The Daughter of an Empress
Page 300Yes, even princes must die, glorious and lofty as they are, proudly as
they stand over their trembling subjects! Even to them comes the dark
hour in which all the borrowed and artistically-combined tinsel of their
lives falls from them; a dark hour, in which they tremble and repent,
and pray to God for what they seldom granted to their fellow-men--mercy!
Mercy for those false tales which they have imposed upon the people,
for those false tales of the higher endowments of princes, of inherited
wisdom which raises them above the rest of mankind--mercy for their
arbitrariness, their pride, and their insolence--mercy for a poor
beggar, who, until then, had called himself a rich and powerful prince.
And this hour came for Elizabeth. After twenty years of splendor, of
absolute, unlimited power, of infallibility, of likeness to the gods,
became only a trembling earth-worm, imploring mercy, aid, amelioration
of her sufferings from her Creator!
She suffered much, this poor empress, dethroned by death; she suffered,
although reposing upon silken cushions, with a gold-embroidered covering
for her shaking limbs.
And she was yet so young, hardly fifty, and she loved life so intensely!
Oh, she would have given half of her empire for a few more years of life
and enjoyment. But what cares Death for the wishes of an empress?
Here ends her earthly supremacy! Groaning and writhing, the earth-worm
tremblingly submits.
Where, now, were all her favorites--those high lords of the court, those
were they now? Why stood they not around the death-bed of their empress?
Why were they not there, that the remembrance of the benefits conferred
upon them might drive away those terrible reminiscences of the torments
she had inflicted upon others? Where were they, her counts, barons,
field-marshals, and privy councillors, whom she had raised from nothing
to the first positions in the realm?
None were with her! They had all hastened thence for the preservation
of their ill-gotten wealth, to crawl in the dust before Peter, to be the
first to pay him homage, that he might pardon their greatness and their
possessions! From the death-bed they had fled to Peter, and kneeling
before him, they praised God for at length bestowing upon the happy
But where were Elizabeth's more particular friends, who had made her an
empress?
Where was Lestocq?
Him the empress had banished to Siberia. Yielding to the prayers and
calumnies of his enemies, which she was too weak to withstand, she had
given him up; she had sacrificed him to procure peace and quiet for
herself, and in the same hour in which she had tenderly pressed
his hand, and called him her friend, had she signed his sentence of
banishment! Lestocq had for nine years languished in Siberia.