The Daughter of an Empress | Page 8

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