The Daughter of an Empress

"Are you in earnest?" smilingly asked Anna, drawing her silver

toilet-glass nearer to her person, and placing a bouquet of flowers in

her hair to examine its effect in the glass.

"Oh, Heavens!" cried Count Ostermann, "you adorn yourself with flowers,

while I am telling you that you are threatened with a conspiracy!"

"A conspiracy!" laughed the regent, "and Princess Elizabeth to be at the

head of it! Believe me, you overwise men, with all your wisdom, never

learn rightly to understand women. I, however, am a woman, and I

understand Elizabeth. You think that when she kindly chats with the

soldiers, and admits the handsome stately grenadiers into her house, it

is done for the purpose of conspiring with them. Go to, Count Ostermann,

you are very innocent. Princess Elizabeth has but one passion, but it

is not the desire of ruling; and when she chats with handsome men, she

speaks not of conspiracy, believe me." And, laughing, the regent essayed

a new head-dress.

"And how do you explain the secret meetings of Lestocq and the Marquis

de la Chetardie?" asked Ostermann, with painfully-suppressed agitation.

"Explain? Why should I seek an explanation for things that do not at all

interest me? What is it to me what the surgeon Lestocq has to do with

the constantly-ailing French ambassador? Or do you think I should

trouble myself about the lavements administered to an ambassador by a

surgeon?"

"Well, then, your highness will allow me to explain their meetings from

a less medical point of view? France is your enemy, France meditates

your destruction, and the Marquis de la Chetardie is exciting the

princess and Lestocq to an insurrection."

"And to what end, if I may be allowed to ask?" scornfully inquired Anna.

"France, struggling with internal and foreign enemies, at war with

Austria, involved in disputes with Holland and Spain, France would wish

at any price to see the Russian government so occupied with her own

domestic difficulties as to have no time to devote to international

affairs. She would provide you with plenty of occupation at home, that

you may not actively interfere with the affairs of the rest of the

world. That is the shrewd policy of France, and it would fill me with

admiration were it not fraught with the most terrible danger to us. The

Marquis de la Chetardie has it in charge to bring about a revolution

here at any price, and as an expert diplomatist, he very well

comprehends that Princess Elizabeth is the best means he can employ for

that purpose; for she, as the daughter of Czar Peter, has the sympathies

of the old Russians in her favor, and they will flock to her with shouts

of joy whenever she may announce to the people that she is ready to

drive the foreign rulers from Russia!"