Part 27

Five miles from the city they met two others of the conspirators, devoured with anxiety. Changing to the new coach, the party drove in at breakneck pace, and halted before the barracks of the Ismailofsky regiment, with which the conspirators had been at work.

It was between six and seven o'clock in the morning. Only a dozen men were at the barracks. Nothing had been prepared. Excitement or terror had turned all heads. Yet now no time was lost. Drummers were roused and drums beaten. Out came soldiers in haste, half dressed and half asleep.

"Shout 'Long live the empress!'" demanded the visitors.

Without hesitation the guardsmen obeyed, their only thought at the moment being that of a free flow of vodka, the Russian drink. A priest was quickly brought, who, like the soldiers, was prepared to do as he was told. Raising the cross, he hastily offered them a form of oath, to which the soldiers subscribed. The first step was taken; the empress was proclaimed.

The proclamation declared Catharine sole and absolute sovereign. It made no mention of her little son Paul, as some of the leaders in the conspiracy had proposed. The Orlofs controlled the situation, and the action of the Ismailofsky was soon sanctioned by other regiments of the guard. They hated the czar and were ripe for revolt.

One regiment only, the Preobrajensky, that of which the czar himself was colonel, resisted. It was led against the other troops under the command of a captain and a major. The hostile bodies came face to face a few paces apart; the queen's party greatest in number, but in disorder, the czar's party drawn up with military skill. A moment, a word, might precipitate a bloody conflict.

Suddenly a man in the ranks cried out, "Oura! Long live the empress!" In an instant the whole regiment echoed the cry, the ranks were broken, the soldiers embraced their comrades in the other ranks, and, falling on their knees, begged pardon of the empress for their delay.

And now the throng turned towards the neighboring church of Our Lady of Kasan, in which Catharine was to receive their oaths of fidelity. A crowd pushed in to do homage, composed not only of soldiers, but of members of the senate and the synod. A manifesto was quickly drawn up by a clerk named Tieplof, printed in all haste, and distributed to the people, who read it and joined heartily in the cry of "Long live the empress!"

Catharine next reviewed the troops, who again hailed her with shouts. And thus it was that a czar was dethroned and a new reign begun without the loss of a drop of blood. There was some little disorder. Several wine-shops were broken into, the house of Prince George of Holstein was pillaged and he and his wife were roughly handled, but that was all: as yet it had been one of the simplest of revolutions.

Catharine was empress, but how long would she remain so? Her empire consisted of the fickle people of St. Petersburg, her army of four regiments of the guards. If Peter had the courage to strike for his throne, he might readily regain it. He had with him about fifteen hundred Holsteiners, an excellent body of troops, on whose loyalty he could fully rely, for they were foreigners in Russia, and their safety depended on him. At the head of these troops was one of the first soldiers of the age, Field-Marshal Münich. The main Russian army was in Pomerania, under the orders of the czar, if he were alert in giving them. He had it in view to annihilate the Danes, to show himself a hero under Frederick of Prussia; surely a handful of conspirators and a few regiments of malcontents would have but a shallow chance.

Yet Catharine knew the man with whom she dealt. The grain of courage which would have saved Peter was not to be found in his make-up, and Münich strove in vain to induce him to act with manly resolution. A dozen fancies passed through his mind in an hour. He drew up manifestoes for a paper campaign. He sent to Oranienbaum for the Holstein troops, intending to fortify Peterhof, but changed his mind before they arrived.

Münich now advised him to go to Cronstadt and secure himself in that stronghold. After some hesitation he agreed, but night had fallen before the whole party, male and female, set off in a yacht and galley, as if on a pleasure-trip. It was one o'clock in the morning when they arrived in sight of the fortress.

"Who goes there?" hailed a sentinel from the ramparts.

"The emperor."

"There is no emperor. Keep off!"

Delay had given Catharine ample time to get ahead of him.

"Do not heed the sentry," cried Münich. "They will not dare to fire on you. Land, and all will be safe."

But Peter was below deck, in a panic of fear. The women were shrieking in terror. Despite Münich, the vessels were put about. Then the old soldier, half in despair at this poltroonery, proposed another plan.

"Let us go to Revel, embark on a war-ship, and proceed to Pomerania. There you can take command of the army. Do this, sire, and within six weeks St. Petersburg and Russia will be at your feet. I will answer for this with my head."

But Peter was hopelessly incompetent to act. He would go back to Oranienbaum. He would negotiate. He arrived there to learn that Catharine was marching on him at the head of her regiments. On she came, her cap crowned with oak leaves, her hair floating in the wind. The soldiers had thrown off their Prussian uniforms and were dressed in their old garb. They were eager to fight the Holstein foreigners.

No opportunity came for this. A messenger met them with a flag of truce. Peter had sent an offer to divide the power with Catharine. Receiving no answer, in an hour he sent an offer to abdicate. He was brought to Peterhof, where Catharine had halted, and where he cried like a whipped child on receiving the orders of the new empress and being forcibly separated from the woman who had ruined him.

A day had changed the fate of an empire. Within little more than six months from his accession the czar had been hurled from his throne and his wife had taken his place. Peter was sent under guard to Ropcha, a lonely spot about twenty miles away, there to stay until accommodations could be prepared for him in the strong fortress of Schlüsselburg.

He was never to reach the latter place. He had abdicated on July 14. On July 18 Alexis Orlof, covered with sweat and dust, burst into the dressing-room of the empress. He had a startling story to tell. He had ridden full speed from Ropcha with the news of the death of Peter III.

The story was that the czar had been found dead in his room. That was doubtless the case, but that he had been murdered no one had a shadow of doubt. Yet no one knew, and no one knows to this day, just what had taken place. Stories of his having been poisoned and strangled have been told, not without warrant. A detailed account is given of poison being forced upon him by the Orlofs, who are said to have, on the poison failing to act, strangled him in a revolting manner by their own hands. Though this story lacks proof, the body was quite black. "Blood oozed through the pores, and even through the gloves which covered the hands." Those who kissed the corpse came away with swollen lips.

That Peter was murdered is almost certain; but that Catharine had anything to do with it is not so sure. It may have been done by the conspirators to prevent any reversal of the revolution. Prison-walls have hidden many a dark event; and we only know that the czar was dead and Catharine on the throne.

A STRUGGLE FOR A THRONE.

While the armies of Catharine II. were threatening with destruction the empire of Turkey, and her diplomats were deciding what part of dismembered Poland should fall to her share, her throne itself was put in danger of destruction by an aspirant who arose in the east and for two years kept Russia from end to end in a state of dire alarm. The summary manner in which Peter III. had been removed from the throne was not relished by the people. Numerous small revolts broke out, which were successively put down. St. Petersburg accepted Catharine, but Moscow did not, and on her visits to the latter city the political atmosphere proved so frigid that she was glad to get back to the more genial climate of the city on the Neva.

Years passed before Russia settled down to full acceptance of a reign begun in violence and sustained by force, and in this interval there were no fewer than six impostors to be dealt with, each of whom claimed to be Peter III. Murdered emperors sleep badly in their graves. The example of the false Dmitris, generations before, remained in men's minds, and it seemed as if every Russian who bore a resemblance to the vanished czar was ready to claim his vacated seat.