ostermann, as he ascended the
narrow winding stairs with the aid of his servants. “See you not, you
hounds, that every one of your movements causes me insufferable pain?
Ah, a fearful illness is evidently coming; it is already attacking my
limbs, and pierces and agonizes every part of my system! Let my bed be
prepared at home, you scamps, and have a strengthening soup made ready
for me. And now away, fellows, and woe to you if, during my absence,
either one of you should dare to break into the store-room or
wine-cellar! You know that I have good eyes, and am cognizant of every
article on hand, even to its exact weight and measure. Take care,
therefore, take care! for if but an ounce of meat or a glass of wine
is missing, I will have you whipped, you hounds, until the blood flows.
That you may depend upon!”

And, dismissing his assistants with a kick, Count Ostermann ascended the
last steps of the winding stairs alone and unaided. But, before opening
the door at the head of the stairs, he took time for reflection.

“Hem! perhaps it would have been better for me to have been already
taken ill, for if this plan should miscarry, and the regent discover
that I was in the palace to-day, how then? Ah, I already seem to feel
a draught of Siberian air! But no, it will succeed, and how would that
ambitious Munnich triumph should it succeed without me! No, for this
time I must be present, to the vexation of Munnich, that he may not put
all Russia in his pocket! The good man has such large pockets and such
grasping hands!”

Nodding and smiling to himself, Ostermann opened the door of the
anteroom. A rapid, searching glance satisfied him that he was alone
there, but his brow darkened when he observed Count Munnich’s mantle
lying upon a chair.

“Ah, he has preceded me,” peevishly murmured Ostermann. “Well, well,
we can afford once more to yield the precedence to him. To-day
he--to-morrow I! My turn will come to-morrow!”

Quite forgetting his illness and his pretended pains, he rapidly crossed
the spacious room, and, throwing his ragged fur cloak upon Munnich’s
mantle, said:

“A poor old cloak like this is yet in condition to render that
resplendent uniform invisible. Not a spangle of that magnificent gold
embroidery can be seen, it is all overshadowed by the ragged old cloak
which Munnich so much despises! Oh, the good field-marshal will rejoice
to find his mantle in such good company, and I hope my cloak may
leave some visible memento upon its embroidered companion. Well, the
field-marshal is a brave man, and I have given him an opportunity to
make a campaign against his own mantle! The fool, why does he dislike
these good little animals, and would yet be a Russian!”

As, however, he opened the door of the next room, his form again took
its former shrunken, frail appearance, and his features again bore the
expression of suffering and exhaustion.

“Ah, it is you,” said Prince Ulrich, advancing to meet the count, while
Munnich stood near a writing-table, in earnest conversation with Anna
Leopoldowna, to whom he seemed to be explaining something upon a sheet
of paper.

“We have waited long for you, my dear count,” continued the prince,
offering his hand to the new-comer, with a smile.

“The old and the sick always have the misfortune to arrive too late,”
 said Count Ostermann, “pain and suffering are such hinderances, your
grace. And, moreover, I have only come in obedience to the wishes of
your highness, well knowing that I am superfluous here. What has the
feeble old man to do in the councils of the strong?”

“To represent wisdom in council,” said the prince, “and for that, you
are precisely the man, count.”

“Ah, Count Ostermann,” at this moment interposed Munnich, “it is well
you have come. You will be best able to tell their excellencies whether
I am right or not.”

“Field-Marshall Munnich is always right,” said Ostermann, with a
pleasant smile. “I unconditionally say ‘yes’ to whatever you may have
proposed, provided that it is not a proposition of which my judgment
cannot approve.”

“That is a very conditional yes!” exclaimed the duchess, laughing.

“A ‘yes,’ all perforated with little back doors through which a ‘no’ may
conveniently enter,” laughed the prince.

“The back doors are in all cases of the greatest importance,” said Count
Ostermann, earnestly. “Through back doors one often attains to the rooms
of state, and had your palace here accidentally had no back door for the
admission of us, your devoted servants, who knows, your highness Anna,
whether you would on this very night become regent!”

“On this night!” suddenly exclaimed Munnich. “You see, your highness,
that Count Ostermann is wholly of my opinion. It must be done this
night!”

“That would be overhaste,” cried the duchess; “we are not yet prepared!”

“Nor is the regent, Biron of Courland,” thoughtfully interposed
Ostermann; “and, therefore, our overhaste would take Biron by surprise.”

“Decidedly my opinion,” said Munnich. “All is lost if we give the regent
time and leisure to make his arrangements. If we do not annihilate him
to-day, he may, perhaps, send us to Siberia to-morrow.”

The duchess turned pale; a trembling ran through her tall, noble form.

“I so much dread the shedding of blood!” said she.

“Oh, I am not at all vain,” said Ostermann. “I find it much less
unpleasant to see the blood of others flowing than my own. It may be
egotism, but I prefer keeping my blood in my veins to exposing it to the
gaping curiosity of an astonished crowd!”

“You think, then, that he already suspects, and would murder us?”

“You, us, and also your son, the Emperor Ivan.”

“Also my son!” exclaimed Leopoldowna, her eyes flashing like those of an
enraged lioness. “Ah, I should know how to defend my son. Let Biron fall
this night!”

“So be it!” unanimously exclaimed the three men.

“He has driven us to this extremity,” said the princess. “Not enough
that he has banished our friends and faithful servants, surrounding us
with his miserable creatures and spies--not enough that he wounds and
humiliates us in every way--he would rend the young emperor from us, his
parents, his natural protectors. We are attacked in our holiest rights,
and must, therefore, defend ourselves.”

“But what shall we do with this small Biron, when he is no longer the
great regent?” asked Ostermann.

“We will make him by a head smaller,” said Munnich, laughing.

“No,” vehemently exclaimed Leopoldowna--“no, no blood shall flow! Not
with blood shall our own and our son’s rights be secured! Swear this
gentlemen, or I will never give my consent to the undertaking.”

“I well knew that your highness would so decide,” said Munnich, with a
smile, drawing a folded paper from his bosom. “In proof of which I hand
this paper to your highness.”

“Ah, what is this?” said the duchess, unfolding the paper; “it is the
ground plan of a house!”

“Of the house we will have built for Biron in Siberia,” said Munnich; “I
have drawn the plan myself.”

“In fact, you are a skilful architect, Count Munnich,” said Ostermann,
laughing, while casting an interrogating glance at the paper which Anna
was still thoughtfully examining. “How well you have arranged it all!
How delightful these snug little chambers will be! There will be just
space enough in them to turn around in. But these small chambers seem to
be a little too low. They are evidently not more than five feet high.
As Biron, however, has about your height, he will not be able to stand
upright in them.”

“Bah! for that very reason!” said Munnich, with a cruel laugh. “He has
carried his head high long enough; now he may learn to bow.”

“But that will be a continual torment!” exclaimed the Duke of Brunswick.

“On, has he not tormented us?” angrily responded Munnich. “We need
reprisals.”

“How strange and horrible!” said Anna Leopoldowna, shuddering; “this man
is now standing here clothed with unlimited power, and we are already
holding in our hands the plan of his prison!”

“Yes, yes, and with this plan in his pocket will Count Munnich now go
to dine with Biron and enjoy his hospitality!” laughingly exclaimed
Ostermann. “Ah, that must make the dinner particularly piquant! How
agreeable it must be to press the regent’s hand, and at the same time
feel the rustling in your pocket of the paper upon which you have drawn
the plan of his Siberian prison! But you are in the right. The regent
has deeply offended you. How could he dare refuse to make you his
generalissimo?”

“Ah, it is not for that,” said Munnich with embarrassment; and, seeking
to give the conversation a different turn, he continued--“ah, see, Count
Ostermann, what a terrible animal is crawling there upon your dress!”

“Policy, nothing but policy,” tranquilly responded Ostermann, while the
princess turned away with an expression of repugnance.

“Well,” cried the prince, laughing, “explain to us, Count Ostermann,
what those disgusting insects have to do with policy or politics?”

“We are all four Germans,” said Ostermann, “and consequently are all
familiar with the common saying, ‘Tell me the company you keep, and I
will tell you what you are!’ I have always kept that in mind since I
have been in Russia; and to make this good people forget that I am a
foreigner, I have taken particular pains to furnish myself with a supply
of their dirt and of these delicate insects. If any one asks me who I
am, I show him these creatures with whom I associate, and he immediately
concludes that I am a Russian.”

Ostermann joined in the laugh that followed this explanation, but
suddenly he uttered a piercing cry, and sank down upon a chair.

“Ah, these pains will be the death of me!” he moaned--“ah, I already
feel the ravages of death in my blood; yes, I have long known that
a dangerous malady was hovering over me, and my death-bed is already
prepared at home! I am a poor failing old man, and who knows whether I
shall outlive the evening of this day?”

While Ostermann was thus lamenting, and the prince with kindly sympathy
was occupied about him, Munnich had returned the drawing to his pocket,
and was speaking in a low tone to the duchess of some yet necessary
preparations for the night. Count Ostermann, notwithstanding his
lamentations and his pretended pains, had yet a sharp ear for every
word they spoke. He very distinctly heard the duchess say: “Well, I am
satisfied! I shall expect you at about two o’clock in the morning, and
if the affair is successful, you, Count Munnich, may be sure of my
most fervent gratitude; you will then have liberated Russia, the young
emperor, and myself, from a cruel and despotic tyrant, and I shall be
eternally beholden to you.”

Count Munnich’s brow beamed with inward satisfaction. “I shall, then,
attain my ends,” thought he. Aloud he said: “Your highness, I have but
one wish and one request; if you are willing to fulfil this, then will
there be nothing left on earth for me to desire.”

“Then name your request at once, that I may grant it in advance!” said
the princess, with a smile.

“The man is getting on rapidly, and will even now get the appointment of
generalissimo,” thought Ostermann. “That must never be; I must prevent
it!”

And just as Munnich was opening his mouth to prefer his request,
Ostermann suddenly uttered so loud and piteous a cry of anguish that the
compassionate and alarmed princess hastened to offer him her sympathy
and aid.

At this moment the clock upon the wall struck four. That was the hour
for which Munnich was invited to dine with the regent. It would not do
to fail of his engagement to-day--he must be punctual, to avoid exciting
suspicion. He, therefore, had no longer the time to lay his request
before the princess; consequently Count Ostermann had accomplished his
object, and secretly triumphing, he loudly groaned and complained of his
sufferings.

Count Munnich took his leave.

“I go now,” he smilingly said, “to take my last dinner with the Duke of
Courland. I shall return this night at the appointed hour. We shall then
convert the duke into a Siberian convict, which, at all events, will be
a very interesting operation.”

Thus he departed, with a horrible laugh upon his lips, to keep his
appointment with the regent.

Count Ostermann had again attained his end--he remained alone with the
princely pair. Had Munnich been the first who came, Ostermann was the
last to go.

“Ah,” said he, rising with apparent difficulty, “I will now bear my old,
diseased body to my dwelling, to repose and perhaps to die upon my bed
of pain.”

“Not to die, I hope,” said Anna.

“You must live, that you may see us in our greatness,” said the prince.

Ostermann feebly shook his head. “I see, I see it all,” said he. “You
will liberate yourself from one tyrant, your highness, to become the
prey of another. The eyes of the dying see clear, and I tell you,
duchess, you were already on the point of giving away the power you have
attained. Know you what Munnich’s demand will be?”

“Well?”

“He will demand what Biron refused him, and for which refusal Munnich
became his enemy. He will ask you to appoint him generalissimo of all
your forces by land and sea.”

“Then will he demand what naturally belongs to me,” said the prince,
excitedly, “and we shall of course refuse it.”

“Yes, we must refuse it,” repeated the princess.

“And in that you will do well,” said Count Ostermann. “I may venture to
say so, as I have no longer the least ambition--death will soon relieve
me from all participation in affairs of state. I am a feeble old man,
and desire nothing more than to be allowed occasionally to impart good
counsels to my benefactors. And this is now my advice: Guard yourselves
against the ambition of Count Munnich.”

“We shall bear your counsel in mind,” said the prince.

“We will not appoint him generalissimo!” exclaimed the princess. “He
must never forget that he is our servant, and we his masters.”

“And now permit me to go, your highness,” said Ostermann. “Will you
have the kindness, prince, to command your lackeys to bear me to my
sedan-chair? It is impossible for me to walk a step. Yes, yes, while you
are this night contending for a throne, I shall, perhaps, be struggling
with death.”

And with a groan, sinking back into the arms of the lackeys whom the
prince had called, Ostermann suffered himself to be carried down to his
chair, which awaited him at the door. He groaned and cried out as they
placed him in it, but as soon as its doors were closed and his serfs
were trotting with him toward his own palace, the suffering expression
vanished from Ostermann’s face, and a sly smile of satisfaction played
upon his lips.

“I think I have well employed my time,” he muttered to himself. “The
good Munnich will never become generalissimo, and poor old failing
Ostermann may now, unsuspected, go quietly to bed and comfortably await
the coming events. Such an illness, at the right time, is an insurance
against all accidents and miscarriages. I learned that after the death
of Peter II. Who knows what would then have become of me had I not been
careful to remain sick in bed until Anna had mounted the throne? I will,
therefore, again be sick, and in the morning we shall see! Should
this conjuration succeed, very well; then, perhaps, old Ostermann will
gradually recover sufficient health to take yet a few of the burdens
of state upon his own shoulders, and thus relieve the good Munnich of a
part of his cares!”




THE NIGHT OF THE CONSPIRACY

It was a splendid dinner, that which the regent had this day prepared
for his guests. Count Munnich was very much devoted to the pleasures of
the table, and, sitting near the regent, he gave himself wholly up to
the cheerful humour which the excellent viands and delicate wines were
calculated to stimulate. At times he entirely forgot his deep-laid plans
for the coming night, and then again he would suddenly recollect them
in the midst of his gayest conversation with his host, and while
volunteering a toast in praise of the noble regent, and closing it by
crying--“A long life and reign to the great regent, Biron von Courland!”
 he secretly and with a malicious pleasure thought: “This is thy
last dinner, sir duke! A few hours, and those lips, now smiling with
happiness, will be forever silenced by our blows!”

These thoughts made the field-marshal unusually gay and talkative,
and the regent protested that Munnich had never been a more agreeable
_convive_ than precisely to-day. Therefore, when the other guests
retired, he begged of Munnich to remain with him awhile; and the
field-marshal, thinking it might possibly enable him to prevent any
warning reaching the regent, consented to stay.

They spoke of past times, of the happy days when the Empress Anna yet
reigned, and when all breathed of pleasure and enjoyment at that happy
court; and perhaps it was these recollections that rendered Biron sad
and thoughtful. He was absent and low-spirited, and his large, flashing
eyes often rested with piercing glances upon the calm and smiling face
of Munnich.

“You all envy me on account of my power and dominion,” said he to
Munnich; “of that I am not ignorant. But you know not with what secret
pain and anguish these few hours of splendor are purchased!--the
sleepless nights in which one fears seeing the doors open to give
admission to murderers, and then the dreams in which blood is seen
flowing, and nothing is heard but death-shrieks and lamentations! Ah, I
hate the nights, which are inimical to all happiness. In the night
will misfortune at some time overtake me--in the night the evil spirit
reigns!”

With a drooping head the regent had spoken half to himself; but suddenly
raising his head and looking Munnich sharply in the eyes, he said:
“Have you, Mr. Field-Marshal, during your campaigns, never in the night
foreseen any important event?”

Munnich shuddered slightly, and the color forsook his cheeks. “He knows
all, and I am lost,” thought he, and his hand involuntarily sought his
sword. “I will defend myself to the last drop of my blood,” was his
first idea.

But Biron, although surprised, saw nothing of the field-marshal’s
strange commotion--he was wholly occupied with his own thoughts, and
only awaited an answer to his question.

“Well, Mr. Field-Marshal,” he repeated, “tell me whether in the night
you have ever had the presentiment of any important event?”

“I was just considering,” he calmly said. “At this moment I do not
recollect ever having foreseen any extraordinary event by night. But it
has always been a principle of mine to take advantage of every favorable
opportunity, whether by day or night.”

Munnich remained with the regent until eleven o’clock in the evening,
and then they separated with the greatest kindness and the heartiest
assurances of mutual friendship and devotion.

“Ah, that was a hard trial!” said Munnich, breathing easier and deeper,
as he left the palace of the duke behind him. “I was already convinced
that all was lost, but this Biron is unsuspecting as a child! Sleep now,
Biron, sleep!--in a few hours I shall come to awaken you, and realize
your bloody dream!”

With winged steps he hastened to his own palace. Arrived there, he
summoned his adjutant, Captain von Mannstein, and, after having briefly
given him the necessary orders, took him with him into his carriage for
the purpose of repairing to the palace of the Prince of Brunswick.

It was a cold November night of the year 1740. The deserted streets were
hushed in silence, and no one of the occupants of the dark houses, no
one on earth, dreamed that this carriage, whose rumbling was only half
heard in sleep, was in a manner the thundering herald of new times and
new lords.

Munnich had chosen his time well. For if it was forbidden to admit any
one whatever, during the night, to the palace occupied by the young
czar, and if also the regent had given the guards strict orders to shoot
any one who might attempt, in spite of these commands, to penetrate into
the forbidden precincts, this day made an exception for Munnich, as a
portion of one of his own regiments was to-day on duty at the imperial
palace.

Unimpeded, stayed by no one, Munnich penetrated to the apartments of
Anna Leopoldowna. She was awaiting him, and at his side she descended to
receive the homage of the officers and soldiers, who had been commanded
by Munnich to submit themselves to her.

With glowing words she described to the listening soldiers all the
insults and injuries to which the regent had subjected herself, her
husband, and their son the emperor.

“Who can say that this miserable low-born Biron is called to fill
so exalted a place, and to lord it over you, my beloved friends and
brothers? To me, as the niece of the blessed Empress Anna, to me, as
the mother of Ivan, chosen as emperor by Anna, to me alone belongs
the regency, and by Heaven I will reconquer that of which I have been
nefariously robbed! I will punish this insolent upstart whose shameful
tyranny we have endured long enough, and I hope you, my friends, will
stand by me and obey the commands of your generals.”

A loud _viva_ followed this speech of Anna Leopoldowna, who tenderly
embraced the enraptured officers, commanding them to follow her.

Accompanied by Marshal Munnich and eighty soldiers, Anna then went out
into the streets. In silence they advanced to within a hundred steps
of Biron’s palace. Here, making a halt, Mannstein alone approached
the palace to command the officers of the guard in the name of the new
regent, Anna Leopoldowna, to submit and pay homage to her. No opposition
was made; accustomed always to obey, they had not the courage to dispute
the commands of the new ruler, and declared themselves ready to assist
her in the arrest of the regent.

Mannstein returned to Anna and Munnich with this joyful intelligence,
and received orders to penetrate into the palace with twenty men, to
capture the duke, and even kill him if he made resistance.

Without opposition Mannstein again returned to the palace with his small
band, carefully avoiding making the least noise in his approach. All the
soldiers in the palace knew him; and as the watch below had permitted
him to pass, they supposed he must have an important message for the
duke, and no one stopped him.

He had already wandered through several rooms, when an unforeseen
difficulty presented itself. Where is the sleeping-room of the duke?
Which way must he turn, in order to find him? He stood there undecided,
not daring to ask any of the attendants in the anterooms, lest perhaps
they might suspect him and awaken the duke! He finally resolved to go
forward and trust to accident. He passed two or three chambers--all were
empty, all was still!

Now he stands before a closed door! What if that should prove the
chamber of the duke? He thinks he hears a breathing.

He cautiously tries the door. Slightly closed, it yields to his
pressure, and he enters. There stands a huge bed with hanging curtains,
which are boldly drawn aside by Mannstein.

Before him lies the regent, Duke Biron of Courland, with his wife by his
side.

“Duke Biron, awake!” called Mannstein, with a loud voice. The ducal pair
started up from their slumber with a shriek of terror.

Biron leaps from the bed, but Mannstein overpowers him and holds him
fast until his soldiers come. The duke defends himself with his hands,
but is beaten down with musket-stocks. They bind his hands with an
officer’s scarf, they wrap him in a soldier’s mantle, and so convey him
down to Field-Marshal Munnich’s carriage which is waiting, below, to
transport him to the winter palace.

While Mannstein and the soldiers were occupied with the duke, his
duchess had found an opportunity to make her escape. With only her light
night-dress, shrieking and lamenting, she had rushed into the street.

She was seized by a soldier, who, conducting her to Mannstein, asked
what he should do with her.

“Take her back into the palace!” said Mannstein, hastening past.

But the soldier, only anxious to rid himself of an encumbrance, threw
the now insensible duchess into the snow, and hurried away.

In this situation she was found by a captain of the guard, who lifted
her up and conveyed her into the palace to give her over to the care of
her women, that she might be restored to consciousness and dressed. But
she no longer had either women or servants! Her reign is over; they have
all fled in terror, as from the house of death, that they may not be
involved in the disaster of those whose good fortunes they have shared.
The slaves had all decamped in search of new masters, and the regent’s
palace, so often humbly and reverently sought, is now avoided as a
pest-house.

With trembling hands the duchess enveloped herself in her clothes, and
then followed her husband into the winter palace.

And while all this was taking place the court and nation yet trembled at
the names of these two persons who had just been so deeply humbled. The
Princess Anna Leopoldowna, accompanied by the shouting soldiery, made a
triumphant progress through the streets of the city, stopping at all the
caserns to receive the oaths and homage of the regiments.

This palace-revolution was consummated without the shedding of
blood, and the awaking people of St. Petersburg found themselves with
astonishment under a new regency and new masters!

But a population of slaves venture no opposition. Whoever may have the
power to declare and maintain himself their ruler, he is their master,
and the slavish horde bow humbly before him.

As, hardly four weeks previously, the great magnates of the realm
had hurried to the Duke of Courland to pay their homage and prostrate
themselves in the dust before him, so did they now hasten to the palace
of the new regent, humbly to pay their court to her. The same lips that
even yesterday swore eternal fidelity to the Regent Biron, and sounded
his praise to the skies, now condemned him, and as loudly commended
their august new mistress, Anna Leopoldowna! The same knees which had
yesterday bent to Biron, now bent before Anna; and, with tears of joy,
men now again sank into the arms of each other, loudly congratulating
their noble Russia upon which the sun of happiness had now risen, given
her Anna Leopoldowna as regent!

And while all was jubilation in the palace of the new regent, that of
the great man of yesterday stood silent and deserted--no one dared to
raise a voice in his favor! Those who yesterday revelled at his table
and sang his praises were to-day his bitterest enemies, cursing him the
louder the more they had lauded him yesterday.

Magnificent festivals were celebrated in St. Petersburg in honor of
the new regent, while they were at the same time trying the old one
and condemning him to death. But Anna Leopoldowna mitigated his
punishment--what a mitigation!--by changing the sentence of death into
that of perpetual banishment to Siberia!




HOPES DECEIVED

Tranquillity was again established in Russia. Once again all faces were
lighted up with joy at this new state of affairs, and again the people
congratulated themselves on the good fortune of the Russian empire! All
this was done four weeks previously, when Biron took upon himself the
regency, and the same will be done again when another comes to overthrow
the Regent Anna!

It was on the day after this new revolution, when Munnich, entering the
palace with a proud step and elevated head, requested an interview with
the regent.

“Your highness,” he said, not bending the knee before his sovereign as
custom demanded, but only slightly pressing her hand to his lips--“your
highness, I have redeemed my word and fulfilled my promise. I promised
to liberate you from Biron and make you regent, and I have kept my word.
Now, madame, it is for you to fulfil your pledge! You solemnly promised
that when I should succeed in making you regent, you would immediately
and unconditionally grant me whatever I might demand. Well, now, you are
regent, and I come to proffer my request!”

“It will make me happy, field-marshal, to discharge a small part of my
obligations toward you, by yielding to your demand. Ask quickly, that I
may the sooner give!” said Anna Leopoldowna, with an engaging smile.

“Make me the generalissimo of your forces!” responded Munnich in an
almost commanding tone.

A cloud gathered over the smiling features of the regent.

“Why must you ask precisely this--this one only favor which it is
no longer in my power to bestow?” she sadly said. “There are so many
offices, so many influential positions--ah, I could prove my gratitude
to you in so many ways! Ask for money, treasures, landed estates--all
these it is in my power to give. Why must you demand precisely that
which is no longer mine!”

Munnich stared at her with widely opened eyes, trembling lips, and
pallid cheeks. His head swam, and he thought he could not have rightly
heard.

“I hope this is only a misunderstanding!” he stammered. “I must have
heard wrong; it cannot be your intention to refuse me.”

“Would to God it were yet in my power to gratify you!” sighed the
regent. “But I cannot give what is no longer mine! Why came you not a
few hours earlier, field-marshal? then it would have been yet possible
to comply with your request. But now it is too late!”

“You have, then, appointed another generalissimo?” shrieked Munnich,
quivering with rage.

“Yes,” said Anna, smiling; “and see, there comes my generalissimo!”

It was the regent’s husband, Prince Ulrich von Brunswick, who that
moment entered the room and calmly greeted Munnich.

“You have here a rival, my husband,” said the princess, without
embarrassment; “and had I not already signed your diploma, it is very
questionable whether I should now do it, now that I know Count Munich
desires the appointment.”

“I hope,” proudly responded the prince, “Count Munnich will comprehend
that this position, which places the whole power of the empire in
the hands of him who holds it, is suitable only for the father of the
emperor!”

Count Munnich made no answer. Already so near the attainment of his end,
he saw it again elude his grasp. Again had he labored, struggled, in
vain. This was the second revolution which he had brought about, with
this his favorite plan in view: two regents were indebted to him for
their greatness, and both had refused him the one thing for which he had
made them regents; neither had been willing to create him generalissimo!

In this moment Munnich felt unable to conceal his rage under an
assumed tranquillity; pretending a sudden attack of illness, he begged
permission to retire.

Tottering, scarcely in possession of his senses, he hastened through
the hall thronged with petitioners. All bowed before him, all reverently
saluted him; but to him it seemed that he could read nothing but mockery
and malicious joy upon all those smiling faces. Ah, he could
have crushed them all, and trodden them under his feet, in his
inextinguishable rage!

When he finally reached his carriage, and his proud steeds were bearing
him swiftly away--when none could any longer see him--then he gave vent
to furious execrations, and tears of rage flowed from his eyes; he tore
out his hair and smote his breast; he felt himself wandering, frantic
with rage and despair. One thought, one wish had occupied him for many
long years; he had labored and striven for it. He wished to be the
first, the most powerful man in the Russian empire; he would control
the military force, and in his hands should rest the means of giving
the country peace or war! That was what he wanted; that was what he had
labored for--and now. . . .

“Oh, Biron, Biron,” he faintly groaned, “why must I overthrow you? You
loved me, and perhaps would one day have accorded me what you at first
refused! Biron, I have betrayed you with a kiss. It is your guardian
angel who is now avenging you!”

Thus he reached his palace, and the servants who opened the door of
his carriage started back with alarm at the fearful expression of their
master’s face. It had become of an ashen gray, his blue lips quivered,
and his gloomily-gleaming eyes seemed to threaten those who dared
approach him.

Alighting in silence, he strode on through the rows of his trembling
servants. Suddenly two of his lackeys fell upon their knees before him,
weeping and sobbing; they stretched forth their hands to him, begging
for mercy.

“What have they done?” asked he of his major-domo.

“Feodor has had the misfortune to break your excellency’s drinking-cup,
and Ivanovitch bears the blame of suffering your greyhound Artemisia to
escape.”

A strange joy suddenly lighted up the brow of the count.

“Ah,” said he, breathing more freely, and stretching himself up--“ah, I
thank God that I now have some one on whom I can wreak my vengeance!”

And kicking the unfortunate weeping and writhing servants, who were
crawling in the dust before him, Munnich cried:

“No mercy, you hounds--no, no mercy! You shall be scourged until you
have breathed out your miserable lives! The knout here! Strike! I will
look on from my windows, and see that my commands are executed! Ah, I
will teach you to break my cups and let my hounds escape! Scourge them
unto death! I will see their blood--their red, smoking blood!”

The field-marshal stationed himself at his open window. The servants had
formed a close circle around the unhappy beings who were receiving their
punishment in the court below. The air was filled with the shrieks of
the tortured men, blood flowed in streams over their flayed backs, and
at every new stroke of the knout they howled and shrieked for mercy;
while at every new shriek Munnich cried out to his executioners:

“No, no mercy, no pity! Scourge the culprits! I would, I must see blood!
Scourge them to death!”

Trembling, the band of servants looked on with folded hands; with a
savage smile upon his face, stood Count Munnich at his window above.

Weaker and weaker grew the cries of the unhappy sufferers--they no
longer prayed for mercy. The knout continued to flay their bodies, but
their blood no longer flowed--they were dead!

The surrounding servants folded their hands in prayer for the souls
of the deceased, and then loudly commended the mild justice of their
master!

Retiring from the window, Count Munnich ordered his breakfast to be
served!(*)

     (*) Such horribly cruel punishments of the serfs were at
     that time no uncommon occurrence in Russia. Unhappy serfs
     were daily scourged to death at the command of their
     masters. Moreover, princes and generals, and even
     respectable ladies, were scourged with the knout at the
     command of the emperor. Yet these punishments in Russia had
     nothing dishonoring in them. The Empress Catharine II. had
     three of her court ladies stripped and scourged in the
     presence of the whole court, for having drawn some offensive
     caricatures of the great empress. One of these scourged
     ladies, afterward married to a Russian magnate, was sent by
     Catharine as a sort of ambassadress to Sweden, for the
     purpose of inducing the King of Sweden to favor some of her
     political plans.--“Memoires Secrets sur la Russie, par
     Masson,” vol. iii., p. 392.

From that time forward, however, Munnich’s life was a continuous chain
of vexations and mortifications. As his inordinate ambition was known,
he was constantly suspected, and was reprehended with inexorable
severity for every fault.

It is true the regent raised him to the post of first minister; but
Ostermann, who recovered his health after the successful termination
of the revolutionary enterprise, by various intrigues attained to the
position of minister of foreign affairs; while to Golopkin was given the
department of the interior, so that only the war department remained
to the first minister, Munnich. He had originated and accomplished two
revolutions that he might become generalissimo, and had obtained nothing
but mortifications and humiliations that embittered every moment of his
life!




THE REGENT ANNA LEOPOLDOWNA

Anna had succeeded, she was regent; she had shaken off the burden of
the Bironic tutelage, and her word was all-powerful throughout the
immeasurable provinces of the Russian empire. Was she now happy, this
proud and powerful Anna Leopoldowna? No one had ever yet been happy
and free from care upon this Russian throne, and how, then, could Anna
Leopoldowna be so? She had read the books of Russian political history,
and that history was written with blood! Anna was a woman, and she
trembled when thinking of the poison, the dagger, the throttling hands,
and flaying sword, which had constantly beset the throne of Russian, and
in a manner had been the means in the hands of Providence of clearing
it from one tyrant, only, indeed, to make room for another. Anna, as we
have said, trembled before this means of Providence; and when her
eyes fell upon Munnich--upon his dark, angry brow and his secretly
threatening glance--she then with inward terror asked herself: “May not
Providence have chosen him for my murderer? Will he not overthrow me, as
he overthrew his former master and friend Duke Biron?”

Anna now feared him whom she had chiefly to thank for her greatness. At
the time when he had made her regent he had satisfactorily shown that
his arm was sufficiently powerful to displace one regent and hurl him to
the dust! What he had once done, might not he now be able to accomplish
again?

She surrounded this feared field-marshal with spies and listeners;
she caused all his actions to be watched, every one of his words to be
repeated to her, in order to ascertain whether it had not some concealed
sense, some threatening secret; she doubled the guards of her palace,
and, always trembling with fear, she no longer dared to occupy any one
of her apartments continuously. Nomadically wandered they about in their
own palace, this Regent Anna Leopoldowna and her husband Prince Ulrich
of Brunswick; remembering the sleeping-chamber of Biron, she dared not
select any one distinct apartment for constant occupation; every evening
found her in a new room, every night she reposed in a different bed, and
even her most trusted servant often knew not in which wing of the castle
the princely pair were to pass the night.

She, before whom these millions of Russian subjects humbled themselves
in the dust, trembled every night in her bed at the slightest rustling,
at the whisperings of the wind, at every breath of air that beat her
closed and bolted doors.

She might, it is true, have released herself from these torments with
the utterance of only one word of command; it required only a wave of
her hand to send this haughty and dangerous Munnich to Siberia! Nor
was an excuse for such a proceeding wanting. Count Munnich’s pride and
presumption daily gave occasion for anger; he daily gave offence by
his reckless disregard and disrespect for his chief, the generalissimo,
Prince Ulrich; daily was it necessary to correct him and to confine him
within his own proper official boundaries.

And such refractory conduct toward a Russian master, had it not in all
times been a terrible and execrable crime--a crime for which banishment
to Siberia had always been considered a mild punishment?

Poor Anna! called to rule over Russia, she lacked only the first and
most necessary qualification for her position--a Russian heart! There
was, in this German woman’s disposition, too much gentleness and
mildness, too much confiding goodness. To a less barbarous people she
might have been a blessing, a merciful ruler and gracious benefactor!

But her arm was too weak to wield the knout instead of the sceptre
over this people of slaves, her heart too soft to judge with inexorable
severity according to the barbarous Russian laws which, never pardoning,
always condemn and flay.

It was this which gradually estranged from her the hearts of the
Russians. They felt that it was no Russian who reigned over them; and
because they had no occasion to tremble and creep in the dust before
her, they almost despised her, and derided the idyllic sentiments of
this good German princess who wished to realize her fantastic dreams by
treating a horde of barbarians as a civilized people!

The slaves longed for their former yoke; they looked around them with a
feeling of strangeness, and to them it seemed unnatural not
everywhere to see the brandished knout, the avenging scaffold, and the
transport-carriages departing for Siberia!

Much as Ostermann importuned her, often as her own husband warned her,
Anna nevertheless refused; she would not banish Field-Marshal Munnich
to Siberia, but remained firm in her determination to leave him in
possession of his liberty and his dignities.

But when Munnich himself, excited and fatigued with these never-ending
annoyances, and moreover believing that Anna could not do without
him, and therefore would not grant his request, finally demanded his
dismission, Anna granted it with joy; and Munnich, deceived in all
his ambitious plans and expectations, angrily left the court to betake
himself to his palace beyond the Neva.

Anna now breathed easier; she now felt herself powerful and free, for
Munnich was as least removed farther from her; his residence was no
longer separated from hers only by a wall, she had no longer to fear his
breaking through in the night--ah, Munnich dwelt beyond the Neva, and a
whole regiment guarded its banks and bridges by night! Munnich could no
longer fall upon her by surprise, as she could have him always watched.

Anna no longer trembled with fear; she could yield to her natural
indolence, and if she sometimes, from fear of Munnich, troubled herself
about state affairs and labored with her ministers, she now felt it to
be an oppressive burden, to which she could no longer consent to subject
herself.

Satiated and exhausted, she in some measure left the wielding of the
sceptre to her first and confidential minister, Count Golopkin. He ruled
in her name, as Count Ostermann was generalissimo in the name of her
husband the Prince of Brunswick. Why trouble themselves with the pains
and cares of governing, when it was permitted them to only enjoy the
pleasures of their all-powerful position?

The minister might flourish the knout and proclaim the Siberian
banishment over the trembling people; the scourged might howl, and the
banished might lament, the great and powerful might dispose of the souls
and bodies of their serfs; rare honesty might be oppressed by consuming
usury; offices, honors, and titles might be gambled for; justice
and punishment might be bought and sold; vice and immorality might
universally prevail--Anna would not know it. She would neither see nor
hear any thing of this outside world! The palace is her world, in which
she is happy, in which she revels!

Ah, that charming, silent little boudoir, with is soft Turkish carpet,
with its elastic divans and heavily curtained windows and doors--that
little boudoir is now her paradise, the temple of her happiness! In it
she lingers, and in it is she blessed. There she reposes, dreaming of
past delightful hours, or smiling with the intoxication of the still
more delightful present in the arms of the one she loves.




THE FAVORITE

See how her eyes flash, how her heart beats--how beautiful she is in the
warm glow of excitement, this beautiful Anna Leopoldowna.

The door opens, and a smiling young maiden looks in with many a nod of
her little head.

“Ah, is it you, my Julia?” calls the princess, opening her arms to press
the young girl to her heart. “Come, I will kiss you, and imagine it is
he who receives the kiss! Ah, what would this poor Anna Leopoldowna
be if deprived of her dear friend, Julia von Mengden?” And drawing her
favorite down into her lap, she continued: “Now relate to me, Julia.
Set your tongue in motion, that I may hear one of your very pleasantest
stories. That will divert me, and cause the long hours before his coming
to pass more quickly.”

Julia von Mengden roguishly shook her beautifully curling locks with
a comic earnestness, and, very aptly and unmistakably imitating the
somewhat hoarse and nasal voice of Prince Ulrich, said:

“Your grace forgets that you are regent, and have to hold the reins of
government in the name of the illustrious imperial squaller, your son,
since his imperial grace still remains in his swaddling-clothes, and
has much less to do with state affairs than with many other little
occupations!”

Anna Leopoldowna, breaking out in joyous laughter, exultingly clapped
her little hands, which were sparkling with brilliants.

“This is superb,” said she. “You play the part of my very worthy husband
to perfection. It is as if one saw and heard him. Ah, I would that he
resembled you a little, as he would then be less insupportable, and it
would be somewhat easier to endure him.”

Julia von Mengden, making no answer to this remark, continued with her
nasal voice and comic pathos:

“Your grace, this is not the time to analyze our diverting little
domestic dissensions, and occupy ourselves with the quiet joys of our
happy union! Your grace is, above all things, regent, and must give
your attention to state affairs. Without are standing three most worthy,
corpulent, tobacco-scented ambassadors, who desire an audience. Your
grace is, above all things, regent, and must receive them.”

“Must!” exclaimed Anna, suddenly contracting her brows. “We will first
hear what they desire of us.”

“The first is the envoy of the great Persian conqueror,
Thamas-Kouli-Khan, who comes to lay at your feet the magnificent
presents of his master.”

“Bah! they are presents for the young Emperor Ivan. He may, therefore,
be conducted to the cradle of my son, and there display his presents. It
does not interest me.”

“The second is a messenger from our camp. He brings news of a great
victory obtained by one of your brave generals over the Swedes!”

“But what does that concern me?” angrily cried the regent. “Let them
conquer or be defeated, it is all the same to me. That concerns my
husband the generalissimo! Let me be spared the sight of the warlike and
blood-dripping messenger!”

“The third is the ambassador of the wavering and shaking young Austrian
Empress Maria Theresa. He comes, he says, upon a secret mission, and
pretends to have discovered a sort of conspiracy that is hatching
against you.”

“Let him go with his discovery to Golopkin, our minister of the
interior. That is his business!”

“Your grace is, above all things, regent, and should remember--”

“Nothing--I will remember nothing!” exclaimed Anna Leopoldowna,
interrupting her favorite. “I will not be annoyed, that is all.”

“Well, thank God!” now cried Julia von Mengden, in her natural
tone--“thank God, that such is your determination, princess! you are,
then, in earnest, and I am to send these three amiable persons to the
devil, or, what is just the same, to your husband?”

“That is my meaning.”

“And this is beautiful in you,” continued Julia, cowering down before
her mistress. “These eternal, tiresome and intolerable state affairs
would make your face prematurely old and wrinkled, my dear princess. Ah,
there is nothing more tedious than governing. I am heartily sick of it!
At first I was amused when we two sat together and settled who should
be sent to prison and who should be pardoned; whom we should make counts
and princes, or degrade to the ranks as common soldiers. But all that
pleased only for a short time; now it is annoying, and why should we
take upon ourselves this trouble? Have we not the power to act and live
according to our own good pleasure? Bah! that is the least compensation
you should receive for allowing these horrid Russians the privilege of
calling you their regent and mistress!”

“But, my little chatterer, you forget the three envoys who are waiting
without,” said Anna, with a smile.

“Ah, that is true! I must first send those wig-blocks away!” said Anna,
tenderly looking after her departing favorite. “She is, indeed, my good
genius, who drives away the cares from my poor brain.”

“So, it is done!” cried Julia, quickly returning to the room. “I
have sent the gentlemen away. To the Persian envoy I said: ‘Go to our
emperor, Ivan. He feeds upon brilliants, and, as he has had no breakfast
this morning, his appetite will be good. Go, therefore, and give him
your diamonds for breakfast. Anna Leopoldowna wants them not; she is
already satiated with them!’--To the second I said: ‘Go and announce
your glorious victory to our sublime generalissimo. He is at his toilet,
and as he every morning touches his noble cheeks with rouge, your new
paint, prepared from the purple blood of the enemy, will doubtless be
very welcome to him!’--‘And as to what concerns your secret mission and
your discovered conspiracy,’ said I to the Austrian ambassador, ‘I
am sorry that you cannot here give birth to the dear children of your
inventive head; go with them to our midwife, Minister Golopkin, and
hasten a little, for I see in your face that you are already in the
pangs of parturition!’”

“Well,” asked Anna Leopoldowna, loudly laughing, “what said their
worships to that?”

“What did they say? They said nothing! They were dumb and looked
astonished. They made exactly such eyes as I have seen made at home,
upon my father’s estate in Liefland, by the calves when the butcher
knocked them upon the head. But now,” continued Julia, nestling again at
the feet of her mistress, “now give me a token of your favor, and forget
for a while that you are regent. Let us chat a little like a couple of
real genuine women--that is, of our husbands and lovers. Oh, I have very
important news for you!”

“Well, speak quickly,” said Anna, with eagerness. “What have you to tell
me?”

Julia assumed a very serious and important countenance. “The first and
most important piece of news is, that your husband, Prince Ulrich of
Brunswick, is very jealous of me, and yet of one other!”

“Bah!” said Anna, contemptuously, “let him be jealous. I do not trouble
myself about it, and shall always do as I please.”

“No, no, that will not do,” seriously responded Julia. “It is so
tiresome to always hear the wrangling and growling of a jealous husband!
I tell your grace that I must have quiet in his presence; I can no
longer bear his grim looks and his constant anger and abuse. You must
soothe him, Princess Anna, or I will run away from this horrible court,
where a poor maiden is not allowed to have her friend and mistress, the
charming Princess Anna Leopoldowna, with all her heart and soul!”

The regent’s eyes filled with tears. “My Julia,” she tremulously said,
“can you seriously think of leaving me? See you not that I should be
thereby rendered very solitary and miserable?”

And, raising up her favorite into her arms, she kissed her.

Julia’s bright eyes also filled with tears. “Think you, then, princess,
that I could ever leave, ever be separated from you?” she tenderly
asked. “No, my Princess Anna has such entire possession of my heart,
that it has no room for any other feeling than the most unbounded love
and devotion to my dear, my adored princess. But for the very reason
that I love you, I cannot bear to have your husband fill the palace with
his jealous complaints, and thus publishing to St. Petersburg and all
the world your unfaithfulness and criminal intrigues. Oh, I tell you I
see through this generalissimo, I know all his plans and secret designs.
He would gladly be able to convict you of infidelity to him--then, with
the help of the army he commands, declare his criminal wife unfit for
the regency, and then make himself regent! He has a cunningly devised
plan, but which my superior cunning shall bring to naught! I will play
him a trick!--But no, I will tell you no more now! At the right time you
shall know all. Now, Princess Anna, now answer me one question. Do you,
then, so very much love this Count Lynar?”

The princess looked up with a dreamy smile. “Do I love him!” she then
murmured low. “Oh, my God, Thou knowest how truly, how glowingly my
heart clings to him. Thou knowest that of all the world I have never
loved any other man than him alone! And you, Julia, you who know every
emotion and palpitation of my heart, you yet ask me if I love him--when
he stood before me in all his proud manly beauty, with his conquering
glance, his heart-winning smile? Ah, my whole heart already then flew to
meet him. I revelled in the sight of him, I thought only of him, I spoke
to him in my thoughts, and my prayers, I loved only when I saw him; and
that happy, that never-to-be-forgotten day when he confessed his love,
when he lay at my feet and swore eternal truth to me--ah, why could I
not have died on that day? I was then _so_ happy!”

“Poor Princess Anna,” said Julia, sympathetically, “they soon grudged
you that happiness!”

“Yes,” continued Anna with a bitter smile, “yes, the virtuous Empress
Anna blushed in the arms of her lover, Biron, at this aberration of
her sold and coupled niece. She found it very revolting that the poor
sixteen-year-old Anna Leopoldowna dared to have a heart of her own and
to feel a real love. They must therefore rob her of the only happiness
Heaven had vouchsafed her. Consequently, they wrote to Warsaw, asking,
nay, commanding the recall of the ambassador, and Lynar was compelled to
leave me.”

“Ah, I well know how unhappy you were at that time,” said Julia,
pressing the hand of the princess to her bosom; “how you wept, how you
wrung your hands--”

“And how I nowhere found mercy or commiseration,” interposed Anna, with
bitterness, “neither on earth nor in heaven. I was and remained
deserted and solitary, and was compelled to marry this Prince Ulrich of
Brunswick, for whom I felt nothing but a chilling, mortal indifference.
But you must know, Julia, that when I stood with this man at the altar,
and was compelled to become his wife, I thought only of him I loved; I
vowed eternal love only to Lynar, and when the prince folded me in
his arms as his wife, then was my God gracious to me, and in a happy
deception it seemed to me that it was my lover who held me in his
arms--I thought only of him and breathed only his name, and loved
him, kissed him, and became his wife, although he was far, alas, so
immeasurably far from me! And when I felt a second self under my heart,
I then loved with redoubled warmth the distant one whom I had not seen
for years; and when Ivan was born, it seemed to me that the eyes of
my lover looked at me through his, and blessed my son whose spiritual
father he was! And, my child, what think you gave me the courage to
overthrow Biron and assume the regency? Ah, it was only that I might
have the power to recall Lynar to my side! I would and must be regent,
that I might demand the return of Lynar as ambassador from Warsaw. That
gave me courage and decision; that enabled me to overcome all timidity
and anxiety. I thought only of him, and when the end was attained, when
I was declared regent, the first exercise of my power was to recall
Lynar to Court. Julia, what a happy day was that when I saw him again!”

And the princess, wholly absorbed in her delightful reminiscences,
smilingly and silently reclined upon the cushions of the divan.

“Ah, it must be love that so thinks and feels,” thoughtfully observed
Julia. “I no longer ask you, Princess Anna, if you love the count, I
now know you do. But answer me yet one question. Have you confidence in
me--full, unlimited confidence? Will you never mistake, never doubt me?”

“Never!” said Anna Leopoldowna, confidently. “And if all the world
should tell me that Julia von Mengden is a traitress, I would
nevertheless firmly rely upon you, and reply to the whole world: ‘That
is false! Julia von Mengden is true and pure as gold. I shall always
love her.’”

Julia gratefully glanced up to the heavens, and her eyes filled with
tears.

“I thank you, princess,” she then said, with a happy smile. “I now have
courage for all. You shall now be enabled to love your Lynar without
fear or trembling, and your husband’s clouded brow and reproaching
tongue shall molest us no more. Confide in me and ask no questions. It
is all decided and arranged in my mind. But hark! do you hear nothing?”

Anna’s face was transfused with a purple glow, and her eyes flashed.

“It is my beloved,” said she. “Yes, it is he. I know his step!”

Julia smilingly opened the concealed door, and Count Lynar, with a cry
of joy, rushed to the feet of his beloved.

“At length!” he exclaimed, clasping her feet, and pressing them to his
bosom.

“Yes, at length!” murmured Anna, looking down upon him with a celestial
smile.

Julia stood at a distance, contemplating them with thoughtful glances.

“They should be happy,” she murmured low, and then asked aloud: “Count
Lynar, did you receive my letter?”

“I did receive it,” said the count, “and may God reward you for the
sacrifice you are so generously disposed to make for us! Anna, your
friend Julia is our good angel. To her we shall owe it if our happiness
is henceforth indestructible and indissoluble. Do you know the immense
sacrifice this young maiden proposes to make for us?”

“No, Princess Anna knows nothing, and shall know nothing of it,” said
Julia, with a grand air. “Princess Anna shall only know that I love her,
and am ready to give my life for her. And now,” she continued, with
her natural gayety, “forget me, ye happy lovers! Lull yourselves in
the sweet enjoyment of nameless ecstasies! I go to watch the spies, and
especially your husband, lest he break in upon you without notice!”

And Julia suddenly left the room, shutting the door upon Anna
Leopoldowna and her lover, the Polish Count Lynar.




NO LOVE

Prince Ulrich of Brunswick, the husband of the regent, had assembled
the officers of his general staff for a secret conference. Their dark,
threatening glances were prophetic of mischief, and angrily flashed the
eyes of the prince, who, standing in their midst, had spoken to them in
glowing words of his domestic unhappiness, and of the idle, dreamy, and
amatory indolence into which the regent had fallen.

“She writes amorous complainings,” he now said, with a voice of rage,
in closing his long speech--“she writes sonnets to her lover, instead of
governing and reading the petitions, reports, and other documents
that come to her from the different ministries and bureaus, which she
constantly returns unread. You are men, and are you willing to bear
the humiliation of being governed by a woman who dishonors you by
disregarding her first and holiest duties, and setting before your wives
and daughters the shameful example of a criminal love, thus disgracing
her own son, your emperor and master?”

“No, no, we will not bear it!” cried the wildly excited men, grasping
the hilts of their swords. “Give us proof of her unfaithfulness, and we
shall know how to act as becomes men over whom an adulterous woman would
reign!”

“It is an unnatural and unendurable law that commands man to obey a
woman. It is contrary to nature that the mother should rule in the
name of her son, when the father is living--the father, whom nature
and universal custom acknowledge as the lord and head of his wife and
children!” cried the prince.

“Give us proof of her guilt,” cried the soldiers, “and we will this very
hour proclaim you regent in her stead!”

A confidential servant of the prince, who entered at this moment, now
whispered a few words in his ear.

The prince’s face flamed up. “Well, then, gentleman,” said he,
straightening himself up, “you demand proof. In this very hour will I
furnish it to you. But I do it upon one condition. No personal violence!
In the person of your present regent you must respect the mother of your
emperor, the wife of your future regent! Anna will yield to our just
representations, and voluntarily sign the act of abdication in my favor.
That is all we ought to demand of her. She will retain her sacred and
inviolable rights as the wife of your regent, as the mother of your
emperor. Forget not that!”

“First of all, give us the proof of her guilt!” impatiently cried the
men.

“I shall, alas, be able to give it you!” said the prince, with dignity.
“Far be it from me to desire the conviction of an innocent person!
Believe me, nothing but her guilt could induce me to take action against
her; were she innocent, I would be the first to kneel and renew to her
my oath of fidelity and obedience. But you cannot desire that I, your
generalissimo, should be the subject of a wife who shamefully treads
under foot her first and holiest duty! The honor of you all is wounded
in mine. Come, follow me now. I will show you Count Lynar in the arms of
his mistress, the Regent Anna Leopoldowna!”

The prince strode forth, cautiously followed by his generals. They thus
passed noiselessly through the long corridor leading from the wing of
the palace inhabited by the prince to that occupied by the regent.

In the boudoir of the Regent Anna a somewhat singular scene was now
presented.

The tender caresses of the lovers were suddenly interrupted by Julia von
Mengden, who slipped in through the secret door in a white satin robe,
and with a myrtle crown upon her head.

“Princess Anna, it is time for you to know all!” she hurriedly said.
“Your husband is now coming here through the corridor with his generals;
they hope to surprise you in your lover’s arms, that they may have an
excuse for deposing you from the regency and substituting your husband.
Struggle against struggle! We will outwit them, and cure your husband of
his jealousy! From this hour he shall be compelled to acknowledge that
he was mistaken, and that it is for him to implore your pardon. Anna
Leopoldowna, I love no one in the world but you, and therefore I am
ready to do all that love can do for you. I will marry Count Lynar for
the purpose of preserving you from suspicion and slander. I will bear
the name of his wife, as a screen for the concealment of your loves.”

Anna’s eyes overflowed with tears of emotion and transport.

“Weep not, my love,” whispered the count, “be strong and great in this
eventful hour! Now will you be forever mine, for this magnanimous friend
veils and protects our union.”

Julia opened the door and waved her hand.

A Russian pope in sacred vestments, followed by two other servants
of the church, entered the room. With them came the most trusted
maid-servants of Julia.

Clasping the count’s hand and advancing to Anna, Julia said: “Grant,
illustrious princess, that we may celebrate our solemn espousal in thy
high presence, which is the best blessing of our union!”

Anna opened wide her arms to her favorite, and, pressing her to her
bosom, whispered: “I will never forget thee, my Julia. My blessing upon
thee, my angel!”

“I will be a true sister to him,” whispered Julia in return;
“always believe in me and trust me. And now, my Anna, calmness and
self-possession! I already hear your husband’s approach. Be strong and
great. Let no feature of your dear face betray your inward commotion!”

And, stepping back to the count, Julia made a sign to the priest to
commence the marriage ceremony.

Hand in hand the bridal pair knelt before the priest, the servants
folded their hands in prayer, and, proudly erect, with a heavenly
transfiguration of her noble face, stood Anna Leopoldowna--the priest
commenced the ceremony.

A slight noise was heard at the closed, concealed door. The priest
calmly continued to speak, the bridal pair remained in their kneeling
position, and, calmly smiling, stood the regent by their side.

The door opened, and, followed by his generals, the enraged prince
appeared upon the threshold.

No one suffered himself to be disturbed; the priest continued the
service, the parties remained upon their knees, Anna Leopoldowna stood
looking on with a proud and tranquil smile.

Motionless, benumbed, as if struck by lightning, remained the prince
upon the threshold; behind him were seen the astonished faces of his
generals, who, on tiptoe, stretched their necks to gaze, over each
other’s shoulders, upon this singular and unexpected spectacle!

At length a murmur arose, they pressed farther forward toward the door,
and, overcoming his momentary stupefaction, the prince ventured into the
room.

An angry glance of the priest commanded silence; with a louder voice he
continued his prayer. Anna Leopoldowna smilingly beckoned her husband to
her side, and slightly nodded to the generals.

They bowed to the ground before their august mistress, the regent.

Now came the closing prayer and the dispensation of the blessing. The
priest pronounced it kneeling,--the regent also bent the knee, and drew
the prince down beside her. Following the example of the generalissimo,
the other generals also sank upon their knees,--it was a general prayer,
which no one dared disturb.

The ceremony was ended. The priest kissed and blessed the bridal pair,
and then departed with his assistants; he was followed by the servants
of the favorite.

Anna now turned with a proud smile to the prince.

“Accident, my husband, has made you a witness of this marriage,” said
she. “May I ask your highness what procures me this unexpected and
somewhat intrusive visit, and why my generals, unannounced, accompany
you to their regent and mistress?”

The embarrassed prince stammered some unintelligible words, to which
Anna paid no attention.

Stepping forward, she motioned the generals to enter, and with her
most fascinating smile said: “Ah, I think I now know the reason of your
coming, gentlemen! Your loyal and faithful hearts yearn for a sight of
your young emperor. It is true, his faithful subjects have not seen him
for a long time! Even a sovereign is not guaranteed against the evil
influences of the weather, which has lately been very rough, and for
that reason the young czar has been unable to show himself to his
people. Ah, it pleases me that you have come, and I am obliged to my
husband for bringing you to me so unexpectedly. You may now satisfy
yourselves that the emperor lives and is growing fast. Julia, bring us
the young emperor!”

Julia von Mengden silently departed, while Count Lynar, respectfully
approaching the regent, said a few words to her in a low tone.

“You are quite right, sir count,” said the regent aloud, and, turning to
her husband and the generals, continued: “Count Lynar is in some
trouble about the unexpected publicity given to his marriage. There are,
however, important reasons for keeping it still a secret. The family of
my maid of honor are opposed to this alliance with the foreigner, and
insist that Julia shall marry another whom they have destined for her.
On the other hand, certain family considerations render secrecy the duty
of the count. Julia, oppressed by her inexorable relations, disclosed
the state of affairs to me, and as I love Julia, and as I saw that
she was wasting away with grief without the possession of her lover, I
favored her connection with Count Lynar. They daily saw each other in my
apartments, and, finally yielding to their united prayers, I consented
that they should this day be legally united by the priest, and thus
defeat the opposition of their respective families.

“This, gentlemen,” continued Anna, raising her voice, “is the simple
explanation of this mystery. I owe this explanation to myself, well
knowing that secret slander and malicious insinuations might seek
to implicate me in this affair, and that a certain inimical and
evil-disposed party, displeased that you should have a woman for regent,
would be glad to prove to you that all women are weak, faulty, and
sinful creatures! Be careful how you credit such miserable tales!”

Silent, with downcast eyes, stood the generals under the flashing glance
of the regent, who now turned to her husband with a mocking smile. “You,
my prince and husband,” said she, “you I have to thank!--your tenderness
of heart induced you generously to furnish me with this opportunity to
justify my conduct to my most distinguished and best-beloved subjects
and servants, and thus to break the point of the weapon with which
calumny threatened my breast! I therefore thank you, my husband. But
see! there comes the emperor.”

In fact, the folding-doors were at this moment thrown open, and a long
train of palace officials and servants approached. At the head of the
train was Julia von Mengden, bearing a velvet cushion bespangled with
brilliants, upon which reposed the child in a dress of gold brocade. On
both sides were seen the richly adorned nurses and attendants, and near
them the major-domo, bearing upon a golden cushion the imperial crown
and other insignia of empire.

Anna Leopoldowna took young Ivan in her arms; the child smiled in her
face, and stretched forth his hand toward the sparkling crown.

With her son upon her arm, Anna majestically advanced to the centre of
the hall, and, lifting up the child, said: “Behold your emperor! Respect
and reverence for your illustrious master! Upon your knees in the
presence of your emperor!”

It was as if all, servants, attendants, and generals, had been struck
with a magic wand. They all fell upon their knees, and bowed their heads
to the earth--venal slaves, one word from their ruler sufficed to set
them all grovelling in the dust!

With a proud smile Anna enjoyed this triumph. Near her stood the prince,
the father of the emperor, with rage and shame in his heart.

“Long live the emperor!” resounded from all lips, and the child Ivan,
Emperor of all the Russias, screeched for joy at the noise and at the
splendor of the assemblage.

“Long live our noble regent, Anna Leopoldowna!” now loudly cried Julia
von Mengden.

Like a thundering cry of jubilation it was instantly echoed through the
hall.

The generals were the first to join in this enthusiastic _viva!_

A quarter of an hour later the generals were permitted to retire, and
the emperor was reconveyed to his apartments.

Anna Leopoldowna remained alone with her husband and the newly-married
pair, who had retreated to the recess of a window and were whispering
together.

Anna now turned to her husband, and, with cutting coldness in her tone,
said:

“You must understand, my husband, that I am very generous. It was in my
power to arrest you as a traitor, but I preferred to shame you, because
you, unhappily, are the father of my child.”

“You think, then,” asked the prince, with a scornful smile, “that I
shall take the buffoonery you have just had played before us for truth?”

“That, my prince, must wholly depend upon your own good pleasure. But
for the present I must request you to retire to your own apartments!
I feel myself much moved and exhausted, and have also to prepare some
secret dispatches for Count Lynar to take with him in his journey.”

“Count Lynar is, then, to leave us?” quickly asked the prince, in an
evidently more friendly tone.

“Yes,” said Anna, “he leaves us for some weeks to visit the estate in
Liefland which I have given to Julia as a bridal present, and to make
there the necessary preparations for the proper reception of his wife.”

Julia clasped the hands of her mistress, and bathed them with tears of
joy and gratitude.

“Anna,” whispered Prince Ulrich, “I did you wrong. Pardon me.”

Anna coldly responded: “I will pardon you if you will be generous enough
to allow me a little repose.”

The prince silently and respectfully withdrew.

Anna finally, left alone with her lover and her favorite, sank exhausted
upon a divan.

“Close the doors, Julia, that no one may surprise us,” she faintly
murmured. “I will take leave. Oh, I would be left for at least a quarter
of an hour undisturbed in my unhappiness.”

“Then it is quite true that you intend to drive me away?” asked Count
Lynar, kneeling and clasping her hands. “You are determined to send me
into banishment?”

Anna gave him a glance of tenderness.

“No,” said she, “I will send myself into banishment, for I shall not
see you dearest. But I felt that this sacrifice was necessary. Julia
has sacrificed herself for us. With another love in her heart, she has
magnanimously thrown away her freedom and given up her maiden love for
the promotion of our happiness. We owe it to her to preserve her honor
untarnished, that the calumnious crowd may not pry into the motives of
her generous act. For Julia’s sake, the world must and shall believe
that she is in fact your wife, and that it was love that united you. We
must, therefore, preserve appearances, and you must conduct your wife to
your estate in triumph. Decency requires it, and we cannot disregard its
requirements.”

“Princess Anna is in the right,” said Julia; “you must absent yourself
for a few weeks--not for my sake, who little desire any such triumph,
but that the world may believe the tale, and no longer suspect my
princess.”

It was a sweetly painful hour--a farewell so tearful, and yet so full of
deeply-felt happiness. On that very night was the count to commence his
journey to Liefland and Warsaw. As they wished to make no secret of the
marriage, the count needed the consent of his court and his family.

Anna provided him with letters and passports. The best and fairest of
the estates of the crown in Liefland was assigned to Julia as a bridal
present, and the count was furnished with the proper documents to enable
him to take possession of it.

And finally came the parting moment! For the last time they lay in
each other’s arms; they mutually swore eternal love, unconquerable
fidelity--all that a loving couple could swear!

Tearing himself from her embrace, he rushed to the door.

Anna stretches out her arms toward him, her brow is pallid, her eyes
fixed. The door opens, he turns for one last look, and nods a farewell.
Ah, with her last glance she would forever enchain that noble and
beautiful face--with her extended arms she would forever retain that
majestic form.

“Farewell, Anna, farewell!”

The door closes behind him--he is gone!

A cold shudder convulsed Anna’s form, a bodeful fear took possession of
her mind. It lay upon her heart like a dark mourning-veil.

“I shall never, never see him again!” she shrieked, sinking unconscious
into Julia’s arms.




PRINCESS ELIZABETH

While a Mecklenburg princess had attained to the regency of Russia, and
while her son was hailed as emperor, the Princess Elizabeth lived alone
and unnoticed in her small and modestly-furnished throne, and yet in St.
Petersburg was living the only rightful heir to the empire, the daughter
of Czar Peter the Great! And as she was young, beautiful, and amiable,
how came she to be set aside to make room for a stranger upon the throne
of her father, which belonged to her alone?

Princess Elizabeth had voluntarily kept aloof from all political
intrigues and all revolutions. In the interior of her palace she passed
happy days; her world, her life, and her pleasures were there. Princess
Elizabeth desired not to reign; her only wish was to love and be loved.
The intoxicating splendor of worldly greatness was not so inviting to
her as the more intoxicating pleasure of blessed and happy love. She
would, above all things, be a woman, and enjoy the full possession of
her youth and happiness.

What cared she that her own rightful throne was occupied by a
stranger--what cared she for the blinding shimmer of a crown? Ah, it
troubled her not that she was poor, and possessed not even the means of
bestowing presents upon her favorites and friends. But she felt happy
in her poverty, for she was free to love whom she would, to raise to
herself whomsoever she might please.

It was a festival day that they were celebrating in the humble palace of
the emperor’s daughter Elizabeth--certainly a festival day, for it was
the name-day of the princess.

The rooms were adorned with festoons and garlands, and all her
dependants and friends were gathered around her. Elizabeth saw not the
limited number of this band; she enjoyed herself with those who were
there, and lamented not the much greater number of those who had
forgotten her.

She was among her friends, in her little reception-room. Evening had
come, the household and the less trusted and favored of her adherents
had withdrawn, and only the most intimate, most favored friends now
remained with the princess.

They had conversed so long that they now recurred to the enjoyment of
that always-ready, always-pleasing art, music. A young man sang to the
accompaniment of a guitar.

Elizabeth listened, listlessly reclining upon her divan. Behind her
stood two gentlemen, who, like her, were delightedly listening to the
singing of the youth.

Elizabeth was a blooming, beautiful woman. She was to-day charming
to the eye in the crimson-velvet robe, embroidered with silver, that
enveloped her full, voluptuous form, leaving her neck and _gorge_ free,
and displaying the delicate whiteness of her skin in beautiful contrast
with the purple of her robe. Perhaps a severe judge might not have
pronounced her face handsome according to the rules of the antique, but
it was one of those faces that please and bewitch the other sex; one of
those beauties whose charm consists not so much in the regularity of
the lines as in the ever-varying expression. There was so much that was
winning, enticing, supercilious, much-promising, and warm-glowing, in
the face of this woman! The full, swelling, deep-red lips, how charming
were they when she smiled; those dark, sparkling eyes, how seducing
were they when shaded by a soft veil of emotional enthusiasm; those
faintly-blushing cheeks, that heaving bosom, that voluptuous form, yet
resplendent with youthful gayety--for Elizabeth had not yet reached her
thirtieth year--whom would she not have animated, excited, transported?

Elizabeth knew she was beautiful and attractive, and this was her
pride and her joy. She could easily pardon the German princess, Anna
Leopoldowna, for occupying the throne that was rightfully her own, but
she would never have forgiven the regent had she been handsomer than
herself. Anna Leopoldowna was the most powerful woman in Russia, but
she, Elizabeth, was the handsomest woman in Russia, which was all she
coveted, and she had nothing more to desire.

But at this moment she thought neither of Anna Leopoldowna nor of her
own beauty, but only of the singer who was warbling to her those Russian
popular songs so full of love and sadness that they bring tears into the
eyes and fill the heart with yearning.

Elizabeth had forgotten all around her--she heard only him, saw only
him; her whole soul lay in the glances with which she observed him, and
around her mouth played one of those bewitching smiles peculiar to her
in moments of joy and satisfaction, and which her courtiers knew and
observed.

He was very handsome, this young singer, and as Elizabeth saw him in
this moment, she congratulated herself that her connoisseur-glance had
quickly remarked him, when, some weeks previously, she had first seen
him as the precentor of the imperial chapel.

Surprised and excited by the beauty of his form and the sweetness of
his voice, Elizabeth had begged him of the lord-marshal for her private
service, and since then Alexis Razumovsky had entered her house as her
private secretary and the manager of her small estate.

While Alexis was singing with his sweetly-melting tones, Elizabeth
turned her swimming eyes to the two men who were standing in respectful
silence behind her.

“You must acknowledge,” said she in a low tone, and as if oppressed by
internal commotion, “that you never saw nor heard say any thing finer
than my Alexis.”

“Oh, yes,” said one of these men, with a low bow, “we have seen _you_!”

“And did we not yesterday hear you sing this same charming slumber-song,
princess?” asked the other.

Elizabeth smiled. “It is already well known that Woronzow and Grunstein
must always flatter!” said she.

“No, we do not flatter,” responded Woronzow, the chamberlain of the
princess, “we only love truth! You ask if we have ever seen any thing
more beautiful than your private secretary, and we answer that we have
seen _you_!”

“Well, now, you have all so often assured me that I am the handsomest
woman in Russia, that at length I am compelled to believe you. But
Alexis is fortunately a man, and therefore not my rival; you may, then,
fearlessly confess that Alexis is the handsomest of all men! But how
is this?” exclaimed the princess, interrupting herself, as the handsome
young singer suddenly sprang up and threw his guitar aside with an
indignant movement; “do you sing no more, Alexis?”

“No,” frowardly responded the young man, “I sing no more, when my
princess no longer listens!”

“There, see the ungrateful man,” said the princess, with a charming
smile--“he was occupying all my thoughts, and yet he dares complain! You
are a malefactor deserving punishment. Come here to me, Alexis; kneel,
kiss my hand, and beg for pardon, you calumniator!”

“That is a punishment for which angels might be grateful!” responded
Alexis Razumovsky, kneeling to the princess and pressing her hand to his
burning lips. “Ah, that I might oftener incur such punishment!”

“Do you then prefer punishment to reward?” asked Elizabeth, tenderly
bending down to him and looking deep into his eyes.

“She loves him!” whispered Grunstein to the chamberlain Woronzow. “She
certainly loves him!”

Elizabeth’s fine ear caught these words, and, slowly turning her head,
she slightly nodded. “Yes,” said she, “Grunstein is right--she loves
him! Congratulate me, therefore, my friends, that the desert void in my
heart is at length filled--congratulate me for loving him. Ah, nothing
is sweeter, holier, or more precious than love; and I can tell you that
we women are happy only when we are under the influence of that divine
passion. Congratulate me, then, my friends, for, thank God, I am in
love! Now, Alexis, what have you to say?”

“There are no words to express such a happiness,” cried Alexis, pressing
the feet of the princess to his bosom.

“Happiness, then, strikes you dumb,” laughed the princess, “and will not
allow you to say that you love me? Such are all you men. You envelope
yourselves with a convenient silence, and would make us poor women
believe the superabundance of feeling deprives you of utterance.”

At this moment the door was softly opened, and a lackey, who made his
appearance at the threshold, beckoned to Woronzow.

“What is it, Woronzow?” asked the princess, while, wholly unembarrassed
by the presence of the lackey, she played with the profuse dark locks of
the kneeling Razumovsky.

“An invitation from the Regent Anna to a court-ball, which is to take
place fourteen days hence,” said Woronzow.

“Ah, our good cousin is, then, so gracious as to remember us,” cried
the princess, with a somewhat clouded brow. “It will certainly be a very
magnificent festival, as we are invited so many days in advance. How sad
that I cannot have the pleasure of being present!”

“And why not, if one may be allowed to ask, princess?” asked Woronzow.

“Why?” sighed Elizabeth. “Ask my waiting-woman; she will tell you that
the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the great Czar Peter, has not
one single robe splendid enough to render her presentable, without
mortification, at a court-ball of the regent.”

“Whatever robe you may wear,” passionately interposed Alexis, “you will
still be resplendent, for your beauty will impart a divine halo to any
dress!”

That was precisely the kind of flattery pleasing to Elizabeth.

“Think you so, flatterer?” asked Elizabeth. “Well, for once I will
believe your words, and assume that the Princess Elizabeth may be
fair without the aid of splendor in dress. We therefore accept the
invitation, Woronzow. Announce that to the regent’s messenger. But still
it is sad and humiliating,” continued Elizabeth after a pause, a cloud
passing over her usually so cheerful countenance, “yes it is still a
melancholy circumstance for the daughter of the great Peter to be so
poor that she is not able to dress herself suitably to her rank. Ah,
how humiliating is the elevation of my high position, when I cannot even
properly reward you, my friends, for your fidelity and attachment!”

“You will one day be able to reward us,” significantly remarked
Grunstein. “One day, when an imperial crown surmounts your fair brows,
then will your generous heart be able to act according to its noble
instincts.”

“Still the same old dreams!” said Elizabeth, shaking her head and
letting Razumovsky’s long locks glide through her fingers. “Pay no
attention to him, Alexis, he is an enthusiast who dreams of imperial
crowns, while I desire nothing but a ball-dress, that in it I may please
you, my friend!”

“Oh, you always please me,” whispered Alexis, “and most pleasing are you
when--”

The conclusion of his flattering speech he whispered so low that it was
heard by no one but the princess.

Patting his cheek with her little round hand, she blushed, but not for
shame, as she did not cast down her eyes, but answered with a glowing
glance the tender looks of her lover. She blushed only from an internal
passionate excitement, while her bosom stormily rose and fell.

“You are very saucy, Alexis,” said she, but at the same time lightly
kissing him upon the forehead, and smiling; but then her brow was
suddenly clouded, for the door was again opened and once more the lackey
appeared upon the threshold.

“The French ambassador,” said he, “the Marquis de la Chetardie, begs the
favor of an audience.”

“Ah, the good marquis!” cried the princess, rising from her reclining
position. “Conduct him in, he is very welcome.”

The lackey opened both wings of the folding-door, and the marquis
entered, followed by several servants with boxes and packets.

“Ah, you come very much like a milliner,” laughingly exclaimed
Elizabeth, graciously advancing to receive the ambassador.

Dropping upon one knee, the marquis kissed her offered hand.

“I come, illustrious Princess Elizabeth, to beg a favor of you!” he
said.

“You wish to mortify me,” responded Elizabeth. “How can the ambassador
of a great and powerful nation have a favor to ask of the poor,
repudiated, and forgotten Princess Elizabeth?”

“In the name of the king my master come I to demand this favor!”
 solemnly answered the marquis.

“Well, if you really speak in earnest,” said the princess, “then I
have only to respond that it will make me very happy to comply with any
request which your august king or yourself may have to make of me.”

“Then I may be allowed, on this occasion of the celebration of your
name-day, to lay at your feet these trifling presents of my royal
master,” said the ambassador of France, rising to take the boxes and
packages from the lackeys and place them before Elizabeth.

“They are only trifles,” continued he, while assiduously occupied in
opening the boxes, “trifles of little value--only interesting, perhaps,
because they are novelties that have as yet been worn in Paris by no
lady except the queen and madame!

“This mantelet of Valenciennes lace,” continued the busy marquis,
unfolding before the princess a magically fine lace texture, “this
mantelet is sent by the Queen of France to the illustrious Princess
Elizabeth. Only two such mantelets have been made, and her majesty
has strictly commanded that no more of a similar pattern shall be
commenced.”

Princess Elizabeth’s eyes sparkled with delight. Like a curious child
she fluttered from one box to the other, and in fact they were very
costly, tasteful, and charming things which their majesties of France
had sent to the Princess Elizabeth, who prized nothing higher than
splendor in dress and ornaments.

There were the most beautiful gold-embroidered velvet robes, light crape
and lace dresses, and hats and topknots of charming elegance.

Elizabeth examined and admired all; she clapped her hands with delight
when any one of these precious presents especially pleased her, calling
Alexis, Grunstein, and Woronzow to share her joy and admiration.

“Now it will be a triumph for me to appear at this ball!” said
Elizabeth, exultingly; “ah, how beautiful it is of your king that he has
sent me these magnificent presents to-day, and not eight days later! I
shall excite the envy of the regent and all the court ladies with these
charming things, which no one besides myself will possess.”

And the princess was constantly renewing her examination of the
presents, and breaking out into ecstasies over their beauty.

The Marquis de la Chetardie smilingly listened to her, told her much
about Paris and its splendors, declaring that even in Paris there was no
lady who could be compared to the fair Princess Elizabeth.

“Ah,” remarked Elizabeth, smilingly threatening him with her finger,
“you would speak differently if the queen or some other lady of your
court were standing by my side!”

“No,” seriously replied the marquis, “I would fall at the feet of my
queen and say: ‘You are my queen, judge me, condemn me, my life is in
your hand. You are the Queen of France, and as such I bend before you;
but Princess Elizabeth is the queen of beauty, and as such I adore
her!’”


Princess Elizabeth smiled, and with harmless unconstraint chatted yet a
long time with the shrewd and versatile ambassador of the French king.

“I have yet one more request to make,” said the marquis, when about to
take leave. “But it is a request that no one but yourself must hear,
princess!”

Elizabeth signed to her friends to withdraw into the open anteroom.

“Well, marquis,” she then said with some curiosity, “let me now hear
what else you have to ask.”

“My king and master has learned with regret that the noble Princess
Elizabeth is not surrounded with that wealth and splendor which is her
due as the daughter of the great emperor and the rightful heir to the
Russian throne. My king begs the favor of being allowed to make good the
delinquency toward you of the present Russian regency, and that he may
have the pleasure of providing you with the means necessary to enable
you to establish a court suitable to your birth and position. I am
provided with sufficient funds for these purposes. You have only to send
me by your physician in ordinary, Lestocq, a quittance signed by you,
and any sum you may require will be immediately paid!”

“Oh,” said the princess, with emotion, “I shall never be able
sufficiently to testify my gratitude to the generous King of France.
I am a poor, insignificant woman, who can thankfully accept but never
requite his kindness.”

“Who knows?” said the marquis significantly. “You may one day become the
most powerful woman in Europe, for your birth and your destiny call you
to the throne.”

“Oh, I know you are Lestocq’s friend, and share his dreams,” said the
princess. “But let us not now speak of impossibilities, nor idly jest,
while I am deeply touched by the generous friendship of your sovereign.
That I accept his offer, may prove to him and you how much I love and
respect him; for we willingly incur obligations only to those who are so
highly estimated that we gratefully subordinate ourselves to them. Write
this to your king.”

“And may I also write to him,” asked the marquis, “that this
conversation will remain a secret, of which, above all things, the
regent, Anna Leopoldowna, is to know nothing?”

“My imperial word of honor,” said the princess, “that no one except
ourselves and Lestocq, whom you yourself propose as a medium, shall know
anything of this great generosity of your sovereign. God grant that
a time may one day come when I may loudly and publicly acknowledge my
great obligations to him!”

“That time will have come when you are Empress of Russia!” said the
ambassador, taking his leave.

“Already one more who has taken it into his head to make an empress of
me,” said the princess, as her three favorites again entered. “Foolish
people that you are! It does not satisfy you to be the friend of a
Princess Elizabeth, but I must become an empress for your sakes.”

“How well the diadem would become that proud pure brow!” exclaimed
Alexis, with animation.

“How happy would this poor Russia be under your mild sceptre!” said the
chamberlain, Woronzow.

“Yes, you owe it to all of us, to yourself and your people, to mount the
throne of your fathers,” said Grunstein.

“But if I say to you that I will not?” cried the princess, reclining
again upon her divan. “The duties of an empress are very difficult and
wearing. I love quiet and enjoyment; and, moreover, this throne of my
father, of which you speak so pathetically, is already occupied,
and awaits me not. See you not your sublime Emperor Ivan, whom the
regent-mother is rocking in his cradle? That is your emperor, before
whom you can bow, and leave me unmolested with your imperial crown.
Come, Alexis, sit down by me upon this tabouret. We will take another
look at these magnificent presents. Ah! truly they are dearer to me than
the possession of empire.”

“The Princess Elizabeth can thus speak only in jest,” said an earnest
voice behind them.

“Ah, Lestocq!” said the princess, with a friendly nod. “You come very
late, my friend.”

“And yet too soon to bring you bad news!” said Lestocq, with a profound
and respectful bow to the princess.

“Bad news?” repeated Elizabeth, turning pale. “_Mon Dieu_, am I, then,
one too many for them here? Would they kill me, or send me in exile to
Siberia?”

“Yet worse!” laconically responded Lestocq. “But, first of all, let us
be cautious, and take care that we have no listeners.” And, crossing
the room, Lestocq closed all the doors, and carefully looked behind
the window curtains to make sure that no one was concealed there. “Now,
princess,” he commenced, in a tone of solemnity, “now listen to what I
have to say to you.”




A CONSPIRACY

A momentary pause followed. Princess Elizabeth silently motioned her
friends to be seated, and drew her favorite Alexis nearer to her.

Lestocq, her physician and confidant, with a solemn countenance, took a
place opposite her.

“We are ready to hear your bad news,” said the princess.

“The regent, Anna Leopoldowna, will have herself crowned as empress,”
 laconically responded Lestocq.

Elizabeth looked at him interrogatively and with curiosity for the
continuation of his bad news. But as Lestocq remained silent, she asked
with astonishment: “Is that all you have to tell us?”

“Preliminarily, that is all,” answered Lestocq.

Princess Elizabeth broke out with a joyous laugh.

“Well, this is, in fact, very comic. With a real Job’s mien you announce
to us the worst news, and then inform us that Anna Leopoldowna is to be
crowned empress! Let her be crowned! No one will interfere to prevent
it, and she will be none the happier for it. No woman who has taken
possession of the Russian throne as an independent princess has ever yet
been happy. Or do you think that Catharine, my lofty step-mother, was
so? Believe me, upon the throne she trembled with fear of assassins; for
it is well known that this Russian throne is surrounded by murderers,
awaiting only the favorable moment. Ah, whenever I have stood in front
of this imperial throne, it has always seemed to me that I saw the
points of a thousand daggers peeping forth from its soft cushions! And
you would have me seat myself upon such a dagger-beset throne? No,
no, leave me my peace and repose. Let Anna Leopoldowna declare herself
empress--what should I care? I should have to bend before her with my
congratulations. That is all!”

And the princess, letting her head glide upon Razumovsky’s shoulder, as
if exhausted by this long speech, closed her fatigued eyelids.

“Ah, if Czar Peter, your great father, could hear you,” sadly said
Lestocq, “he would spurn you for such pusillanimity, princess.”

“It is, therefore, fortunate for me that he is dead,” said the princess,
with a smile. “And now, my dear Lestocq, if you know nothing further,
let this suffice you: I tell you, once for all, that I have no desire
for this imperial throne. I would crown my head with roses and myrtles,
but not with that golden circle which would crush me to the earth.
Therefore, trouble me no more on this subject. Be content with what
I am, and if you cannot, well--then I must be reconciled to being
abandoned by you!”

“I will never desert you, even if I must follow you to suffering and
death!” exclaimed Alexis Razumovsky, casting himself at the feet of the
princess.

“We will remain true and faithful to you unto death!” cried Woronzow and
Grunstein.

“Well, and you alone remain silent, Lestocq?” asked the princess, with
tears in her eyes.

“I have not yet come to the end of my bad news,” said Lestocq, with a
clouded brow.

“Ah!” jestingly interposed the princess, “you would, perhaps, as further
bad news, inform us that the Emperor Ivan has cut his first tooth!”

“No,” said Lestocq, “I would only say to you, that the 18th of December,
the day on which the regent is to be crowned as empress, the 18th of
December is the day assigned for the marriage of Princess Elizabeth with
Prince Louis of Brunswick, the new Duke of Courland!”

The princess sprang up from her seat as if stung by an adder. Alexis
Razumovsky, who still knelt at her feet, uttered loud lamentations,
in which Woronzow and Grunstein soon joined. With calm triumph Lestocq
observed the effect produced by his words.

“What are you saying there?” at length Elizabeth breathlessly asked.

“I say that on the 18th of December the Princess Elizabeth is to be
married to Prince Louis of Brunswick, who has already come to St.
Petersburg for that purpose,” calmly answered Lestocq.

“And I say,” cried the princess, “that no such marriage will ever take
place!”

Lestocq shrugged his shoulders. “Princess Elizabeth is a gentle,
peace-loving, always suffering lamb,” he said.

“But Princess Elizabeth can become a tigress when it concerns the
defence of her holiest rights!” exclaimed the princess, pacing the room
in violent excitement.

“Ah,” she continued, “they are not then satisfied with delivering me
over to poverty and abandonment; it does not suffice them to see me so
deeply humiliated as to receive alms from this regent who occupies
the throne that belongs to me. They would rob me of my last and only
remaining blessing, my personal freedom! They would make my poor heart a
prisoner, and bind it with the chains and fetters of a marriage which I
abhor! No, no, I tell you that shall they never do.”

And the princess, quite beside herself with rage, stamped her feet and
doubled up her little hands into fists. Now was she her father’s real
and not unworthy daughter; Czar Peter’s bold and savage spirit flashed
from her eyes, his scorn and courageous determination spoke from her
wildly excited features. She saw not, she heard not what was passing
around her; she was wholly occupied with her own angry thoughts, and
with those dreadful images which the mere idea of marriage had conjured
up.

Her four favorites stood together at some distance, observing her with
silent sympathy.

“It is now for you, Alexis Razumovsky, to complete the work we have
begun,” whispered Lestocq to him. “Elizabeth loves you; you must nourish
in her this abhorrence of a marriage with the prince. You must make
yourself so loved, that she will dare all rather than lose you! We have
long enough remained in a state of abjectness; it is time to labor for
our advancement. To the work, to the work, Alexis Razumovsky! We must
make an empress of this Elizabeth, that she may raise us to wealth and
dignities!”

“Rely upon me,” whispered Alexis, “she must and shall join in our
plans.”

He approached the princess, who was walking the room in a state of the
most violent agitation, giving vent to her internal excitement and anger
in loud exclamations and bitter curses.

“I must therefore die!” sighed Alexis, pressing Elizabeth’s trembling
hand to his lips. “Kill me, princess, thrust a dagger in my heart, that
I at least may not live to see you married to another!”

“No, you shall not die,” cried Elizabeth, with fierce vehemence,
throwing her arms around Razumovsky’s neck. “I will know how to defend
you and myself, Alexis! Ah, they would shackle me,--they would force me
to marry, because they know I hate marriage. Yes, I hate those unnatural
fetters which could command my heart, force it into obedience to an
unnatural law, and degrade divine free love, which would flutter from
flower to flower, into a necessity and a duty. It is an unnatural
law which would compel us forever to love a man because he pleased us
yesterday or may please us to-day, and who perhaps may not please us
to-morrow, while on the next day he may excite only repugnance! Would
they forge these matrimonial chains for me? Ah, Regent Anna, you are
this time mistaken; you may be all-powerful in this empire, but you
cannot and shall not extend that power over me!”

“And how,” asked Lestocq, shrugging his shoulders, “how will Princess
Elizabeth oppose the regent or empress? What weapon has she with which
to contend?”

“If it must be so, I will oppose power to power!” passionately exclaimed
the princess. “Yes, when it comes to the defence of my freedom and my
personal rights I will then have the courage to dare all, defy all;
then will I shake off the lethargy of contented mediocrity, and upon the
throne will find that freedom which Anna would tread under foot!”

“Long live our future empress! Long live Elizabeth!” cried the men with
wild excitement.

“I have long withstood you, my friends,” said Elizabeth, “I have not
coveted this imperial Russian crown, but much less have I desired that
crown of thorns a compulsory marriage. I am now ready for the struggle,
and, if it must be so, let a revolution, let streams of blood decide
whether the Regent Anna Leopoldowna or the daughter of Peter the Great
has the best right to govern this land and prescribe its laws!”

“Ah, now are you really your great father’s great daughter!” cried
Lestocq, and bending a knee before the princess, he continued: “Let me
be the first to pay you homage, the first to swear eternal fidelity to
you, our Empress Elizabeth.”

“Receive also my oath, Empress Elizabeth,” said Alexis, falling upon his
knees before her, “receive the oaths of your slaves who desire nothing
but to devote their bodies and souls to your service!”

“Let me, also, do homage to you, Empress Elizabeth!” exclaimed Woronzow,
falling to the earth.

“And I, too, will lie at your feet and declare myself your slave,
Empress Elizabeth!” said Grunstein, kneeling with the others.

But Elizabeth’s anger was already past; only a momentary storm-wind had
lashed her gently flowing blood into the high foaming waves of rage; now
all again was calm within her, and consequently this solemn homage scene
of her four kneeling friends made only a comic impression upon her.

She burst into a loud laugh; astonished and half angry, the kneeling men
looked up to her, and that only increased her hilarity.

“Ah, this is infinitely amusing,” said the princess, continuing
to laugh; “there lie my vassals, and what vassals! Herr Lestocq, a
physician; Herr Grunstein, a bankrupt shopkeeper and now under-officer;
Herr Woronzow, chamberlain; and Alexis Razumovsky, my private secretary.
And here I am, the empress of such vassals, and what sort of an empress?
An empress of four subjects, an empress without a throne and without a
crown, without land and without a people--an empress who never was and
never will be an empress! And in this solemn buffoonery you cut such
serious faces as might make one die with laughter.”

The princess threw herself upon the divan and laughed until the tears
ran down her cheeks.

“Princess,” said Lestocq, rising, “these four men, at whom you now
laugh, will make you empress, and then it will be in your power to
convert this chirurgeon into a privy councillor and court physician,
this bankrupt merchant into a rich banker, this chamberlain into an
imperial lord-marshal, and your private secretary into a count or prince
of the empire.”

The eyes of the princess shone yet brighter, and with a tender glance at
Alexis Razumovsky she said: “Yes, I will make him a prince and overload
him with presents and honors. Ah, that is an object worth the pains of
struggling for an imperial crown.”

“No, no,” interposed Alexis, kissing her hand, “I need neither wealth
nor titles; I need nothing, desire nothing but to be near you, to be
able to breathe the air that has fanned your cheek. I desire nothing for
myself, but everything for my friends here, with whose faithful aid we
shall soon be enabled to greet you a real empress.”

Elizabeth’s brow beamed with the purest blessedness. “You are as
unselfish as the angels in heaven, my Alexis,” said she. “It suffices
you that I am Elizabeth, you languish not for this imperial title which
these others would force upon me.”

Alexis smilingly shook his fine head. “You err, princess,” said he; “I
would freely and joyfully give my heart’s blood, could I this day but
salute you as empress! I should then, at least, have no more to fear
from this strange prince whom they would compel you to marry!”

A cloud passed over the brow of the princess. “Yes, you are right,” said
she, “we must avoid that at all events, and if there are no other means,
very well, I shall know what to decide upon--I shall venture an attempt
to dethrone the regent and make myself empress! But, my friends, let
that now suffice. I need rest. Call my women to undress me, Woronzow.
Good-night, good-night, my high and lofty vassals, your great and
powerful empress allows you to kiss her hand!”

With a pleasing graciousness she extended her fair hands to her friends,
who respectfully pressed them to their lips and then departed.

“Alexis!” called the princess, as Razumovsky was about to withdraw
with the others--“Alexis, you will remain awhile. While my women
are undressing me, you shall sing me to sleep with that charming
slumber-song you sing so splendidly!”

Alexis smiled and remained.

A quarter of an hour later deep silence prevailed in the dark palace
of Elizabeth, and through the stillness of the night was heard only
the sweetly-melodious voice of the handsome Alexis, who was singing his
slumber-song to the princess.

From this day forward her four trusted friends left the princess no
peace. They so stormed her with prayers and supplications, Alexis
so well knew how to represent his despair at her approaching and
unavoidable marriage, that the amiable princess, to satisfy her friends
and be left herself at peace, declared herself ready to sanction the
plans of her confidants and enter into a conspiracy against the regent.

Soon a small party was formed for the cause of the princess.
Grunstein--who, as the princess had said, from a bankrupt merchant had
attained the position of subordinate officer--Grunstein had succeeded
in winning for the cause of the princess some fifty grenadiers of
the Preobrajensky regiment, to which he belonged; and these people,
drunkards and dissolute fellows, were the principal props upon which
Elizabeth’s throne was to be established! They were neither particular
about the means resorted to for the accomplishment of the proposed
revolution, nor careful to envelop their movements in secrecy.

Elizabeth soon began to find pleasure and distraction in exciting the
enthusiasm of the soldiers. She often repaired to the caserns of the
guards, and her mildness and affability won for her the hearts of the
rough soldiers accustomed to slavish subjection. When she rode through
the streets, it was not an unusual occurrence to see common soldiers
approach her sledge and converse familiarly with her. Wherever she
showed herself, there the soldiers received her with shouts, and the
palace of the princess was always open to them. In this way Elizabeth
made herself popular, and the Regent Anna, who was informed of it,
smiled at it with indifference.

Just as incautiously did Elizabeth’s fanatical political manager,
Lestocq, set about his work. He made no secret of his intercourse with
the French ambassador, and in the public coffee-houses he was often
heard in a loud voice to prophesy an approaching political change.

But with regard to all these imprudences it seemed as if the court and
the regent were blinded by the most careless confidence, as if they
could not see what was directly before their eyes. It was as if destiny
covered those eyes with a veil, that they might not see, and against
destiny even the great and the powerful of the earth struggle in vain.




THE WARNING

The 4th of December, the day of the court-ball, to which Elizabeth had
looked forward with a longing heart because of her anxiety to display
at court her new Parisian dresses, at length had come. A most active
movement prevailed in the palace of the regent. The lord-marshal and
the chamberlains on service passed up and down through the rooms,
overlooking with sharp eyes the various ornaments, festoons, garlands,
and draperies, to make sure that all was splendid, and tasteful, and
magnificent.

Anna Leopoldowna troubled herself very little about these busy movements
in her palace. She was in her boudoir, delightedly reading a letter from
her distant lover, which had just been received under Julia’s address.
She had already read this letter several times, but ever recommenced
it, and ever found some new word, some new phrase that proved to her the
glowing love of her absent friend.

“Ah, he still loves me,” murmured she, pressing the letter to her lips;
“he really loves me, and this short separation will not estrange his
heart, but cause it to glow with warmer passion! Oh, what a happiness
will it be when he again returns! And he will return! Yes, he will be
with me again on the 18th of December, and, animated by his glances,
I shall for the first time appear in all the splendor of an imperial
crown. Ah, they have no presentiment, my councillors and ministers, that
I have selected the 18th of December for the ceremony precisely because
it is the birthday of my beloved! He will know it, he will understand
why his Anna has chosen this particular day, and he will thank me
with one of those proud and glowing glances which always made my heart
tremulous with overpowering happiness. Oh, my Lynar, what a blessed
moment will be that when I see you again!”

A slight knock at the door interrupted the imaginings of the princess.
It was Julia von Mengden, who came to announce the old Count Ostermann.

“And is it for him that you disturb my delightful solitude?” asked the
princess, somewhat reproachfully. “Is this Count Ostermann, is
this whole miserable realm of so much importance to me as the sweet
contemplation of a letter from my friend? When I am reading his letter
it seems to me that my beloved himself is at my side, and therefore you
must clearly see that I cannot receive Count Ostermann, as Lynar is with
me!”

“Put your letter and your lover in your bosom,” said Julia, with a
laugh; “he will be very happy there, and then you can receive the
old count without betraying your lover’s presence! The count has so
pressingly begged for an audience that I finally promised to intercede
with you for him.”

“Ah, this eternal business!” angrily exclaimed the princess. “They will
never let me have any peace; they harass me the whole day. Even now,
when it is time to be making my toilet for the ball--even now I must be
tormented with affairs of state.”

“Shall I, then, send away Count Ostermann?” sulkily asked Julia.

“That I may, consequently, for the whole evening see you with a
dissatisfied face? No, let him come; but forget not that I submit to
this annoyance only to please you.”

With a grateful smile, Julia kissed the regent’s hand, and then hastened
to bear to Count Ostermann the favorable answer.

In a few minutes, Count Ostermann, painfully supporting himself upon two
crutches, entered the regent’s cabinet.

Anna Leopoldowna received him, sitting in an armchair, and listlessly
rummaging in a band-box filled with various articles of dress and
embroidery, which had just been brought to her.

“Well,” said she, raising her eyes for a moment to glance at Ostermann,
“you come at a very inconvenient hour, Herr Minister Count Ostermann.
You see that I am already occupied with my toilet, and am endeavoring to
find a suitable head-dress. Will you aid me in the choice, sir count?”

Ostermann had until now, painfully and with many suppressed groans,
sustained himself upon his feet; at a silent nod from the princess he
glided down into a chair, and staring at Anna with his piercing and
wonderfully-flashing eyes, he said:

“You highness would select a head-dress? Well, as you ask my advice in
the matter, I will give it; choose a head-dress so firm and solid as to
prove a fortification for the defence of your head. Choose a head-dress
that will protect you against conspiracies and revolutions, against
false friends and smiling enemies! Choose a head-dress that will keep
your head upon your shoulders!”

“Count Ostermann speaks in riddles,” said Anna, smiling, and at the same
time arranging a wreath of artificial roses. “Or no, it was not Count
Ostermann, but a toad singing his hoarse song. Drive away that toad,
Ostermann, it is broad day--why, then, have we the croaking of such
night-birds?”

“Listen to the croaking of this toad,” anxiously responded the old
man. “Believe me, princess, when the toads croak in broad daylight, it
betokens an approaching misfortune. Let it warn you, Madame Regent
Anna! You have called me a toad--very well, toads always have correctly
prophesied misfortune, and if they can never avert it, it is because
otherwise people will not listen to such oracular voices of all-wise
Nature! Let me be your toad, your highness, and listen to me! I foresee
misfortune for you. Believe my prophecy, and that misfortune may yet
be averted. Mark the signs by which fate would warn you! Did you not
yesterday see Elizabeth driving through the streets, chatting and
jesting with the soldiers, who crowded around her sledge? Have you not
heard how the grenadiers of the Preobrajensky regiment shouted after
her? Has it not been told you that Lestocq holds secret intercourse with
the French ambassador, and know you not that Lestocq is the confidential
servant of the princess? Guard yourself against Princess Elizabeth, your
highness!”

“Are you in earnest?” smilingly asked Anna, drawing her silver
toilet-glass nearer to her person, and placing a bouquet of flowers in
her hair to examine its effect in the glass.

“Oh, Heavens!” cried Count Ostermann, “you adorn yourself with flowers,
while I am telling you that you are threatened with a conspiracy!”

“A conspiracy!” laughed the regent, “and Princess Elizabeth to be at the
head of it! Believe me, you overwise men, with all your wisdom, never
learn rightly to understand women. I, however, am a woman, and I
understand Elizabeth. You think that when she kindly chats with the
soldiers, and admits the handsome stately grenadiers into her house, it
is done for the purpose of conspiring with them. Go to, Count Ostermann,
you are very innocent. Princess Elizabeth has but one passion, but it
is not the desire of ruling; and when she chats with handsome men, she
speaks not of conspiracy, believe me.” And, laughing, the regent essayed
a new head-dress.

“And how do you explain the secret meetings of Lestocq and the Marquis
de la Chetardie?” asked Ostermann, with painfully-suppressed agitation.

“Explain? Why should I seek an explanation for things that do not at all
interest me? What is it to me what the surgeon Lestocq has to do with
the constantly-ailing French ambassador? Or do you think I should
trouble myself about the _lavements_ administered to an ambassador by a
surgeon?”

“Well, then, your highness will allow me to explain their meetings from
a less medical point of view? France is your enemy, France meditates
your destruction, and the Marquis de la Chetardie is exciting the
princess and Lestocq to an insurrection.”

“And to what end, if I may be allowed to ask?” scornfully inquired Anna.

“France, struggling with internal and foreign enemies, at war with
Austria, involved in disputes with Holland and Spain, France would wish
at any price to see the Russian government so occupied with her own
domestic difficulties as to have no time to devote to international
affairs. She would provide you with plenty of occupation at home, that
you may not actively interfere with the affairs of the rest of the
world. That is the shrewd policy of France, and it would fill me with
admiration were it not fraught with the most terrible danger to us. The
Marquis de la Chetardie has it in charge to bring about a revolution
here at any price, and as an expert diplomatist, he very well
comprehends that Princess Elizabeth is the best means he can employ for
that purpose; for she, as the daughter of Czar Peter, has the sympathies
of the old Russians in her favor, and they will flock to her with shouts
of joy whenever she may announce to the people that she is ready to
drive the foreign rulers from Russia!”

“Ah, our good Russians,” laughingly exclaimed the regent, “they shout
only for those who make them drunk, and for that the poor princess lacks
the means!”

“The Marquis de la Chetardie has, in the name of his king, offered her
an unlimited credit, and she is already provided with almost a million
of silver rubles.”

“You have a reason for every thing,” laughed the regent. “The princess
is poor; let the French ambassador quickly provide her with his
millions. The good princess, I wish she had these millions, and then she
could indulge her love of ornaments and magnificent dresses.”

“The marquis has brought her rich dresses and stuffs from Paris,” said
Ostermann, laconically.

The regent burst into a clear, ringing laugh.

“The marquis is a real _deus ex machina_,” exclaimed she. “Wherever you
need him, he appears and helps you out of your trouble. But seriously,
my dear count, let it now suffice with these gloomy suspicions. They are
already commencing the dance-music, and you will put me out of tune with
your croaking. A ball, my dear count, requires that one should be in and
not out of tune, and you are pursuing the best course to frighten the
smiles from my lips.”

“Oh, could I but do that!” cried Ostermann, wringing his hands--“could I
but cry in your ear with a voice of thunder: ‘Princess, awake from this
slumber of indifference, force yourself to act, save your son, your
husband, your friends; for we are all, all lost with you!’”

“Oh, speaking of my son,” smilingly interposed the regent, “you must see
a splendid present which the Emperor Ivan has this day received.”

With this she took from a carton a small child’s dress, embroidered with
gold and sparkling with brilliants, which she handed to the count.

“Only look at this splendor,” said she. “The ladies of Moscow have
embroidered this for the young emperor, and it has to-day been presented
by a deputation. Will not the little emperor make a magnificent
appearance in this brilliant dress?”

Count Ostermann did not answer immediately. His face had assumed a very
painful expression, and deep signs escaped his agitated breast. Slowly
rising from his seat, with a sad glance at the princess, he said:

“I see that your destruction is inevitable, and I cannot save you; you
will be ruined, and we all with you. Well, I am an old man, and I
pardon your highness, for you act not thus from an evil disposition, but
because you have a noble and confiding heart. Believe me, generosity
and confidence are the worst failings with which a man can be tainted
in this world--failings which always insure destruction, and have only
mockery and derision for an epitaph. You are no longer to be helped,
duchess. You are on the borders of an abyss, into which you will
smilingly plunge, dragging us all after you. Well, peace be with you!
My sufferings have lately been so great, that I can only thank you for
furnishing me with the means of quickly ending them! Madame, we shall
meet again on the scaffold, or in Siberia! Until then, farewell!”

And, without waiting for an answer from the regent, the old man,
groaning, tottered out of the room.

“Thank Heaven that he is gone!” said Anna, drawing a long breath when
the door closed behind him. “This old ghost-seer has tormented me for
months with his strange vagaries, which weigh upon his soul like the
nightmare! Happily, thy letter, my beloved, has filled my whole heart
with the ecstasy of joy, else would his dark and foolish prophecies be
sufficient to sadden me.”

Thus speaking, the princess again drew Count Lynar’s letter from her
bosom and pressed it to her lips. Then she called her women to dress her
for the ball.




THE COURT BALL

Some hours later the _elite_ of the higher Russian nobility were
assembled in the magnificent halls of the regent. Princes and counts,
generals and diplomatists, beautiful women and blooming maidens, all
moved in a confused intermixture, jesting and laughing with each other.
They were all very gay on this evening, as the regent had herself set
the example. With the most unconstrained cheerfulness, radiant with joy,
did she wander through the rooms, dispensing smiles and agreeable words
among all whom she approached. She bore in her bosom the glowing and
cherished letter of her lover, and at its lightest rustling she seemed
to feel the immediate presence of the writer. That was the secret of her
gayety and her joyous smiles. People, perhaps, knew not this secret, but
they saw its effects, and, as the all-powerful regent deigned this day
to be cheerful and smiling, it was natural for this host of slavish
nobility, who breathe nothing but the air of the court, to adopt for
this evening’s motto, “Gayety and smiles.”

As we have said, only smiling lips and faces beaming with joy were to
be seen; all breathed pleasure and enjoyment, all jested and laughed;
it seemed as if all care and sorrow had fled from this happy, select
circle, to give place to the delights of life. They had, with submissive
humility, repressed all discontent and disaffection, all envyings and
enmities; they chatted and laughed, while every one knew or suspected
that they were standing on a volcano, whose overwhelming eruptions might
be expected at any moment, and yet every one feigned the most perfect
innocence and unconstraint. The ladies scrutinized each other’s
magnificent and costly toilets, jesting and exchanging amorous glances
with the gentlemen displaying orders and diamond crosses.

A movement suddenly arose in the rooms, the crowd divided and
respectfully withdrew to the sides, and through the rows of smiling,
humbly bowing courtiers passed the Princess Elizabeth, followed by her
chamberlain Woronzow, her private secretary Alexis Razumovsky, and
her physician Lestocq, in the splendor of her beauty and grace, all
kindness, all smiles. She was to-day wonderfully charming in her
gold-spangled lace dress, which flowed like a breath over her
under-dress of heavy white satin. Her widely-bared, full and luxuriant
shoulders were partially covered by a costly lace mantelet, the present
of the French queen, and her long, floating ringlets were surmounted by
a wreath of white roses such as only Parisian artistic skill could offer
in such perfect imitation of nature. Thus enveloped as it were in a veil
of white mist and floating vapors, Elizabeth’s beauty appeared only the
more full and voluptuous. She looked like a purple rose standing
out from a cloud of fluttering snow-flakes, wonderfully charming,
wonderfully seductive. Princess Elizabeth was fully conscious of the
impression she made, and this internal satisfaction manifested itself
in a sweet smile which increased the charm of her appearance. With pride
and pleasure she enjoyed the triumph of being the fairest of all the
beauties present, and this triumph contented her heart.

The princess now approached her cousin, the Regent Anna, who came from
the adjoining room to meet and welcome her, and for one short moment the
courtiers forgot her smiles and her inoffensiveness. All eyes were
with the most intense anxiety directed toward those two women; all
conversation, jesting, and laughing were at once suspended. There was
a deep pause, all breathing was smothered, all feared that the
loud beating of their hearts might betray them and cause them to be
suspected.

The two princesses now approached each other--Princess Elizabeth would
have bent a knee to the regent--Anna, with charming kindness, raising
and kissing her, tenderly reproached her for coming so late.

“I feared coming too early,” said Elizabeth, pressing the regent’s hand
to her lips, “for I doubted whether my fair cousin would find time to
bestow a friendly word upon her poor relation, Princess Elizabeth!”

“How could Elizabeth fear that, when she knows I love her like a
sister?” tenderly asked the regent, and, taking the arm of the princess,
she made with her a round through the rooms.

Now again came life and movement in this lately so silent and anxiously
expectant assemblage; they now knew how they were to deport themselves:
Princess Elizabeth was in the good graces of the regent, and therefore
they could receive her polite greetings with the most reverential
thankfulness; they could approach her and admire her beauty without
incurring suspicion. The stereotyped smile had reappeared upon all
faces, cheerful and lively conversation was again resumed, and wherever
the two arm-in-arm wandering princesses appeared, they were greeted with
endless shouts of ecstasy.

As we have said, it was a gay and very splendid festival. Only
occasionally did something like a dark shadow pass through the rooms;
only here and there did the chattering guests forget their wonted
smiles; only occasionally did the mask of cheerfulness fall from many
a face, discovering serious, anxious features, and suspicious, lurking
glances. Every one felt that a catastrophe was impending, but, as no one
could know its result in advance, all wished to keep as clear of it as
possible, and seem perfectly unconscious and unaffected by these things.
As they could not foresee which party would triumph, they found it
advisable to join neither while awaiting coming events, after which they
would hail as lords and masters those who might succeed in attaining to
power.

For the present, Anna Leopoldowna was the ruler, and, as they were
her subjects, they must in humble submission pay homage to her; but
Elizabeth might become empress, and therefore they must likewise pay
homage to her, with a prudent avoidance of the too much, which might
cause them to be suspected in case the regent should still continue in
power.

These were the dangerous rocks between which this proud and elegant
assemblage had to find their winding way, and they did it with smiles
and outward ease, with open admiration of both princesses, before whom
they bowed to the ground with slavish submission.

But suddenly something like a panic-terror, like an unnatural awe, flew
through all these splendid halls; the smiles were arrested on all faces,
the harmless jests on all lips; the pallor of beautiful women became
visible through their paint, and generals staggered to and fro as if a
thunderbolt had fallen. As if touched by a magic wand, every one stood
motionless like statues modelled in clay, no one daring to speak to his
neighbor or make a sign to a friend. They would not see, they would not
hear, they only wished to seem to be indifferent and unobserving.

As we said, a panic-terror pervaded the halls, and like an
evil-announcing night-spectre passed over the heads of the stiffened,
lifeless crowd the dismal rumor--“The regent and the princess are at
variance; the regent is speaking to her with vehemence, and the princess
weeps!”

This certainly was a terrible announcement. But if the regent was angry,
it must be because she knew of the intrigues and machinations of the
princess, and knowing them she could counteract and nullify them;
consequently the plans of the princess were upset, Anna Leopoldowna
would remain ruler, and her son Ivan the Czar of all the Russias.

Now the touch, the vicinity of Elizabeth’s friends became an
evil-breathing pest, a death-bringing terror; they anxiously avoided
the vicinity of Lestocq, they crowded back from Woronzow and Razumovsky,
whom they had before sought with every demonstration of friendliness;
they even avoided looking at the French ambassador; for, if the regent
knew all, she must know of the intimate relations of Lestocq with the
Marquis de la Chetardie, and he was therefore doomed like the other
three.

And moreover, this pernicious rumor had not lied; the two princesses
were at this moment no longer so tender and friendly disposed as shortly
before.

They had long wandered through the halls, confidingly chatting and
smiling, and Anna, leaning upon Elizabeth’s arm--Anna who this day
saw every thing _couleur de rose_--felt a sort of disquiet that people
should suspect her who was walking by her side with such innocent candor
and unconstraint, seeming not to have the least presentiment of the dark
cloud gathering over her head.

“She is inconsiderate,” thought the regent; “she allows herself to be
carried away by her temperament, and behind her inclination and her
weakness for handsome grenadiers and soldiers, her enemies seek to
discover an insidious and well-considered conspiracy; this is cruel and
unjust! This good Elizabeth must be warned, that she may become more
cautious, and give her numerous enemies no occasion for suspecting her.
Poor innocent child, so gay and ingenuous, she plays with roses under
which serpents lie concealed! It is my duty to warn her, and I will.”

Wholly penetrated with this noble and generous resolution, the regent
drew her cousin Elizabeth into the little boudoir which lay at the end
of the hall, offering a convenient resting-place for a confidential
conversation.

But at this moment Anna’s eyes fell upon the lace mantelet of the
princess, and quite involuntarily came to her mind the warning words of
Ostermann, who had said to her: “The French ambassador, by command of
his government, provides the princess not only with money, but also
with the newest modes and most costly stuffs.” This lace mantelet could
surely only come from Paris; nothing similar to it had been seen in St.
Petersburg; it certainly required especial sources and especial means
for the procurement of such a rare and magnificent exemplar.

A cloud drew over the regent’s brow, and in a rather sharp and cutting
tone she said; “One question, princess! How came you by this admirable
lace veil, the like of which I have not seen here in St. Petersburg?”

While putting this question, the regent’s eyes were fixed with a
piercing, interrogating expression upon the face of the princess: she
wished to observe the slightest shrinking, the least movement of her
features.

But Elizabeth was prepared for the question; she had already considered
her answer with the marquis and Lestocq. Her features therefore betrayed
not the least disturbance or disquiet; raising her bright and childlike
eyes, she said, with an unconstrained smile: “You wonder, do you not,
how I came by this costly ornament? Ah, I have for the last eight days
rejoiced in the expectation of surprising you to-day with the sight of
it!”

“But you have not yet told me whence you have these costly laces?” asked
the regent in a sharper tone.

“It is a wager I have won of the good Marquis de la Chetardie,” said
Elizabeth, without embarrassment, “and your highness must confess that
this French ambassador has paid his wager with much taste.”

The regent had constantly become more serious and gloomy. A dark,
fatal suspicion for a moment overclouded her soul, and in her usually
unsuspicious mind arose the questions: “What if Ostermann was right,
if Elizabeth is really conspiring, and the French ambassador is her
confederate?”

“And what, if one may ask, was the subject of the wager?” she asked,
with the tone of an inquisitor.

“Ah, this good marquis,” said the princess, laughing, “had never yet
experienced the rigor of a Russian winter, and he would not believe that
our Neva with its rushing streams and rapid current would in winter be
changed into a very commodious highway. I wagered that I would convince
him of the fact, and be the first to cross it on the ice; he would not
believe me, and declared that I should lack the courage. Well, of course
I did it, and won my wager!”

The regent had not turned her eyes from the princess while she was
thus speaking. This serene calmness, this unembarrassed childishness,
completely disarmed her. The dark suspicion vanished from her mind;
Anna breathed freer, and laid her hand upon her heart as if she would
restrain its violent beating. The letter of Lynar slightly rustled under
her hand.

A ray of sunshine became visible in Anna’s face; she thought of her
beloved; she felt his presence, and immediately all the vapors of
mistrust were scattered--Anna feared no more, she suspected no more, she
again became cheerful and happy--for she thought of her distant lover,
his affectionate words rested upon her bosom--how, therefore, could she
feel anger?

She only now recollected that she had intended to warn Elizabeth. She
therefore threw her arms around the neck of the princess, and, sitting
with her upon the divan, said: “Do you know, Elizabeth, that you have
many enemies at my court, and that they would excite my suspicions
against you?”

“Ah, I may well believe they would be glad to do so, but they cannot,”
 said Elizabeth, laughing; “I am a foolish, trifling woman, who,
unfortunately for them, do nothing to my enemies that can render me
suspected, as, in reality, I do nothing at all. I am indolent, Anna,
very indolent; you ought to have raised me better, my dear lady regent!”

And with an amiable roguishness Elizabeth kissed the tips of Anna’s
fingers.

“No, no, be serious for once,” said Anna; “laugh not, Elizabeth, but
listen to me!”

And she related to the listening princess how people came from all sides
to warn her; that she was told of secret meetings which Lestocq, in
Elizabeth’s name, held with the French ambassador, and that the object
of these meetings was the removal of the regent and her son, and the
elevation of Elizabeth to the imperial throne.

Elizabeth remained perfectly cheerful, perfectly unembarrassed, and even
laughingly exclaimed--“What a silly story!”

“I believe nothing of it,” said Anna, “but at last my ministers will
compel me to imprison Lestocq and bring him to trial, in order to get
the truth out of him.”

“Ah, they will torture him, and yet he is innocent!” cried Elizabeth,
bursting into tears. And, clasping the regent’s neck, she anxiously
exclaimed: “Ah, Anna, dear Anna, save me from my enemies! Let them not
steal away my friends and ruin me! They would also torture me and send
me to Siberia; Anna, my friend, my sovereign, save me! You alone can do
it, for you know me, and know that I am innocent! The idea that I should
conspire against you, against you whom I love, and to whom, upon
the sacred books of our religion, I have sworn eternal fidelity and
devotion! Anna, Anna, I swear to you by the soul of my father, I am
innocent, as also is my friend. Lestocq has never passed the threshold
of the French ambassador’s hotel! Oh, dear, dear Anna, have mercy on me,
and do not permit them to torture me and wrench my poor members!”

With a loud cry of anguish, with streaming tears, pale and trembling,
Elizabeth sank down at the regent’s feet.

It was this cry of anguish that rang through the hall, and spread
everywhere astonishment and consternation. And this shrieking,
and weeping, and trembling, was no mask, but truth. Elizabeth was
frightened, she wept and trembled from fear, but she had sufficient
presence of mind not to betray herself in words. It was fear even that
gave her that presence of mind and enabled her to play her part in a
manner so masterly that the regent was completely deceived. Taking the
princess in her arms, she pressed her to her bosom, at the same time
endeavoring to reassure and console her with tender and affectionate
words, with reiterated promises of her protection and her love.

But it was a long time before the trembling and weeping princess
could be tranquillized--before she could be made to believe Anna’s
asseverations that she had always loved and never mistrusted her.

“What most deeply saddens me,” said Elizabeth, with feeling, “is the
idea that you, my Anna, could believe these calumnies, and suppose me
capable of such black treason. Ah, I should be as bad as Judas Iscariot
could I betray my noble and generous mistress.”

Tears of emotion stood in Anna’s eyes. She impressed a tender kiss upon
Elizabeth’s lips, and with her own hand wiped the tears from the cheeks
of the princess.

“Weep no more, Elizabeth,” she tenderly said--“nay, I beg of you, weep
no more. It is indeed all right and good between us, and no cloud shall
disturb our love or our mutual confidence. Come, let us smile and be
cheerful again, that this listening and curious court may know nothing
of your tears. They would make a prodigious affair of it, and we will
not give them occasion to say we have been at variance.”

“No, they shall all see that I love, that I adore you,” said Elizabeth,
covering Anna’s hand with kisses.

“They shall see that we love each other,” said Anna, taking the arm of
the princess. “Be of good cheer, my friend, and take my imperial word
for it that I, whatever people may say of you, will believe no one but
yourself; that I will truly inform you of all calumnies, and give you
an opportunity to disarm your enemies and defend yourself. Now come, and
let us make another tour through the halls.”

Arm in arm the two princesses returned to the nearest hall. This was
empty, no one daring to remain there lest they might incur the blame of
having overheard and understood some word of the princesses, and thus
acquired a knowledge of their private conversation. People had therefore
withdrawn to the more distant rooms, where they still preserved a
breathless silence.

Suddenly the two princesses, arm in arm, again appeared in the halls,
pleasantly conversing, and instantly the scene was again changed, as
if by the stroke of a magic wand. The chilling silence melted into an
agreeable smile, and all recovered their breaths and former joviality.

All was again sunshine and pleasure, for the princesses were again
there, and the princesses smiled--must they not laugh and be beside
themselves with joy?

Elizabeth’s tender glances sought her friend, the handsome Alexis
Razumovsky. Suddenly her brow as darkened and her cheeks paled, for she
saw him and saw that his eyes did not seek hers!

He stood leaning against a pillar, his eyes fixed upon a lady who had
just then entered the hall, and whose wonderful beauty had everywhere
called forth a murmur of astonishment and admiration. This lady was the
Countess Lapuschkin, the wife of the commissary-general of marine, from
whose family came the first wife of Czar Peter the Great, the beautiful
Eudoxia Lapuschkin.

Eleonore Lapuschkin was more beautiful than Eudoxia. An infinite magic
of youth and loveliness, of purity and energy, was shed over her regular
features. She had the traits of a Hebe, and the form of a Juno. When she
smiled and displayed her dazzlingly white teeth, she was irresistibly
charming. When, in a serious mood, she raised her large dark eyes,
full of nobleness and spirit, then might people fall at her feet with
adoration. Countess Lapuschkin had often been compared and equalled
to the Princess Elizabeth, and yet nothing could be more dissimilar or
incomparable than these two beauties. Elizabeth’s was wholly earthly,
voluptuous, glowing with youth and love, but Eleonore’s was chaste
and sublime, pure and maidenly. Elizabeth allured to love, Eleonore to
adoration.

The princess had long hated the young Countess Eleonore Lapuschkin,
and considered her as a rival; but that this rival should now gain an
interest in the heart of her favorite, that filled Elizabeth’s soul
with anger and agitation, that caused her eyes to flash and her blood to
boil.

Staringly as Alexis Razumovsky’s eyes were fixed upon the countess, she,
unconscious of this double observation, stood cheerful and unembarrassed
in the circle of her admiring friends and adorers.

Anna Leopoldowna followed the glance of the princess, and, observing
the beautiful Lapuschkin, said, without thinking of Elizabeth’s very
susceptible vanity:

“Leonore Lapuschkin is an admirably beautiful woman, is she not? I
never saw a handsomer one. To look at her is like a morning dream;
her appearance diffuses light and splendor. Do you not find it so,
Elizabeth?”

“Oh, yes, I find it so,” said Elizabeth, with a constrained smile. “She
is the handsomest woman in your realm.”

“Yourself excepted, Elizabeth,” kindly subjoined the regent.

“Oh, no, she is handsomer than I!” murmured Elizabeth.

Poor Leonore! In this moment hath the princess pronounced your sentence
of condemnation, and in her heart subscribed the stern order for your
execution.

A longer view of this triumph of the countess became insufferable;
alleging a sudden attack of illness, she immediately took leave of the
regent, and ordered her carriage.

Tears of anger and love stood in her eyes as Razumovsky approached to
aid her in entering it. Hurling away his hand, she entered the carriage
without assistance.

“And may I not accompany you in the carriage as usual?” asked Alexis,
with tenderness in his tone.

“No,” she curtly said, “go back into the hall, and again admire the
handsomest woman in the empire!”

Then, jealousy getting the better of anger, she beckoned to Alexis, who
was about departing in sadness, and commanded him to enter the carriage
without delay.

As soon as the carriage door was closed, with an angry movement she
seized both of Razumovsky’s hands.

“Look at me,” said she--“look me directly in the eye, and then tell me,
is Eleonore Lapuschkin handsomer than I?”




THE PENCIL-SKETCH

It was the day after the court ball. Princess Elizabeth was in her
dressing-room, and occupied in enveloping herself in a very charming and
seductive _neglige_. She was to-day in very good humor, very happy
and free from care, for Alexis Razumovsky had, with the most solemn
asserverations, assured her of his truth and devotion, and Elizabeth had
been soothed and reconciled by his glowing language. It was for him that
she wished to appear especially attractive to-day, that Alexis, by the
sight of her, might be made utterly to forget the Countess Eleonore
Lapuschkin. In these coquettish efforts of her vanity she had utterly
forgotten all the plans and projects of her friends and adherents;
she thought no more of becoming empress, but she would be the queen of
beauty, and in that realm she would reign alone with an absolute sway.

A servant announced Lestocq.

A cloud of displeasure lowered on the brow of the princess. Startled
from her sweet dreams by this name, she now for the first time
recollected the fatal conversation she had had on the previous evening
with the regent. In her love and jealousy she had totally forgotten the
occurrence, but now that she was reminded of it, she felt her head throb
with anxiety and terror.

Dismissing her attendants with an imperious nod, she hastened to meet
the entering physician.

“Lestocq,” said she, “it is well you have come at this moment, else,
perhaps, I might have forgotten to say to you that it is all over with
the conjuration spun and woven by you and the French marquis. We must
give it up, for the affair is more dangerous than you think it, and
I may say that you have reason to be thankful to me for having, by my
foresight and intrepidity, saved you from the torture, and a possible
transportation to Siberia. Ah, it is very cold in Siberia, my dear
Lestocq, and you will do well silently and discreetly to build a warm
nest here, instead of inventing ambitious projects dangerous to all of
us.”

“And whence do you foresee danger, princess?” asked Lestocq.

“The regent knows all! She knows our plans and combinations. In a word,
she knows that we conspire, and that you are the principal agent in the
conspiracy.”

“Then I am lost!” sighed Lestocq, gliding down upon a chair.

“No, not quite,” said Elizabeth, with a smile, “for I have saved you.
Ah, I should never have believed that the playing of comedy was so
easy, but I tell you I have played one in a masterly manner. Fear was my
teacher; it taught me to appear so innocent, to implore so affectingly,
that Anna herself was touched. Ah, and I wept whole streams of tears, I
tell you. That quite disarmed the regent. But you must bear the blame if
my eyes to-day are yet red with weeping, and not so brilliant as usual.”

And Princess Elizabeth ran to the toilet-table to examine critically her
face in the glass.

“Yes, indeed,” she cried, with a sort of terror, “it is as I feared. My
eyes are quite dull. Lestocq, you must give me a means, a quick and sure
means, to restore their brightness.”

Thus speaking, Elizabeth looked constantly in the glass, full of care
and anxiety about her eyes.

“I shall appear less beautiful to him to-day,” she murmured; “he will,
in thought, compare me with Eleonore Lapuschkin, and find her handsomer
than I. Lestocq, Lestocq!” she then called aloud, impatiently stamping
with her little foot, “I tell you that you must immediately prescribe a
remedy that will restore the brilliancy of my eyes.”

“Princess,” said Lestocq, with solemnity, “I beseech you for a moment
to forget your incomparable beauty and the unequalled brilliancy of your
eyes. Be not only a woman, but be, as you can, the great czar’s great
daughter. Princess, the question here is not only of the diminished
brilliancy of your eyes, but of a real danger with which you are
threatened. Be merciful, be gracious, and relate to me the exact words
of your yesterday’s conversation with the regent.”

The princess looked up from her mirror, and turned her head toward
Lestocq.

“Ah, I forgot,” she carelessly said, “you are not merely my physician,
but also a revolutionist, and that is of much greater importance to
you.”

“The question is of your head, princess, and as a true physician I would
help you to preserve it. Therefore, dearest princess, I beseech you,
repeat to me that conversation with the regent.”

“Will you then immediately give me a recipe for my eyes?”

“Yes, I will.”

“Well, listen, then.”

And the princess repeated, word for word, to the breathless Lestocq, her
conversation with Anna Leopoldowna. Lestocq listened to her with
most intense interest, taking a piece of paper from the table and
mechanically writing some unmeaning lines upon it with an appearance of
heedlessness. Perhaps it was this mechanical occupation that enabled him
to remain so calm and circumspect. During the narration of the
princess his features again assumed their expression of firmness and
determination; his eyes again flashed, and around his mouth played a
saucy, scornful smile, such as was usually seen there when, conscious of
his superiority, he had formed a bold resolution.

“This good regent has executed a stroke of policy for which Ostermann
will never forgive her,” said he, after the princess had finished
her narration. “She should have kept silence and appeared
unconstrained--then _we_ should have been lost; but now it is _she_.”

“No,” exclaimed the princess, with generous emotion, “the regent has
chosen precisely the best means for disarming us! She has manifested
a noble confidence in me, she has discredited the whisperings of her
minister and counsellors, and instead of destroying me, as she should
have done, she has warned me with the kindness and affection of a
sister. I shall never forget that, Lestocq; I shall ever be grateful for
that! Henceforth the Regent or Empress Anna Leopoldowna shall have no
truer or more obedient subject than I, the Princess Elizabeth!”

“By this you would not say, princess--”

“By this I mean to say,” interposed Elizabeth, “that this conspiracy is
brought to a bloodless conclusion, and that, from this hour, there is
but one woman in this great Russian realm who has any claim to the title
of empress, and that woman is the Regent Anna Leopoldowna!”

“You will therefore renounce your sacred and well-grounded claims to the
imperial throne?” asked Lestocq, continuing his scribbling.

“Yes, that will I,” responded Elizabeth. “I will no longer be plagued
with your plans and machinations--I will have repose. In the interior of
my palace I will be empress; there will I establish a realm, a realm of
peace and enjoyable happiness; there will I erect the temple of love,
and consecrate myself as its priestess! No, speak no more of revolutions
and conspiracies. I am not made to sit upon a throne as the feared and
thundering goddess of cowardly slaves, causing millions to tremble
at every word and glance! I will not be empress, not the bugbear of a
quaking, kneeling people, I will be a woman, who has nothing to do with
the business and drudgery of men; I will not be plagued with labor and
care, but will enjoy and rejoice in my existence!”

“For that you will be allowed no time!” said Lestocq, with solemnity.
“When you give up your plans and renounce your rights, then, princess,
it will be all over with the days of enjoyment and happiness. It will
then no longer be permitted you to convert your palace into a temple
of pleasure, and thenceforth you will be known only as the priestess of
misfortune and misery!”

“You have again your fever-dreams,” said Elizabeth, smiling. “Come, I
will awaken you! I have told you my story; it is now for you to give me
a recipe for my inflamed eyes.”

“Here it is,” earnestly answered Lestocq, handing to the princess the
paper upon which he had been scribbling.

Elizabeth took it and at first regarded it with smiling curiosity;
but her features gradually assumed a more serious and even terrified
expression, and the roses faded from her cheeks.

“You call this a recipe for eyes reddened with weeping,” said she, with
a shudder, “and yet it presents two pictures which make my hair bristle
with terror, and might cause one to weep himself blind!”

“They represent our future!” said Lestocq, with decision. “You see that
man bound upon the wheel--that is myself! Now look at the second. This
young woman who is wringing her hands, and whose head one of these nuns
is shearing, while the other is endeavoring, in spite of her struggling
resistance, to envelope her in that black veil;--that is you, princess.
For you the cloister, for me the wheel! That will be our future,
Princess Elizabeth, if you now hesitate in your forward march in the
path upon which you have once entered.

“And to persevere in this conspiracy is to give ourselves up to certain
destruction, for doubt not they will be able to convict us. Among
Grunstein’s enlisted friends there are drunkards enough who would betray
you for a flask of brandy! Princess Elizabeth, would you be a nun or
an empress? Choose between these two destinations. There is no middle
course.”

“Then I would be an empress!” said Elizabeth, with flashing eyes,
trembling with anxiety and excitement, and still examining the two
drawings. “Ah, you are an accomplished artist, Lestocq, you have
designed this picture with a horrible truth of resemblance. How I stand
there! how I wring my hands, the pale lips opened for a cry of terror,
and yet silenced by a view of those dreadful shears before whose deadly
operations my hair falls to the earth, and that veil entombs me while
yet living!”

And casting away the drawings, the princess trod them under foot,
declaring in a loud and imperious tone: “These drawings are false,
Lestocq, and that will I prove to you--I, the Empress Elizabeth!”

“All hail, my empress!” cried Lestocq, throwing himself at her feet
and kissing the hem of her robe; “blessings upon you, for you have now
rescued me from the hands of the executioner! You have saved my life,
in return for which I will this day place an imperial crown upon your
heavenly brows.”

“This day?” asked Elizabeth, with a shudder.

“Yes, it must be done this very night! We must improve the moment, for
only the moment is ours. Every hour of delay but brings us nearer to
our destruction. Yet one night of hesitation, and they will already
have rendered our success impossible. Ah, the Regent Anna has sworn to
believe only you, and never to doubt you, and yet she has ordered three
battalions of the guards to march early in the morning to join the army
in Viborg. Our friends and confidants are in these three battalions.
Judge, then, how very much Anna Leopoldowna confides in you!”

“Ah, if it be really so,” said Elizabeth, “then can I no longer have
any regard for her. Anna will remove my friends from here, and that is
a betrayal of the friendship she has sworn for me. I have therefore
no further obligations toward her! I am free to act as I think best.
Lestocq, I will be no nun, but an empress! You now have my word, and are
at liberty to make all necessary arrangements. If it must be done, let
it be done quickly and unhesitatingly. I have yet to-day the courage to
dare any enormity, therefore let us utilize this day!”

“Expect me to-night at twelve o’clock!” said Lestocq, rising; “I will
then be here to bring you the imperial crown.”

This firm confidence made Elizabeth tremble again. Until now all had
seemed like a dream, a play of the imagination; but when she read in
Lestocq’s bold and resolved features that it was a reality, she shook
with terror, and an anxious fear overpowered her soul.

“And if it miscarry?” said she, thoughtfully.

“It will not and cannot miscarry!” responded Lestocq. “The right is on
your side, and God will watch over the daughter of the great czar.”

“And then, when I am really empress,” said Elizabeth, thoughtfully,
to herself, “what then? There is no happiness in it! They will give me
another title, they will place a crown upon my head, and bind me to a
throne. I shall no longer be free to act according to my will, to live
as I would. Thousands of spies will lurk around me. Thousands of eyes
will follow my steps, thousands of ears will listen for my every word,
in order to interpret and attach a secret meaning to it! They will call
me an empress, but I shall be a slave bound with golden fetters, upon
whose head sits a golden crown of thorns. And this toil and weariness!
These tiresome sittings of the ministers, this law-making and the
signing of orders and commands! How horrible!--Lestocq,” suddenly
cried the princess aloud, “if I must always labor, and make laws, and
subscribe my name, and command and govern, then I will be no empress,
no, never!”

“You shall be empress only to enjoy life in its highest splendor.
We, your servants and slaves, we will work and govern for you!” said
Lestocq.

“Swear that to me! Swear to me that I shall not be constrained to labor,
swear that you will govern for me, that I may devote my time to the
enjoyment of life!”

“I swear it to you by all that is most sacred to me.”

“Well, then, I will be your empress!” said Elizabeth, satisfied.

At this moment a secret door opened and gave admission to Alexis
Razumovsky.

By his entrance Elizabeth was reminded of her inflamed eyes, and of the
fair Countess Eleanore Lapuschkin.

She gave Alexis a searching, scrutinizing glance, and it seemed to her
that he appeared less tender and ardent than usual.

“Oh,” she proudly said, motioning her favorite to approach her and
lightly kissing him upon the forehead, “oh, I will yet compel you to
adore me. When an imperial crown encircles my brow, then will you be
obliged to confess that I am the fairest of women! Alexis, on this night
shall I become an empress!”

With a cry of joy Alexis sank to her feet.

“Hail to my adored empress!” he exclaimed, with enthusiasm. “Hail
Elizabeth, the fairest of all women!”

“With the exception of the beautiful Countess Lapuschkin!” said
Elizabeth, with a bitter smile--“ah, when I am empress, I shall at
least have the power to render that woman harmless, and to annihilate
her!--You turn pale, Alexis,” she continued with more vehemence--“your
hand trembles in mine! You must therefore love her very much, this
exalted queen of godlike beauty? Ah, I shall know how to punish her for
it!”

“Princess!” reproachfully exclaimed Alexis--“Elizabeth, you, my august
and gentle empress, you will not sacrifice an innocent woman to a
momentary jealous vagary!”

“Ah, he ventures to intercede for her!” cried Elizabeth, with a hoarse
laugh, and, turning to Lestocq, she continued, with anger-flashing eyes:
“Lestocq, I have yet a condition to make before consenting to become an
empress.”

“Name your condition, princess, and if it be within the compass of human
power it shall be fulfilled.”

Casting an angry glance at Razumovsky, Elizabeth said, with a sinister
smile:

“Swear to me, by all you hold most sacred, to find some fault in this
Countess Lapuschkin which shall give me the right to condemn her to
death!”

“I swear it by all I hold most sacred,” solemnly responded Lestocq.

“And you will do well in that!” exclaimed Alexis. “For when a crime
rests upon her, and she, only with a word or look, offends against my
fair and noble empress, she will deserve such condemnation.”

“You will, then, defend her no longer?” asked the somewhat appeased
princess, bending down to her kneeling lover.

“What is Countess Lapuschkin to me?” tenderly responded Alexis. “For
me there is but one woman, one empress, and one beauty, and that is
Elizabeth!”

The princess smiled with satisfaction. “Lestocq,” said she, “this time
I keep my word. I am ready to dare all, in order to place the imperial
crown upon my head. I must and will be empress, that I may have the
power to reward you all, and to raise you, my Alexis, to me!”

And drawing the handsome Alexis up to herself, she gave him her hand to
kiss.

“I now go to make all necessary preparations,” said Lestocq. “At
midnight I will come for you. Be ready at that time, Elizabeth!”

“I will then be ready!” said Princess Elizabeth, nodding a farewell to
Lestocq.

“At midnight!” she then thoughtfully continued. “Well, we have twelve
hours until then, which will suffice for the invention of a suitable
toilet. Alexis, tell me what sort of dress I shall wear. What color
best becomes me and in what shall I please the soldiers? The toilet,
my Alexis, is often decisive in such cases; an unsuitable costume might
cause me to displease the conspirators, and lead them to give up the
enterprise. You must aid me, Alexis, in choosing a costume. Come, let us
repair to the wardrobe, and call my women. I will try on all my dresses,
one after the other; then you shall decide which is most becoming, and
that will we choose.”

The princess and her lover betook themselves to the wardrobe, and called
her women to assist in selecting a suitable revolution-toilet.




THE REVOLUTION

Night had come. The lights in palaces and houses were gradually
extinguished. St. Petersburg began to sleep, or at least to give itself
the appearance of sleeping. The regent, Anna Leopoldowna, also,
had already dismissed her household and withdrawn into her private
apartments.

It was a fine starlight night. Anna leaned upon the window-frame,
thoughtfully and dreamily glancing up at the heavens. Her eyes gradually
filled with tears, which slowly rolled down her cheeks and fell upon her
hands. She was startled by the falling of these warm, glowing drops. She
was thinking of Lynar, of the distant, warmly-desired one, to whom she
would gladly have devoted her whole existence, but to whom she could
belong only through falsehood. She thought it would be nobler and
greater to renounce him, that her love might be consecrated by her
abnegation, while actually devoting her life to the duties enjoined
by the laws and the Church. But these thoughts filled her bosom with a
nameless sorrow, and it was involuntarily that she wept.

“No,” she murmured low, “I cannot make this sacrifice; I cannot make
an offering of my love to my virtue; for this bugbear of a compulsory
marriage I cannot give up a love which God Himself has inspired in my
heart. Then let it be so! Let the world judge and the priests condemn
me. I will not sacrifice my love to a prejudice. I know that this is
sinful, but God will have compassion on the sinner who has no other
happiness on earth than this only one--a love that controls her whole
being. And if this sin must be punished, oh, my Maker, I pray you to
pardon him, and let the punishment fall on me alone!”

Thus speaking, she raised her arms and directed her eyes toward the
heavens in fervent prayer. Suddenly a brilliant light flashed through
the air--a star had shot from its sphere, and, after a short course, had
become extinguished.

“That bodes misfortune,” said Anna, with a shudder, her head sinking
upon her breast.

At this moment there was a loud knocking at her door, and Prince Ulrich,
Anna’s husband, earnestly demanded admission.

Anna hastened to open, asking with surprise the cause of his unusual
visit.

“Anna,” said the prince, hastily entering, “I come to warn you once
more. Again has a warning letter been mysteriously conveyed to me. I
have just found it upon my night-table. See for yourself. It implores
us to be on our guard. It informs us that we are threatened with a
frightful danger, that Elizabeth conspires, and that we are lost if we
do not instantly take preventive measures.”

Anna read the warning letter, and then smilingly gave it back to her
husband.

“Always the same old song, the same croaking of the toad,” said
she. “Count Ostermann has taken it into his head that Elizabeth is
conspiring, and doubtless all these warning letters come from him. Read
them no more in future, my husband, and now let us retire to rest.”

“And what if it were, nevertheless, true,” said the prince,
pressingly--“if we are really threatened with a great danger? A word
from you can turn it away. Let us, therefore, be careful! Remember your
son, Anna--_his_ life is also threatened! Protect him, mother of the
emperor! Allow me, the generalissimo of your forces, to take measures
of precaution! Let me establish patrols, and cause a regiment, for whose
fidelity I can be answerable, to guard the entrances of the palace!”

Anna smilingly shook her head. “No,” said she, “nothing of all that
shall be done! Such precautions manifest suspicion, and would wound
the feelings of this good Elizabeth. She is innocent, believe me. I
yesterday sharply observed her, and she came out from the trial pure. It
would be ignoble to distrust her now. Moreover, she has my princely word
that I will always listen only to herself, and believe no one but her.
In the morning I will go to her and show her this letter, that she may
have an opportunity to justify herself.”

“You therefore consider her wholly innocent?” asked the prince, with a
sigh.

“Yes, perfectly innocent. Her firm demeanor, her asseverations, her
tears, have convinced me that it was unjust in us to believe the hateful
rumors that had spread concerning her. Let us therefore retire in peace
and quiet. No danger threatens us from Elizabeth!”

There was something convincing and tranquillizing in Anna’s immovable
conviction; the prince felt his inability to oppose her, and was ashamed
of his feminine fears in the face of her masculine intrepidity.

With a sigh he took his leave and returned to his own room. At the door
he turned once again.

“Anna,” said he, with solemnity, “you have decided upon our destiny,
and God grant that it may eventuate happily! But should it be otherwise,
should the monstrous and terrible break in upon you, then, at least,
remember this hour, in which I warned you, and confess that I am free
from all blame!”

Without awaiting an answer, with a drooping head and deep sigh, the
prince left the room.

Anna looked after him with a compassionate smile.

“Poor prince!” she murmured low, “he is always so timid and trembling;
that indicates unhappiness! He loves me, and I cannot force my heart
to return the feeling. Poor prince, it must be very sad to love and be
unloved!”

With a sigh she closed the door through which her husband had passed.

“I will now sleep,” said she. “Yes, sleep! Possibly Heaven may send me a
pleasant dream, and I may see my Lynar! But no, I must first go to Ivan,
to ascertain whether his slumber is tranquil.”

With hasty steps she repaired to the adjacent chamber, which was that of
the young emperor.

There all was still. Before the door opening upon the corridor she heard
the regular step of the soldier on guard. The waiters upon the emperor
were slumbering upon mattresses around him. It was a picture of profound
tranquillity.

With light steps Anna approached the cradle of her son, and, bending
down over him, regarded him with tender maternal glances, while his
still and peaceful slumber seemed to touch her heart with a sweet
emotion.

“Sleep, my dear child, my charming little emperor,” she
murmured--“sleep, and in your dreams may you play with angels as
beautiful as yourself!”

Bending again over the cradle, she breathed a light kiss upon the rosy
lips of her child, and then noiselessly returned to her own chamber.

“And now,” said she, drawing a long breath, “now will I, also, sleep and
dream! Good-night, my beloved; good-night, Lynar!”

With a happy smile she reclined upon her couch, and soon slumbered.

At this moment the clock in the next chamber struck the twelfth hour.
Slowly and solemnly resounded the tones of the striking clocks that
announced the midnight.

At this same hour a lively movement commenced in the palace of the
Princess Elizabeth. Lights were seen glancing from window to window,
hurrying shadows were seen coming and going in the rooms, every thing
there announced an activity unusual for the hour, and certainly it was a
signal good fortune for Elizabeth that Anna had forbidden her husband’s
sending a patrol through the streets. One single patrol passing the
palace might have frustrated the whole conspiracy!

But the streets were perfectly quiet; nowhere was a sentinel or watchman
to be seen.

The slight creaking and whizzing of a sledge upon the crackling snow was
now heard; it came nearer and nearer, and then there was a knocking
at the palace gate. The porter opened, and two sledges drove into the
court.

The first, with a rich covering and magnificent ornaments, was empty.
But Lestocq was seen to spring out of the second, and hurriedly enter
the palace.

Elizabeth, splendidly dressed, sparkling with brilliants, was waiting
in her small reception-room. No one but Alexis Razumovsky was with her.
Neither of them spoke, and their visages plainly discovered that they
were in a state of painfully uncomfortable suspense.

Elizabeth was pale and had a convulsive twitching about her mouth, her
form trembled feverishly, and she was obliged to cling to Razumovsky, to
prevent falling.

“Did you hear the opening of the court-yard gate?” she breathed low.
“Lestocq is not yet here, and it is past midnight. Certainly he is
arrested, all is discovered, and we are lost! I am fearfully anxious,
Alexis; I already seem to feel the sword at my throat. Ah, hear you not
steps in the corridor? They come this way. They are my pursuers. They
come to conduct me to the scaffold! Save me, Alexis, save me!”

And with a shrill cry of anguish the princess clung to the neck of her
favorite.

The door was now hastily opened, and upon the threshold appeared Lestocq
and Woronzow.

“Princess Elizabeth!” exclaimed Lestocq, with solemnity, “I have come
for you. The throne awaits its empress!”

“Up, Princess Elizabeth,” said Alexis, “take courage, my fair empress,
give us an example of spirit and resolution!”

The princess slowly raised her pale face from Razumovsky’s shoulder, and
looking around with timid glances, faintly said: “I suffer fearfully!
This anguish will kill me! My destiny is so cruel, I am so tormented.
Why must I be an empress?”

“That you may be no nun,” laconically responded Lestocq.

“And to become the greatest and loftiest woman in the world!” said
Woronzow.

“To raise to your own elevation the man you love,” whispered Alexis.

With a glance of tenderness, Elizabeth nodded to him.

“Yes,” said she, “for your sake, my Alexis, I will become an empress!
Come, let us go. But where is Grunstein?”

“With his faithful followers he awaits us before the casern of his
regiment. We go there first.”

“Then let us go!” said Elizabeth, striding forward. But she stopped on
seeing that Alexis followed with the other two.

“No,” said she, “you must not go with us, Alexis. If I am to have
courage to act and speak, I must know that you are not mingled in the
strife--I must not have to tremble for your life! No, no, only when
I know that you are concealed and in safety, can I have courage to
struggle for an imperial crown. Promise me, therefore, Alexis, that you
will quietly remain here until I send a messenger for you!”

Razumovsky begged and implored in vain--in vain he knelt before her, and
covered her hands with tears and kisses.

Elizabeth remained inflexible, and, as Alexis yet persisted in his
prayers, she earnestly and proudly said: “Alexis Razumovsky, I command
you to remain here. You will obey the first command of your empress!”

“I will remain,” sighed Alexis, “and the world will point the finger of
scorn at me, calling me a coward!”

“And I will compel the world to honor you as a king!” said Elizabeth,
with tenderness, beckoning to Lestocq and Woronzow to follow her from
the room.

Silently they hastened down the stairs--silently was Elizabeth handed
into her sledge, while Lestocq and Woronzow took their places in the
second.

“Forward!” thundered Lesto

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