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!