The Daughter of an Empress

The people dispersed. The great returned to their palaces, and also

Alexis Razumovsky, who, that he might not excite the anger of the

empress, had likewise attended the execution, returned to the imperial

palace.

Elizabeth was standing before a large Venetian mirror, scrutinizing a

toilet which she had to-day changed for the fourth time.

"Well," she asked of Alexis, as he entered, "was it an interesting

spectacle? Was the handsome countess soundly whipped?"

And, while so asking, she was smilingly occupied in attaching a purple

flower to her hair.

"She was flayed," laconically replied Alexis. "Her blood streamed down a

back that was as red as your beautiful lips, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth offered him her lips to kiss.

"Now," she jestingly asked, "who is now the handsomest woman in my

realm?"

"You are and always were!" responded Alexis, embracing her.

"And now tell me," said she, with curiosity, "what did this proud

countess do? How did she behave, what did she say?"

Alexis, seating himself upon a tabouret at her feet, related to her all

about the fair Eleonore, and what a terrible curse she uttered.

"Ah, nonsense!" replied Elizabeth, shrugging her shoulders, "How can

one make such a stupid prayer to God! I shall never marry, and therefore

never have a daughter to be scourged with the knout."

But while thus speaking, her eyes suddenly became fixed and her cheek

pale. She laid her trembling hand upon her heart--tears gushed from her

eyes.

Under her heart she had felt a movement of a new and mysterious life!

Heaven itself seemed to contradict her words! Elizabeth felt that she

was a mother, and Eleonore's words now filled her with awe and terror!

Fainting, she sank into Razumovsky's arms.

A few weeks later, a great and magnificent court festival was celebrated

at the imperial palace at St. Petersburg. It was not enough that

Elizabeth had chosen a successor in the person of Peter, Duke of

Holstein, she must also give this successor a wife, that the throne

might be fortified and assured by a numerous progeny.

She chose for him the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, the young and beautiful

Sophia Augusta, who, embracing the Greek religion, received the name of

Catharine.

It was the marriage festival of this young German princess with the heir

to the Russian throne which was celebrated in the imperial palace at St.

Petersburg--a festival of splendor and enthusiasm, as it was attended

by two women of the most exciting beauty, Elizabeth the present and

Catharine the future empress--the one gorgeous with the splendor of

the present, the other irradiated with the glory of the future. People

looked at the fair youthful face of Catharine, and sought to read in her

majestic high forehead the hopes that Russia might cherish of her! It

was, therefore, a festival of the present and future that was there and

then celebrated, and the magnates humbly prostrated themselves before

this new star, and threw themselves upon the earth before the ever-new

sun of imperial majesty which shone upon them in the person of

Elizabeth.