The Daughter of an Empress

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!