by L. Mühlbach
THE PALACE OF THE EMPRESS
The new empress, Elizabeth, had rewarded and punished, and with thatthought she had finished her imperial labors and forever dismissed allher difficulties.
"I have shaken off my imperial burdens," said she to her friends;"let us now begin to enjoy the imperial pleasures. Ah! we shall leada pleasant life in this splendid palace. My first law is this: No oneshall speak to me of government business or state affairs. I will havenothing to do with such things, do you hear! For what purpose do I havemy ministers and my council? Go you with such wearisome questions to mygrand chancellor, Tscherkaskoy, and my minister, Bestuscheff; they shallgovern for me. I can demand that of them, as I pay them for it. If youseek an office, if you have invented any thing for promoting the welfareof the country, if you have found any official abuse, or discoveredany conspiracy, then go to Bestuscheff or to Woronzow, or also toLestocq--spare me! But when you have a grace to demand, when you needmoney, when you desire a title or orders, then come to me, and I willsatisfy your wishes. We have much money, many ribbons for orders, andas for titles, they are the cheapest and most convenient of all, as theycost absolutely nothing. Ah, a jest just now occurs to me. We willamuse ourselves a little to-day. We will have a title-auction. Call ourcourtiers, attendants, and servants. We shall have a gay time of it! Wewill have a game at dice. Bring the dice! I will at each throw announcethe prize, and the dice shall then decide who is the winner!"
They all gathered around her; the noble gentlemen of her body-guard,consisting of the grenadiers who had been raised to nobility and createdofficers at the commencement of her reign. They came noisily, withsinging and laughing, and saluting their empress, Elizabeth, with athundering _viva_.
"First of all, let us drink your health, sir captain!" said she,ordering wine to be brought, as well as brandy of the costly sort shehad lately received as a present from the greatest distiller of hercapital, to which she herself was very partial.
Loudly clinked their glasses, loudly was shouted a _viva_ to theempress, which Elizabeth laughingly accepted by offering them her handsto kiss, and was delighted when they fell into ecstasies over the beautyand freshness of those hands.
"Now, silence, gentlemen of the body-guard!" she cried. "I, yourcaptain, command attention!"
And, when silence was established, she continued: "We will have a gameat dice, and titles and orders, gold and brandy, shall be the prizes forwhich you shall contend!"
"Ah, that is magnificent, that is a glorious game!" exclaimed they all.
"The first prize," said Elizabeth, "is the position of privy councillor!Now take the dice, gentlemen!"
They began to throw the dice, with laughter and shouting when they hadthrown a high number--with lamentations and stamping of the feet when itwas a low one.
In the meanwhile Elizabeth listlessly stretched herself upon a divan,and laughingly said to Alexis, who sat by her side: "Oh, it is verypleasant to be an empress. Only see how happy they all are, and it is Ialone who make them so; for out of these common soldiers I havecreated respectable officers, and have converted serfs into barons andgentlemen! I thank you, Alexis, for impelling me to become an empress.It is a noble pleasure, and I should now be unwilling to return to thatstill and uneventful life that formerly pleased me so well! I will somanage that the Empress Elizabeth shall be as little troubled with laborand business as the princess, and the empress can doubtlessly procurefor herself more pleasures than could the princess! Yes, certainly, Iwill now remain what I am, am empress by the grace of God!"
A thundering shout and loud laughter here interrupted Elizabeth.The dice had decided! The cook of the empress had won, and become acouncillor of state.
Elizabeth laughed. "These dice are very witty," said she, "for certainlythe cook must be a privy councillor! I establish you in your dignity,Feodor, your title is recognized! Now for a new trial. Two thousandrubles is the prize, which I think of more value than a title!"
There was a zealous pressing and shoving, a pushing and puffing; everyone desired to be the first to get hold of the dice and struggle for therich prize. There were many ungentle encounters, many a thrust in theribs, many invectives, many a gross, unseemly word; the empress saw all,heard all, laughed at all, and said to Alexis: "These gentlemen are verypractical! Two thousand rubles are estimated by them at a higher ratethan the proudest title! I comprehend that a title is a nonsensicalthing, of which no real use can be made, but what beautiful dresses canbe bought with two thousand rubles! And that reminds me that you havenot yet told me how you like this dress of mine! You take so littlenotice of my toilet, dearest, and yet it is only for you that I changemy dress seven or eight times a day; I would, every hour, please youbetter and better."
"Oh, no dressing is necessary for that," tenderly responded Alexis; andstooping, he whispered some words in her ear which pleased her well, andmade her laugh heartily.
Meanwhile the dicing continued. Blind luck scattered her gifts in thestrangest manner; under-officers of the palace attained to high titles,and high officers with laughing faces won pipes of brandy; barons of thebody-guard made of men who but a few days before had been serfs, wereseen approaching the mirrors with vain coxcombry to see the effect oforders just won by a cast of the dice, or with greedy avidity pocketingthe rubles which fortune had thrown to them!
It was a jovial and brilliant evening, and, in dismissing her friends,Elizabeth promised them many repetitions of it.
And she kept her word. Frenzied merry-makings, pleasures and festivalsof the roughest sorts were now the principal occupation of the newempress. The amusement of her court, the providing it with new festivalsand pleasures, she considered as the first and most important of herimperial duties; and these alone she endeavored to fulfil.
But who composed her court, and of what elements did it consist?
Elizabeth found the presence of her serious official councillors verytiresome, as they knew not how to make themselves agreeable; she foundthe surrounding of herself with the respectable ladies of her court tobe very incommodious, as there might some day be found among them onewith a handsomer or more tasteful toilet than herself, or, indeed, onewho might dare to be of a finer type of beauty than she! She thereforegladly avoided inviting the distinguished men of her court withtheir wives, or the higher class of state officials. It was far moreconvenient, far more agreeable, to surround herself with frivolous andhandsome young men. They knew how to laugh and be cheerful, and she wasthus sure that no other lady would be there to dispute with her the palmof beauty.
Elizabeth was not proud. She cared not whether noble blood flowed in theveins of those who were invited to her festivals. The youth, beauty, andagreeable qualities which the empress found in any person, alone decidedthe question of their admittance to the court.
Peasants, grooms, soldiers, servants, abandoned reprobates, who by theirbeauty had won the favor of the empress, were seen to attain to thehighest stations.
On them were lavished the treasures of the state; they were adorned withorders and titles, and the magnates bowed to the ground before thesepotent favorites of the all-powerful empress, and the people shoutedwith transport when their beloved czarina, with her magnificent trainof newly-created noblemen, made her appearance in the streets, and withgracious smiles returned the humble salutations of her kneeling slaves.That was the ruler in perfect accordance with Russian ideas; theysympathized with her inclinations and pleasures--she was blood of theirblood and flesh of their flesh! The strangers were at length banished,and a real Russian sat upon the throne of the czars!
And yet Elizabeth trembled upon her imperial throne, surrounded by theband of magnates and nobles of whom she could truly say, "I am theircreator--they are my work!" She trembled before those secret daggers,those lingering poisons, which always surround the imperial Russianthrone as its truest satellites, and lay low many a high-born head; shetrembled before Anna Leopoldowna, who was sighing away her days in theclosed citadel of Riga, and before Anna's son, the inf
ant Ivan, whom theEmpress Anna in her testament had named as Emperor of all the Russias!She, indeed, would not work and trouble herself for her country andher people, this good empress by the grace of God, but yet she wouldbe empress, that she might be enabled to enjoy life, and no cloud mustobscure the heaven of her earthly glory!
She therefore tore herself for some short hours from the pleasures inwhich she was usually immersed, from the arms of her lover, theobject of her deepest interest; her own safety and her own peace wereconcerned. That was well worth the effort to take the pen once more inhand, and affix the troublesomely long name of Elizabeth to some fewofficial documents.
She consequently signed the command to bring back Anna Leopoldowna andher husband from the citadel of Riga to the interior of Russia, andplace them in strict confinement in Raninburg.
She also signed another order, and that was to rend the young Ivan fromthe arms of his mother, to take him to the castle of Schlusselburg, andthere to hold him in strict imprisonment, to grow up without teachers,or any kind of instruction, and without the least occupation oramusement.
"I well know," said she, with a sigh, as she signed the document--"Iwell know that it would be better for this Ivan to be executed forhigh-treason than to remain in this condition, but I lack the couragefor it. It is so horrible to kill a poor, innocent child!"
"And in this way we attain our end more safely," said Lestocq, with asmile. "Your majesty has sworn to take the life of no one; very well,you keep your word as to physical life--we do not destroy the body butthe spirit of this boy Ivan! We raise him as an idiot, which is thesurest means of rendering him innoxious!"
Elizabeth had signed the order, and her command was executed. They tookfrom Anna Leopoldowna her last joy, her only consolation--they took awayher son, whose smiling face had lighted her prison as with sunbeams,whose childishly stammered words had sounded to her as the voice of anangel from heaven.
They took the poor weeping child to Schlusselburg, and his crushed andheart-broken parents first to Raninburg, and finally to the fortressKolmogory, situated upon an island in the Dwina, near to that gulfwhich, on account of its never-melting ice, has obtained the name of the_White Sea_.
No one could rescue poor Anna Leopoldowna from that fortress--no onecould release her son, the poor little Emperor Ivan, from Schlusselburg!They were rendered perfectly inoffensive; Elizabeth had not killed them,she had only buried them alive, this good Russian empress!
And, nevertheless, she still trembled upon her throne, she still feltunsafe in her imperial magnificence! She yet trembled on account ofanother pretender, the Duke Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein, who, as theson of an elder daughter of Peter the Great, had a more direct claim tothe throne than Elizabeth herself.
That no party might declare for him and invite him to Russia, herministers advised the empress herself to send for him, and declare himher successor. Elizabeth followed this advice, and the young Duke PeterUlrich of Holstein accepted her call. Declining the crown of Sweden,he professed the Greek religion in St. Petersburg, was clothed with thetitle of grand prince by Elizabeth, and declared her successor to thethrone of the czars.
Elizabeth could now undisturbedly enjoy her imperial splendor. Thesuccessor to the throne was assured, Anna Leopoldowna languished in thefortress of Kolmogory, and in Schlusselburg the little Emperor Ivanwas passing his childish dream-life! Who was there now to contest herrights--who would dare an attempt to shake a throne which rested uponsuch safe pillars of public favor, and which so many new-made counts andbarons protected with their broad shoulders and nervous arms?
Elizabeth had no more need to govern, no more occasion to tremble. Shelet sink the hand which, with a single stroke of the pen, could givelaws to millions of men, which could give them interminable sorrow andendless torments; she again took the heavy imperial crown from herhead, replacing it with wreaths of myrtles and ever-fragrant roses. Shepermitted Tscherkaskoy to govern, and Bestuscheff to sell to England thedearest interests of Russia. She permitted her ministers to govern withunrestricted power, and was rejoiced when no one came to trouble herabout affairs of state or the interests of her people.
